Standard #5 – Application of Content
The teacher candidate understands how to connect concepts and use differing perspectives to engage learners in critical thinking, creativity, and collaborative problem solving related to authentic local and global issues.
Summer 2015: My goal as an educator is to make my students aware of their impact on the global world, and the interconnectedness off all people. If I offer my learners authentic situations to explore, such as problem based learning, I hope that they will become critical thinkers and question their surroundings when decisions need to be made that will impact their lives. By helping them think beyond their own environment, I hope to offer them a lifelong curiosity of the world and the knowledge that they have the power to change it.
Autumn 2015: We attempt to use inquiry based learning methods as much as possible in our classroom. We have planned a problem based learning unit for our dual credit chemistry II course involving preventing blight in their town by removing abandoned and dilapidated houses, and determining the costs, both economical and social, as well as environmental concerns surrounding this. Being placed at a small, rural school, I hope so show my students how they are members of the global community, and armed with a knowledge of how things around them work, they realize the interconnectedness of us all.
Spring 2016: I continue to impress upon my students the interconnectedness of the world and the role that they play in forming and contributing to the success of our planet. Sometimes, though, starting locally simply means having students realize that the math they learn across the hallway is really used to find answers in chemistry. The further that we waded into equilibrium with Chemistry II, the more that the students realized just this. Chemistry is simply mathematical applications. Mr. Smith said at the beginning of the year that mathematics is the language of science, and there is no truer truth than that.