INTASC+4

=INTASC #4: Instructional Strategies / Problem Solving =

The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage students' development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills.
INTASC 4A | INTASC 4B

 **A. The teacher understands principles, techniques, advantages, and limitations, associated with various teaching and learning strategies.** This INTASC principle is included within my unit plan.

 **B. The teacher uses a variety of teaching and learning strategies to engage students in the development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills.**

__What is this artifact?__ This artifact is a "Geometry" (ge-om-e-tree) that my first grade math class at Forest Ridge Elementary School made during our geometry unit. At the end of each lesson during this unit, the students were required to make "leaves" for our "Geometry." **In order to make a leaf, the students were given a set of requirements or rules that had to be followed**. For example, on the day the students learned about plane figures, the class had to make a shape that had 3 corners and 3 sides. The expectation was that the students had to make a variation of a triangle. However, on the day the students were reviewing plane figures, the students were given the rule, "Create a shape that has 4 sides, 2 larger sides and 2 smaller sides." The students could have made either a rectangle, trapezoid, or parallelogram. **The rule was assigned to correlate with the topic being discussed each day.**

__How does this artifact demonstrate evidence of your mastery of the INTASC principle?__
 * This artifact demonstrates my ability to engage students in the development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills**. Every day the students came to class, they learned a new performance skill. By the end of each class period, the students were **given a problem to solve that they had to use their critical thinking skills in order to solve**. Before the students created their "leaf," the class discussed the skills required for criitcal thinking that they would need to use to make their leaf: **analyzing, reasoning, evaluating, problem solving, and decision making**. Some days the rules for the leaves only had one solution, but there were other days that they had multiple solutions. This activity taught students to think beyond the stereotypical right or wrong answers. If the students could justify their reasoning of why they made their leaf the way they did, then it was correct and put on our "Geometry."

__In what way did this artifact contribute to/relate to positive impact on student learning?__ The students loved coming into class and being able to see what they learned to do the day before. The first day when the students came into class, the tree was bare. There were no leaves on it, meaning the students had not learned anything correlating to geometry yet. However, day by day, the tree began to get fuller and fuller. Throughout class, the students would reference the "red leaves" or the "yellow leaves" and discuss in casual conversation how the concepts they previously learned applied to the new concepts. The "Geometry" empowered the students to **take ownership for their own learning**. They were proud of the leaves they made and wanted them to not only be correct, but quality work. Throughout the entire time the students made leaves, only 2 students turned in incorrect leaves. When I reittereated the rules to both students, they returned to their seats and corrected their leaves without my assistance.

__Where does this artifact fit in the JPTAAR cycle?__ This artifact fits in the **assessment** part of the JPTAAR cycle. The students were assessed according to the leaves they turned in. **If the leaf a student turned in demonstrated the traits or qualities expressed in the rule, then the student presented evidence that they had a strong understanding in the skill being taught.**

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