The teacher uses understanding of individual differences and diverse cultures and communities to ensure inclusive learning environments that allow each learner to reach his/her full potential.
EDU 385 (05/05/2021) – This assignment asked us to describe one of the most important topics about humanity that will eventually be discussed in our classrooms as we move on to become teachers. For this assignment, I chose to focus on the significant impact that binary gender stereotypes and gender biases can have on a student’s learning. This paper shows evidence of meeting Standard #2 in my consideration for each of the students as individuals with their own personal experiences and learning abilities. In my paper, I suggest that it is more important to focus on the full diversity of each of your students. Often, schools will emphasize gender as the deciding factor to create groups, differentiate learning, or allow activities. In writing about changing this mindset, I am further emphasizing a more inclusive learning environment for my students where they may feel equally supported and celebrated; not despite their differences, but because of them.
EDU 437 (04/20/2021) – My lesson plan focused on the concept of heart rate in the circulatory system. More than anything I wanted to try to focus on a subject that would allow my ‘students’ to begin connecting how their actions on the outside will affect the functioning of their body internally. In this case, I found that I could discuss the factors that affect an individual’s heart rate and focus that into an activity in which students would have to try and record changes in their heart rates,
For my lesson, I began with an interactive activity in which students were asked to race each other, and theoretically their own hearts, by transferring (‘pumping’) water from one bucket to the next. In this activity, there were two competitors, two counters for rate, a timer, and a group of fans. With this set up, there are different roles of engagement for different types of students while still encouraging collaboration and communication. Based on the responses in my exit slip, this activity was really popular and engaging. It did a good job setting up the lesson, but one way I could have improved upon this activity was by holding off in telling the class what the activity was directly related to. Meaning, instead of presenting the statistics that the activity was based on and explaining how it represented our heart rate before having the students engage, I could have had them conduct the activity and then guess what they thought it could represent.
Following the hook, we watched an informative video to review some anatomical terms relating to heart rate and begin our discussion on heart rate. For the discussion and more information portion of the lesson, I spent some time reviewing the major factors that affect an individual’s heart rate. I also taught the class how to measure their heart rate via their coronary artery. Much of this was more lecture-style, which is certainly something I could try to break up more. I did not want to spend too much time on the factors before the main activity, but I might have been able to facilitate more of a discussion or allowed the class to explore these factors with technology. That being said, this piece of the lesson allowed me to transition to my main activity, a lab asking students to consider how activity can affect their heart rate.
This lab was outlined in an online document that was shared with the class. Though we were not able to partake in following through the lab due to time constraints, I was able to review it with the class. In general, it seems like this portion of the lesson was taken well, considering we did not actually get to partake. In a real classroom, the students would be put into two or more groups and were asked to generate and test a hypothesis based on the question, ‘How does activity affect your heart rate?’ Through this more open-ended activity, I hoped to give the ‘students’ more autonomy in their learning and provide an overall more flexible learning environment. The handout had prompts for generating a hypothesis, the variables that needed to be named, along with each step the students would have to complete to successful complete the lab. In addition to a brief description by each step, such as procedure, data table, etc., I included the link to a helpful video that would explain that step further. I was not able to include this on every step, but I was able to cover most of them. I did this in an attempt to include differentiation in, how I like to say, a ‘sneaky way’. Students who felt they needed further explanation would have that resource already available to them. In addition, this allowed me to integrate technology more in my lesson. This portion of the lesson allowed for further collaboration and communication between the students, while also encouraging analytic thinking by asking them to generate a significant portion of the test they would conduct.
Following this activity, I came back to my power point and led a discussion that was aimed to reflect on the lab and what the students might have learned from it. Based on the responses I received in my exit slip, this portion allowed me to demonstrate my preparedness for the lesson as I was able to direct students toward the correct answers, answer questions fully, and inspire further questions of thought. This space certainly could have been another spot where I integrated technology more. I could have used an online game such as Kahoot or a site that allow for a collection of answers. Further, I certainly could have spent more time here elongating the discussion and encouraging more engagement from students.
Moving into next year, I think in general I need to work on my confidence about everything. I can generally come up with good ideas for activities, assessments, etc., but I will often over think it and psyche myself out. In presenting, I can also identify that I often am still doing so as if I were presenting in my high school history class. This is different from presenting the information as a teacher. One is presenting just because, the other is teaching for learning. However, I do think part of this reflects on the idea that I know who I am presenting to now either (1) knows the material already and/or (2) are just there to listen until their own presentation. Maybe when I move to a classroom, this awareness will allow for a shift in presentation.
