Running head: Week One Assignment

Assignment 2A: Telling My Story Using My PDQP

Michael Wigglesworth

National University

May 13, 2018

MAT 690 Capstone

Instructor: Michelle Pengilly Ed.D.

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Week One Assignment

Evaluate your progress in achieving competencies in your chosen TPE domain

I feel that Domain A, Making Subject Matter Comprehensible to Students is one of my

strong suits as a teacher. I feel that this stems from my competency in the subject matter that I

teach. I spend a considerable amount of my time researching governmental affairs and the

political process. As a result, this enables me to explain the curriculum to my students through

the lens of current events and real world examples. The students come to me with daily questions

about political affairs and we use the opportunity to make the needed connections and illuminate

those hard to understand elements of the curriculum.

Identify your strengths and needs associated within your chosen TPE domain

I would say that my biggest strength is my dedication to the teaching profession and my

desire to improve my teaching methodologies. I am passionate about the subject that I teach and

my students can see that. However, direct instruction is my comfort zone and I realize that this

mode of instruction does not work for all students, especially those that are not naturally

engaged, self-directed learners. So, as I progress in my teaching profession I am trying to slowly

replace some of my direct-instruction methods with more interactive learning tasks for students.

Discussing potential TPE competencies to be used for your PDQP

The artifacts presented in my Professional Development Quest Portfolio demonstrate my

strengths as an educator and my progress toward making subject matter comprehensible to

students. The artifacts in Domain A consist of an interdisciplinary lesson plan, a research paper

discussing student grouping methodologies, a formal evaluation by an administrator, and analysis

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Week One Assignment

of student work. In my opinion, he most significant of the artifacts is the interdisciplinary lesson

plan. This lesson has been fine-tuned over the course of the last few years and is specifically

designed to help students synthesize information by having them pull from their foundation of

knowledge in other classes. When students make cross-curricular connections they are more

likely to develop a deeper understanding of the material and retain what they have learned. When

students compartmentalize their learning they are not given the opportunity to challenge the

depth of their understanding. Interdisciplinary lessons help teach students to step out of the

traditional linear thinking of the 20th century Information Age and begin to construct modes for

creative, integrative thinking (Ventriglia, 2009).

Provide a rationale for selecting and completing areas of professional needs and goals

achieved for your chosen TPE domain

As I continue my teaching career I will take advantage of my professional development

community in order to discover new, creative ways to incorporate technology and improve

student engagement in the classroom. Unfortunately, this is not my strong suit as a teacher. As

stated above, my default mode of teaching really is based on the old school model of direct

instruction (I can deliver a pretty epic lecture on 14th Amendment selective incorporation!).

Although this mode of teaching has an important role to play, especially in an advanced

placement classroom, I will seek to add or refine at least one interactive learning activity for each

unit that I teach in my AP government and politics class each year. I feel that this is a reasonable

and achievable goal to set in my professional career.

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Week One Assignment

References

Ventriglia, L. (2009). 21st Century Questioning and Problem Solving. (8th). Col. Granjas

Esmeralda, Mexico: Younglight Education.