Jimmy DuHamel

Professor Suk
EDUC 230-01 Education Field Experience
Fall 2016
Rationale Statement-Standard # 4

Standard # and Title: Standard # 4 Content Knowledge

The teacher understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry, and structures of the discipline(s)
he or she teaches, particularly as they relate to the Common Core Standards and the New Jersey
Core Curriculum Content Standards and creates learning experiences that make these aspects of
the discipline accessible and meaningful for learners to assure mastery of the content (NJDoE,
2014, Pg. 5).

Artifact: Course Assignment

Date of Completion: 10/19/2016

Course Completed in: Biol 111-06x Principles of Biology

Rationale Statement:
For this artifact, we were asked to use a previous assignment from another course in our
discipline and have it as a possible assignment that we could use in class, but it could be more
useful to demonstrate my knowledge of the subject area during that specific lesson. My goal is to

become a Middle School Science teacher and since that is the case, I decided to choose an
assignment that I completed in my Principles of Biology class at Raritan Valley Community
College. For this Principles of Biology class we had to find a current event article that related to
anything throughout the semester that we covered and show the relation between our current
event and Biology. For my current event, I chose an article called The brains of men and
women arent really that different, study finds, written by Kate Wheeling. After we read and
summarized the current event article, we had to create a power point that visualized the
correlation between our current event and the Biology material that we covered. This artifact
directly correlates to the performance part of standard four because the teacher effectively uses
multiple representations and explanations that capture key ideas in the discipline, guide learners
through learning progressions, and promote each learners achievement of content standards
(NJDoE, 2014, Pg. 5). This artifact relates to standard four because the use of a current event
relates the newly acquired Biology information to commonly known current issues and events.
This artifact taught me that as a future science educator labs could actually be a very
important part of reinforcing and understanding material and key ideas within chapters and
sections. This artifact also taught me that relating current events to newly learned material could
help a student better understand the material. In addition, as a prospective teacher understanding
that, the relation between materials just learned and current issues or events could provide an
easier understanding or the material for students, but just simply makes the assignment a little bit
easier because they can relate to whatever current event or issue that they should choose.
Obviously, labs are important in the science discipline, and this artifact could be in cooperated as
a lab, because it gives the students a little bit of a hands-on activity while relating newly
mastered information to their everyday lives. Labs also incorporate the hands-on aspect of

science, which for most people is very important because they actually get to observe what they
have been learning in actual time. Finally, this artifact taught me that as a future educator there
are other methods to engage and facilitate material to students then just a traditional lecture and
assessment then move onto the next material to be covered.
This artifact could be directly implemented into my future science class because, in my
opinion, the relation of current events or issues to newly learned material can help a student
understand the information that much more because it brings a personal level to the material.
This can help a student master new material by keeping them interested and focused on the
assignment because it takes a part of everyday life that they find interesting and they then have to
analyze a similarity and difference between the issue and material. In addition, as a prospective
science teacher, I am a firm believer that current events can easily help the understanding of new
material because of that relation to current and personal life. Lastly, this assignment will be
directly implemented into my future classes because I will actually administer three current event
assignments for each marking period.

Reference
Professional Development in New Jersey. (2014, August 4). Retrieved from New
Jersey State Department of Education:
http://www.state.nj.us/education/code/current/title6a/chap9c.pdf