CourseworkInstructional StrategiesITL528 Single Subject Integrated Design IINational UniversityStudent Engagement and SupportSystems of Linear Equations
Teach, Assess, Analyze, Respond
What do we want students to know and be able to do? How will we know if they know the content and can demonstrate the skills? How will we respond if they understand it and how will we respond if they don’t? How do we ensure that our instruction and assessments are engaging, equitable, and accessible for all? These core questions have been at the forefront of planning and developing our Learning Map Lesson in ITL526 and our week-long planning for this course. While we can have a plan and a roadmap for addressing those questions, we won’t know the...
Assessment and FeedbackCourseworkInclusive Education StrategiesInterdisciplinary TeachingITL528 Single Subject Integrated Design IINational University
Reflecting on the Learning Map
The theme for Week Four is The Cycle of Inquiry: Teaching and Reflecting. To this point, we have spent a great deal of time developing our week-long plan to be inclusive, accessible, engaging, challenging, and effective. This course’s key focus is the intentional design of our instruction and assessments. The other key focus is the reflection of the appropriateness and efficacy of that design. While we are not being asked to teach the whole plan, we are being asked to teach and reflect on a lesson from that plan (see the Signature Assignment). For this assignment, we will similarly reflect on...
CourseworkInclusive and Adaptive Teaching StrategiesITL528 Single Subject Integrated Design IIMathematics and Science IntegrationNational UniversityVisual and Performing Arts in Education
Choice Board Assessments with Rubric
This week’s theme and focus is on equitable assessment of learning through multiple means of expression. Equitable assessment is less about the “assessment” itself but more about being explicit about what exactly it is we want students to know and be able to do (definition of mastery in the form of a learning objective) and how exactly we will measure their mastery (through rubrics with clear and objective criteria). The “how” of demonstrating their mastery should generally be up to them, and this is a key component of Multiple Means of Expression in Universal Design for Learning. This assignment will bring the...
CourseworkEquity in EducationGrading PracticesITL528 Single Subject Integrated Design IINational UniversityStudent Assessment and Evaluation
Grading For Equity
In Week One, we identified our students’ assets, knowledge, and needs. We also identified the standards we would be teaching and integrating into our week-long plan and established learning objectives to master those standards. In Week Two, we built our lesson map to include interdisciplinary instruction and activities that would align with and support student learning and mastery of those objectives. All the while, we are striving to create an inclusive, supportive, and equitable learning environment for all students. This week, our task is to create multiple forms of assessments (Week Three LO 1) to track and measure student response...
CourseworkInterdisciplinary LearningITL528 Single Subject Integrated Design IILesson Planning and DesignMathematics EducationNational University
Week-Long Lesson Map
In Week One, we focused on creating an environment conducive to learning and getting to know our students as much as possible. With the self-assessments/pre-assessments and activities described in Week One, we are now transitioning to our lesson design with our students’ knowledge, identities, abilities, and needs in mind. This week’s discussion prompted us to identify the content standard(s) within the content area we wish to teach for this week-long learning map. We were also tasked with identifying a VPA standard and an additional content standard to align with. We built on these standards for this assignment to identify our...
CourseworkInterdisciplinary TeachingITL528 Single Subject Integrated Design IINational UniversityStandards-Based InstructionUniversal Design for Learning (UDL)
Interdisciplinary Instruction
Because students are frequently divided into subject-related classes at the secondary level (e.g., math, science, physical education, music, art, social studies, etc.), it’s easy for them to see subjects as silos of content rather than interconnected and overlapping. It’s our job as educators to facilitate opportunities for students to see the overlap and connection and to help them experience and understand the interconnectedness through our instructional strategies, differentiated learning, and assessment practices. TPE 4.3 prompts teachers to “[d]esign and implement instruction and assessment that reflects the interconnectedness of academic content areas and related student skills development in literacy, mathematics, science,...
