Importance and Summary for Instructional Strategies
InTASC Standard eight, Instructional strategies, focuses on how the teacher presents the material. As educators, we know that students learn in different ways, so using various methods to help them develop a deeper understanding of the material is beneficial because they can apply their knowledge in a meaningful way. I can show my understanding of instructional strategies through an instructional video, interactive technology, and activities that use higher-order thinking.
Artifact #1: Small group instruction
The students are getting individualized
instruction based on their instructional levels and different needs by incorporating small group instruction. While Covid-19 has proven it more challenging to include small groups, I am still trying to pull them when I am able. Since restrictions have loosened some, we have been able to start pulling small reading groups more frequently. This allows the students to receive more developmentally appropriate instruction and gives the teacher a chance to track the student’s progress on reading fluency, for example. Here is a picture of myself with one of the five reading groups at the beginning of our small reading groups beginning to work on an adobe spark project.
Artifact #2: Interactive Technology
Lesson plans where students are using technology interactively are beneficial because the students are getting to be involved in a learning experience that is engaging for them and educational. While student teaching, I have tried to include interactive technology in most of my lessons. Here is an example of an interactive PowerPoint that I did with my students for our money unit. The students would come to click their name and solve the problem (based on their understandings), then once everyone went, we had an interactive game so that each student could get some more experience. Below is a short video of a student solving her problem. In the end, she used four quarters, eight dimes, one nickel, and 2 pennies.
Artifact #3: Higher-order Thinking Activities
Higher-order thinking activities are beneficial to students and educators because students are allowed to demonstrate their logical thinking for solving a specific problem while also allowing educators to see the student’s perspective for why they solved the problem that way or how they got that answer. During my student teaching experience, my students have completed a variety of higher-order thinking activities. They have had to draw out different life cycles (plant, butterfly, and deer), they have had to think of different ways to make a specific amount of money, and coming up in our matter unit, they will have to illustrate and compare the other states of matter (solid, liquid, and gases) and also will get to predict the outcomes of different experiments like the dancing raisins experiment that we completed April 5th.