TRB Standard 3Live exemplar: Patrick McDowall
Exemplars on this page: Top - Kristina Laven Middle - Erin Arrowsmith Bottom - Katherine Rycroft (With permission) |
Educators understand and apply knowledge of student growth and development.
Educators are knowledgeable about how children develop as learners and as social beings, and demonstrate an understanding of individual learning differences and special needs. This knowledge is used to assist educators in making decisions about curriculum, instruction, assessment and classroom management. |
Exemplar by Kristina Laven
ReflectionThis evidence piece is a Perspective Writing ELA Lesson plan for a Grade 5/6 class. It is now common knowledge that children develop as both learners and social beings at varying levels. Watts-Taffe, Susan, et al. describe differentiated instruction as a way of teaching that “allows all students to access the same classroom curriculum by providing entry points, learning tasks, and outcomes tailored to students’ learning needs” (2012). This lesson’s overall learning outcome was to engage students in 'perspective writing' but it offered varied methods of instruction (listening, reading, and watching) as well as different assignment options to choose from to speak to varying learner needs.
The assignment options included:
It was fascinating as a student teacher to see each student take to different ideas on how they wanted to express their knowledge of perspective writing. Since the class had the autonomy to choose their task it really allowed all of them to shine, showcasing their understanding of the subject matter in ways that worked for them.
There were so many different types of assignments. Some students wrote journal entries, others drew cartoons, and many used Google Chromebooks to create stories with pictures.
Here is a sample of some different perspective pieces:
The assignment options included:
- A journal entry
- A poem/song
- A cartoon
- Or - Open to any other ways you want to express perspective!
It was fascinating as a student teacher to see each student take to different ideas on how they wanted to express their knowledge of perspective writing. Since the class had the autonomy to choose their task it really allowed all of them to shine, showcasing their understanding of the subject matter in ways that worked for them.
There were so many different types of assignments. Some students wrote journal entries, others drew cartoons, and many used Google Chromebooks to create stories with pictures.
Here is a sample of some different perspective pieces:
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One of the great success stories of this assignment was a student who loves to read, but hates to write. They struggle with handwriting and often can’t fit their thoughts onto the page because their writing is too big to fit in the provided space and it ends up taking too much time. This student opted for “option 4” and asked if they could write a story using Google Slides. From the get-go this student was completely dialed in to the task. They worked so hard on their story and in fact had to get asked several times to put the Chromebook away at the end of the lesson but they just couldn’t stop! I believe that having the ability to type out their work without worrying about the quality of their handwriting and second-guessing their skills helped this student to thrive with this assignment. At the end of it, they were so proud of their work, they printed out an extra copy and stapled it together as if it were bound in book form. They kept sharing with myself and my sponsor teacher how they had just published their first book and they cannot wait to do more. It was one of those “for the books” teacher moments for me.
TRB Standard 3 states that “educators are knowledgeable about how children develop as learners and as social beings, and demonstrate an understanding of individual learning differences and special needs.” The perspective writing lesson plan provides evidence on how it is necessary for teachers to create individualized learning experiences for their students. For example, if I had only asked each student to write a perspective journal entry on a piece of paper in an allotted amount of time, the student in my case-study would not have been able to showcase their understanding to the depth and creativity that they were able to do with the help of a computer.
Giving students the choice of how they want to represent their understanding of perspective writing falls directly under the differentiated instruction definition outlined above by Watts-Taffe, et al. The students were not only given varying assignment options, but the idea of ‘perspective’ was taught 4 different ways:
Works Cited
Watts-Taffe, S., Laster, B., Broach, L., Marinak, B., Connor, C., & Walker-Dalhouse, D. (2012). DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION: Making Informed Teacher Decisions. The Reading Teacher, 66(4), 303-314. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23321311
TRB Standard 3 states that “educators are knowledgeable about how children develop as learners and as social beings, and demonstrate an understanding of individual learning differences and special needs.” The perspective writing lesson plan provides evidence on how it is necessary for teachers to create individualized learning experiences for their students. For example, if I had only asked each student to write a perspective journal entry on a piece of paper in an allotted amount of time, the student in my case-study would not have been able to showcase their understanding to the depth and creativity that they were able to do with the help of a computer.
