Standard 5: Application of Content
The teacher understands how to connect concepts and use differing perspectives to engage learners in critical thinking, creativity, and collaborative problem solving related to authentic local and global issues.
Application of content allows students to experience meaningful learning and to make connections between the content and their own lives. I have done this in a variety of ways from discussions on current events, to making real world scenario word problems for math, and to making connections between a historical fiction text and the students' own lives. These connections bring the learning alive for the students and increase student engagement in learning by providing a purpose for the experience.
In my third grade classroom, I seek to make these necessary and engaging connections in every lesson. However, it is most clearly reflected in my culminating activities for my units that most explicitly demonstrate this InTASC Standard. Therefore, I have selected two long term projects that my third grade students have completed that required them to extend the concepts we had been learning and make real world connections.
The first two artifacts relate to the inquiry project I did with my students throughout our literacy unit on environments. During the units students learned about animals, their adaptations, habitats, natural disasters, and how humans impact the environment, The reading in this unit helped my students to generate several questions that required them to research beyond what we read in class. Therefore, in small groups, my students selected an inquiry question they wanted to explore about the topic of environments and adaptations. Then, they were given reading class time once a week to refine their question, research the question, and then put together a presentation showcasing what they had found. This experience allowed students to select a topic that was of interest to them and to utalize critical thinking to develop global connections about the environment or animal they were looking at and how it is impacted by a variety of things.
Similarly, after students had spent several science classes building and exploring a variety of circuits, I posed the question: What type of circuit would you recommend that a Christmas light company use in their lights and why? Students then had to consider the pros and cons of parallel and series circuits to back up what kind of circuit they would use. We then talked about the ethics behind selling a product you knew was not the best for the consumer even if it meant a greater profit as well as what we would look for as an educated consumer if we had to go buy lights.
Making these connections helps my students to develop a natural curiosity when learning. They are challenged to use their critical thinking and creativity to problem solve in a variety of different ways across the curriculum. These artifacts clearly demonstrate how I facilitate meaningful discussions with my students in order to explore both local and global issues.
In my third grade classroom, I seek to make these necessary and engaging connections in every lesson. However, it is most clearly reflected in my culminating activities for my units that most explicitly demonstrate this InTASC Standard. Therefore, I have selected two long term projects that my third grade students have completed that required them to extend the concepts we had been learning and make real world connections.
The first two artifacts relate to the inquiry project I did with my students throughout our literacy unit on environments. During the units students learned about animals, their adaptations, habitats, natural disasters, and how humans impact the environment, The reading in this unit helped my students to generate several questions that required them to research beyond what we read in class. Therefore, in small groups, my students selected an inquiry question they wanted to explore about the topic of environments and adaptations. Then, they were given reading class time once a week to refine their question, research the question, and then put together a presentation showcasing what they had found. This experience allowed students to select a topic that was of interest to them and to utalize critical thinking to develop global connections about the environment or animal they were looking at and how it is impacted by a variety of things.
Similarly, after students had spent several science classes building and exploring a variety of circuits, I posed the question: What type of circuit would you recommend that a Christmas light company use in their lights and why? Students then had to consider the pros and cons of parallel and series circuits to back up what kind of circuit they would use. We then talked about the ethics behind selling a product you knew was not the best for the consumer even if it meant a greater profit as well as what we would look for as an educated consumer if we had to go buy lights.
Making these connections helps my students to develop a natural curiosity when learning. They are challenged to use their critical thinking and creativity to problem solve in a variety of different ways across the curriculum. These artifacts clearly demonstrate how I facilitate meaningful discussions with my students in order to explore both local and global issues.