Bondurant-Farrar Community Schools

Artifact
Artifact Title: Lesson Plan with Differentiation
Portfolio Author: Christina Cornia
Date: October 27, 2015
Iowa Teaching Standard 2_ Demonstrates competence in content knowledge appropriate
to the teaching position.
a

Understands and uses key concepts, underlying themes, relationships, and different
perspectives related to the content area.
b Uses knowledge of student development to make learning experiences in
the content area meaningful and accessible for every student.
c Relates ideas and information within and across content areas.
d Understands and uses instructional strategies that are appropriate to the content
area.

I chose this artifact to show:

X strength and competency in this standard
Evidence to support attainment of this standard:
Description of artifact and how the artifact meets the standard:
This artifact reflects how I am able to differentiate in my daily math class. The dynamics of my class set up for
easy and effective differentiation in my teaching. During the sixty minute math period four of my students
leave for their special education classrooms. Thirty minutes into the period another six students leave. This
drops the number of students in my room from twenty-four to fourteen. Most often I do the brunt of my direct
instruction and guided practice during the first thirty minutes. This allows all of my math students the
opportunity to learn the material, ask questions, and practice a few examples. The last thirty minutes is more
often independent work. Having a significantly smaller number of students allows me to work closely with the
students who are struggling with a concept. More often than not I am able to work individually with a student
or a small group of two or three students. I find that I am able to better understand the individual struggles of
my students and assist them in a direct way.

Reflection on artifact:
In this particular lesson I had students come to the interactive white board to share answers. I enjoy using my
Promethean Board and I know my students do as well. The downfall to solely using the Promethean Board is
that I can only have one student at a time working through a problem. What I have begun doing is having
students solve the problems on my regular whiteboard. This enables me to have up to five students working
through a problem at a time. In a recent discussion with colleagues I shared this frustration of the interactive
board and my solution to use the regular board. She shared her solution to the same problem. She uses both
boards and has students complete the problems in an alternating fashion. I am excited to bring this idea into
my room. My students are very motivated to solve problems on the board class. I imagine they will be
additionally excited when we are able to incorporate both boards into our daily math routine.