1. The teacher intern understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the discipline he or she teaches and can create learning experiences that make these aspects of subject matter meaningful to students.

When elections come around, it proves to be great learning material for students. We read the novel Animal Farm, and my students modeled campaign commercials for the two main characters. They used a tool called movie maker to help bring their commercials together. They also included a song, but we played them seperate from the commercials. It helped me to see their understanding of the story in a unique and creative way.

Commercial Lesson Plans

Student Example (their song was "We're not Gonna Take it")

2. The teacher intern understands how students learn and develop and can provide learning opportunities that support a student's intellectual, social, and personal development.

The Odyssey helps students to learn about another time and place. However, it is important also because it helps them to relate it to their own world, and can inspire them to become more familar with their own personal life journeys. After reading The Odyssey, my students created their own personal Hero's Journey through their ninth grade year, to help us understand more about them as people and how they have grown.

Hero's Journey Lesson Plan

3. The teacher intern understands how students differ in their approaches to learning and creates instructional opportunities that are adapted to diverse learners.

The students created a Multi-Genre Research Project . They were able to research any figure of Greek mythology, and they were allowed to choose which genres they would like to present their projects in. It helped students to make connections, as well as create a product that matched their diverse learning styles.

MGP Lesson Plan and Project Guidelines

4. The teacher intern understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage student development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills.

Animal Farm is a really intersting novel, that can lend itself to many activities. My students pretended they were one character, and kept a diary as that character throughout our reading of the novel. At the end they created a project that was symbolic of what they learned about that character and it's allegory connections to Russian History. They presented these projects to the class, in order to help other students see the connections they made.

Character Project Lesson Plans

Pictures of Student Work

5. The teacher uses an understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior to create a learning environment that encourages positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation.

At the beginning of most class periods, during our reading of The Odyssey, my students would work in groups to make connections of what they individually learned about the story the day before to something in modern society.

Odyssey Warm-up Lesson Plans

6. The teacher intern uses knowledge of effective verbal, non-verbal and media communication techniques and appropriate technology to foster active inquiry, collaboration, and supportive interaction in the classroom.

As an introduction to the students working on their own individual political commercials as an assignment for Animal Farm, my students looked at examples of propaganda in Russia, as well as the United States. They also looked at you-tube commericals that they could model theirs after.

Animal Farm Commercial Lesson Plan

Propaganda Slides

7. The teacher intern plans instruction based upon knowledge of subject matter, state and national standards, students, and the community.

Our Odyssey Unit met many standards, and helped the students to try a variety of learning exercises that were specific to us as a learning community.

Hero's Journey Unit

8. The teacher intern understands and uses formal and informal assessment strategies, consistent with instructional goals, to evaluate and ensure the continuous intellectual, social, and physical development of the learner.

After reading Animal Farm, the students wrote an essay. They could choose from many different options, with the ultimate goal of pulling all they knew of the novel together into one main piece of writing.

Animal Farm Essay Lesson Plan and Guidelines

9. The teacher intern is a reflective practitioner who continually evaluates the effects of his or her choices and actions on others (students, parents, and other professionals in the learning community) and who actively seeks out opportunities to grow professionally.

I reflected on some writing my students had done. Each assignment built off of the previous one, and taught me about how to improve the lesson, and what we still needed to work on in class.

Writing Lesson Sequence

10. The teacher intern fosters relationships with school colleagues, parents, and agencies in the larger community to support students and well being.

I am a member of VATE and NCTE. I have attended the VATE professional conference in order to enhance my teaching.

Member of VATE and NCTE

I kept a blog about the reading and experiences I had during my Fall semester. Check it out:

http://veronicamsk.blogspot.com