Standard 1: Understands Content
I understand the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the disciplines I teach and can create learning experiences that make these aspects of subject matter meaningful for my students.Artifact 1.1 Utilizing Interdisciplinary Approaches
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates how I use interdisciplinary approaches to make subject matter meaningful for students. In a social studies lesson on landforms the students were to draw pictures of different landforms in their community. Instead of merely letting the students draw from their own memories I opened the blinds and dismissed the students one group at a time to go over and look out the window. The students could view the rolling hills, the large pond, and the trees that were in the area just surrounding the school. This “live” visual gave my students ideas for their illustrations and also allowed them to make a connection to how landforms play a part in the makeup of their own community.
Artifact 1.2 Making Learning Authentic
Rationale: During my student teaching I taught a “Sun, Moon, and Stars” unit. When discussing telescopes and the use of telescopes, I chose to make the learning more authentic for the students by actually bringing in a $250 10cm refractory lens telescope. Certain schools in the Dubuque District had to teach the “Sun, Moon, and Stars” unit in the winter season and Carver Elementary happened to be one of the unfortunate few. Due to the winter weather we did not always have clear days or night for viewings of the celestial bodies, however, by giving my students an opportunity to see a telescope and look through the lens they were able at least to associate the word ‘telescope’ with a real piece of machinery rather than simply a word and picture on the page of their science textbook.
Artifact 1.3 Steno Sample Steno
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates my understanding of central concepts in the different disciplines by showing my self-assessment of how I meet this standard as well as my cooperating teacher’s assessment of my subject matter expertise.
Standard 2: Understands Development
I understand how children learn and develop, and can provide learning opportunities that support their intellectual, social, and personal development.Artifact 2.1 Observational Assessment Record in Math
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates my understanding of development because, by using an observational assessment record, I was able to formatively assess my students learning and develop re-teach groups so that my struggling students were better prepared for the test.
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| Math resource |
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates my understanding of development because I used activities from the book Helping Children Learn Mathematics to give to my advanced mathematics students if they knew the content of the lesson being taught. In this way I was able to provide them with more challenge in their understanding of mathematics.
Artifact 2.3 Steno for Understanding Development
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates my understanding student development by showing my self-assessment of how I meet this standard as well as my cooperating teacher’s assessment of my subject matter expertise.
Artifact 2.4 Developmentally Appropriate Activities
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates how I provided a challenging math activity that was developmentally appropriate in that it allowed for group collaboration to easy the workload. In this activity students had a set amount of money that they could spend on an imaginary class party. Certain items could be purchased with the money but students had to keep in mind the number of students in the class and also what kinds of items they thought would be desired at a good class party. Students drew a picture of the items they were going to buy, created a table, and provided an explanation of why they chose the items that they did. This activity would have been difficult to do in pairs for a 3rd grade class but in groups of threes and fours it went well.
Class Party Samples
Standard 3: Diverse Learners
I understand how students differ in their approaches to learning and I create instructional opportunities that are adapted to diverse learners.
Artifact 3.1 Meeting Needs of Diverse Learners
Rationale : This artifact demonstrates how I create instructional opportunities that are adapted to my diverse learners. In math, many of my 3rd grade students were struggling with the concept of a right angle (square corner) so I decided to create small transparency cutouts that were about 1 in. x 1 in. so that students could match up the right angle transparency to different angles to determine whether it was or was not a right angle. For the test, I gave all students the option of using the right angle transparencies. Some students chose to use them while others felt that they did not need it.
Artifact 3.2 Adapted Formative Assessments
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates how I adapted a formative assessment in my classroom so that struggling writers would have less stress in the writing of a friendly letter. Letter writing etiquette is just beginning to be introduced in the 3rd grade classroom so I decided to create a cloze form letter for my students to complete in my interdisciplinary unit on immigration.
Cloze Letter
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| Andrew Carnegie: Immigrant from Scotland |
Artifact 3.3 Photographs and Copies of Authentic Documents for Visual Learners
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates how I meet the needs of my visual learners. During an interdisciplinary unit on immigration I provided many photographs of immigrants that had come through Ellis Island. This photographs were pinned to a bulletin board and some of the examples of steerage tickets that immigrants would have had were placed in a tub for students to view.
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| Sample letter format on whiteboard |
Rationale: This artifact shows how I include several of the multiple intelligences in my teaching so that I can help students remember the different parts of a letter. For social studies class we were going to send letters to students in Mexico and I was explaining the different parts of a letter to the class. For my visual learners I had a drawing on the board. For my auditory learners I walked through each step verbally. For my musical learners I sang a song to the tune of "Clementine" of all the parts of a letter.
