Elementary Education Standards Seven and Eight

Standard 7 : Elementary teachers use developmentally appropriate strategies to design and deliver instruction in all areas of the elementary curriculum.  

As a resource teacher, I follow the pacing guide, common core standards, and the classroom teacher's lesson plans.  I attempt to design lesson plans and activities that offer an extension of the classroom assignments and allow my gifted students to utilize their skills in a real life scenario.  I also try to work with on concepts that the teacher tells me they are struggling on in class.  This year, I found that using performance tasks is excellent way to achieve what I am looking for in my classroom.  Once I know that students have mastered the basic skills necessary to complete the task, I give them a scenario and a job to tackle.  Below is an example of a math performance task and the observation checklist that I used to check for understanding.

Standard 8: Teachers design instructional programs and strategies that build on students’ experiences and existing language skills to help students become competent, effective users of language. 

In order to foster a love of reading in students, it is important to sometimes expose students to literature that reflects their interests.  I often saw my students reading Percy Jackson novels and talking about the Percy Jackson movies.  While reflecting on the Common Core Standards for 5th grade, I decided to design a unit that focused on Greek Mythology.  We discussed what students already knew about myths, discussed elements of the genres, words associated with myths, and the role that myths still play in our culture today.  This was the first time I had used a unit of this nature with my students and they loved it.  Throughout the year, we had been reading novels together and discussing them in a literature circle.  Before reading each chapter, I would pull out hard words that my students my not have known and we discussed them so that they extended their vocabulary and so they would have a better understanding of what they were about to read.  I also gave my students discussion questions for each chapter and we would then come together and discuss their answers during the literature circle.  Below is the Understanding by Design unit that I created for Greek Mythology.