Reflective Analysis of Portfolio Artifact Rationale/Reflection NAEYC Standard:

STANDARD 5. USING CONTENT KNOWLEDGE TO BUILD MEANINGFUL CURRICULUM

Candidates prepared in early childhood degree programs use their knowledge of academic disciplines to design, implement, and evaluate experiences that promote positive development and learning for each and every young child. Candidates understand the importance of developmental domains and academic (or content) disciplines in early childhood curriculum. They know the essential concepts, inquiry tools, and structure of content areas, including academic subjects, and can identify resources to deepen their understanding. Candidates use their own knowledge and other resources to design, implement, and evaluate meaningful, challenging curriculum that promotes comprehensive developmental and learning outcomes for every young child. (NAEYC, 2011)

Brief Description of Evidence:

Creating the Math and Science lesson plans for the Engaging the Brain Project, allowed me to design and implement a positive development curriculum for the students. I included real live activities to allow the students to have hands on experience and allow them to be involved. I evaluate the children during the experiences for each lesson to assess that they understood the concepts, and use inquiry tools to help them understand real life experiences. The unit framework required two lessons for Math and Science and it allowed the children to be involved in activities while learning and expressing themselves.

Analysis of What I Learned:

Creating the lesson plans allowed me to use my knowledge and classroom experience to design and implement a curriculum for the students. I was able to evaluate the students to see how well my knowledge of creating the lesson plans benefited the students. Through completion of these lesson plans, I was able to use essential concepts and inquiry tools to identify resources that will deepen the understanding of the students in the Math and Science area. I was able to use positive interaction and social skills to encourage the students to get involved which allowed me to see the children actively in the classroom. I now know the importance of hands on in the early childhood classroom and that will allow me to improve my future lesson plans. Through this artifact I have learned how to create a meaningful and challenging curriculum that will promote the development and learning in my classroom. During the lessons, the children were able to make real life connections between content and the real world.

How This Artifact Demonstrates my Competence on the NAEYC Standard:

This project is just one of many projects in which I worked in the classroom setting to implement my lesson plans for the Math and Science area. Being able to design and evaluate these lessons in action allowed me to know that I met the standard for this artifact. I was able to design, implement, and evaluate each lesson plan while the students were experiencing developmental domains and academic content. Through spending time in the classroom allowed me to build a knowledgeable curriculum for the students in the Math and Science area.