SAMPLE PORTFOLIO ARTIFACT #1
Standard 1, subject matter. A teacher must understand the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the disciplines taught and be able to create learning experiences that make these aspects of subject matter meaningful for students.
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Name of Artifact: | 1st Grade Weather Unit |
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| Original Date of Artifact: | 10/15/2013 |
| Course/Field Experience: | EEL4338 Science Methods—Elementary |
| Rationale Statement: Provide a description of why the artifact was selected to demonstrate success with the indicated standard and subparts. | To design this science unit, I had to understand the topic of weather and its major concepts for content delivery in a first grade classroom, as well as understand how to integrate the content with other subject areas. This resulted in a unit that integrates varied approaches to teaching and exploring weather concepts and allows students to connect the subject of weather and its subparts to everyday life while they move through interdisciplinary learning experiences. This unit reflects a new level of lesson planning and curriculum development for me. |
Reflection: Reflect on the submission. Why does it demonstrate ability with the specified standard(s)? Let the reviewer know why it provides evidence of your growth as a teacher. | I chose to design my elementary science methods instructional unit for first graders because they are at the age and developmental level I presently understand the best and feel the most confident about how to teach and support the teaching/learning process. This unit reflects my understanding of developmentally appropriate and varied methods of presenting material, building upon students’ prior knowledge and experiences, and linking the subject matter to other disciplines looks like at the first grade level. First grade is a very foundational time in students’ education and my focus was for students to gain a solid knowledge base of weather concepts and terms. My goal was to meaningfully engage learners in awareness of the daily weather so they felt like young weather experts, or “junior meteorologists.” This weather unit is organized by topics that build and feed off of one another so students are exposed to key ideas by means of multiple representations and a variety of engaging lesson activities to best support their understanding. The discipline of science lends itself naturally to hands-on learning. These experiences encourage students to engage more fully in their learning, apply learning experiences to their lives and the world around them, create more meaning from their learning, and to analyze and compare their experiences and results with one another in a richer learning environment. My first grade weather unit is full of hands-on learning experiences that involve students in the process of scientific inquiry and demonstrates their role as scientists, specifically, as meteorologists. I took a guided discovery approach in designing each of the ten lessons. I also designed a variety of assessment methods for students to gauge their developmental levels and needs to support their understanding of the key concepts for each lesson. This weather unit enables students to integrate what they are learning in science into other contexts and domains of learning, broadens their understanding and applications of the topic of weather and all of its subparts. Integrating other subject areas into this unit helps students apply what there are learning in new and different ways. |
| Attached Documents: | 1st GradeWatherUnit.doc |