Educators understand and apply knowledge of student growth and development.

I am a firm believer that in order for students to be successful they need to have a solid understanding of what is required of them to be successful. The best way for me to make sure this is the case is to properly scaffold their learning so as to limit confusion and to continuously build upon their prior knowledge. Throughout my long practicum I focused on this in each of my units, focusing on introducing and explaining new ideas early on and then continuously reusing those ideas throughout the unit.

An example of this could be the scaffolding of creative writing in my poetry unit, where we began with simpler and easier writing techniques before transitioning into more complex creative writing techniques that were based on the skills learnt before. Another example is in my Lord of the Flies unit where we began exploring each chapter with teacher-led discussions that followed planned discussion points that I had to introduce. Throughout the unit we continuously focused on these chapter discussions and transitioned from teacher-led to student-led discussions where the students were comfortable exploring the chapter through their own understanding.

This sort of approach is very intuitive when looking at unit length planning, but it is also very important when planning for the day-to-day instruction. Whenever I am planning my daily lessons I first look at what new ideas or learning methods are being introduced that day and explore ways to make my students understand them and not become overwhelmed. I focus on things like providing examples and definitions for new ideas and going through class-wide activities to explore these new ideas before students are asked to use them individually.

By utilizing all of these methods, and allowing student progress/understanding to guide future instruction and learning, I am confident that my students have the tools to develop new skills and explore new learning methods. Scaffolding allows them to become confident with their learning while also allowing me to track their learning and refocus on areas of weakness within the class.