In my opinion, I think this standard wants me to recognize the importance of

communicating effectively with students to create an inquiry-based and supportive learning

environment. When considering how to communicate ideas with a specific audience, it is vital to

understand that audience. In the case of a classroom with a diverse student population, it is

therefore necessary to get to know each individual student. Students generally have different

interests and learning styles. During instructional planning time, it is important to consider these

differences when finding a way for the instruction to appeal to each individual student.

Additionally, this standard wants me to recognize that by demonstrating effective written, verbal,

non-verbal, and visual communication techniques, the students have an example to follow for

how to communicate with a diverse group of people. Not only will this enrich their learning

opportunities, but it also provides them with a skill that is necessary throughout life – the ability

to effectively communicate with others.

For this standard, I chose to use a video of myself teaching as the artifact to demonstrate

my understanding and application of the standard. This video clearly demonstrates that I

understand how to “model accurate, effective communication when conveying ideas and

information and when asking questions and responding to students.” Throughout the lesson,

there are evident conversations between myself and the students regarding the material. The

discussion stimulated by critical-thinking questions supports student learning. The critical-

thinking questions challenge students to critically consider the material, in this case pictures of

children soldiers from the Civil War and quotes spoken by them describing what life was like

during the war. As a part of this lesson, the students were also given an opportunity to practice

their own communication skills by fostering collaboration with other students and having the

student pairs present their discussions. This demonstrates that not only do I know how to
“communicate using a variety of communication tools to enrich learning opportunities,” but I

also know how to encourage students to do the same. Although I have used this artifact in

practice, my teaching will change in the future to further meet this standard by providing

students with more constructive feedback in response to their presented thoughts. This will

“challenge students in a [more] supportive manner.” Also, it will encourage more critical

thinking as the students are challenged to analyze the information to a greater depth.

After demonstrating the importance behind communicating effectively with students to

create an inquiry-based and supportive learning environment, I feel more prepared to teach and

learn in a diverse society. ‘Diverse’ can be defined in multiple ways. However, most importantly,

it is necessary to understand how the cultural and gender differences present in the classroom can

affect communication between students as well as between student and teacher. For this reason,

it is important to know and understand the diverse student population. By satisfactorily meeting

this standard, I have demonstrated how to use written, verbal, non-verbal, and visual

communication techniques with this diverse population to enhance their learning. Therefore, this

will prepare me as a prospective teacher to provide the best education for a diverse group of

students. I look forward to using this knowledge in my future and am confident that my future

experiences will further build upon these understandings as well.