Emily Weigand

Professor Suk

EDUC 230-02 Education Field Experience

Fall 2021

Rationale Statement- Standard #1

Standard #1 Learner Development

The teacher understands how learners grow and develop, recognizing that patterns of learning

and development vary individually within and across the cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional

and physical areas, and designs and implements developmentally appropriate and challenging

learning experiences (New Jersey Professional Standards for Teachers Alignment with InTASC,

2014, p. 1).

Artifact: Observation report #4- The Four Domains of the Child

Date of completion: December 2021

Course completed in: EDUC 230-02 Education Field Experience

Rationale Statement:

The artifact that I am using for this rationale statement is observation report #4 from my live

field experience in a private preschool classroom. This observation report is almost like a part

two of observation report #3. For the first one, I was to collect data about the student I was going

to spend the semester observing, and record their progress throughout. For this observation

report, I was to give data that is most recent, sharing any progress the child has made and what

domain. This artifact relates to standard 1.i.1 “the teacher regularly assesses individual and group
performance in order to design and modify instruction to meet learners’ needs in each area of

development (cognitive, linguistic, social, emotional, and physical) and scaffolds the next level

of development (New Jersey Professional Standards for Teachers Alignment with InTASC,

2014, p. 2). This standard mentions that the instructor assesses the learners’ needs in the five

areas of development, which is almost exactly what I was doing with this observation. I had to

spend hours observing this particular student in order to figure out what areas of development he

needs assistance in, and what recommendations to make.

This observation report was fairly difficult to create, mostly because I feel that one semester was

not enough time to fully witness the progress that student M has made. Because I only had a

limited amount of time, I had to really zero in on some of the smaller progressions he has made

and run with them. I feel that this observation would have been a lot easier to write if we were

with the same students for a whole school year or maybe even 60 hours in one semester, so we

could see them on a day to day basis and observe their learning.

This artifact can be beneficial to my future teacher self because I can use it as a reminder that

progress is defined in many different ways. A student might flourish socially and physically, but

really struggle with the cognitive area of development.

References:

New Jersey Professional Standards for Teachers for Teachers alignment with InTASC. (2014,

May 5). The Official Web Site for The State of New Jersey. Retrieved October 4, 2021, from

https://www.state.nj.us/education/profdev/requirements/standards/docs/ProfStandardsforTeacher

sAlignmentwithInTASC.pdf