Danielle Ruff

InTASC Standard 8: Instructional Strategies

For this particular InTASC standard, the teacher must implement a variety of

instructional strategies in the classroom that meet the needs of the students, help students

understand the material, and challenge them to apply their knowledge. As a teacher instruction

should always be designed based off of the needs of the students. For example during my middle

school rotation at Magnolia, it was appropriate for me to model to the students certain activities

before allowing them to complete the activity on their own. However, in my high school rotation,

it was not as necessary to always model an activity before allowing my students to complete it.

Students in middle school usually need more instruction and modeling because of their

developmental needs, so it was appropriate for me to give more guidance towards the students in

middle school. When planning for instructional strategies in the classroom, it is also important to

consider challenging students and using higher order thinking. A tool to use when planning for

instructional strategies is the Blooms Taxonomy framework. This framework is designed on a

hierarchy system, where teacher can ask questions or design activities from lower level thinking

gradually to the highest order of thinking. Using this framework will help me design

instructional strategies that gradually challenge students and make learning applicable and more

meaningful then just recalling information needed to pass an assessment.

The artifact using demonstrating this standard is my microteaching lesson. I designed a

lesson and taught the lesson to some of my colleagues. My colleagues had the opportunity to

critique both my skills as a teacher in the classroom as well as the instructional strategies I used

for the lesson. This lesson is designed for a seventh grade life science class on the topic of food

chains and trophic levels. I used specific instructional strategies for this lesson to introduce new

vocabulary and then an activity to apply their knowledge using the new vocabulary. The

instructional strategy that was specific for this lesson was to introduce vocabulary in a way

where students define the vocabulary terms based on their prior knowledge before delivering

them the actual definition. This strategy provided for a more student-centered and meaningful

activity because the students had to be active thinkers rather than just passively copying down in

their notes vocabulary terms and definitions. This strategy also helped me assess the student’s

background knowledge and any misconceptions the students have before delivering the content.