Claim-Evidence-Reasoning

1) Challenging Curriculum-- Minority Perspective:

Claim: Teaching minority perspectives through language arts and social studies is an
important part of my classroom and demonstrates challenging curriculum.
Evidence: During a social studies lesson on Christopher Columbus and Jamestown, I
read the book Encounter by Jane Yolen a minority perspective book. Encounter is the
story of Christopher Columbus landing on the island of San Salvador from the
perspective of a Taino Indian boy who had lived and witnessed the destruction of his
land and culture by the Europeans. Students learned to read and write in an alternative
perspective. Students read an entry in William Boggins Journal about Jamestown,
thinking about it in the point of view of someone other than William Boggins, and then
wrote their own journal entry from that alternative point of view. One student wrote it in
the point of view of a tree in Jamestown, another student wrote it in the point of view of
a dog, and others wrote it in the point of view of Native American boys and girls.
These pictures show the book and the map of where students relatives came from.

Reasoning: I believe that history and language arts should not be taught through a
single point of view. If I were to teach Christopher Columbus from one book alone,
students would miss out on having a full view and from hearing different perspectives in
history. By teaching the minority perspective, a viewpoint which could range from
minority race, gender, age, etc., students have the opportunity to learn through multiple
lenses and to have a multidimensional viewpoint.This will make my students more
informed as learners and citizens of the world.
Connection to PSU framework: A1, A2, A7, C1

2) Current Events:
Claim: I teach and incorporate current events in my classroom because studying
current events helps students understand the importance of people, events, and issues
in the past and in the news.
Evidence: When reading a story about Thanksgiving, I included discussion into the
current refugee and immigration news. I explained to the students that our descendants
have all immigrated at one point, including those people that first came to the New
World. We discussed how they would feel and how they think the children feel currently
running from their old home, looking for safety in a new land.
I brought up UNICEF into our classroom conversation explaining how UNICEF helps
current refugees and migrants. I pulled up the article Syrian refugee children take over
@UNICEF Twitter to tell their powerful stories and read it to students discussing how
these children were looking for safety in a new land. One student decided to research
and write about Trick-or-Treat for UNICEF, which I brought up earlier to the class.
Together, we decided to open it up to the class to fundraise because the money would
go to help other children.

Reasoning: I informed the class of UNICEFs Trick-or-Treat program and how they
could use that themselves to raise money for UNICEF and children internationally.
This led my students to participate and raise money because they learned about the
current state of other children in the world and they wanted to help. This conversation
about current migrants and how their relatives immigrated helped my students

understand migration during Christopher Columbus time demonstrating that learning

about the present can help understand the importance of the past.
Connection to PSU framework: A1, A2, A7, B1, B5, C1
3) Active Learning:
Claim: I used the Project-Based Science Inquiry through a hands-on experiment to
teach students active learning.
Evidence: My students have worked on hands-on Science project, which demonstrates
hands-on learning, research, and displaying information in a 3-D format. These pictures
represent my students work to design a simulation model of a watershed. I split my
students into groups and they drew their model, labeled the parts of elevation, made a
prediction about what was going to happen, and then tested their experiment to learn
how water flows from higher elevation to lower elevation and how the flow of water is
influenced by the geography of the land.

Reasoning:
After reading and taking notes in Science on how water flows from higher elevations to
lower elevations, students were asked to complete a model to simulate their
understanding and make predictions. These predictions were strong, but after the
students made the model they were even stronger, and when the students ran the
simulation, their verbal explanations of what was occurring and why were the strongest
responses they gave. Students that can actively learn something like how water flows
by reading about it in text and then practicing it in the real world, can make stronger
connections to what is occurring.
Connection to PSU framework: A1, A2, A4, A6, A7, B1, B2, B4
4) Multiple Learning Approaches:
Claim: Through the variety of resources used in class,individual, and group work
multiple learning approaches is demonstrated in my classroom.
Evidence:

These pictures demonstrate different books students could physically handle and use
for research. The websites are an example of a good source and bad source to get
information from that students examined. By having students work using different
resources and through a mixture of group and individual work, learning is able to reach
many students learning needs through these different approaches.
Reasoning: In Social Studies, while researching the pop-up book, students used
physical books, websites, and maps for visual, artistic, intrapersonal, and kinesthetic
learners. By providing many different ways for students to connect to the pop-up book

activity and learning of Colonial America, there were multiple approaches to learning
demonstrated by my students in the classroom.
Connection to PSU framework: A2, A6, B1, B5
5) Varied Assessments
Claim: Through varied assessments, I am able to evaluate different levels of learning
comprehension within my classroom.
Evidence: For a lesson plan on fractions, I used a game of Fraction Bingo to assess
student understanding. These pictures show the lesson plan about Fraction Bingo, the
worksheet I used to have students work out their answers to the fraction problems, and
then the Bingo sheet they copied those answers on to.