The Letter Song
There are five parts
There are five parts
There are five parts to a letter
Heading, greeting, body, closing,
Sign your name, oh sign your name!
Standard 4: Designs Instructional Strategies
I understand and use a variety of instructional strategies to encourage students’ development of critical thinking, problem solving and performance skills.
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates how I use graphic organizers to help students become critical thinkers by making text-to-self connections as they read a nonfiction text entitled How are we the same and different? The goal in this lesson was to read the selected text and then make lists of all the different world religions/beliefs and then to write down which one you are. In the same manner the students were to determine what part of the human life cycle they were in, what kinds of talents they had, and what aspects of culture they had as a person.
Artifact 4.2 Differentiated Small Group
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| 3 group rotation for math |
Artifact 4.3 Sequencing Activity
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates how I use a variety of instructional strategies to encourage my students’ critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills. In this activity, I gave each student group an envelope, each envelope contained several parts from the story Cactus Hotel. Then the students had to work in groups to correctly sequence all of the events from the story. After working in groups, we discussed the proper sequencing of the sentence strips from the story.
Sequencing Activity for Cactus Hotel
Artifact 4.4 Sponge Activities
Rationale: In math, the benchmark for a 3rd grade student is to be able to solve addition and subtraction problems but they do begin learning about multiplication as well. For my advanced students who had general automaticity with math facts up to multiples of 12, I had them do Multiplication War. Multiplication War is played with regular playing cards just like any other card game of War but in this rendition the students must lay their card down and whoever is able to say the product of the two numbers the quickest becomes the holder of the cards. For the students who wanted a real challenge I let them use kings as '13' and Jokers as '14' and students found asked on a number of occasions if they could play it again.
Rationale: This artifact evidences higher level thinking on Bloom's Taxonomy by teaching students how to create Fat and Skinny questions. I used this graphic organizer to help students create questions for the Discussion Director role in a literature circle for the book The Wizard of Oz. If the question was located in the top left corner of the graphic organizer it meant that it was a skinny question and if it was located in the bottom right corner of the graphic organizer it meant that it was a fat question. I reminded students that fat questions are not always better than skinny questions but that they do make you think harder. In life we need both skinny and fat questions but the fat questions are the ones that often go unanswered and make us struggle to find answers.
Standard 5: Motivation & Management
I use an understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior to create a learning environment that encourages positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation.Artifact 5.1 Attention Getting Techniques
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| Using claps and motions to get students' attention before their musical. |
Give me 5: In this technique I raise my hand and tell the students, "Give me five" and they respond by raising their hand and not talking.
Ringing the Bell: I ring the bell and wait for students to freeze where they are and stop talking.
Timer: If the bell or the 'give me 5' technique are not working very well I get the students' attention by using either one and I also count. However many seconds I count before the class becomes quiet is added to a running total on the white board. Once the class reaches one minute they must come in during recess to serve one minute since they took one minute from my instructional time.
Shave & Haircut: This is a fun attention getter that kids love. In it you sing the first part and the students sing the second. The teacher sings, "Shave and a haircut..." and the students respond with, "two bits!" I would often use this right before going to lunch.
Artifact 5.2 Jammin' Minute
Rationale: In this classroom activity the class does a five minute exercise either as a transition between subjects or as a break during a long subject if students need to be re-energized. I was introduced to the "Jammin' Minute" by my cooperating teacher while student teaching and we would often use it to help students get their blood moving and be more awake and alert as they worked. To find out more about the Jammin' Minute click on the following link: http://www.jamschoolprogram.com/
Artifact 5.3 Seating Charts
Rationale: On the first school day of every month the students' desks would be moved around so that they could have variety in their workspace and also have different classmates to work with throughout the year. I would have the students in groups of three or four, rows, or in a semi-circle formation.
Artifact 5.4 KWL Chart
Rationale: This artifact shows how I motivated the students before we learned about immigration in social studies. During seat work time I had each student write down one thing they knew about immigration and one thing they wanted to learn about immigration by using the colored markers that I provided with the chart paper.
Artifact 5.5 Student Jobs
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates how classroom responsibilities were divided among students so that all of the classroom jobs could get finished quickly and effectively. Student jobs promote student responsibility and self-discipline because not all jobs were coveted the same. Student jobs would include paper passer, pencil sharpener, messenger, understudy, whiteboard eraser, attendance person and garbage person.
