2. Content Area and Pedagogical Knowledge

When discussing the Vietnam War at Reavis High School, part of the curriculum had been to introduce primary source documents to the students. This document serves as an introduction to the United States' view on the war. It comes from a document from the United States government that explains the purpose of the war in its entirety. The students had been asked to read the document and draw conclusions on the purpose of the United States entering Vietnam to stop the spread of communism. The students had been given a presentation of the United States' involvement in the War prior to examining the document. From there their goal had been to better understand the view of the elected officials who had caused the American people to join a war they didn't want to be a part of.

This artifact "exemplifies, applies and adapts an array of content area literacy strategies to make all subject matter accessible to each student" (2Q). The artifact does this by encouraging students to infer and utilize sourcing to draw a conclusion. Through this activity, students had been assessed on their ability to create an argument using sourcing as evidence to strengthen that argument. Students are being assessed on their ability to utilize different literacy skills such as inferencing, arguing, and crafting an argument. 

This artifact demonstrated the ability for interdisciplinary connections to be made. The artifact uses skills from different disciplines in order to create a final product. This had been an assignment in which students needed to utilize skills from other disciplines and build off of that knowledge in order to create the final product. This assignment allowed me to realize and check in with other teachers from different disciplines and work with one another to ensure that both disciplines' skills are being met and continually worked on. This artifact allowed me to challenge myself to include skills from other disciplines within my own classroom. I will work with other teachers to make sure that these needs are met and that my students are utilizing prior knowledge and skills they had understood from other courses.   

  The artifact that is demonstrated here is a project that I had done with my eighth-grade social studies class while I have been student teaching. The assignment asks to apply an aspect of history and draw a personal connection from it. The goal is for the students to act as historians and uncover a little bit of history within their own lives, or the lives of family members or friends. the video demonstrates an example that I had shown with my students and how the project was meant to look when finished. If I lose my grandmother who had been born on December 7, 1941, which was the day Pearl Harbor occurred. It ultimately describes my grandmother’s sadness whenever her birthday comes around due to the mini Americans they had lost their lives on that fateful day. It was turned into a project, using video editing software where the students would record their voice over a series of pictures that demonstrates a story that been trying to explain. Each student had created a similar type of video to what was shown, and the video was graded as a presentation and shown in front of the class.

The importance of the artifact is to exemplify a “fluency in technology systems. The artifact also demonstrates myself utilizing technology to support instruction, and enhance student learning.” (2L) this demonstrates my understanding of the standard by utilizing technology to not only have students apply history to their lives but place it in a format that is creative, unique, and different. The students utilized iMovie software, and I had been able to instruct them on, how to use the software to create an aspect of history that they will remember forever due to the close-knit connection. I believe as an instructor. It is vital to incorporate technology whenever one can in order to enhance student learning.

What this artifact exemplified to me is that as an instructor we must always find creative fun and exciting ways to connect historical material to the students. This is allowed me to learn that as an instructor our time will always be looking for ways to ensure student success and comprehension. This artifact connects to my feature in the classroom because it exemplifies that I as the instructor will find creative ways for students to express themselves within my classroom. A take away from this artifact is that there are new and innovative ways to relay information to our students that would build a longer-lasting comprehension. The artifact also exemplifies to me that I enjoy coming up with new ways to challenge my students by having them express themselves in a way that might not be familiar.