Standard 8
The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage learners to develop deep understanding of content areas and their connections, and to build skills to apply knowledge in meaningful ways.
This standard focuses on the teacher's ability to synthesize their knowledge of what is being taught, their students' prior knowledge and backgrounds as well as learning contexts to create learning experiences that encourage students to think deeply about what is being taught and make personal or content-oriented connections.
The evidence below shows how I have created and implemented various lessons and activities that were designed to create experiences that my students will be able to draw from in the future or make connections between content and the world around them.
 This is Erwin, my favorite puppet firend who I go to when I want students to think deeper and show what they learned by explaining it to Erwin (who is usually too busy sleeping in his container to learn) |
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 These graphic organizers were made during a kindergarten lesson on the Sun's effects on the surface of the Earth, with a fun twist to show that you can always add creativity to whatever you're doing! |
 These artworks were created during a lesson I designed to integrate art into a kinder science investigation into clouds. Students had to observe the clouds and recreate the shapes they saw in the sky. |
 This is what our classroom board looked like at the end of a long day of learning during our Thanksgiving unit! |
 This activity was done with my kindergarteners during our Thanksgiving unit in which the students had to practice writing with tools from different points in time (the quills are shown here) and then write about their favorite tool. |
 This visual organizer was created for a kindergarten class I visited during my time at St. Norbert College. The students I was working with were visual learners and really enjoyed making their 'idea web' |
Reflection
It is important for teachers to continue searching for and implementing many different instructional strategies to best suit the diverse learners within their class each new year. Having a multitude of plans, activities or strategies nearby allows the teacher to be able to pick and choose from these strategies easily whenever necessary. It is also important for the teacher to remember that what works for them might not always work for their students, and so keeping an eye open for teaching strategies and resources that may come in handy for students in the future is also a key factor to creating engaging lessons for all students.
Finding and continuing to learn about different instructional strategies will also lead to being able to guide your students to a deeper understanding and making connections to the real world. Once you have all of the strategies lined up, you can then combine these strategies with what you know about where your students are at. When students are able to connect what they already know about or see every day to the content they are learning, then they are able to contextualize the learning more quickly and then make even deeper connections with the what they are learning.
I have been able to use many different strategies and resources to help my students deepen their experience with the content I am teaching. One of my favorite tools to use is 'Erwin' my puppet. He has been very useful in making my students comfortable with new content and concepts as well as helping the students to be practice oral language and explaining concepts verbally in a simple way. In a way, the students 'teach' Erwin in order to remember concepts being taught.