Reflective Analysis of Portfolio Artifact Rationale/Reflection NAEYC Standard:

STANDARD 5. USING CONTENT KNOWLEDGE TO BUILD MEANINGFUL CURRICULUM Candidates prepared in early childhood degree programs use their knowledge of academic disciplines to design, implement, and evaluate experiences that promote positive development and learning for each and every young child. Candidates understand the importance of developmental domains and academic (or content) disciplines in early childhood curriculum. They know the essential concepts, inquiry tools, and structure of content areas, including academic subjects, and can identify resources to deepen their understanding. Candidates use their own knowledge and other resources to design, implement, and evaluate meaningful, challenging curriculum that promotes comprehensive developmental and learning outcomes for every young child (NAEYC, 2010).

Brief Description of Evidence:

I designed and implemented two lesson plans for my ECED 243 Cognitive Curriculum course in the fall of 2012. I implemented the large group and small group lessons in a three to five year old classroom. When designing the project I included the objectives, developmental domains, foundations, materials, planning process, activities within the lesson plan, and ideas to extend the lesson plans, as well as a means for assessing progress and mastery of the topic. After, implementing each lesson, I met with a mentor teacher to go over my teaching abilities as well as to self-reflect on the effectiveness of my lesson.

Analysis of What I Learned:

Through designing, implementing, and evaluating the lesson plans I was able to learn the importance of developing and implementing lesson plans around childrens multiple intelligences. I became more competent in using essential concepts, inquiry tools, and structured academic subjects to allow me to design challenging curriculum that promotes comprehensive development and learning outcomes for every child.

How This Artifact Demonstrates my Competence on the NAEYC Standard:

This project is just one of many projects in which I designed, implemented, and evaluated through lesson plans where I used essential concepts, inquiry tools, and structure of content areas, including integration of multiple academic subjects, and resources such as prekpages.com. I am confident I understand how to provide a challenging curriculum that provides

children with diverse learning opportunities that promote comprehensive development and learning outcomes for every young child.