Reflective Connections:

The specific piece of evidence analyzes and reflects on a lesson taught by Mrs. Adams. During this lesson, Mrs. Adams teaches her students about the five components of health-related fitness and explains each component through exercise and a variety of different circuits. Students are unique and have different learning styles such as visual, auditory, read or write, and kinesthetic. Not every student learns the same way, which is why it’s essential to incorporate multiple teaching approaches. This piece of evidence shows mastery of the outcome associated with this competency. The educator understands the importance of differentiating instructional methods to meet the needs of diverse learners so that they can be successful.  
 

Creating activities where visual imagery is incorporated with the subject matter better helps students to encode information effectively. Visual imagery such as pictures, maps, videos, live models, illustrated storyboards, or bulletin boards can help students make sense of the information. Rather than telling students what they will be doing, an educator can have students repeat instructional tasks. This helps students transition into the task more easily when they verbalize what they are doing or going to do. Verbalizing instructional tasks goes hand in hand with reading. Learning supports in the classroom or gymnasium such as posters with directions and pictures are beneficial when meeting the needs of diverse learners. Students can refer back to these learning supports if they are struggling. In this specific piece of evidence, Mrs. Adams displays appropriate instruction adapted to the diverse needs of students through the use of verbal cues, corrective feedback, teacher and student demonstration, visual imagery of each exercise, incorporating letters at the rock wall where students use letters to spell words on the wall, and creating connections between the components of health-related fitness and the exercise students are performing. Providing students with exercise modifications and challenges is another strategy to meet the needs of all students.