This step allows you to provide a picture of your class that will enable the reader to better understand your instruction and decision-making skills.

Overview

Many factors can affect teaching and learning; these could include the community, the school district, and/or individual school/classroom/student factors.

The information you gather about your teaching and learning context and about individual students will help provide perspective to the reader who will be scoring your submission.

This part of your submission will not be scored, but the information you include should have implications regarding your professional choices.

Your response must be limited to 1,500 characters (approximately one-half page typed). No artifacts can be attached to the Contextual Information textbox.

1. Describe your classroom. Include the grade level, content area, subject matter, and number of students. Provide relevant information about any of your students with special needs.

2.
Describe any physical, social, behavioral, or developmental factors that may impact the instruction that occurs in your classroom. Mention any linguistic, cultural, or health considerations that may also impact teaching and learning in your classroom.

3. Describe any factors related to the school and surrounding community that may impact the teaching and learning that occurs in your classroom.

This step allows you to demonstrate your ability to develop an effective lesson plan that facilitates student learning.

Activity: Planning for Instruction
Develop a lesson plan that you will use with your students in this task. (You may use the template provided.) As you plan, keep in mind such things as fostering student interactions, using technology, and gathering evidence of student learning. Explain your planning process as you respond to the guiding prompts below.

Guiding Prompts

a. What learning theory/method will guide your planning process? Provide a brief description of the theory/method. How will you make use of it?

b.
What learning goal(s) and content standards, state and/or national standards, did you identify for the lesson? How will they guide the planned learning activities?

c.
What is the content focus of the lesson? What related content that the students have previously encountered will support the learning in this lesson?

d.
What are some difficulties students might encounter with the content? How will you address the difficulties?

Enter your response in the textbox below.
The required artifacts for this textbox:

· representative pages of your lesson plan for the whole class (maximum of two pages). Make sure your lesson plan includes the use of technology.

Guiding Prompts

a. What different instructional strategies do you plan to use to engage students in the lesson and to enhance their learning? Provide a rationale for your choice of each strategy.

b.
How do the instructional strategies connect to the learning goal(s) to facilitate student learning?

c.
What informed your decisions to use individual, small-group, and/or whole-group instruction to facilitate student learning?

This step allows you to demonstrate your ability to differentiate instruction for individual students.

Activity: Differentiating Instruction
From the whole class, select two students who reflect different learning needs. Refer to them as Focus Student 1 and Focus Student 2. Then respond to the guiding prompts below.

Guiding Prompts

Focus Student 1:

a.
Identify Focus Student 1’s learning strengths and challenges related to the learning goal(s) of the lesson.

b.

Describe how you will differentiate specific parts of your lesson plan to help Focus Student 1 meet the learning goal(s) of the lesson. Provide a rationale.

c.

What evidence will you collect to show the progress Focus Student 1 makes toward the learning goal(s)?

Focus Student 2:

a.
Identify Focus Student 2’s learning strengths and challenges related to the learning goal(s) of the lesson.

b.

Describe how you will differentiate specific parts of your lesson plan to help Focus Student 2 meet the learning goal(s) of the lesson. Provide a rationale.

c.

What evidence will you collect to show the progress Focus Student 2 makes toward the learning goal(s)?

Enter your response in the textbox below.
The required artifacts for this textbox:

·
a differentiated lesson plan for Focus Student 1 (maximum of one page)

·
a differentiated lesson plan for Focus Student 2 (maximum of one page)

This step allows you to demonstrate your ability to analyze a lesson and evidence of student learning.

Activity: Analyzing the Instruction
After you have implemented the lesson, respond to the guiding prompts below.

Guiding Prompts

a.
To what extent did the lesson, including instructional strategies, learning activities, materials, resources, and technology, help to facilitate student learning? How does the evidence you collected support this finding?

b.

How did the students use the content presented to demonstrate meaningful learning? Provide specific examples from the lesson and from the student work to support your analysis.

c.

While you were teaching, what adjustments to the lesson did you implement for the whole class to better support student engagement and learning? Provide examples to support your decisions.

d.

What steps did you take to foster teacher-to-student and student-to-student interactions? How did they impact student engagement and learning?

e.

What feedback did you provide during the lesson to facilitate student learning? What impact did the feedback have on student learning? Provide specific examples.

Enter your response in the textbox below.
The required artifact for this textbox:

·
a student work sample from any member of the class other than the two Focus Students (maximum of one page)

Guiding Prompts

a.
To what extent did each of the two Focus Students achieve the learning goal(s) of the lesson? Cite examples to support your analysis.

b.

How did your differentiation of specific parts of the lesson help each of the two Focus Students meet the learning goal(s)? Cite examples to support your analysis.

Enter your response in the textbox below. The required artifacts for this textbox:

·
a student work sample from Focus Student 1 (maximum of one page)

·
a student work sample from Focus Student 2 (maximum of one page)

This step allows you to reflect on the strengths of your lesson as well as on components of your lesson that need improvement.

Activity: Reflecting After Instruction
Think about your lesson plan, the lesson you taught, and evidence of student learning. Then respond to the guiding prompts below.

Guiding Prompts

a.
What specific instructional strategies, learning activities, materials, resources, and technology will you use to help students who did not achieve the learning goal(s)? Describe how these lesson components will help the students achieve the learning goal(s).

b.

How will you use your analysis of the lesson and the evidence of student learning to guide your planning of future lessons for the whole class? Provide specific examples.