Standard+2


 * Standard 2**

**Teachers know how children grow.** The teacher understands how children with broad ranges of ability learn and provides instruction that supports their intellectual, social, and personal development.

Evidence 1:

Rationale 1: Watching how my two year old daughter (actually just over a year at her first exposure to the iPod touch) has quickly attached to the iPod touch and iPad, I have come to realize the potential for the iPod and iPad in schools. Teachers work hard to differentiate in schools, and I think the touch devices offer new limits to the ends of the spectrum. Portable devices (including iPods, iPads, cell phones, etc.) offer both a content delivery system along with access to a global audience (via the Internet and “web 2.0”). Using these machines in school offers teachers a way to model positive, safe use, as opposed to hiding in their bedrooms where they are exposed to the sometimes treacherous online world.

**KSD:**

**2.K.1 The teacher understands how learning occurs -- how students construct knowledge, acquire skills, and develop habits of mind – and how to use instructional strategies that promote student learning for a wide range of student abilities.** My rationale above largely addresses this point. One of the necessary precursors for learning is engagement. Use of technology offers that different dimension or lens for learning that students don't experience (at school) daily. Many use the tools in their personal lives daily (texting, social networking online), but using them in the classroom in academic disciplines is not “natural,” no matter how comfortable they are with the tools.

**2.S.1 The teacher assesses individual and group performance in order to design instruction that meets learners’ current needs in each domain (cognitive, social, emotional, moral, and physical) and that leads to the next level of development.** One great thing about having the tools at our disposal is the ability to offer options to students. If a student is generally oppositional about classroom tasks, the teacher can offer him or her the choice to perform that tasks orally, written by hand, or submitted electronically. Furthermore, some choices may be eliminated by the teacher due to irresponsibility by the student. “I look forward to allowing you to use the iPad for these assignments when I feel I can trust you...”

**2.D.2 The teacher is disposed to use students’ strengths as a basis for growth, and their errors as an opportunity for learning.** Using the technology in classrooms takes an open mind and a bit of a leap of faith for many classroom teachers. Their dedication for content and “getting through the material” needs to be disrupted to make room for 21st century skills. I invest a fair amount of my reputation on the line when I recommend lesson ideas to classroom teachers; if the lesson does not go well, it is a reflection of me. Students are more resilient, fortunately, and are not scarred when the internet connection fails or we have some other difficulty and we cannot use technology that day. They need to see how adults respond to unexpected hangups; they take cues from teachers in these unscripted moments.