Professional Practice Standards
Standard Two
This standard refers to the teacher’s ability to devise lesson plans based on the Virginia Standards of Learning as well as the school’s specific curriculum, effective strategies, resources, and student data in order to meet the needs of all the students. Teachers also take into account their knowledge of the subject matter, the students, the community that the school and the students are a part of, curriculum goals for the class, and input and contributions from people outside of the classroom to ensure that their lesson plan promotes student growth while also being coherent. Achieving the objects of the Virginia Standards of Learning and division curriculum guidelines should be the main theme of every lesson. Establishing short and long-term goals for student achievement can be devised using student learning data collected in the classroom, adjusting the goals as the students’ educational needs change. Differentiated instruction is essential in the classroom, it gives individuals and groups the opportunity to participate in new and exciting activities in the classroom promoting the students personal learning experience. Collaborating with other teachers is also a great way to create learning experiences that have the ability to cover many topics and truly promote student learning.
When designing lesson plans it is important to incorporate Bloom’s Taxonomy and Gardners Multiple Intelligences. Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences discusses eight different forms of intelligence, each of these bits of intelligence can be applied to a lesson plan when considering the variety of ways that students learn in the classroom. Bloom’s Taxonomy is a system used to classify the different levels of thinking and learning. Here is an example lesson plan implementing both theories into a second-grade lesson on the life cycle of a butterfly. At the bottom of the page, you will find the life cycle of a butterfly slideshow, to access the full version with playable videos, click here.
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