InTASC Standard 4: Content Knowledge The teacher understands the concepts, tools of

inquiry, and structures of the discipline(s) he or she teaches and create learning experiences that
make the discipline accessible and meaningful for learners to assure mastery of the content.
InTASC Standard 5: Application of Content The teacher understands how to connect concepts
and use differing perspectives to engage learners in critical thinking, creativity, and collaborative
problem solving related to authentic local and global issues.

As an Algebra I teacher, I have the opportunity guide my students through the transition
from junior high to high school, as most of them are freshmen. In a district where K-12 math
scores are historically low, my students usually come to me at least two grade levels behind.
With the implementation of the Common Core State Standards in Louisiana, and my districts
requirement to use the Eureka Math curriculum, my students and I have a lot of catching up to do
when it comes to being proficient in Algebra I. It is imperative that I have the content
knowledge necessary to break down the material and scaffold the learning experiences for my
students in order to make up for these deficits. Without the ability to make my discipline
accessible and meaningful for my students, I will not be able to guide them towards mastery of
the content.
My passion for math has led me through a number of personal, professional, and educational
experiences in my life. I have always found myself engaging in critical, creative, and problem
solving methods when working with numbers and wanted to ensure that I gave those same
opportunities to my students. Though I have always enjoyed the subject, my love for math came
into fruition when I took an AP Statistics course during my senior year of high school. This

course opened my eyes to the world of data and helped me to realize how applicable statistical
analysis was to my life. My passion for Statistics continued when I declared my undergraduate
major as Statistics with a focus on social policy. After joining Teach For America, I was elated
to find out that I would be teaching math to high school students. Unfortunately, my school site
does not offer any AP math classes. However, Statistics makes up a portion of the Algebra I
curriculum and is a required unit for my students to master. Though it is often a topic that is
overlooked, I use my background knowledge of Statistics to create a learning experience that
makes the unit meaningful for my students.
Content Knowledge
InTASC Standard 4 indicates that a teacher should be able to create meaningful learning
experiences through her understanding the appropriate tools of inquiry and central concepts.
Evidence of my application of this standard can be seen throughout the Statistics Unit Plan I
created to promote exploration, conceptual understanding, and collaborative problem solving in
my classroom. The first lesson of the unit starts with an Exploratory Venture, involving
students in an activity that directly flows from the content, connecting to prior knowledge and
create learning experiences that make the discipline accessible and meaningful for learners to
assure mastery of the content. This diagnostic was helpful as it gave me a better idea of where
my students stood and allowed students to participate in inquiry based learning. By doing this, I
gave my students the opportunity to express their concerns about approaching the unit so that I
would be capable of making abstract concepts more concrete.
To tie together the overall structure of Statistics, I created a Concept Map within the lesson
to share with my students. By using my knowledge of Statistics to break down the objective, I
provided my students with tools of inquiry that would make the discipline more accessible,

successfully preparing them for mastery of the content. This concept map was an appropriate
learning experience for this structure of the discipline as it helped my students visualize the
upcoming unit and begin to understand what the progression of the next few weeks would look
like. The Lesson Slides included as evidence focus on how the graphical representations of
quantitative data were taught. In order to deliver the lesson efficiently, I must show superior
content knowledge and know enough about the topic to be able to scaffold it in a way that allows
even my lowest level students to achieve mastery. The PowerPoint slides from the lesson were
introduced over the course of one week, after we had discussed the importance of data and where
we see data used in our daily lives. When discussing how Statistics can relate to us on a daily
basis, many of my male students were surprised to hear that my college major could relate to
them directly. When I described how statistics and probability are used to rank football players
and predict game outcomes in a Student Investments slide within the lessons PowerPoint, they
became extremely engaged in the topic and wanted to learn more. Seeing my students really
engaged in the content pleased me as it set the precedent for the habits of mind that we should be
using in the classroom.
My students see how passionate I am about using data to drive our instruction as we
publicly Track Our Assessment Mastery each week. On our class achievements wall,
students find lists of top scores, 80% or above assessment mastery, 100% homework completion,
and class averages. Students are also required to track their own progress using a handout in
their binder. This handout has them graph each quiz grade on both a bar graph and a line graph
to follow their progression throughout the unit. In the process of creating these trackers, students
utilize tools of inquiry to figure out how to best represent their tracked data in a way that will
make the data accessible and meaningful. Students understand that the data they collect can be

represented graphically in a variety of ways and used to improve their mastery in the coming
weeks.
In addition to taking and tracking assessments, I have my students display their
understanding of Statistics through a number of creative assignments. Rather than just
administering multiple choice and short answer assessments, I use my deep understanding of
Statistics to create projects that allow my students to explore how the unit relates to them and get
hands on experience with how to collect, analyze, and represent data to tell a story. My deep
knowledge of the content enabled me to create assignments that enable my students to
understand the central concepts of all aspects of Algebra while also making the discipline
accessible and meaningful for my students to achieve mastery of the content.
My ability to assess the degree to which my students understand the key concepts of
Statistics, while differentiating to meet students needs, can be seen in my Statistical Analysis
Unit Project assignment explanation and Rubric. The assignment required students to work
with a partner to collect, analyze, and display data through calculations and graphical
representations. Students surveyed 15 of their family members to record their Name, Gender,
and Age. They then sorted these ages into categories and used the data to create frequency
tables, histograms, and boxplots to present their findings. After graphing their data, students
found the measures of central tendency and engaged in academic discourse about which measure
would be most representative of the dataset. Students findings were organized into a data report
and turned in following a presentation via PowerPoint or poster presentation. Developing this
assignment required me as the teacher to determine which tools of inquiry were the most
important to assess and how I could get the students to understand the structure of the discipline
in a way that was meaningful for them.

