InTASC 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.
Through the application of content, students are able to participate in meaningful learning experiences and are able to make connection between what is being taught in the lessons and their own lives. These connections can be made in a variety of ways – whether through what is happening in the world around them, what they have read (fiction or nonfiction), or through applying math to real world situations. It is through these connections that the students can find purpose and relate to what it is they are learning.
In my special education classroom, being able to make connections between what is being taught and what the students already know and understand from their lives can be the difference in whether a student picks up the content of a lesson or not. Sometimes these types of connections cannot be made when the focus is on reading for fluency or sounding out words, but other times such as when doing vocabulary, comprehension, or mathematics it is important to make the connections to their own lives very obvious.
For this particular standard on the application of content, I focused on the math lessons and how everyday we work to make connections between what is being taught and what the students know. This is extremely important for my first graders at they are still learning the basics of mathematics and need more time to process and make connections between what they are learning.
My first artifact “Shapes” revolves around a lesson we did on shapes. In this lesson, we focused not only recognizing a basic shape when held up, but on being able to identify other objects that were that shape as well. This seems like it may be a simple enough task, but when asked to find objects that were certain shapes in the room, the students struggled to do it because they could not find anything that perfectly fit their preconceived idea of that shape. Once students did catch on though, their delight in finding objects of certain shapes and shapes within those objects was perfect.
My second and third artifacts – “Calendar” and “Money” – focus on the mathematic skill of addition. The students will use both of these items quite regularly in their future lives. Using them as a way to practice addition is a natural way to use these items for how they are actually utilized in everyday life.
The fourth and final artifact “Counting by Twos” demonstrates how noticing objects that come in pairs can help the students to better relate to why a person might count by twos. My students did not quite understand this counting by “pairs” until we began talking about the buddy system and how some objects come with partners. We then proceeded to identify some of these objects, and the one that started the connection between this information and the students’ background knowledge was talking about “a pair of shoes”. From there the students continued to name other objects and body parts that can in “pairs” or twos.
In making these connections, my students got excited because they felt they already had some knowledge about these things – their mom’s had purses to hold their money, they did calendar every morning in school, they saw triangle road signs, and they had on a cool pair of shoes. They then used this knowledge that they already had and to feed their curiosity about what else they could discover. When challenged to do some deeper thinking, they were able to continue to make connections between what they were learning and what they already knew. These artifacts help to demonstrate a variety of ways in which the students can use what they are learning and apply it to many different parts of daily life.
In my special education classroom, being able to make connections between what is being taught and what the students already know and understand from their lives can be the difference in whether a student picks up the content of a lesson or not. Sometimes these types of connections cannot be made when the focus is on reading for fluency or sounding out words, but other times such as when doing vocabulary, comprehension, or mathematics it is important to make the connections to their own lives very obvious.
For this particular standard on the application of content, I focused on the math lessons and how everyday we work to make connections between what is being taught and what the students know. This is extremely important for my first graders at they are still learning the basics of mathematics and need more time to process and make connections between what they are learning.
My first artifact “Shapes” revolves around a lesson we did on shapes. In this lesson, we focused not only recognizing a basic shape when held up, but on being able to identify other objects that were that shape as well. This seems like it may be a simple enough task, but when asked to find objects that were certain shapes in the room, the students struggled to do it because they could not find anything that perfectly fit their preconceived idea of that shape. Once students did catch on though, their delight in finding objects of certain shapes and shapes within those objects was perfect.
My second and third artifacts – “Calendar” and “Money” – focus on the mathematic skill of addition. The students will use both of these items quite regularly in their future lives. Using them as a way to practice addition is a natural way to use these items for how they are actually utilized in everyday life.
The fourth and final artifact “Counting by Twos” demonstrates how noticing objects that come in pairs can help the students to better relate to why a person might count by twos. My students did not quite understand this counting by “pairs” until we began talking about the buddy system and how some objects come with partners. We then proceeded to identify some of these objects, and the one that started the connection between this information and the students’ background knowledge was talking about “a pair of shoes”. From there the students continued to name other objects and body parts that can in “pairs” or twos.
In making these connections, my students got excited because they felt they already had some knowledge about these things – their mom’s had purses to hold their money, they did calendar every morning in school, they saw triangle road signs, and they had on a cool pair of shoes. They then used this knowledge that they already had and to feed their curiosity about what else they could discover. When challenged to do some deeper thinking, they were able to continue to make connections between what they were learning and what they already knew. These artifacts help to demonstrate a variety of ways in which the students can use what they are learning and apply it to many different parts of daily life.