A teacher who portrays the application of content standard would understand how interdisciplinary concepts and social skills are interconnected. Teachers should take standards and teach them from multiple perspectives to engage their students’ strengths. This standard encourages teachers to design lessons that ask students to think critically, creatively, and collaboratively to solve problems. I demonstrate the application of content standard by developing lessons that involve real world examples, encourage group brain storming, and by creating questions that can be answered in various modes.
I believe that it is important to show students that everything they are learning can be tied into their real life. Including real life problems provides students with some context for why the purpose behind what they are learning further engaging them. I gave students various restaurant menus, a budget, and asked them to use their math knowledge to spend their money on set items. Students enjoyed this activity because it allowed them to experiment with budgeting in a low-pressure environment.
Encouraging students to problem solve collaboratively is another important element of the application of content standard. I did this by providing opportunities for students to discuss concepts with their partners. While going over word problems that could be solved in many ways, students were asked to work with their partners to think through situations. Not all groups thought through problems the same way, but they reached similar conclusions. I have included a picture of two students working through a problem to share with the class.
Allowing students to model information in various ways is beneficial to the learning process. I provided students with directions and the the opportunity to verbally explain their conclusions, draw pictures, discuss or focus on the numbers as they worked through ideas. This time and freedom allowed students an opportunity to use their strengths to process ideas. Afterwards, students had time to share their ideas with the class and show their peers that there are many ways the same point can be processed and shared.