standard 1: child development
Standard 1 focuses on promoting child development and learning through understanding young children’s characteristics and needs, the influences on early development and learning, and using this knowledge to create a healthy, respectful, supportive, and challenging learning environment. I believe that the artifacts I have here represent my practicum experience in meeting the first NAEYC standard.
My classes at central, especially the class on theories, have helped build a base for the understanding of how children develop, but it was not until I was in a classroom that I was truly able to see how development effects the learning of the students. I can say for a fact that my students from September would not be capable of what they are doing now (only six months later).
My artifacts that I have used to demonstrate my competence of this standard are a Guided Language Acquisition Device (GLAD) lesson plan I did with all of my students, a small group math lesson plan, and my unit plan. I find that the artifacts for this standard overlap a lot with Standard 3, observing, documenting, and assessing to support young children and families. When teaching our students I truly believe that assessment is one of the key factors we should look at when determining what we are going to teach next. This goes hand in hand with Standard 1 because I took a lesson plan that was developmentally appropriate, and then assessed how my students did with it. At times I had to go back and reconsider if my lesson was truly developmentally appropriate, and at other times I had to develop more challenging activities for my students. If I hadn’t taken the time to asses, and look for what needed to change I would not have truly been meeting Standard 1.
My first artifact was the GLAD lesson plan I did with space. While creating the lesson I took into account how active my kindergarteners are, and how I needed to start it off with something to catch their attention. I ended up starting off with a clip that showed a meteor shower (sped up), and it not only caught their attention and got them interested in meteors (which was one of our topics for the lesson) but also interested them in watching more clips that the video tried to link us too. After I did about a ten minute lesson, I switched into a demonstration to show the different moon phases (another part of the lesson), and then sent them all to do some space orientated writing. I then pulled small groups so they could experience the demonstration for themselves. At the end of the day we had an open discussion about what they learned and the students decided that they wanted to track the moon phases and see a picture of the sea of serenity, which I told them I would bring the next day. When the students came back, I had put the moon phase chart in their cubbies and taught them how to use it. We also looked at some pictures from the lunar landing and of the sea of tranquility.
This shows my competence for several reasons. First when I was working with my students I respected their ideas and questions, and strove to not only be able to answer their questions, but if I did not have what they wanted I brought it in the next day. I did a demonstration of our moon phase experiment to help support the students while they did it on their own. I kept in mind the characteristics (questioning) and needs of my students by being prepared and by keeping our lesson split into different levels of activity that would ensure my students stayed interested. I did not force them to just sit there and listen to me talk.
The next lesson was a small group math lesson. I worked with two groups (an AM/PM group) of our lowest students. These are the students that we are doing RTI (Response to Intervention) with and try to have more one on one time with. Most of these students are either very young (barely five when they entered kindergarten), ELL (English Language Learners) who may not have been exposed to English before this time, and students who may qualify for Special Education (SPED) later in their school years. I met Standard 1 because I tried to create a lesson plan that was somewhat challenging for my students, but also something that was developmentally appropriate. We started off working with physical representation of numbers (frog erasers), moved into a picture of the same number of items, and then into sorting the numbers without any type of physical representation. These series of lessons built off one another, and showed me what my students were developmentally able to do, and then I was able change it so that my students were challenged enough to learn.
The last artifact is my unit plan. It’s specifically the math and literacy portions of the unit plan. I have included a closer look following this reflection. For this unit we choose activities that were going to challenge our students enough to learn, but were not so hard that they would become frustrated. We focused on creating a challenging environment that was built for learning. We created this environment by keeping a close eye on our student’s developmental needs and ability levels. We also walk around the room during our center time to support our students who need help with the activity they are doing. We look at their at their work before they take it home so we can see if the activity is really meeting their needs and helping them understand the concepts.
These activities have not only helped me grow as a teacher, but have helped me to understand Standard 1, and what it really means to me as a classroom teacher. I need to consider who my students are, and what needs they have before I develop lessons. I also need to create an atmosphere that is challenging, but not overly so. I should offer support when it’s needed, and also allow my students to explore on their own. I believe this standard is all about the teacher developing the understanding that we must put our students and what they need first. If what we want to do does not work for our students, we should not do it.
