HTSB – Standard 1: Learner Development

Under standard 1—learner development—comprehending how learners grow and

develop across an array of cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical aspects of

education is an important strategy to implement. As an educator, knowing your students is one of

the fastest ways to develop a relationship with them to understand their unique patterns of

learning so that curricula can be modified and tailored to suit them best. The two artifacts that I

have chosen to satisfy standard 1 are a) my child study observation & paper and b) lesson plan

regarding factoring. Artifact “a” allowed me to put my study and observation of a particular

student (fairly new, Spanish speaking ELL learner) into organized thought and literature. This

artifact demonstrates how Jean Paget’s last two stages—Concrete and Formal Operational—of

cognitive development applies to my student in the observational study. Additionally, it entails

how the two stages affect and influence his learning on a day-to-day basis. The evidence

highlights how his cultural background, including his first language of Spanish, impacts his

social and emotional development in the classroom and among his peers. Article “b” exhibits

how my lesson plan is organized and thought-out to target procedural, factual, and meta-

cognitive knowledge. By routinely developing and organizing my lesson plans to target these

three areas of knowledge, I instill a pattern of what my students should know by the end of the

lesson, how they can perform and apply said knowledge, and combine both aspects to create

high-order thinking skills.