Assessment and EvaluationCourseworkInstructional StrategiesITL528 Single Subject Integrated Design IINational UniversityStudent-Centered Learning
Knowing Your Learners
It may go without saying, but it is worth emphasizing regularly that the students we teach are people: people with diverse backgrounds, experiences, identities, capabilities, interests, challenges, and limitations. And at the secondary level especially, students develop and express themselves in real-time as we teach them. As we learned in the discussion this week, when we take deliberate action to understand, value, and build upon our students’ unique attributes, we create an environment that is more conducive to learning. It also gives us the ability to know what students need so we can meet students where they are in their...
CourseworkEducational Research and TheoryInclusive Teaching PracticesITL528 Single Subject Integrated Design IINational UniversityStudent Engagement Strategies
Creating A Classroom Environment Conducive to Learning
A primary focus of ITL526 and now this course has been centered on creating rich learning experiences that are engaging, accessible to all, and tightly aligned with the content and skills of your lessons. Central to this is creating the appropriate scaffolds and supports to meet every student at their developmentally appropriate level, or what Vygotsky described as being within their “Zone of Proximal Development.” Yet, you can have the most engaging, accessible, and authentic lesson plan, but if you have not created a classroom environment conducive to learning, it will all be for naught because students only learn when...
Algebraic Word ProblemsCourseworkITL526 Single Subject Integrated Design INational UniversityStudent Learning and AssessmentTeaching Strategies
Signature Assignment: The Learning Map
Introduction In Weeks One and Two, we developed our ability to unpack a standard and establish criteria for assessing the concepts and skills of our standard. Then, we designed assessments to track learning and instructional strategies to support all students in meeting or exceeding those learning objectives. In Week Three, we focused on the instructional strategies, subject matter organization, and resources needed that are developmentally and academically appropriate for students to learn and progress toward mastery. We will bring the insights we gained from our formative assessments (discussions and assignments), interaction with peers and our instructor, and self-reflection these last...
Algebra InstructionCourseworkEducational TechnologyInclusive EducationITL526 Single Subject Integrated Design INational University
Reflecting on What it Means to Support All Learners
What does supporting all learners look like in your lesson? When we, as teachers, begin the lesson planning process, we sometimes do this in partnership with our course-alike partners and, in some cases, in collaboration with Special Ed teachers we might co-teach with or interdisciplinary teachers we share students with. Whether it is collaborative in nature or done independently, the focus is the same: implementing the appropriate supports so all learners can achieve at high levels. Beyond the initial planning component comes the implementation and monitoring components of the lesson itself, adjusting as necessary and inserting supports as needed. In...
Classroom ObservationCourseworkEducational TechnologyITL526 Single Subject Integrated Design IMathematics InstructionNational University
Fieldwork Observation
Observation of an educator is a powerful way to learn, reflect, and see theoretical concepts come to life. You can also notice how, when something is missing, that impacts student learning and the classroom learning environment. On a given day, a veteran teacher may identify students’ prior knowledge through informal or formal pre-assessments, teach concepts, demonstrate skills, provide timely-actionable feedback, and provide one-on-one support for students needing targeted attention based on their pre-identified or real-time identified needs. Instructions CA Content Standard(s) What is the subject of the class you are observing? What standard(s) are they teaching (if you can identify)?...
CourseworkEducational TechnologyInclusive EducationITL526 Single Subject Integrated Design INational UniversitySocial and Emotional Learning (SEL)
Curating and Sharing Resources
As you read TPE 3.4, 3.5, and 3.6, consider the common theme of needing to match the right resource, tool, or strategy to the needs of our diverse learners. TPE 3.4: Individually and through consultation and collaboration with other educators and members of the larger school community, plan for effective subject matter instruction and use multiple means of representing, expressing, and engaging students to demonstrate their knowledge. TPE 3.5: Adapt subject matter curriculum, organization, and planning to support the acquisition and use of academic language within learning activities to promote the subject matter knowledge of all students, including the full...