Brief Description of Evidence: 

    In the spring semester of 2022 during my EDUC 240 Introduction to Physical Education and Health for Elementary Teachers, another future educator and I created a lesson plan for fourth graders. During this lesson plan, we focused on mental health and physical education for fourth graders. This lesson plan was created to discuss the importance of learning about our emotions and how understanding our emotions is an important part of physical education. For each learner to be able to use their creative skills, they created a paddleboard from cardboard and then colored the paddleboard to match their emotions. Each learner filled out a worksheet exploring their thoughts on why they were feeling a specific emotion. Then with this paddleboard, they played a game of table tennis with a partner. Teachers performed an informal observation of the learner’s skills. 

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Analysis of What I Learned: 

    During the creation of this lesson plan, I learned the importance of creating assessments to monitor each learner's progress. As a future educator, I believe that one general test will not be able to correctly monitor every individual learner's growth. I learned that there are so many different ways you can monitor a learner's growth besides testing.  During the lesson plan presentation, I researched and created questions that were engaging for each learner. Each learner is unique in their way, so I learned how to redirect each learner to be sure everyone is growing in their skills and knowledge. I learned the importance of good feedback from the teachers towards the learners and how much more engaged they are when they feel that they are doing a good job. During this lesson plan, I researched Sara Smilansky’s theory of children learning through play. (Fishhawk, 2020) I created this lesson plan for fourth grade which correctly corresponds with one of Smilansky's theories of play involving play with rules. I learned the benefits of each learner being able to play while also learning and being engaged during class. 

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How This Artifact Demonstrates my Competence in the InTASC Standard:

     This lesson plan demonstrates my competence in standard #6 because this was not the average lesson plan in a classroom. This lesson plan was designed for a health and physical education class in an elementary school. During this lesson plan, I created multiple ways of assessing each learner's progress in the content that was being taught. I had worksheets for each student to fill out, as well as learners being able to be creative with the content they were learning, and we also provided an informal observation of the learners. With this, I was able to assess what children were learning and what children were having a more difficult time. While observing each learner participate I was able to assess if they were able to accomplish the standards that needed to be met. One standard that I wanted to be met with my lesson plan was that students were able to strike an object with a short-handled implement while demonstrating a mature pattern. This standard was able to be assessed with the teacher walking around with the created assessment sheet and noticing what children were able to accomplish the standard and which students needed more assistance with this standard. The learners were being assessed without their knowledge that it was a “test” about their skills. While some students were able to grasp the content more easily using a paper assessment on their own, other students showed their growth in a different way.