Giving students the choice of how they want to represent their understanding of perspective writing falls directly under the differentiated instruction definition outlined above by Watts-Taffe, et al. The students were not only given varying assignment options, but the idea of ‘perspective’ was taught 4 different ways:
- Kinesthetic: an opening activity that involved cups and skittles
- A short story that was read aloud to the class
- A printed copy of the short story to read along as I read to them
- A video clip for more visual learners
Works Cited
Watts-Taffe, S., Laster, B., Broach, L., Marinak, B., Connor, C., & Walker-Dalhouse, D. (2012). DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION: Making Informed Teacher Decisions. The Reading Teacher, 66(4), 303-314. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/23321311
Exemplar by Erin Arrowsmith
Evidence 1 - Book Review of Play by Stuart Brown
Book review (Google doc) written for EDPB 509 - Physical Education Methods Stuart Brown, Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul (New York: Penguin Group Inc., 2009).
Reflection 1 - Reviewing Play by Stuart Brown
The first piece of evidence that I have chosen to support TRB Standard 3 is a review of the book Play by Stuart Brown. This book provides excellent background for educators because it outlines why we need to ensure that children play while they are learning - not just when they are in kindergarten or grade 1, but throughout their school years, as well as through adulthood. Play is a book that I have wanted to read for a long time, since I first started working with children, and it links well to the need in TRB Standard 3 for educators to understand and apply knowledge of student growth and development. My book review describes the key facets of Brown’s book, focusing in particular on the importance of play to child development and the promotion of creative thinking, and illustrates how I would apply his thinking to my teaching practice.
I chose this book review as my first piece of evidence for TRB Standard 3 because it provides an excellent synthesis of current research into both animal and human play and its application to lifelong learning. By writing this review of Play for my Physical Education (PE) methods course, I was able to reflect on how Brown’s research and thinking about play applies not only to teaching PE, but also to classroom teaching more broadly. His book reminds us of the importance of teaching playfully because that is how children learn best. It also reminds us that play is children’s work and that play is critical to creative thinking, innovation and problem solving – skills that the redesigned BC curriculum is aiming to encourage in students. So often we revert to thinking that play is unproductive time, and Brown’s book provides an inspiring counter argument to this widespread belief so that we can aim instead at making play central to teaching.
Reading and reflecting on Play has solidified my belief that children develop as learners and social beings primarily through play. Brown argues that children use play to explore the world around them and to experiment with how to interact socially with other children and adults in their lives. For example, Brown points out the importance of rough-and-tumble play to children (e.g. wrestling), and highlights the tendency of parents and teachers to discourage rough-and-tumble play, despite research showing that rough-and-tumble play helps to reduce attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and violent behaviour. Brown also argues that PE and drama games, participating in art and music classes, and integrating play into traditional academic subjects helps reinforce cognitive activities, as well as making learning more fun for children. Play also ensures that a multitude of different learning styles can be supported (e.g. bodily-kinesthetic, musical, visual-spatial, interpersonal).
Like Maria Montessori and L.S. Vygotsky, who both believed that children needed play and free choice in their activities to be able to learn progressively harder skills and concepts,[1] Brown also believes that we naturally follow the type of play that most interests us, whether that be art, music, movement, exploring in nature, or otherwise. He argues that this independence and freedom to choose our play keeps us balanced and fulfilled, whether we are children or adults. Moreover, Brown makes the case for play as the key element behind creativity and innovation in the workplace. With information now readily at our fingertips, we need to focus on teaching our students to think critically and creatively to be able to come up with new interdisciplinary connections and innovative solutions to problems. Brown argues that it is play that is the most crucial aspect behind this type of thinking, which links very effectively to the direction taken in BC’s new curriculum (https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum-updates). It is this linkage to the type of thinking that we are wanting to develop in our students that makes Play an indispensable book for the teacher’s bookshelf.
