The competent teacher has in-depth understanding of content area knowledge that includes central concepts, methods of inquiry, structures of the disciplines, and content area literacy. The teacher creates meaningful learning experiences for each student based upon interactions among content area and pedagogical knowledge, and evidence-based practice.
Rationale:
Attached above is a series of pictures that show some projects that demonstrate my content knowledge in the sciences and my pedagogical skills. The first picture is of a wreath. I taught an elective called A Survey of Plants and Animals in which my students and I talked about taxonomy and documented various plants around our campus. We spent the whole morning on October 28th, 2022 outside collecting samples of every plant on campus and then took them inside to preserve them in a solution of glycerin and water. A week later, we cleaned them up and made a wreath out of all of the samples. The second picture is of my chalkboard. I had a summative assessment for my students be a proposal for an experiment to submit to NASA for the Future Engineers TechRise Challenge for the fall of 2022 through the spring of 2023. I guided the students through the step-by-step process of designing an experiment and made up a whole example experiment. This picture shows all of the details of said experiment proposal and was used to help the students along through the arduous process. The third picture is of my insect collection. In the summer of 2022, I came to school a week or two early and began collecting insect samples from inside the building, preserving them, pinning them, identifying them, and documenting them. The collection is ever-growing, and students have begun finding insects and bringing them to me from around the campus of their own accord! The fourth picture is of my chalkboard again. This picture details the results of some math that I did so that I could put together an interesting experience for my Earth and Space Science class. I did some research on the solar system and its planets. I used the information that I collected to design a walk with my class. My hope was to scale down the solar system to fit into a 1-mile walk from our school to the nearby park. I calculated how far apart the planets would be from the Sun and all of the relative sizes of these bodies. We then took a walk, and I counted my steps as we walked and used this all to help the students visualize the scale of our solar system.
This standard includes two main parts: my content knowledge and how I cultivate learning of content to students. Firstly, these artifacts clearly show an "in-depth understanding of content-area knowledge that includes central concepts, methods of inquiry, structures of the disciplines, and content area literacy" in that they demonstrate a wide-ranging understanding of how the scientific thought process works itself out in real life. With that being said, these artifacts also show my ability in conveying these concepts unto students. Each of these follows Project Based Learning practices that seek to establish a strong episodic memory for students that can then be expounded upon to develop semantic knowledge and transfer. This clearly satisfies "[creating] meaningful learning experiences for each student based upon interactions among content area and pedagogical knowledge, and evidence-based practice."
The students gained valuable experiences from each of these artifacts. They truly got to participate in science, and instead of being students of science, they were given chances to embody scientists themselves, thus being adopted into the identity and practice of the greater scientific community. Looking back, I have learned so much through this. I see how valuable experiences can be for students and for teachers. When we together develop Creation and ourselves create knowledge, we grow together and embody this relationship of co-learners well.