Learner Development

The Learner Development standard calls for teachers to understand how learners grow and develop at different academic stages and how to successfully implement lessons to satisfy different individual student needs across the cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical areas. For me, the core of this standard hits at a very important academic skill I have learned at Samford; the art of being a secondary educator means knowing how to facilitate teaching for a variety of age groups and special needs. Through my time at Samford University, I have both learned how to recognize and understand the different stages of learner development both in the classroom and through academic study. Development varies individually across cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical areas, and through age-appropriate learner development. The two artifacts above are lesson plans developed to suit the needs of two different age groups and differentiation specific to each classroom’s needs.

Artifact 1 is a unit plan designed to appropriately challenge and facilitate the learning for 11^th and 12^th grade. As such, it includes larger chunks of information each day, greater needs for individual analysis and conclusion, and facilitates kinetic, auditory, visual, verbal, and written styles of learning. Each individual lesson plan has specific differentiation based on what each lesson asks students to do, including prepared note-taking and additional conceptual assistance for mathematic concepts as per individual student IEPs and 504s. This older group of students is asked to do deeper analysis and is expected to produce high quality, analytic response to more difficult concepts. In contrast, Artifact 2 is a lesson plan designed for 8^th grade students. This lesson is designed with much more guided questioning and carefully scaffolded facilitation of student learning within both individual and group contexts. Students are still asked to analyze but are directed with specific questions to help students reach the correct conclusions about the material. Overall, these two artifacts show my ability to differentiate between different age groups and learning needs in the classroom based on my knowledge of learner development.