The knowledge that I have gained through reading Play has helped me to feel confident that a playful teaching style that will better engage learners is the most effective approach for my future teaching practice. It reminds me that the bottom line for teaching is to focus on the best way to ensure that my instruction supports students being interested in what they are learning about, so that they are encouraged to pursue their own passions deeply and play with the subjects that they are exploring. Having a sense of humour in classroom management and a deep respect for each of my student’s unique gifts will also help guide me in encouraging them to play with their learning. Using a balance of formative and summative assessment to guide students along their learning journey, rather than creating stress through standardized tests and a narrow ideal of what success looks like, will also help keep learning playful. Through play, individual learning differences and special needs can also be supported because teachers can focus on supporting each student on their learning journey, rather than measuring all students against the same standards. I am grateful to Stuart Brown for providing this book that I can point to when needing justification for taking a playful approach to learning, and I hope that I can support my students in growing into playful adults, continually engaging in lifelong learning. Brown’s book also reminds me of the need for play in my own life, whether that be through playing viola in a community orchestra, running with my dog, or painting with my daughter, which will be an important part of self-care once I start teaching full-time. In the same way, I will strive to encourage my students to aim to create a similar balance between playful work at school and participating in playful activities that bring them joy in their lives outside school as well.
Notes
[1] Crain, W. (2011). Theories of Development: Concepts and Applications. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Inc., pp. 77-80, 239-241.
Book review (Google doc) written for EDPB 509 - Physical Education Methods Stuart Brown, Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul (New York: Penguin Group Inc., 2009).
Reflection 1 - Reviewing Play by Stuart Brown
The first piece of evidence that I have chosen to support TRB Standard 3 is a review of the book Play by Stuart Brown. This book provides excellent background for educators because it outlines why we need to ensure that children play while they are learning - not just when they are in kindergarten or grade 1, but throughout their school years, as well as through adulthood. Play is a book that I have wanted to read for a long time, since I first started working with children, and it links well to the need in TRB Standard 3 for educators to understand and apply knowledge of student growth and development. My book review describes the key facets of Brown’s book, focusing in particular on the importance of play to child development and the promotion of creative thinking, and illustrates how I would apply his thinking to my teaching practice.
I chose this book review as my first piece of evidence for TRB Standard 3 because it provides an excellent synthesis of current research into both animal and human play and its application to lifelong learning. By writing this review of Play for my Physical Education (PE) methods course, I was able to reflect on how Brown’s research and thinking about play applies not only to teaching PE, but also to classroom teaching more broadly. His book reminds us of the importance of teaching playfully because that is how children learn best. It also reminds us that play is children’s work and that play is critical to creative thinking, innovation and problem solving – skills that the redesigned BC curriculum is aiming to encourage in students. So often we revert to thinking that play is unproductive time, and Brown’s book provides an inspiring counter argument to this widespread belief so that we can aim instead at making play central to teaching.
Reading and reflecting on Play has solidified my belief that children develop as learners and social beings primarily through play. Brown argues that children use play to explore the world around them and to experiment with how to interact socially with other children and adults in their lives. For example, Brown points out the importance of rough-and-tumble play to children (e.g. wrestling), and highlights the tendency of parents and teachers to discourage rough-and-tumble play, despite research showing that rough-and-tumble play helps to reduce attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and violent behaviour. Brown also argues that PE and drama games, participating in art and music classes, and integrating play into traditional academic subjects helps reinforce cognitive activities, as well as making learning more fun for children. Play also ensures that a multitude of different learning styles can be supported (e.g. bodily-kinesthetic, musical, visual-spatial, interpersonal).
