Making content accessible is on my top ten list of crucial aspects of being a great teacher. When I think about content that is accessible, my mind goes to tasks that have more than one access point. In many math classrooms across the nation, there are a variety of skills that come with students that need to be taken into consideration when looking at curriculum. I believe that the best mathematical tasks are those that allow a student who is two or three level below grade level and a student at grade level to access the problem from their perspective and skill level. Tasks that are accessible by a variety of levels prove that there are different ways to solve a math problem even if it is connected to a certain grade level standard. Finding
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This interdependency is created by the first benchmark under the fourth teacher performance task, which states that “when students do not understand content, candidates take additional steps to foster access and comprehension for all learners.” The literacy planning rubrics, which can be found in the edTPA elementary handbook, connect to the idea that in order to foster access and comprehension for all scholars additional steps must be made. In the beginning of the year, many of these steps will be implemented the next day as a candidate is only getting to know their students. However, as the year continues many of the additional steps or supports are written into lesson plan as a proactive teacher. These planned supports are discussed further in the edTPA within the second rubric illustrating that an above average candidate needs to include a variety of supports that match student learning needs. According to the rubric, the highest level achievable is level 5, which states that “planned supports are tied to learning objectives and the central focus. Supports address the needs of specific individuals or groups with similar needs. Supports include specific strategies in identity and respond to common developmental approximations or misconceptions.” (19). The edTPA rubrics help CalStateTeach candidates like myself understand what it takes to make content accessible through planned supports …show more content…
Benchmark number two connects to the third Rubric, using knowledge of students to inform teaching and learning. This concept is illustrated in the mock edTPA, “I anticipated potential difficulties with domain specific vocabulary in these two informational texts by pre-teaching the vocabulary with simple definitions on a multimedia slideshow. I also added pictures to scaffold the words for English Learners” (3). When the candidate mentions “simple definitions”, I think of student friendly language because so many times objectives or tasks are written using words that do not allow the whole class to access the information. If I have a learning target that that uses vocabulary words that are too difficult to read for a third of my students I have not made the first part of content accessible for all. While people outside of education might feel as if a teacher like myself is not challenging students by using “simple definitions”, I would argue that it is more crucial to use familiar vocabulary and then add in more difficult synonyms. The candidate that is quoted above also mentioned that they used pictures to scaffold the definition of the focus vocabulary words. Although often times pictures are associated with English Learners, images can help all classroom
This interdependency is created by the first benchmark under the fourth teacher performance task, which states that “when students do not understand content, candidates take additional steps to foster access and comprehension for all learners.” The literacy planning rubrics, which can be found in the edTPA elementary handbook, connect to the idea that in order to foster access and comprehension for all scholars additional steps must be made. In the beginning of the year, many of these steps will be implemented the next day as a candidate is only getting to know their students. However, as the year continues many of the additional steps or supports are written into lesson plan as a proactive teacher. These planned supports are discussed further in the edTPA within the second rubric illustrating that an above average candidate needs to include a variety of supports that match student learning needs. According to the rubric, the highest level achievable is level 5, which states that “planned supports are tied to learning objectives and the central focus. Supports address the needs of specific individuals or groups with similar needs. Supports include specific strategies in identity and respond to common developmental approximations or misconceptions.” (19). The edTPA rubrics help CalStateTeach candidates like myself understand what it takes to make content accessible through planned supports …show more content…
Benchmark number two connects to the third Rubric, using knowledge of students to inform teaching and learning. This concept is illustrated in the mock edTPA, “I anticipated potential difficulties with domain specific vocabulary in these two informational texts by pre-teaching the vocabulary with simple definitions on a multimedia slideshow. I also added pictures to scaffold the words for English Learners” (3). When the candidate mentions “simple definitions”, I think of student friendly language because so many times objectives or tasks are written using words that do not allow the whole class to access the information. If I have a learning target that that uses vocabulary words that are too difficult to read for a third of my students I have not made the first part of content accessible for all. While people outside of education might feel as if a teacher like myself is not challenging students by using “simple definitions”, I would argue that it is more crucial to use familiar vocabulary and then add in more difficult synonyms. The candidate that is quoted above also mentioned that they used pictures to scaffold the definition of the focus vocabulary words. Although often times pictures are associated with English Learners, images can help all classroom