SSED Week NIne

     This week in Social Studies methods, we received some of the best news possible!  When we return from Spring Break, we are having edTPA boot camp!  (Which I know is exactly what I personally need to be proficient in writing these lesson plans.)  I changed my mind on my unit plan again, which I'm not surprised about.  However, the way the standards are beginning to align with the learning experiences gives me hope that I may have finally found what will click for my unit.  I also took a few more steps toward my PDP this week and some kinds of artifacts I would like to include in my final product.
     I have finally set in stone (well for now) the major parts of my unit plan, including the learning experiences.  I have finally figured out how to align  the learning experiences with the standards I chose.  I believe that I can still tweak my learning experiences to make them incorporate more technology, so I plan to be working on that over Spring Break.  I am excited that my learning experiences are now aligned with exactly what I have planned for my performance task.
     This week, after meeting with Dr. Parker about my PDP, I decided to create a blog site that will hold all my research and all my artifacts for goal one.  I was unsure of how exactly I could display this all this information, but I believe a blog sire will be the best option! I spoke with one of my teachers at Washington who has an ELL student, and she said she would be happy to allow me to interview her about how she facilitates learning for him and moves him towards thinking critically.  For my blog site, I plan to have an interview video, some links to effective resources for ELL students,  several infographics that explain effective strategies for working with ELL students, and an animated video that talks about how to move ELL students to thinking critically.
     For my second goal on my PDP, I began my observation of how teachers interact with students this week.  Prior to this week, I had conducted ample research about the most effective ways to interact with students, and I was surprised to see that many of the "best" ways to interact with students that I found were not implemented in the classroom.  Standard two states that teachers establish a respectful environment for a diverse population of students.  If there is not an open and effective line of communication between all students and the teacher, the environment is not meeting the standard.  My next step on this PDP is to find out simple ways to begin opening up communication in the classroom.  I hope that after my research on this topic, my classroom will have that respectful environment where all students feel open to learn, make mistakes, and talk to me about what they need every step of the way.