Like Maria Montessori and L.S. Vygotsky, who both believed that children needed play and free choice in their activities to be able to learn progressively harder skills and concepts,[1] Brown also believes that we naturally follow the type of play that most interests us, whether that be art, music, movement, exploring in nature, or otherwise. He argues that this independence and freedom to choose our play keeps us balanced and fulfilled, whether we are children or adults. Moreover, Brown makes the case for play as the key element behind creativity and innovation in the workplace. With information now readily at our fingertips, we need to focus on teaching our students to think critically and creatively to be able to come up with new interdisciplinary connections and innovative solutions to problems. Brown argues that it is play that is the most crucial aspect behind this type of thinking, which links very effectively to the direction taken in BC’s new curriculum (https://curriculum.gov.bc.ca/curriculum-updates). It is this linkage to the type of thinking that we are wanting to develop in our students that makes Play an indispensable book for the teacher’s bookshelf.
The knowledge that I have gained through reading Play has helped me to feel confident that a playful teaching style that will better engage learners is the most effective approach for my future teaching practice. It reminds me that the bottom line for teaching is to focus on the best way to ensure that my instruction supports students being interested in what they are learning about, so that they are encouraged to pursue their own passions deeply and play with the subjects that they are exploring. Having a sense of humour in classroom management and a deep respect for each of my student’s unique gifts will also help guide me in encouraging them to play with their learning. Using a balance of formative and summative assessment to guide students along their learning journey, rather than creating stress through standardized tests and a narrow ideal of what success looks like, will also help keep learning playful. Through play, individual learning differences and special needs can also be supported because teachers can focus on supporting each student on their learning journey, rather than measuring all students against the same standards. I am grateful to Stuart Brown for providing this book that I can point to when needing justification for taking a playful approach to learning, and I hope that I can support my students in growing into playful adults, continually engaging in lifelong learning. Brown’s book also reminds me of the need for play in my own life, whether that be through playing viola in a community orchestra, running with my dog, or painting with my daughter, which will be an important part of self-care once I start teaching full-time. In the same way, I will strive to encourage my students to aim to create a similar balance between playful work at school and participating in playful activities that bring them joy in their lives outside school as well.
Notes
[1] Crain, W. (2011). Theories of Development: Concepts and Applications. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education Inc., pp. 77-80, 239-241.
Exemplar by Katherine Rycroft
Katherine's submission demonstrates how one might use one's own blog post as an evidence piece.
Evidence 2: Differentiating Outside the Classroom - Pilot ProjectThis evidence piece for Standard 3, “Educators understand and apply knowledge of student growth and development,” is a pilot project I developed for a grade 11 English language arts class at an international school in Guatemala. The evidence piece is the experience itself and is described in greater detail in my blog post, “Differentiating Outside the Classroom,” as well as the course syllabus and letter to parents linked below.
Standard 3 identifies the need to recognise and respond to students’ individual needs by making adjustments to curriculum, instruction and classroom management strategies. As described in my blog post, this is just what I did with a group of grade 11 students whose classroom behaviour was a direct reflection of unmet needs. The range of English levels in this class was particularly wide and the most advanced students were not being sufficiently challenged. Rather than exposing them to “moredom” (Coleman, 2001) in response to their boredom, we decided to offer students a unique opportunity to participate in a self-directed community outreach project in a high-needs school at the local landfill. The project was also integrated into their life skills and project based learning classes. After consultation with nine students, seven decided to commit to the development of and participation in the project.
As a school, we were continually looking to develop projects and activities to fulfill our mission: “Innovate education in the region, educate students to face their personal challenges, and those of a changing world, prepare bilingual, Spanish and English leaders, with critical-thinking skills, committed to the development of their communities.” The latter part of the mission was particularly important to us and we knew that allowing our students to take a leadership role in this unique learning environment would lead to an opportunity for social development that we simply could not offer from within our school walls. Standard 3 is important because it recognizes the need of such social development opportunities and encourages teachers to respond differently to each student’s individual learning and social needs.
