Reading, Writing, & Oral Communication 

Rationale for Artifact #1: 

Description: This artifact is a student assessment project I completed for my middle grades literacy class. For this project I was tasked with assessing a student's reading level by running a qualitative reading inventory. This consisted of evaluating their reading speed as well as their reading comprehension. I then wrote up a narrative summary of my findings and my experiences with the student. 

Connection: This artifact aligns with ITPS knowledge indicator 6A which states: "The competent teacher understands appropriate and varied instructional approaches used before, during, and after reading, including those that develop word knowledge, vocabulary, comprehension, fluency, and strategy use in the content areas". This artifact was an assessment on how effective certain instructional practices were on this individual student and also illustrated where they were in need of specific instruction. 

Importance: This project challenged me to think about how cross discipline instruction could be effective in a PE classroom. By seeing the background of what goes into a QRI I was able to think and reflect about how I can make an impact in a PE setting when it comes to reading instruction. There are several different strategies I would be able to implement in a PE setting and this project led me to develop and implement a cross-discipline lesson. 

Rationale for Artifact #2:

Description: This artifact is a lesson slide from my time at Jackson Elementary. This lesson was implemented during our team building unit. The goal of the game was to work as a team to find all the necessary letters to spell their vocabulary words. Each team was attempting to spell as many vocabulary words as they could before the end of the class period. 

Connection: This artifact aligns with ITPS performance indicator 6L which states: "The competent teacher facilitates the use of appropriate word identification and vocabulary strategies to develop each student’s understanding of content". This lesson assisted with their learning of vocabulary words that worked across disciplines. 

Importance: Creating lessons that stretch across disciplines is a crucial factor in creating a learning environment that values all disciplines. Knowledge of both fitness and unit vocabulary for language arts were illustrated within the format of this lesson. Students worked together as a team and worked on spelling their vocabular words in the same allotted time.