For a literacy class I took, I developed a reading and writing lesson plan with a group centered around literature that was created during the Civil Rights era. This lesson plan required me to grow in my understanding of "disciplinary and interdisciplinary instructional approaches and how they relate to life and career experiences;" (5D). This lesson allowed me to learn how to use "strategies and techniques for facilitating meaningful inclusion of individuals with a range of abilities and experiences;" (5M) along with using "effective co-planning and co-teaching techniques to deliver instruction to all students;" (5Q) due to these lesson plans being designed by two other classmates and myself. This set of lessons required my group and I to know "techniques for modifying instructional methods to facilitate learning for students with diverse learning characteristics;" (5E) and we as a group grew to "understand principles and techniques, associated with a wide-range of evidence-based instructional practices;" (5B). One of our group's main focuses that we grew to "know how to implement effective differentiated instruction through the use of a wide variety of materials, technologies, and resources;" (5C) while also implementing "appropriate evidence-based instructional strategies" (5S) due to this being a reading a writing lesson that students were able to participate and learn to the best of their abilities. We also grew in our understandings of "using student data to adapt the curriculum and implement instructional strategies and materials according to the characteristics of each student" (5P) while using strategy books and other references to support student data and utilize it as best as we could.

During my time while student teaching, I wanted to add some of my creativity to the lessons to help students grasp the concept of  adding decimals while enforcing fraction to decimal conversion that students learned in 4th grade. While planning for this lesson, I grew my understanding of "the cognitive processes associated with various kinds of learning;" (5A), "knowing strategies to maximize student attentiveness and engagement;" (5F), and "when and how to adapt or modify instruction based on outcome data, as well as student needs, goals, and responses." (5H). I was planning this lesson with the intention of being able to reach all different types of students. I aimed to use "multiple teaching strategies, including adjusted pacing and flexible grouping, to engage students in active learning opportunities that promote the development of critical and creative thinking, problem-solving, and performance capabilities;" (5I) along with "varying my role in the instructional process as instructor, facilitator, coach, or audience in relation to the content and purposes of instruction and the needs of students;" (5K). 

I wanted students to be able to show me how they can visually identify the break up of chosen colors through fractions and decimals in order to do this beyond students' workbooks or packets, I grew in my understanding of how to "develop a variety of clear, accurate presentations and representations of concepts, using alternative explanations to assist students' understanding and presenting diverse perspectives to encourage critical and creative thinking;" (5L).  As I was introducing the project, I made an effort to "model and facilitate effective use of current and emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate, and use information resources to support research and learning;" (5O) so that students were aware to look when determining inspiration and ideas for what they wanted to do. While teaching this lesson I was able to grow in "maximizing instructional time (e.g., minimizing transitional time);" (5R) by having students complete this project over two days and having them complete more technical parts (i.e., finishing grid, doing math on a separate sheet, etc.) for homework. When hearing feedback from students after the project was over, I grew in understanding how to "monitor and adjust strategies in response to feedback from students;" (5J). I also grew in my understanding of being able to improve this lesson and my teaching as a whole by "evaluating and using student performance data to adjust instruction while teaching;" (5G).