The competent teacher understands the diverse characteristics and abilities of each student and how individuals develop and learn within the context of their social, economic, cultural, linguistic, and academic experiences. The teacher uses these experiences to create instructional opportunities that maximize student learning. 

I believe my Google Slides presentation connected very well with many of the Illinois Professional Teaching Standards. For example, standard 1G states, "the competent teacher understands how to identify individual needs and how to locate and access technology, services, and resources to address those needs". Correlating with my powerpoint, this can connect in many different ways. I was able to identify the individual needs of my disability and teach the class how to address the needs of people with Physical Impairment. Another standard that I felt really connected well to my lesson was standard 1H; analyzes and uses student information that meets the diverse needs of students and leads to ongoing growth and achievement. I believe each student that was given a disability to research did an excellent job meeting the diverse needs of students with the given disability and finding ways of keeping all students engaged and a part of every activity. This has a huge factor in growth and achievement, especially in a classroom setting. 

This assignment has had a huge affect on my growth as a student learning special education. I believe I have learned so much in just a short amount of time. Not only learning from my own research, I have learned from every student who gave a presentation introducing their disability. It was interesting to see different ways of teaching and learning what they thought was fascinating. I have seen how much I have learned this semester and I can only imagine how much more I will learn in the near future.

For this lesson, I wanted to make the lesson more enjoyable and so I came up with a fun activity that I thought the students would enjoy. The activity had students play a passing combination game in the hockey unit. This took a lot of creativity and teamwork. Students showed their understanding by when completing each passing combination, they had to sit down and show me they finished and then asked them to reflect what they observed. I moved from each group offering support as well as asking them questions to make sure they stayed on track. Students seemed to really enjoy this activity because it was hands on and interactive. 

I believe this activity connected well with the standard 1C because this lesson related very well with errors and messing up that students might have experienced before. Standard 1C states, "the competent teacher understands how teaching and student learning are influenced by development, past experiences, talents, prior knowledge, economic circumstances and diversity within the community". Students were able to gather information they had learned previous to this lesson and use it to help them better understand the process of passing combinations with partners. Relying on this information seemed to really benefit them as they completed the activity. Students showed their understanding of how the different types of hits and applying it in the hitting combination given from me, and what needs to happen in order for a successful hitting combination. 

Overall, I think this lesson was very successful. Students really relied on previous information to better support their performance during the activity and it helped them overall. Students worked really well in groups and it seemed to help them move quicker through the activity. I chose to make the groups myself because I have learned that when students choose to work with their friends, they tend to work slower. At times, this is appropriate, but I felt that students needed to work more diligently for this activity. I am pleased with how the lesson went and I feel confident that students had a good understanding of the different types of hits and passing combinations.