Candidates manage the classroom learning environment to create success for all students.

The candidate manages the construction of meaning and the application of knowledge as key elements in P-12 student learning environments.

I demonstrate proficiency in using constructivist principles in classroom technique by providing students with a graphic organizer that they complete through the use of discussion time and examples from their own knowledge base. Brooks and Brooks note: “Constructivist teachers recognize that students bring their prior experiences with them to each school activity, and that it is crucial to connect lesson to their students’ experiential repertoires” (Brooks and Brooks, 1999, p. 22)

The graphic organizer helped me to help students create a visual representation of the many facts and concepts inherent in the unit for The Odyssey. The organizer brought to light the magnitude of recurring themes in literature, and helped cement understandings of characters and their relationship to their social and physical environment.

A pre-test and post-test were administered to determine growth in knowledge of epic hero traits and qualities of epics in general. The fact that we were not following a literarily technical definition of epic was also stressed. Students were asked not only to list epic hero traits, but to think of other stories that could qualify as epic in scope, if not literary form.