InTASC Standard: The teacher understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the discipline(s) he or she teaches and creates learning experiences that make these aspects of the discipline accessible and meaningful for learners to assure mastery of the content (InTASC, 2013).

 

Brief Description of Evidence:  

The evidence I have chosen to represent this standard is a lesson plan completed with a group during my EDUC 240 Introduction to Physical and Health Education for Elementary Teachers class in the spring semester of 2022. In this lesson plan we were challenged to create an activity for a second-grade class following the Indiana Academic  Standards for physical education while also making it cross-disciplinary. My group decided to do a lesson where we taught the group square dancing, having them actually do the dance after learning each step. Through this lesson we were able to discuss some of the history of the dance and then break it down into each individual step, building those steps together to eventually have one flowing dance. 

 

Analysis of What I Learned: 

Through this assignment, I was able to learn that teaching a physical education lesson does not have to be a boring stereotypical gym class game. I was able to learn more about a dance I had never done, and become excited to teach it to others. In staying excited about the lesson, it was clear to see that when the teacher is very into what they’re teaching, the students are more apt to follow along and stay excited as well. I found that there can be a lot of prep work involved in a physical education lesson, too, especially in this case where I, and another member of the group, did not know the dance beforehand. This called for us to practice the dance and ensure we knew it well enough to teach it. I also learned that when the students didn’t realize they were being assessed on their knowledge, they were much more relaxed because in this lesson, my group only assessed the students on their participation and effort to learn the dance. Every student found themselves having fun and staying involved in this lesson, even helping each other when they got tripped up on the dance moves.

 

How This Artifact Demonstrates my Competence on the InTASC Standard: ​

I believe this artifact demonstrates my competence in this standard because I took a physical education lesson and formed it into an exciting experience for my students. I researched the dance, practiced, and mastered it to teach it to my students in an exciting way. Through discussion when we taught the history of the dance, we were able to ask the students how they may use this outside of the classroom, bringing in a real life component to their experience. We were also able to assess them in a non stereotypical pen/paper way, instead the assessment looked at their participation and willingness to try. This allowed the students to have some of fear of failure taken away and instead focus on the actual information presented, and it also opened communication between the students. I found that this connected back to Vygotsky's sociocultural theory in which the student’s develop a better understanding of content in their social environments through collaboration and discussion with others. (Mcleod, 2020).  In this case, the students were able to work collaboratively to complete the dance and help each other when they got tripped up on the steps. 

 

Citation:

Mcleod, S. (2020). Lev Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html

 

Council of Chief State School Officers. (2013, April). Interstate Teacher Assessment and Support Consortium InTASC Model Core Teaching Standards and Learning Progressions for Teachers 1.0: A Resource for Ongoing Teacher Development. Washington, DC: Author.