This artifact demonstrates my adherence to standard three because it shows that I have thought about how to set up a classroom to maximize instructional time while remaining in complete knowledge of what my students are doing at all times. It also shows how I plan on treating my students with respect and dignity, giving them many chances to improve behavior and stay in the classroom when they do misbehave before they are punished or removed from the classroom.

The essay shows that I have the ability to think about things before they come up and therefore I am prepared for issues that do arise, and am then able to be a stable role model for the ever-changing minds and personalities of adolescents. In both of my practicums thus far, I have used this personal management plan and it has brought many comments from my cooperating teachers, faculty supervisors, and other teachers in the schools as to how I manage a classroom with dignity and respect of the students while still maintaining complete control and never losing my cool.

By allowing for every student to be seen and to see all of the other students in the class, I demonstrate that I see students as social beings and that I see the need to address individual learning differences and special needs. Since I can see every student in the class, I have a greater chance of being able to assess comprehension during instruction. This classroom set-up also shows that I see that adolescent children need to have space to move around and be physically active in order to thrive.

This adaptation paper for a particular lesson plan adheres to standard three in the following ways: first, it shows that I have thought and am able to adapt lessons to a variety of learning needs; second, it shows that I am able to think critically about how to provide various levels of independence for exceptional learners; and third, it shows that I am able to use technology in the best interest of my students while still maintaining their individuality and independence.

Standard three states that educators need to demonstrate an understanding of individual learning differences and special needs. Through this paper, I have demonstrated that I can adapt a lesson plan to any individual student needs while still keeping their learning at a higher level. Through diminishing the length of the assignment for this particular student, I have maintained that he is still creating a product using knowledge, which is the top level of the reinvented Bloom’s Taxonomy, but is not doing so exhaustively. The diminished assignment still uses the same higher level thinking, meeting the learning objectives, but does so in a way that meets the individual needs of the student.