INTASC+Standard+4

STANDARD: The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage students' development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills.
 * INTASC Standard 4**

INTASC.4.B K: The teacher understands principles and techniques, along with advantages and limitations, associated with various instructional strategies (e.g. cooperative learning, direct instruction, discovery learning, whole group discussion, independent study, interdisciplinary instruction). INTASC.4.C K: The teacher knows how to enhance learning through the use of a wide variety of materials as well as human and technological resources (e.g. computers, audio-visual technologies, videotapes and discs, local experts, primary documents and artifacts, texts, reference books, literature, and other print resources).
 * Specific Category of Standard 4**

The teacher comes up with many different strategies to encourage development in a more critical way so that students can increase their ability to think more advanced.
 * Understanding Sentence**


 * Artifacts**
 * Direct Instruction Lesson Plan [|Direct Instruction Lesson Plan.doc]
 * Inspiration Project [|Engel vs. Vitale 1962.isf]

Using a variety of instructional strategies to encourage student development is important because you want your students to become more advanced critical thinkers and problem solvers in all different types of subject matter. The first artifact I chose for this is my direct instruction plan because it is one of my strategies I will use to promote direct instruction and enhance my students critical thinking, problem solving and performance skills. They are given direct instruction in this lesson plan so that they can critically think about the process of plants. Using this direct instruction strategy has created a very good learning experience for my students and allows them to show me their performance skills in art and to also problem solve.
 * Reflect**

The second artifact I chose is my inspiration project because it is another strategy that I will use in my classroom to encourage critical thinking. In using this inspiration project I am able to enhance my students learning through technological resources which I feel is very important because my students need to learn how to use technology now and in the future. This artifact encourages them to do research which involves a lot of critical thinking and to show the performance skills they have in creating such a project.

The two artifacts I have chosen show a depth of my personal theory and philosophy as an essentialist because I want my students to think critically in certain learning experiences and to have an opportunity to problem solve and show their performance skills in any lesson. These artifacts show a wide variety of what kind of learner I am. I am able to construct a direct instruction lesson plan that I can potentially use in my future classroom and the inspiration project shows my experience with technology and how I was able to be a critical thinker. As a future teacher I want to incorporate these types of learning opportunities for my students so they can gain more knowledge, understand direct instruction for ever day life through lesson plans and know how to use technology. Using two different types of strategies this shows that I have acquired different learning experiences and will provide these different learning experiences for my future students. I would like to incorporate these two strategies in my future lessons as I enter PDS 1. I would like to see how well my students learn from these experiences and how it will help them academically.
 * Project**