Artifact Reflection Artifact Title: Service Learning Date Completed: February 2, 2013 March 7, 2013 Artifact Description In the

e spring of 2013, I completed the required hours for my Intro to Inclusion Service Learning in Mrs. Hartwigs kindergarten class at Neal Wilkins Elementary School in Platteville, Wisconsin. This form shows the evaluation I received from Mrs. Hartwig for my time spent working with her and the students in her class. Wisconsin Teaching Standard Alignment This artifact aligns with Wisconsin Teaching Standard 2: The teacher understands how children with broad ranges of ability learn and provides instruction that supports their intellectual, social, and personal development. This artifact best aligns with Standard 2 because it gives my evaluation from an experienced teacher showing that I am a capable of being successful in a classroom environment with students of different ranges of ability. With this experience, I have acknowledged how students can learn in different ways and how important it is to use different types of materials to help them learn. This form also includes the summative evaluation that shows the exceptional status I achieved for my work in the classroom from my supervising teacher. From this experience, I have learned methods like differentiated instruction, modeling, and engaged learning to aid my teaching abilities. With using methods like these, I am starting to understand how to support students with a wide range of abilities by incorporating the different ways students learn into instruction, leading those instructions by modeling them, and giving examples. I also learned that instructional methods like these have helped students improve their social, personal, and intellectual development through communication, achieving personal and educational goals, and using their learning abilities to grow individually as successful students. An example of my understanding of the learning process for children with different ranges of abilities is when I did centers with students. These centers included math, reading, and writing. The teacher worked at one center, I another, and the last two groups would work by themselves at their own centers or with another teacher if they were available at that time. The groups were divided based mostly on behavior and which students could work well with others without getting distracted or bothered by other students. One example of a center I lead was a math center where we worked with measurements. With this group that I had, there were some students who knew their numbers well and some that did not. To compensate for this range of ability in the students, I had to adjust some of the instructions for the exercise such as making changes in the size of objects we had to measure. This way, the students who could read the higher numbers could measure the bigger objects and the students who could not read the higher

Artifact Reflection numbers could measure the smaller objects. In order for all of the students in the group to equally participate, I had to understand how well the students understood the content of the exercise so I could adjust it to the appropriateness to match the students learning ability. With this experience, I have gained a higher level of achievement in this standard. It has taught me that changing an exercise in a small way can help students understand the content they are learning differently based on the development of their ability to learn. UW Platteville School of Education Knowledge, Skill, Disposition Statement Alignment This experience best aligns with K.S.3.a. Communicates Clearly and Accurately The candidates spoken and written language are correct, expressive and clear, with well -chosen vocabulary that enriches teaching and communicates thoughtfully, responsively, and effectively for a wide range of student understanding and encourages appropriate student language development This artifact addresses K.S.3.a. because I had to be able to communicate with not only the students I was working with but with my cooperating teachers as well. Through communication, oral and written, I had to be clear, concise, and effective with giving instructions and directions because of the wide range of the students' understanding. For example, when I had to work in centers, I had to instruct students differently by either changing the wording or simplifying the instructions so they could understand what they had to do to complete the activity.
After this experience, I have gained a higher level of competency because it taught me

that communication needs to be well thought out and planned when teaching for it to be a tool for instruction and understanding. I am now able to communicate clearly and effectively for appropriate classroom instruction because I can demonstrate different levels of communication by using different academic language and vocabulary based on the range of ability of the students. Secondary KSDs: KS1.d. Demonstrates knowledge of resources KS1.e. Demonstrates Flexibility and Responsiveness KS3.c. Engages students in learning Reflection What I learned about teaching/learning from this experience: From this experience, I have learned how students with different ranges of ability learn and that I have the capability to effectively instruct them all at once. I have learned that with teaching, every activity and lesson has to be effective and fun for the student to engage in the

Artifact Reflection learning that you are trying to provide. For positive and effective engagement, I have learned that instruction is to be supportive socially so that students can grow in a way thats personal for them. Working with children with a different range of abilities reminded me that each student has the ability to grow in their own way, and as teachers, it is our responsibility to provide them with the correct tools of learning and developing the skills to be successful. What I learned about myself as a prospective educator as a result of this experience: As a result of this experience, I have learned that working with students with different ranges of ability is very time consuming and that I must have good behavioral management skills and time management. This is important because the time you spend learning ways to communicate to students with different learning abilities affects the development of their learning. As a prospective educator, I have also learned that it is important for teachers to communicate with other teachers and with the learning styles of each student to gain perspective and ideas to help increase their own learning experience as the teacher so we can help students to be more successful.