InTASC Standard #8: Instructional Strategies. The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage learners to develop deep understanding of content areas and their connections, and to build skills to apply knowledge in meaningful ways.
As part of our unit on the early republic, students learned about George Washington’s presidency. In order to teach about his presidency, I incorporated a lesson plan comprised of six different stations. These stations are in the drop down menu that extends from the InTASC Standard 8 tab. When designing these stations, I included many different activities that could appeal to every type of learner. However, completing the stations was not the only goal. Students would then use the knowledge they acquired from these stations to make conclusions about whether Washington upheld or denied the constitution. They would then input their decisions into the chart provided below. They would then add to this chart as we would move on to the rest of the presidents in the Early Republic. The students were at liberty to decide whether they believed actions from each early republic president were upholding or denying the goals set forward in the preamble to the constitution. Incorporating student choice and independent thought into class is something I highly value. By creating lessons such as this one, I can provide students with meaningful lessons that they can build their own political and worldly views upon. This relates back to InTASC Standard 8, by giving my students a vehicle to apply knowledge in meaningful ways.