Goal #3:  Learning and Development

The beginning teacher understands how children learn and develop, and can provide opportunities that support their intellectual, social and personal development.

 

To demonstrate my competence as outlined in program goal 3, I am submitting three artifacts: a novice level unit plan, Entre Familia, a lesson on Bullfights, and term paper Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development.

In the unit plan Entre Familia, students have several opportunities to work with partners.  One example of this is the communicative activity in this section.  This collaborative work encourages students to communicate with each other in the target language.  Furthermore, this allows the students to socially interact with other students in the classroom.  In a communicative activity, each pair of students has two different sets of information.  Students must ask each other questions in order to fill in the missing information from the sheet.  While working together in pairs, students are able to informally teach other when one is struggling.  Also, teachers observe student interactions as well as monitor the cognitive development of the students as they put into words what they have learned.  Teachers can quickly see the progress of students by seeing their written work as well.  In this artifact, these two students both displayed outstanding understanding of the subject being taught.

Students at both Pleasant Lea Middle School and Raytown High School participated in the learning of bullfights.  In this lesson, students work in small groups.  In these groups, students go to seven different centers to obtain information about the different aspects of bullfights in Spain.  Students were told to look for information that would help support their position on bullfighting, either for or against.  Each student was assigned a specific role: note taker, reader, summarizer and facilitator.  Students had a short amount of time to work in each center.  Once all students had finished, the entire class discussed the issue: Is bullfighting culturally acceptable or is it pure animal cruelty?  Students had to speak in an orderly fashion.  If students were not being respectful of other students' ideas or beliefs, they would not be allowed to participate further in the discussion.  Students had to justify their answers with information they had researched at the centers or with prior knowledge they may have had on the matter.  The students were all engaged in the activity and all students made comments either for, against or undecided on the topic of bullfighting.  

Although the material was the same, the way in which it was presented was different because of their age levels.  At the middle school, eighth grade Spanish I students were put in small groups.  I set a timer for five minutes at each station.  Students moved from station to station.  At the high school, Spanish II 10-12 graders sat in their groups and the station came to them.  Rather than the students rotating, the colored papers rotated.  The high school students were not as motivated to move around the classroom.

As a foreign language teacher, I embrace promoting cultural awareness and feel that it plays an important role in the development of students both linguistically and socially.  One of the main reasons I chose to write about his theories is because Vygotsky emphasizes the importance of society and culture for promoting cognitive growth.  Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development is a term paper that I wrote in an education class I took at Longview Community College in the Spring of 2003.  It is equivalent to the educational psychology class offered through UMKC’s School of Education TE 403.  In this term paper, I explain and analyze Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development.  I reflect analysis and demonstrate understanding of the cognitive process and of the differing needs of student learners.  In this assignment, I also describe different techniques and classroom strategies that I will put into practice using Vygotsky’s theories as a foundation for my classroom structure.