Application of Content

Importance and Summary of Application of Content

InTASC Standard five, Application of Content, focuses on how the teacher connects the material to real-life situations. Students are actively involved in creativity, collaboration, problem-solving, and critical thinking. When students collaborate with others, they have the opportunity to see things differently or to come up with different ideas for problem-solving they would not have otherwise considered. When students are in an environment where they are challenged and have to think critically, they become more curious and allow creativity. I can demonstrate my knowledge of the application of content through STEM activities, connecting learning with reality and with collaborative learning groups.

Artifact #1: STEM Activities

STEM activities are an excellent way to challenge students in a way that makes learning fun. Today we did a STEM activity with our students for geometry. Each student got a plate, a handful of marshmallows, and about 15 toothpicks. The challenge was for the students to use the materials they had to create the shape on their task cards. We switched the cards twice then the students had only twelve toothpicks and six marshmallows to create a solid figure. Once they made a shape with the 12 toothpicks, we reduced the materials by half. In this picture, Caroline had the task of constructing an octahedron. At first, she was confused because we did not discuss this shape in class, but she figured it out and built it in about 7 minutes. Click here to see more pictures from our STEM activity. 

Artifact #2: Connecting learning with reality

Click on the bolded words or on the picture for a larger view.

Lessons that allow students to learn and practice life skills are essential when teaching. Not every student has the support system at home to help them learn about personal finances, counting and working with money, or writing checks. Students learn about and work with money starting at an early age, and they must have different opportunities to grow in the specific topics. For example, I am getting ready to teach my two-week unit on money with my second-graders. They were supposed to learn about it last year, but because of Covid, things changed. My supervising teacher has a son in the second grade and has told me that most of these kids know nothing about money, so I would be the one to set the foundation for their knowledge of money. Here are some pictures from my money unit. 

Artifact #3: Collaborative learning groups

Here is an image of myself working with one of my small groups. This group, in particular, is one of the lower reading groups. These students are reading on a level J-L. These two students are also both in the Within Word Pattern stage of development.

Collaborative learning groups are essential to the implication of content because it helps get the students into a smaller group setting where their voices can be better heard and heard more often. In my second-grade class, we have reading groups that meet three times a week. These reading groups are decided based on the students reading levels. During my group, we read a small comprehension story or poem. After we share the read, we will answer the questions at the back of the story. These questions deal with different concepts like phonetics, comprehension, story elements, and structure analysis. Once we talk about the story and questions, the students rotate to their next station. Here is an example of a reading comprehension activity I did with one of my small groups on Alice Roosevelt.