Reasoning: I believe that students should have varied assessments beyond tests,
papers, and quizzes, but should include more projects like a Science model, a Social
Studies pop-up book, or a Fraction Bingo game that I use in my classroom. When more
assessments are used, students are able to be reached from different intelligences
across the board. If I thought students did not understand fractions from homework, I
could assess them based on their answers to the worksheet, and how many correct
answers they ended up with on their Bingo board, giving my students more chances to
be assessed for comprehension.
Connection to PSU framework: A2, A5, B1, B2, C1
6) Organizational Structures:
Claim: My classroom is structured to organize relationships for learning to create a
climate of intellectual development and a caring community of shared educational
purpose.
Evidence: In my fifth grade mathematics classroom, I was a part of a teaching team
consisting of myself, my mentor teacher, and the Instructional Support Teacher. As I
evaluated students for their understanding, I could divide students up so each teacher
would have a small group. In my writing class, there was an additional aide that would

come in each day to help and I could assign her students to work with specifically. In the
morning, I was able to take a small group to work on grammar as the picture below
shows.

Reasoning: Organizational structures promote academic growth and personal

development. I worked closely with two other teachers, which allowed the three of us to
work more closely with the students in our mathematics class. Through assessment I
could divide students into three groups depending on their strength in a particular
concept, so each teacher would have a small group to work with.
Connection to PSU framework: A2, A3, A6, A7, B2, C1, C2, C3
7) Multiple Learning Approaches:
Claim: Students have multiple intelligences, thus instruction should reflect multiple
approaches to learning.
Evidence: I decided to give my students each a Gardners Multiple Intelligences selfassessment quiz to determine where their strengths and weaknesses as a learner might
be. This sheet shows what each students total was for each intelligence and the
average for the class is listed at the bottom, with the total number of students that had
that intelligence as their strongest category. For each student their numbers were listed
and in bold is their strongest individual intelligence, for some students that had a tie
there are two bolded numbers.

Reasoning: If I can understand each individual students best way to learn, then I can
help them better. This also helps my instruction as a teacher to know that if a majority of
my students are listed as having a strength in learning in nature, then I might consider
do more teaching with nature. If students have a strength in interpersonal or
intrapersonal skills then I can use those strengths in my classroom, but also use those
weaknesses to strengthen their learning ability and the approaches I take to their
learning instruction.
Connection to PSU framework: A2, A5, A6, A7, B1, B2, B4, C1, C2, C3

8) Varied Assessments:
Claim: A self-assessment system enables teachers to differentiate instruction, which
boosts student learning.
Evidence: In my classroom I use Mud, Bug, Glass as a self-assessment for students
to determine how confident they feel about a particular concept. For example, in math
when I was teaching about adding and subtracting fractions I asked students if they
were feeling muddy, buggy, or glassy. Muddy would mean the student does not
understand at all and needs a lot of help, buggy would mean the student somewhat
understands and needs a little help, and glassy would mean the student gets it, feels
confident, and is ready to move on to learn about the next concept.

Reasoning: I believe that when students are able to assess where their understanding
is, then they are able to engage more in their learning. I also believe that students that
are able to explain and know where they need help increases their ability to
communicate their instruction learning needs. Depending on the responses for students,
instruction can be differentiated accordingly.
Connection to PSU framework: A2, A5, A6, A7, B1, B2, C1, C2, C3

9) Active Learning:
Claim: Active learning, in the form of hands-on activities, is an important part of
instruction and student engagement.
Evidence: In Social Studies, students researched different topics in Colonial America
and will make a pop-up book with different subtopics to demonstrate what they have
learned about in class. These pictures are different examples of the room students
made. The first room shows clothing in Colonial America, the second shows Colonial
Laws, and the third shows a Colonial Schoolhouse.

Reasoning: Students that can use their hands to work through the learning process
make learning their own and become engaged in their learning. As I instructed my
students for this project, I left it open for them to decide what topics they wanted each
room to be, so each room is a product of their learning and how they engaged in
learning about Colonial America.
Connection to PSU framework: A1, A2, A4, A6, A7, B1, B2, B4, C2

10) Positive Behavior:

Claim: It is important to create a classroom environment that supports and promotes
positive behavior.
Evidence: Students are given a PAWS (Positive Action With Support) ticket for good
behavior. This may be when a student does something outstanding in class, when they
follow directions, or when they are being courteous to other students in the classroom.
The tickets are put in a bin in the classroom to be pulled for an exemplary student to be
recognized once a month.

Reasoning: By reading students for good behavior, each student in my classroom

knows what is something they should do and behaviors they should not do. Some of
these behaviors are a routine now that they are rewarded for doing and are teaching
them responsibility, which encourages the classroom. As a room, the students have also
received recognition and rewards for positive behavior outside the classroom, too.
Connection to PSU framework: A3, A5, A7, B2, B3, B4, B5