My classes at central, especially the class on theories, have helped build a base for the understanding of how children develop, but it was not until I was in a classroom that I was truly able to see how development effects the learning of the students. I can say for a fact that my students from September would not be capable of what they are doing now (only six months later).
My artifacts that I have used to demonstrate my competence of this standard are a Guided Language Acquisition Device (GLAD) lesson plan I did with all of my students, a small group math lesson plan, and my unit plan. I find that the artifacts for this standard overlap a lot with Standard 3, observing, documenting, and assessing to support young children and families. When teaching our students I truly believe that assessment is one of the key factors we should look at when determining what we are going to teach next. This goes hand in hand with Standard 1 because I took a lesson plan that was developmentally appropriate, and then assessed how my students did with it. At times I had to go back and reconsider if my lesson was truly developmentally appropriate, and at other times I had to develop more challenging activities for my students. If I hadn’t taken the time to asses, and look for what needed to change I would not have truly been meeting Standard 1.
My first artifact was the GLAD lesson plan I did with space. While creating the lesson I took into account how active my kindergarteners are, and how I needed to start it off with something to catch their attention. I ended up starting off with a clip that showed a meteor shower (sped up), and it not only caught their attention and got them interested in meteors (which was one of our topics for the lesson) but also interested them in watching more clips that the video tried to link us too. After I did about a ten minute lesson, I switched into a demonstration to show the different moon phases (another part of the lesson), and then sent them all to do some space orientated writing. I then pulled small groups so they could experience the demonstration for themselves. At the end of the day we had an open discussion about what they learned and the students decided that they wanted to track the moon phases and see a picture of the sea of serenity, which I told them I would bring the next day. When the students came back, I had put the moon phase chart in their cubbies and taught them how to use it. We also looked at some pictures from the lunar landing and of the sea of tranquility.
This shows my competence for several reasons. First when I was working with my students I respected their ideas and questions, and strove to not only be able to answer their questions, but if I did not have what they wanted I brought it in the next day. I did a demonstration of our moon phase experiment to help support the students while they did it on their own. I kept in mind the characteristics (questioning) and needs of my students by being prepared and by keeping our lesson split into different levels of activity that would ensure my students stayed interested. I did not force them to just sit there and listen to me talk.
The next lesson was a small group math lesson. I worked with two groups (an AM/PM group) of our lowest students. These are the students that we are doing RTI (Response to Intervention) with and try to have more one on one time with. Most of these students are either very young (barely five when they entered kindergarten), ELL (English Language Learners) who may not have been exposed to English before this time, and students who may qualify for Special Education (SPED) later in their school years. I met Standard 1 because I tried to create a lesson plan that was somewhat challenging for my students, but also something that was developmentally appropriate. We started off working with physical representation of numbers (frog erasers), moved into a picture of the same number of items, and then into sorting the numbers without any type of physical representation. These series of lessons built off one another, and showed me what my students were developmentally able to do, and then I was able change it so that my students were challenged enough to learn.
The last artifact is my unit plan. It’s specifically the math and literacy portions of the unit plan. I have included a closer look following this reflection. For this unit we choose activities that were going to challenge our students enough to learn, but were not so hard that they would become frustrated. We focused on creating a challenging environment that was built for learning. We created this environment by keeping a close eye on our student’s developmental needs and ability levels. We also walk around the room during our center time to support our students who need help with the activity they are doing. We look at their at their work before they take it home so we can see if the activity is really meeting their needs and helping them understand the concepts.
These activities have not only helped me grow as a teacher, but have helped me to understand Standard 1, and what it really means to me as a classroom teacher. I need to consider who my students are, and what needs they have before I develop lessons. I also need to create an atmosphere that is challenging, but not overly so. I should offer support when it’s needed, and also allow my students to explore on their own. I believe this standard is all about the teacher developing the understanding that we must put our students and what they need first. If what we want to do does not work for our students, we should not do it.
glad_lesson_plans.docx | |
File Size: | 15 kb |
File Type: | docx |
unit_lessons_online.docx | |
File Size: | 1148 kb |
File Type: | docx |