Evidence of my ability to make my content area accessible to all of my students while

engaging them in learning experiences that make math meaningful to them can be seen in the
Exemplar Student Submissions for this project. Students were able to display mastery of the
content in a variety of ways, showing their understanding of the central concepts and the
structure of the discipline. The exemplar student submissions include student calculations, a
typed frequency table, and a poster used to present their findings. Being able to share with my
students something that means so much to me really reaffirms my passions for both math and
teaching. I know that my knowledge of Algebra I and my deep understanding of Statistics has
enabled me to become a better teacher and create a deeper connection with my students on both
an academic and a personal level.
Application of Content
Because it was my area of undergraduate study, Statistics is a discipline that I have become
very comfortable with over the years. Though it is a topic I am particularly passionate about,
there are many standards of Algebra I that are more prevalent when it comes to state testing.
One of these standards, quadratic functions, is weighted heavily in the Algebra I End of Course
test and consists of many complex concepts. Critical thinking skills are imperative in my
classroom and are promoted throughout each and every lesson. As the teacher, it is my
responsibility to make the content accessible to all of my students and help them to connect
concepts within the content material. In the classroom, a bulletin board of Problem Solving
Skills is always visible to my students. It is very often that my students often encounter math
problems that require significant amounts of conceptual understanding and therefore become
overwhelmed. This bulletin board gives them a number of different options they can use to
further inquire about the content to reaffirm their understanding of each concept.

Engaging some of my students in critical thinking has been challenging over the past three years,
as many of them have not mastered the content with regards to fluency, making it difficult for
them to think critically and analytically about the information taught in each lesson. To alleviate
this hindrance, I use my understanding of how to break down and connect concepts from each
unit to previous units, acknowledging the learning differences among my students and allowing
my them to visualize the progression of our standards. In this process, I help my students to
understand how learning one skill can make another skill easier to master. In addition, students
are able to relate their understanding of quadratic equations to real-life situations (like throwing a
basketball or diving off a diving board) and make connections between our classwork and their
own experiences by taking into account the different perspectives with which a problem could be
solved.
One lesson that was particularly complex involved students deriving the quadratic formula
from the standard form of a quadratic equation by completing the square. Prior to this lesson,
students had spent months learning and spiraling in the skill of solving linear equations.
Although quadratic equations cannot be solved in the same exact way that linear equations can
be, the concept of using inverse operations to isolate the variable is the same.
In addition to learning how to solve linear equations, students learned how to solve
quadratic equations by graphing, factoring, and completing the square. The last method of
solving quadratics in this unit is the use of the quadratic formula to identify the solutions of a
function. To meet the needs of students with different learning styles and encourage all students
to work collaboratively, I created an exploration assignment that would challenge my students
and reaffirm their understanding of the solving methods we had previously learned.

Evidence of my understanding of how to connect concepts and use differing perspectives to

engage learners in critical thinking, creativity, and collaborative problem solving can be seen in
the Quadratic Formula Lesson Plan written for this exploratory assignment. The presentation
includes a warm-up, which has students recall prior knowledge, a discussion, which allows
students to work collaboratively and offer differing perspectives on the potential approach, and a
critical thinking assignment. Students are reminded about the importance of including our
classroom Habits of Mind and to stay gritty throughout this process. Though many students tend
to shut down in the face of difficult assignments, it was our class goal to encourage our
classmates to push through and collaboratively problem solve.
The Sample Student Calculations display my students progress throughout the unit and
their ability to engage in rigorous activities that require the application of our content. It is
evident through these student submissions that I understand how to connect concepts and use
differing perspectives to engage my students in critical thinking, creativity, and collaborative
problem solving relating to authentic real world issues. While this student did not get the correct
final answer, he showed significant amounts of persistence, dedication, and grit. His critical
thinking skills were outstanding and I was sincerely impressed with his work. At the end of this
lesson, my students presented me with work that connected the concept of completing the square
with the quadratic formula and displayed engagement during the activity. They collaborated
with their peers and offered their groups differing perspectives, challenging their classmates to
be creative and think critically.

Though math cannot often be related to authentic local and

global issues, I feel that my students would be capable of applying their understanding of my
content area to outside issues if they did arise.

Seeing my students be so successful when faced with such rigorous math problems reminds
me how lucky I am to be a teacher. I believe that the most powerful lessons in math are those
that allow students to work independently or collaboratively to discover new methods for finding
solutions. Giving my students the opportunity to explore the content on their own displays not
only my confidence in my students, but my ability to prove my both my knowledge and
application of the Algebra I content in the classroom.