Section II: Pre-Instructional Student Assessment and Elaboration

Artifact 1: DOTS Chart

TESOL Domain & Standard:
- Domain 3 Planning and Managing Instruction. Candidates know, understand and use
standards based practices and strategies related to planning, implementing, and
managing ESL and content instruction, including classroom organization, teaching
strategies for developing and integrating language skills, and choosing and adapting
classroom resources.
o Standard 3.b. Managing and Implementing Standards Based ESL and Content
Instruction. Candidates know, manage, and implement a variety of standards-
based teaching strategies and techniques, for developing and Integrating English
listening, speaking, reading and writing, and for accessing the core curriculum.
Candidates support ESOL Students in accessing the core curriculum as they learn
language and academic content together.

For this artifact, the students were told to think of words/pictures that they associated
with the topic, Early Kansas History, and they were instructed to place those words/images on
their DOTS Charts in the appropriate square (whatever the first letter of the word/image was
determined which box on the chart it went in). This activity has students utilizing their previous
experiences, cultural background, and prior knowledge to relate to the new academic vocabulary
being taught in the lesson. When completing this activity, CLD students can use their L1 when
completing this activity so they can make explicit links between the academic language in their
L1 to their L2 (the one CLD student in my class who completed this activity chose not to use their
L1 when completing the activity however). Related to using their L1 and L2 to make links, the
students are making links with the new academic language by using their previous knowledge,
which then provides them with a visual link connecting their previous knowledge to the new
knowledge. This activity also includes the TPSI model for grouping because it starts off as an
individual activity, then the students pair up to discuss what words/pictures they associated with
the topic. The activity also has students creating a visual connection between words so they can
physically see how they relate to the academic vocabulary presented. For the topic used with
this artifact, Early Kansas History, students used their own personal family heritage and past
knowledge about exploring and settling new lands to make connections to the new academic
vocabulary for this topic. When the students paired up to discuss what they put on their charts,
they could add their partners words to their charts, which helped the students make more
meaningful connections to the academic vocabulary. The students then wrote summarizing
paragraphs that utilized the new academic vocabulary, which showed their understanding of the
new vocabulary.
This artifact aligns with what I wrote in Section Two of my portfolio platform because the
DOTS Chart is an activity I mention in section two as an assessment strategy teachers can use to
identify how a unit needs to be paced and how in depth a lesson needs to go based on student
needs. Research has shown how important it is to include students personal background to
make a lesson or assessment more meaningful and DOTS Charts are a meaningful way to pre-

Section 2 Artifact 1 Caption 1

assess students knowledge because it allows students to utilize their prior knowledge,
experiences, and cultural background to complete the activity. This activity supports CLD
students linguistic, academic, and cognitive dimensions and allows CLD students at different
levels of second language acquisition to participate. This strategy makes information more
comprehensible for the students since they are visually making connections between their
previous knowledge and the new academic language, which fits with Krashens (1982)
hypothesis that we acquire language only when we receive comprehensible input (move from i
to i+1 by understanding that input contains i+1).

CREDE Standards for Effective Pedagogy

After reviewing my artifact, I feel that it closely aligns with the Contextualization aspect of
the CREDE Standards for Effective Pedagogy. I would rate myself as integrating on the
Standards Performance Continuum because all students completed the activity individually first
(so they all could document their own knowledge first), and then the students were paired up to
share their knowledge. When the students discussed their DOTS Charts with their peers, they
could share their own knowledge and compare it to their peers, while using the new academic
vocabulary mixed with their social vocabulary.
DOTS Charts are an activity that I use at the start of lessons when introducing new
academic vocabulary that relates to previous vocabulary or previous units in some way. This
activity gives all students the opportunity to utilize their L1 as they are developing and improving
their L2, which assists CLD students in their academic and cognitive performance in the
classroom. This activity also provides students with the chance to collaborate with their peers
which improves the sociocultural and linguistic needs of CLD students. Therefore, DOTS Charts
are a pre-assessment strategy that I will continue to use as I introduce new academic vocabulary
at the start of a new unit or lesson.

Section 2 Artifact 1 Caption 2