Artifact 5.6 Behavioral Expectations
Rationale: There are posters on the wall of the classroom that clearly lay out the behavioral expectations of the students for different areas of the school. If students need to be reminded of the behavioral expectations for a certain area the teacher can review the expectations with the class. For example, before going to an assembly I reviewed the expectations with the students and then we went to join the other classes as they gathered for the all-school assembly.
Artifact 5.7 Collaborative Group Work
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| Students working together during science investigation. |
Rationale: During our collaborative work in science I divided the class into groups of threes and fours and then I assigned job responsibilities to each person in the group: Tracker, Materials Manager, and Messenger. Each job had a color band with their job title so that they could remember who they were throughout the investigation. Students with blue bands were trackers and they were the ones that had to make sure that their group was working together and 'keeping on track.' The red bands signified the messenger and these were the only ones who could ask the teacher a question during the investigation. The green band signified those who were Materials Managers and these were the only students who could obtain and take care of materials used in the investigation. By assigning these job responsibilities to each student it gave students greater ownership in the investigations and it also helped make the investigations more manageable.
Artifact 5.8 Monitoring Individual Misbehavior
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates how I monitor student behavior proactively in that I noticed a certain student who had trouble staying on task. I put a sticky note on his desk and told him that for every time I catch him being off-task I would put a tally mark on it. I created a graph for him that he would keep in his desk and at the end of each day I would mark down how many tallies he received so he could see how on-task he was that particular day.
Artifact 5.9 Monitoring Whole Class Misbehavior
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates how I am proactive about monitoring whole class misbehavior in that it was taking me a long time to get the whole class' attention. I told the students that I would get their attention and would count out loud how many seconds it would take for them to quiet down. However many seconds I counted would be added to a part of the whiteboard and when the cumulative total reached one minute the entire class would have to come in to serve me one minute before going out to recess because they were taking away from my instructional time by chatting.
Standard 6: Communicates
I use knowledge of effective verbal, nonverbal and media and technology communication techniques to foster active inquiry, collaboration, and supportive interaction in the classroom.Artifact 6.1 Bulletin Boards
Rationale: For each unit in social studies and science I created a bulletin board so that students would be aware of the "Big Idea" as well as the key vocabulary that we had in the unit. Next to the bulletin board I would sticky tack note cards to the wall with the vocabulary words written on them. It became a word wall for the unit and if it was a bulletin board for science I would also include the key questions that we would be answering so that students could activate their prior knowledge before we began our investigations.
Artifact 6.2 Student Goals
Rationale:This artifact demonstrates a simply strategy to help students become more responsible learners and for them to develop greater independence. At parent teacher conferences each student set a goal and these goals were typed up by a parent helper and then were laminated to student desks. These student goals also are closely tied to the topic of management because some students had to learn organizational skills or study skills (i.e. not being distracted from their independent work).
Artifact 6.3 Class Website
Rationale: This artifact is a wonderful example of how technology can be utilized to communicate more effectively with students and their families. In our 3rd grade classroom at Carver we had a class website: http://mrsbreitbachcarver.shutterfly.com This website included a calendar, photo albums, favorite links, review Powerpoints, surveys, homework assignments, school news, newsletters, contact information, and study guides. For parents that felt more comfortable with a paper copy of newsletters and updates they were able to receive a paper copy.
Standard 7: Plans & Integrates
I plan instruction based upon knowledge of subject matter, students, the community, and curriculum goals.Artifact 7.1 Using Patterns to Predict Math Lesson
Rationale:
This artifact demonstrates that my lesson plans are both complete and simple enough to be followed by a guest teacher. I clearly state the unit and lesson number as well as the number of sessions that each lesson should take. In this particular lesson, I make it teacher friendly by placing a “possible breakpoint” which indicates to the teacher a place where the lesson can be continued the following day. My objective for this lesson meets both state and national standards and benchmarks for the 3rd grade level and in artifact #7.2 I show that I am meeting these standards by using “I Can” statements for my students. This lesson is applicable to my students’ lives because it involves the measuring of mass which is a skill used in everyday activities such as weighing oneself on a scale or identifying the mass of fruits and meats in a supermarket to determine the price.
Math Lesson Plan
Artifact 7.2 I Can Statements for Math Lesson
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates how I match my instructional goals with the state/district benchmarks in my lessons. At the beginning of Unit 9, which was all about Using Patterns to Predict, I introduced the students to the “I Can” statements for the unit. Some examples of these statements were, “I can measure mass in grams,” or “I can draw best-fit lines.” At the end of each lesson, I summarize by asking the students what their “I can” statements are. This time is for the students to verbalize what they have learned from the lesson and they are encouraged to use the specific “I Can” statements that are introduced at the beginning of the unit.
