O2- Offer appropriate challenge in the content area.

O2.- Offer appropriate challenge in the content area. Teacher-candidates plan and /or adapt curricula that are standards driven so students develop understanding and problem-solving expertise in the content area(s) using reading, written and oral communication, and technology. In other words, teachers are responsible for exposing student to not only the standards society has determined high schoolers need to reach, but also problem-solving skills in various mediums. To give you an example, I have included a link to a different blogpost here. This blogpost gives an overview of a unit I wrote and taught about cells. In this unit, students are given information about cells, and then asked to complete several different projects and labs. This unit shows that I can give students a variety of problem-solving tasks that are aligned to standards. During this unit, students had to read about membranes, write about cheek and onion cells, and orally present a project comparing a cell to something of their choosing. Students naturally included technology into this unit through the use of PowerPoint and Prezi to present their cell projects. 


 Through this unit I noticed I have a tendency to hand-hold students through laboratory procedures. I also noticed that I was actually surprised by the sophistication of their cell analogy presentations. From reflecting on my personal behavior towards students, I have realized that students are capable of absorbing and synthesizing the information I give them, they just lack the practice adults possess. Students benefitted from this unit in several ways. They were able to practice their public and laboratory skills and learn about cells; foundations for successful students of biology. I think this was a great unit and students got a lot out of it, but in the future, I would like to work on integrating more standards into lessons in an effort to increase connections between topics.