The competent teacher plans and designs instruction based on content area knowledge, diverse student characteristics, student performance data, curriculum goals, and the community context. The teacher plans for ongoing student growth and achievement.
Rationale:
The above activities were created in November and December of 2022. These are all similar activities that were meant to engage my students in an extended class period. The school follows a block schedule with a 3-hour block on Fridays where classes rotate over the course of a 6-week module. Therefore, I only was able to have this extended block with each class one time per module. So, each activity is similar but differs in a couple ways to suit the current content of the class. This was a 1 hour activity. I set the scene with some dramatic music and a story in which I tell the students that I received a call from the Secret Service who has given them a task. I then tell them about how they must all work together in the next 30 minutes to solve the problem and must all come to a consensus before moving on to the second page. Once there is a consensus, they received the second page. Upon a consensus on the second page, the timer would be stopped, and they would receive the third page. After completion, I would set the scene again and announce whether they successfully saved the president or not.
What makes these activities special is how they were adapted to the situation of each class. The first class only learned about distance and displacement. The second class had already passed that and began learning about speed, velocity, and acceleration. The third class passed the second class and began to learn about forces. Because of this, I designed this activity "based on the content knowledge" and "curriculum goals" of each class. On top of this, I designed the activity to have a piece in which consensus was necessary. My co-teacher at the time was concerned about this activity and wondered what would happen. I told her before the class began, "Watch. They are going to be really confused. They will form groups. They will start working together. They will get frustrated. Then 'Student A' will take charge and lead the class." Sure enough, that is what happened. This was designed specifically based on "diverse student characteristics" and "the community context" to allow for crossover between student groups so that they would be forced to work together and complement one another.
Students learned about distance and displacement, speed and velocity, acceleration, and force. This was all able to be done by adapting to the time at which I had each class so that their current understandings would allow them to do the activity well. This was actually designed independently of NGSS as students were not ready for the NGSS standards. Therefore, it was made as a stepping stone to meet the students where they were at and to bring them to where I wanted them to be. It was a big moment for me as a teacher as it helped me to see that planning ahead and knowing your students is paramount and when done well, it can--like the Church-- allow the students to build themselves up through their individual pieces working together as a whole.