Ruth Coleman describes a truly sophisticated differentiated experience as one that impacts the future as it relates to real life concerns and involves an examination of ethical issues (2001). Leaving the comfort of our serene and secure campus twice a week to learn about and help those most in need in our community was a huge personal challenge to most of the students. This challenging experience, however, allowed the students to push past their physical and emotional discomfort and examine their personal beliefs and values. With respect to Standard 3, this experience taught me that when students are provided the opportunity work in a real-world context and work collaboratively with their teachers to design their own projects and assessment, they are more likely to be enthusiastic about and engaged in the challenge.
As Standard 3 suggests, assessment throughout this project was dynamic and depended largely on the strengths and needs of each student as well as the changing situation at the barrio school. Each Friday, we met in the library to plan, research and reflect on our experiences at the school. Both the formal and the informal reflections became a large part of the assessment method and displayed to me the depth of learning that I don’t believe could have been reached from within our own classroom. I aim to hold Standard 3 true throughout my practice by matching the needs, strengths and interests of my students to opportunities that exist in the community both with in and outside of the school.
Coleman, M. R. (2001). Exploring options: Curriculum differentiation: Sophistication. Gifted Child Today (24)2, 24-25. Retrieved from http://journals.sagepub.com.ezproxy.viu.ca/doi/pdf/10.4219/gct-2001-53
barrio_xxx_english_club_syllabus.pdf
Download File
barrio_xxx_letter_to_parents.pdf
Download File
Standard 3 identifies the need to recognise and respond to students’ individual needs by making adjustments to curriculum, instruction and classroom management strategies. As described in my blog post, this is just what I did with a group of grade 11 students whose classroom behaviour was a direct reflection of unmet needs. The range of English levels in this class was particularly wide and the most advanced students were not being sufficiently challenged. Rather than exposing them to “moredom” (Coleman, 2001) in response to their boredom, we decided to offer students a unique opportunity to participate in a self-directed community outreach project in a high-needs school at the local landfill. The project was also integrated into their life skills and project based learning classes. After consultation with nine students, seven decided to commit to the development of and participation in the project.
As a school, we were continually looking to develop projects and activities to fulfill our mission: “Innovate education in the region, educate students to face their personal challenges, and those of a changing world, prepare bilingual, Spanish and English leaders, with critical-thinking skills, committed to the development of their communities.” The latter part of the mission was particularly important to us and we knew that allowing our students to take a leadership role in this unique learning environment would lead to an opportunity for social development that we simply could not offer from within our school walls. Standard 3 is important because it recognizes the need of such social development opportunities and encourages teachers to respond differently to each student’s individual learning and social needs.
Ruth Coleman describes a truly sophisticated differentiated experience as one that impacts the future as it relates to real life concerns and involves an examination of ethical issues (2001). Leaving the comfort of our serene and secure campus twice a week to learn about and help those most in need in our community was a huge personal challenge to most of the students. This challenging experience, however, allowed the students to push past their physical and emotional discomfort and examine their personal beliefs and values. With respect to Standard 3, this experience taught me that when students are provided the opportunity work in a real-world context and work collaboratively with their teachers to design their own projects and assessment, they are more likely to be enthusiastic about and engaged in the challenge.
As Standard 3 suggests, assessment throughout this project was dynamic and depended largely on the strengths and needs of each student as well as the changing situation at the barrio school. Each Friday, we met in the library to plan, research and reflect on our experiences at the school. Both the formal and the informal reflections became a large part of the assessment method and displayed to me the depth of learning that I don’t believe could have been reached from within our own classroom. I aim to hold Standard 3 true throughout my practice by matching the needs, strengths and interests of my students to opportunities that exist in the community both with in and outside of the school.
Coleman, M. R. (2001). Exploring options: Curriculum differentiation: Sophistication. Gifted Child Today (24)2, 24-25. Retrieved from http://journals.sagepub.com.ezproxy.viu.ca/doi/pdf/10.4219/gct-2001-53
barrio_xxx_english_club_syllabus.pdf
Download File
barrio_xxx_letter_to_parents.pdf
Download File