Artifact 7.3 Preparation of Materials
Rationale: These artifacts evidence how I gather materials and have them ready before the lesson to maximize instructional time.
Artifact 7.4 Generic Day Planner
Rationale: This artifact shows that my plans are something a substitute or other fellow teacher could follow. While a student teacher, I received this template and it can be adapted to any school that I teach at. I fill out one for each day of the week so that another teacher could teach my lessons if necessary. In addition, this artifact shows how I plan for the short and long term.
Artifact 7.5 Immigrant Journey
Rationale: This artifact shows how I designed a lesson to fit all my students’ needs. While I lesson plan, I take into account my different types of learners: visual, auditory, kinesthetic, struggling, and gifted.
Artifact 7.6 Principle 9 Steno
Rationale: This artifact shows my own thoughts about how I plan instruction as well as my cooperating teacher’s thoughts on how I plan instruction.
Standard 8: Assessment
The teacher understands and uses formal and informal assessment strategies to evaluate and ensure the continuous intellectual, social, and physical development of the learner.Artifact 8.1 Observational Assessment Record (Scan coming soon!)
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates my use of formative assessment measures to gauge my students learning. The Observational Assessment Record allows the teacher to keep track of how each student is meeting the objectives for the unit and it also allows for the teacher to adjust instruction accordingly.
Artifact 8.2 Telling Time Pre-Test
Rationale: This artifact shows how I give an assessment in advance and then use the data to adjust my teaching according to student needs. By giving a pre-test, I identified which students could tell time to the nearest minute. Those students that could not tell time to the nearest minute were the students that I gave more attention to during group work and I also looked over the pre-test with them so that they could know what the correct answers were and have strategies to solve those kind of time problems.
Artifact 8.3 Paragraph Writing Rubric
Rationale: This artifact shows how I gave students criteria for a writing project highlighted what areas I was looking for in their writing assignment.
Artifact 8.4 Running Record Data
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates my ability to keep running records and put them into visual format so that parents or other teachers are able to identify the current reading ability of the student. This graph was of a student that I tutored during my 16-week student teaching placement. The student had a history of struggle in the area of reading and had several interventions in place during the school day one of which was a decoding intervention that I taught for eight weeks.
Standard 9: Reflects on Practice
The teacher is a reflective practitioner who continually evaluates the effect of his/ her choices and actions on others (students, parents, and other professionals in the learning community) and who actively seeks out opportunities to grow professionally.Artifact 9.1 Personal Teaching Journal
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates that am a reflective practitioner because I always carry in my pocket a journal and pen so that I can write down those things that I do not want to forget but want to refer to later. I often use my notebook as a means of critically analyzing my own lessons and weighing the strengths and weaknesses of the lesson so that I can determine what changes need to be made in my instruction. This artifact also exhibits my passion about the teaching profession because I will often whip it out to jot down a brainstorm or teaching tip that I do not forget. One of the benefits also to having a notebook handy at all times is that I can jot down some of the great quotes that my students say. These quotes later are often an encouragement and a source of renewed appreciation for my students and I have found that by sharing them with others I instill an excitement about teaching even in persons who are not familiar with the teaching field.Artifact 9.2 Professional Steno
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates how I use constructive criticism to further my teaching ability. By using a stenographer’s notebook I show my own thoughts about how I reflect on my practice and my cooperating teacher’s thoughts on how I reflect on my practice. This artifact clearly demonstrates how I use self-assessment as a means of improving my instruction.
Artifact 9.3 Video Reflections
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates how I use videos of my teaching to reflect on the quality of my teaching. I have often used videos of my teaching to critique my use of filler words, the use of and frequency of the content vocabulary, how engaged the students are in the lesson and to determine how the lesson could be more effectively delivered. This artifact is an example of how I critically analyze a lesson taught so that I can improve my instruction to my students.
Standard 10: Participates in Professional Community
The teacher fosters relationships with school colleagues, parents, and agencies in the larger community to support students’ learning and well being.Artifact 10.1 Relationships with School Colleagues
Rationale: All of the Powerpoints that I created for student test review were made available to other 3rd grade teachers at Carver Elementary by placing them in a teacher shared folder. These Powerpoints were created so that students could review key terms for upcoming tests. Students could view the Powerpoints during seat work time at school or they could access them at home since they were also uploaded to the class website.
The Stars!
