Science Teaching Event Introduction
Adapted from: PACT Handbook - Science Teaching Event Candidate Handbook 2008-2009; Performance Assessment for Calfiornia Teachers
Focus on student learning
In this Teaching Event, you will show the strategies you use to make science accessible to your students, and how you support students in learning to read, write, and use academic language. You will explain the thinking underlying your teaching decisions and analyze the strategies you use to connect students with the content you are teaching. You will examine the effects of your instructional design and teaching practices on student learning, with particular attention to students with diverse cultural, language, and socio-economic backgrounds and learning needs.
Select a learning segment
A learning segment is a set of lessons that build upon one another toward a central focus/big idea that reflects key concepts and skills, with a clearly defined beginning and end. It may be part of a larger instructional unit that includes multiple learning segments. If you teach science to more than one class of students, focus on only one class.
555 Science : For the Teaching Event, you will plan a learning segment of about one week (approximately 3-5 hours of instruction) that is centered around key scientific concepts and scientific inquiry skills that underlie specific student academic content standards. The learning segment should also develop students’ scientific knowledge by helping them use scientific concepts to make sense of one or more real world phenomena. The learning segment should include learning objectives for both the curriculum content and the development of academic language related to that content. A Glossary of terms used in the Teaching Event appears on pages 22-24.
554 Science: For the Preliminary Teaching Event, you will plan a lesson (one class period) that is centered around key scientific concepts and scientific inquiry skills that underlie specific student academic content standards. The lesson should also develop students’ scientific knowledge by helping them use scientific concepts to make sense of one or more real world phenomena. The lesson should include learning objectives for both the curriculum content and the development of academic language related to that content.
555 Health: For the Teaching Event, you will plan a learning segment of about one week (approximately 3-5 hours of instruction) that is centered around developing students’ abilities to analyze the effects of their behaviors on their own and/or others’ health or well-being. The learning segment should include learning objectives for both the curriculum content and the development of academic language related to that content.
554 Health: For the Preliminary Teaching Event, you will plan a lesson (one class period) that is centered around developing students’ abilities to analyze the effects of their behaviors on their own and/or others’ health or well-being. The lesson should include learning objectives for both the curriculum content and the development of academic language related to that content.
Submit teaching artifacts and analysis
You will submit lesson plans, copies of instructional and assessment materials, two video clips of your teaching, a summary of whole class learning, and an analysis of student work samples. You will also write commentaries describing your teaching context, analyzing your teaching practices, and reflecting on what you learned about your teaching practice and your students’ learning. The instructions in the following pages will guide you in putting together the instructional materials, video selection, student work samples (see scanning student work), and commentaries required in this Teaching Event.
Assessment of your Teaching Event
Your Teaching Event should clearly demonstrate how your practice meets the California Teaching Performance Expectations (TPEs). A list of the TPEs appears at the end of this Handbook. Scoring rubrics have been developed to align with these professional expectations for classroom teachers.