Intasc Standard 1

Standard #1: Learner Development. The teacher understands how learners grow and develop, recognizing that patterns of learning and development vary individually within and across the cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical areas, and designs and implements developmentally appropriate and challenging learning experiences.

Standard #2: Learning Differences. The teacher uses understanding of individual differences and diverse cultures and communities to ensure inclusive learning environments that enable each learner to meet high standards. Standard #3: Learning Environments. The teacher works with others to create environments that support individual and collaborative learning, and that encourage positive social interaction, active

To meet this standard, I addressed the different ways my learners grow and develop by addressing social and emotional development by planning an in-depth unit challenging my students’ understanding of cells. The Brain-Targeted Unit plan provides an overview of some of the techniques I used to support my students’ learning styles. Throughout the unit, I addressed six brain targets, one of which included positive emotional climate while teaching for mastery, skills, concepts, and content. I arranged the room into various workstations to account for the various learning skills that were present in the classroom. Students participated in the diverse set of activities to demonstrate their mastery of particular objectives. In addition, I provided a warm welcome by ensuring my classroom had a nice fragrance and soothing music as they entered the classroom. Through the implementation of this plan, I was able to recognize the patterns of learning that worked best for each of my students and differentiate lessons based on students’ mastery levels, which allowed me to make note of the challenges that each of my students faced. This was in addition to the previous reflection that took place prior to the implementation of the plan, which consisted of data analysis and student tracker comparisons. My Brain Targeted Unit Plan supports learner development because it shows the variety of learning strategies that took place throughout the

To meet this standard, I worked diligently to differentiate lessons that accounted for student learning each day. It was imperative that I demonstrate the importance of differentiation prior to beginning my lessons to ensure students had a clear understanding of its purpose towards the big goal. I explained this by comparing differentiation in the classroom to musicians and their music. Each musician has their own specific style of music, yet their overall goal is to obtain fans that enjoy their product. This is relatable because my goal was to have all of my students reach 80% mastery, yet each of my students needed me to provide a different path to help them reach that goal. I taught two blocks of Earth Science, and I remember when one of my blocks did not meet mastery for an objective. When looking at the data, I noticed that many of my students missed vocabulary. Specifically, they struggled with translating the terms we learned within the objective into the multiple-choice questions I posted on the test. I differentiated each lesson to account for the weakness by creating daily vocabulary quiz that would have students match vocabulary terms with its proper definition. I used this as a method to help students retain the information. At the end of each week, students took a weekly assessment that would assess their knowledge of the terms they practiced throughout the week. I was able to communicate the same information