The Moon
The_Sun
S.S. Ch. 7
Artifact 10.2 Relationships with Other Schools in the District
Rationale: A neighboring school in the Dubuque district wished to see interactive whiteboards at use in the classroom so they came to visit Carver Elementary and I gave a demonstration of how SMART boards can be used in a math lesson. I used the NLVM website http://nlvm.usu.edu/ to demonstrate the use of virtual manipulatives to teach fractions while navigating the screen with a SMART Slate so that I could walk around the classroom and use proximity in my teaching. I also gave the students a 10 question quiz using the SMART clicker system which automatically records each students individual results onto the computer. Carver Elementary's principal, two teachers from the visiting school, a fellow 3rd grade teacher, and my cooperating teacher were present in the room while I demonstrated the use of SMART technology.
Artifact 10.3 Relationships with Parents
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates how parents are involved in our classroom. Parent helpers help grade student work, cut out laminated sheets, help with organization of materials, do fluency testing and anything else that needs to be done. They are willing volunteers and the students appreciate having them come in.
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| Parent helping during seatwork time |
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| Parent cutting out laminated sheets |
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| Parent helping during seatwork time |
Artifact 10.4 Guest Speakers
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates how I involve guest speakers to promote learning. As a part of our study on immigration and how we are alike and different from people in other cultures I invited Mrs. Hoben, an immigrant from Romania who recently obtained U.S. citizenship to come into to our classroom and share about the country of Romania. After she shared about what life was like in Romania and the process of becoming a citizen of the United States she answered any questions that the students had.
Artifact 10.5 Involving Schools Cross-Culturally
Rationale: When the class was learning about how we are similar and different from people of other cultures I decided to make the learning more authentic so I had my class write letters to a class of 3rd graders in Mexico. The process was slightly complicated because the letters had to be written, sent, translated into Spanish, sent to the U.S., translated into English and then returned to the students but it was well worth the effort because the students were able to make real-life connections to the fact that students in Mexico, another part of the world, had similar interests as themselves but also had many different ways of living.
Rationale: When the class was learning about how we are similar and different from people of other cultures I decided to make the learning more authentic so I had my class write letters to a class of 3rd graders in Mexico. The process was slightly complicated because the letters had to be written, sent, translated into Spanish, sent to the U.S., translated into English and then returned to the students but it was well worth the effort because the students were able to make real-life connections to the fact that students in Mexico, another part of the world, had similar interests as themselves but also had many different ways of living.
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| Letter from Carver student in Dubuque, IA |
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| Letter from student in Guanajuato, Mexico |
Standard 11: Technology
Computer technology related to instruction.Artifact 11.1 Interactive Smart Board Use
Artifact 11.2 Document Camera
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates my use of technology because I have used a Point 2 View document camera to show students how to perform a math game, when showing photographs during student “Show n’ Tells" or even for a Skype interview which we did twice this year, once to Japan and once to France. It is a wonderful tool for your visual learners.
Artifact 11.3 Clicker Systems
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates my use of technology because instead of simply using a paper and pencil pretest I used a SMART Board clicker system to administer a formative assessment. The added benefit to using the clicker system is that it records all of the students’ grades automatically into the computer for the teacher to access and review. Quizzes can be created by converting a Microsoft Word document into a SMART quiz and then it can be adapted to the teacher's preference before being given to the students. It did take time for the students (and myself) to become accustomed to using the clicker system but after several times it became must easier to use.
Artifact 11.4 Powerpoints for Test Review
Sample Powerpoint
Rationale: This artifact demonstrates how I use computer technology in my instructional planning. When my students need some extra review for for their unit test, I create a PowerPoint and post it on the class website so that my students can access it during seat work time as well as at home. This is especially helpful for my struggling students and my visual students.
Artifact 11.5 Virtual Math Manipulatives (See http://nlvm.usu.edu/)
Rationale: The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives (NLVM) was a website that I used during math instruction to enhance student understanding of fraction concepts. By pulling up the virtual manipulatives I could allow the entire class to see the process of how fractions worked and also fractions could be equivalent by comparing fractional values.
Artifact 11.6 Class Blog
Rationale: This artifact is to demonstrate how blogging can be integrated into classroom use by becoming a sponge activity for students who are done with other assignments. If there is an event such as an assembly or class excursion any students who would like to write a blog post may submit a rough draft to the teacher which will be previewed for any errors and then, once proofread, the student may submit a blog post on the class blog. The following is the class blog for Carver 3B: http://mrsbreitbach.blogspot.com/
