Teachers Know the Content They Teach

Element IIIa: Teachers align their instruction with the North Carolina Standard Course of Study

• Letterland assessment data drives my literacy small group instruction. I also make sure to include specific standards that students may need extra support on and/or necessary scaffolds based on that data.

• DreamBox and unit assessment data drives my math instruction in determining what skills needs to be reviewed during our daily routines or if I need to spend additional time on a standard before moving on. It also informs me on if I need to put specific scaffolds in place.

• Reflecting on engagement levels of my students also drives the strategies and tools that I use during my instruction. This helps me determine what works better with hands on tools or with digital tools when working in a virtual setting.

As a curriculum writer for Wake County, I have participated in a Kindergarten Focus group where we had to listen to and provide feedback about the digital lessons created for kindergarten teachers district wide.

I have incorporated various research based strategies within my instruction from professional developments that I have attended. Some examples include:

• Google Level II Certification: Jamboard, Youtube, Choose Your Own Adventure, Google Forms

• Digital Tools: Pear Deck, EdPuzzle, Seesaw, FlipGrid

• Morning Meeting

• Engagement Strategies: Non-Verbal Responses, Flood the Chat, Think-Whisper-Share

Element IIIb: Teachers know the content appropriate to their teaching specialty.

My instructional assistant and I used our Morning Meeting time as a way to extend what we are currently learning while also creating a responsive classroom community. Sometimes, we would take our kinders on a virtual field trip to extend what we were currently learning. My instructional assistant, Marisol Arias, created our Morning Meeting slides.

All digital resources that I have created is shared with my Kindergarten team. This includes digital activities, independent agendas, Seesaw activities, and assessments. Some activities are also shared in our district wide Kindergarten Google Drive.

My kinders developing 21st century skills within my classroom is important to me as a teacher. They develop these skills in the following ways:

• Communication: Students participate in student to student discourse daily to express themselves using a academic language.

• Collaboration: Partner/group activities on Jamboard, working in breakout rooms

• Creativity: Writing narrative stories, creative writing, creative drawing

• Critical Thinking: Faced with higher order thinking skills, explaining the "why" and "how"

Element IIIc: Teachers recognize the interconnectedness of content areas/disciplines.

My instructional assistant and I integrated current events within our morning meeting. My instructional assistant, Marisol Arias, created the slides.

To make learning about weather around the world more engaging, I created a create your own adventure for our Kindergarten team. Students got to pretend to travel to all of the different locations that we learned about.

I love helping my kinders realize how everything that we learn in kindergarten helps us in other areas as well. We read books to help us understand math concepts. We practice our author skills when writing about science or social studies. We are meteorologists and researchers when gathering data from texts during EL.

As a K Team, we constantly think about how to best prepare our kinders for 1st grade. We have worked extra hard this year to make sure that they are taught key understandings, especially with the hardships that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought on.

Element IIId: Teachers make instruction relevant to students.

I incorporate activities that include student interests and with topics that also show the relevance of what students are learning in the outside world.