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.
What is this artifact?

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

lesson and implemented 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.

How does this artifact demonstrate mastery of the InTASC or COE standard?
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 students
background knowledge and any misconceptions the students have before delivering the content.
In what way does this artifact contribute to/relate to a positive effect on student learning?
The instructional strategies used in this lesson were intended to be engaging for students.
I wanted my students to be engaged in the vocabulary activity and in order to do that I made
the vocabulary activity student- centered. If I simply provided the terms and definitions to the
students and told them to memorize them, then they would be passive learners, not be thinking
and questioning the information and more than likely not retain any of the new vocabulary.
How does this artifact demonstrate the Planning-Teaching-Learning cycle (judging prior
learning, planning instruction, teaching, assessing, analyzing, and reflecting)?
The lesson demonstrates the planning instruction, of the Planning-Teaching Learning
cycle because I intentionally planned the vocabulary activity to be student-centered. I thought it
was important for students to be active participants in learning vocabulary and thinking about the

terms, so I designed instruction where students had to try to define the vocabulary terms on their
own based on prior knowledge, before actually being provided with the correct definition.