How Does This Artifact Demonstrate Acheivement of the Standard: Artifact #1 demonstrates this standard through incorporation of a variety of instructional strategies in a one-day lesson plan. The lesson includes direct instruction, teacher modeling, collaborative learning and independent student practice. One of the center pieces of the lesson is instruction on the F-Q-R strategy to help students increase their reading comprehension.

 

How Have These Artifacts Impacted My Understanding of Teaching/Learning?: One of my primary concerns as a new teacher is whether my students will have the literacy skills to access the scientific information that they need to learn. Learning how I as a science instructor can incorporate reading strategies into my lesson plans to help students improve their literacy is very empowering. Explicity teaching students to use of the F-Q-R (Fact-Question-Response) strategy for analyzing scientific text can help them improve their ability to identify important information, ask questions, and respond to what they read (Harvey and Goudvis, 2007).

 

Strengths: One of my strengths is that I am comfortable playing the various roles needed for instruction including the instructor, facilitator, mentor, coach and audience.

 

Areas for Improvement: One area I would like to gain additional experience with is assessing student progress and adjusting instruction in response to students' learning needs. I plan to work with my fellow teachers to identify ways that I can adjust my instruction to reach all of my students.

 

References

Harvey, S. & Goudvis, A. (2007). Strategies that work, teaching comprehension for understanding and engagement. Stenhouse Publishers.