Running Head: CONTENT KNOWLEDGE

Content Knowledge
Meaghan Comstock
Dr. Cheryl Gould
Regent University
17 April 2015

In partial fulfillment of UED 495 Field Experience ePortfolio Spring 2015

CONTENT KNOWLEDGE

Introduction
Being a teacher today means having a firm grasp on the concept of standards
based instruction, better known as content knowledge. Standards based instruction simply
means basing lessons around the standards of education, and then making sure to let the
students know what the goal of the lesson is, what standards they will be learning from
the lesson.
Rationale for Selection of Artifacts
For this competency I chose to include two artifacts from my VBCPS placement.
The first artifact is and article that we read, and the GIST organizer that we did after
reading it. The GIST was used to create a summary of a nonfiction text by having
students determine the who, what, where, when, why, and how of the article, and then the
students had to write a 20 word GIST in which they chose 20 words from the article to
give an effective summary of the article. I copied what Ms. Cross had written for the
GIST, as this was done in the first week of student teaching, and I was not yet instructing
the class. The GIST was done after a lesson on summarizing nonfiction texts, and a
review of what a summary is. This was a necessary skill for them to have for the SOL
because they needed to know how to quickly summarize the articles that were given, and
one of the skills that they were going to be tested on in the fourth grade was their ability
to understand and correctly answer questions about summarizing.
The second artifact that I chose was an assessment that I was preparing my
students at Kempsville Meadows to be ready to take. The assessment covered fractions, a
topic that I introduced to the students, and that we were working on. Unfortunately, I did

In partial fulfillment of UED 495 Field Experience ePortfolio Spring 2015

CONTENT KNOWLEDGE

not get the chance to see this topic through because of the two weeks of snow days that
we had, however, everything that I was teaching the students was in preparation for this
assessment. One of the best features of this assessment is that the SOL was clearly posted
on the top, so the students knew what they were going to be tested one, and there would
be no surprises.
Reflection on Theory and Practice
Content knowledge/standards based instruction is one of those terms that I have
heard throughout all my time at Regent University as an IDS major. It is extremely
important, and for good reason. When teachers understand what standards based
instruction is the students will have an even greater advantage. The use of standardsbased instruction is still a highly debated topic, some states require it, and some are still
up in the air. The important thing with standards-based instruction is to understand what
it means, and as edglossary.org explains, In a school that uses standards-based
approaches to educating students, learning standardsi.e., concise, written descriptions
of what students are expected to know and be able to do at a specific stage of their
educationdetermine the goals of a lesson or course, and teachers then determine how
and what to teach students so they achieve the learning expectations described in the
standards (The Glossary of Educational Reform, "Standards-Based Definition", 2014). I
think that this gives the best description of what standards-based instruction is, it is all
about making sure that any assessment or lesson given to students is done so with clear
standards of learning.

In partial fulfillment of UED 495 Field Experience ePortfolio Spring 2015

CONTENT KNOWLEDGE

Works Cited
Standards-Based Definition. (2014, January 30). Retrieved March 6, 2015, from
http://edglossary.org/standards-based/.

In partial fulfillment of UED 495 Field Experience ePortfolio Spring 2015