The teacher understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the discipline(s) he or she teaches and can create learning experiences that make these aspects of subject matter meaningful for students.
Artifact: Balancing Equations Math Lesson - 7th Grade - Algebra
Date: October 2008
Rationale: As part of my math methods at Eastern, I created a lesson plan for 7th graders on algebraic concepts. The students participated in some “chocolate math” by “balancing” equations using manipulatives (M&Ms and chocolate Kisses). This gave the students a concrete representation for balancing equations. Subsequently, the students logged back on the Internet and used a balance beam representation from the National Library of Virtual Manipulatives. This activity gave the students a semi-concrete representation of the concept. And lastly, the students played games using the abstract algebraic representation for solving equations. I included this lesson, because it demonstrates my understanding of the importance of providing students lots of opportunities to learn mathematics in concrete, semi-concrete, and abstract representations.
Artifact: Reading 300 and 301 Course Evaluations and Professor Comments
Date: Spring 2007 and Spring 2008
Rationale: As part of my coursework at Eastern, I took two classes in reading, one for the primary grades and one for the intermediate grades. As part of the course requirements, I completed a philosophy of reading instruction, an evaluation of the GLCEs, a children’s literature file for primary grades, an expository text lesson plan, a literacy resources file for intermediate grades, along with many other course assignments. I am including my course evaluations and comments from my professor on my work as evidence of my understanding of the subject matter of the teaching of reading.
Rationale: In my math methods class, I had to evaluate three math textbooks as if I were on a curriculum committee for our school. We had to compare the three textbook series based on standards, basic facts, practice, technology, problem-solving, and organization and make a recommendation with a rationale for why we selected a series. I am including this artifact because it demonstrates my ability to evaluate resources and curriculum materials for comprehensiveness, accuracy, and usefulness for representing math ideas and concepts.
