INTASC+Standard+04

__INTASC Standard 04__

The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage students' development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills.

__Specific Category of Standard 04__

INTASC.4.C. The teacher knows how to enhance learning through the use of a wide variety of materials as well as human and technological resources (e.g. computers, audio-visual technologies, videotapes and discs, local experts, primary documents and artifacts, texts, reference books, literature, and other print resources).

INTASC.4.G. The teacher uses multiple teaching and learning strategies to engage students in active learning opportunities that promote the development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance capabilities and that help student assume responsibility for identifying and using learning resources.

__Understanding Sentence__

The teacher knows and uses a variety of methods in order to help students learn to think critically, solve problems, and develop skills.

__Artifacts__
 * Literature Text Set: Friendships and People with Disabilities
 * Notebook: Strategies for Learning

__Reflect__

The literature text set directly relates to INTASC.4.C. in that it provides texts (assorted books) around a topic in order to enhance children's literature experiences. There are exactly 12 books listed in an annotated bibliography and this document also contains two lesson plans that match the text set. This set is to provide children a unique learning experience and expose them to different types of books and information. The notebook directly relates to INTASC.4.G. in that it contains 10 strategies for different types of learning and academic skills. The first 5 strategies are supported by research and contain the citation for a matching article. For each strategy, there is a purpose, target student/age/grade, implementation steps, and an article summary. The last 5 strategies are ones that I use for myself to improve my academic achievement but do not include articles to match the strategies. Although I included documentation of these strategies with the original notebook, I could not scan them to place them in this portfolio.

__Project__

These two projects helped me to evaluate myself as a learner and as a future educator. With the literature text set, I thought about what I really wanted children to know about people with disabilities and what my purpose was. I wanted a way to help children feel more comfortable about building relationships with people who have disabilities and at the same time, lessen the stigma that comes with having a disability. This helped me put myself in the place of the future educator as I went about how to convey these messages and what books or resources could illustrate these ideas. With the strategies notebook, I had to evaluate myself as a learner. How did I study? What strategies did I use? This challenged me to focus on how I work and succeed as a student. What I came up with were mostly daily practices which made me wonder whether or not successful students used strategies daily. The answer, I concluded, was yes.