Standard 4: Content Knowledge
The teacher understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the discipline(s) he or she teaches and creates learning experiences that make these aspects of the discipline accessible and meaningful for learners to assure mastery of the content.
An understanding of content knowledge transcends a simple knowledge of facts. This has been one of my biggest lessons on a daily basis. Of course my students are still amazed by my ability to complete multiple digit multiplication and division problems relatively quickly, but what is most meaningful to my teaching is my ability to explore concepts with my students and find ways to make it readily accessible to them in a variety of formats.
To best accomplish this I use strategies that reach a variety of learning styles. This is most clearly demonstrated in my first artifact, a video of a kindergarten student working on identifying initial, medial, and final sounds in a word by stomping on the letter. In this case, I realized that my student was best able to work on concepts when he was able to work movement into the learning process. Therefore, each lesson had a kinetic element to it.
My final artifacts pertain most directly to making content accessible to my students. While I could easily just tell my students the answers to a series of questions on a topic, this in no way makes them prepared to seek out answers independently. Therefore, I rely upon think aloud lessons and exploratory lessons to guide my students to discover the content on their own. Through modeling in the Think Aloud lesson below, to exploring word choice in other poems to apply in our own, building background on a topic to better grasp it prior to exploration, and modeling how to seek out the answers to questions we come across when reading I guide students to the content in every lesson.
These artifacts demonstrate how I utilize innovative and varied strategies and tools to help my student access the necessary content knowledge. Even when I know the answers to the students questions, it is in some more meaningful to take them through the whole process of discovery than it is to tell them the fact. This carries over from teaching early literacy spelling skills, exploring the web, reading non-fiction texts, learning new math concepts, and every other are of learning in my classroom.
To best accomplish this I use strategies that reach a variety of learning styles. This is most clearly demonstrated in my first artifact, a video of a kindergarten student working on identifying initial, medial, and final sounds in a word by stomping on the letter. In this case, I realized that my student was best able to work on concepts when he was able to work movement into the learning process. Therefore, each lesson had a kinetic element to it.
My final artifacts pertain most directly to making content accessible to my students. While I could easily just tell my students the answers to a series of questions on a topic, this in no way makes them prepared to seek out answers independently. Therefore, I rely upon think aloud lessons and exploratory lessons to guide my students to discover the content on their own. Through modeling in the Think Aloud lesson below, to exploring word choice in other poems to apply in our own, building background on a topic to better grasp it prior to exploration, and modeling how to seek out the answers to questions we come across when reading I guide students to the content in every lesson.
These artifacts demonstrate how I utilize innovative and varied strategies and tools to help my student access the necessary content knowledge. Even when I know the answers to the students questions, it is in some more meaningful to take them through the whole process of discovery than it is to tell them the fact. This carries over from teaching early literacy spelling skills, exploring the web, reading non-fiction texts, learning new math concepts, and every other are of learning in my classroom.