Standard #8 Instructional Strategies
The teacher understands and uses a variety of
instructional strategies to encourage learners to
develop a deep understanding of content areas and
their connections, and to build skills to access and
appropriately apply information.

Artifact

Quizlet/Word Wall

The Quizlet attached above shows the vocabulary words that the students use during the ‘word wall activity’. The word wall is a wall of laminated vocabulary words that are magnetized to a side white board in the classroom. Small groups of students were to choose a word from the word wall and illustrate it for the class by drawing on their tables with erasable marker. I used both Quizlet as a game platform and as an in-class/out-class review website for students to use. In this example, students used printed out vocabulary words and attempted to draw out their vocabulary word. This uses a variety of instructional strategies such as hand-on work, small groups, and creativity to review information.

Killer Asteroids Video /Asteroid Close Call/ Jam board

In this lesson students watched wrote on a jam board bringing up what they previously knew about asteroids and then preceded to watch two videos on asteroids. This was also used to activate the student’s prior knowledge of gravity and Newton’s Laws as well. There are multiple learning strategies used in this lesson all of which promote critical thinking skills. The instructional strategies implemented in this lesson encourages student to use complex thinking skills, and to develop a deeper understanding of how gravity affects our everyday lives.