Mandy Pisciotta

Professor Suk
EDUC 212-01 Foundations of Education
Fall 2015
Rationale Statement- Standard #5
Statement of Standard Five- 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.
Name of Artifact: Previous Service Learning Lesson
Date of Artifact: Fall 2015
Course: EDUC 212-01 Foundations of Education
Rationale Statement:
This artifact is a previous service learning lesson plan. The assigned artifact was to show
a lesson or activity that was created for a previous service learning placement. I was able to use
the lesson that I created for a high school Junior English class regarding the American Dream.
This artifact ties well to standard five because I was able to create a lesson that was appropriate
for the students age and learning level. More specifically, this artifact relates to Performances
5.2, which states The teacher engages learners in applying content knowledge to real world
problems through the lens of inter disciplinary themes (e.g., financial literacy, environmental
literacy). The reason that this performance relates to my lesson plan is because I included real
people who have achieved the American Dream so that the students were able to better
understand the concept of the American Dream by relating it to real people, instead of characters
in a book set in an earlier time period.
While creating this artifact, I really felt like a teacher. I had to come up with a plan of
how to teach something to students in a way that they would understand. Since the class I was
teaching was a C.P. class and not an honors class, I had to make sure that I took into
consideration for the way they learn and their work ethic. I had to create a lesson that would hold

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their attention and make them want to participate. Just creating this lesson and putting thought
into it made me realize how difficult it can be sometimes to be a teacher. It made me realize that I
had to cater to different types of learning styles, which is why I used a worksheet for notes as
well as a visual aid.
I will definitely use this artifact in my future classroom. It has to do with the American
Dream, something that I do not see going away in the classroom any time soon. However, I will
have to make some adjustments to this lesson to be able to use it in future classrooms. I would
have to write out the lesson plan in the correct format and make sure to choose the correct
standards that it correlates to. Since I created this artifact last semester and did not really know
much about writing lesson plans, I kept my lesson plan as is to show where I started in lesson
planning. I am well aware that it needs to be put into the correct format, and I will definitely do
that for my future classes so that I can use this lesson again.
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
http://prezi.com/xagbkv1ja1kj/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy&rc=ex0share (link to
Prezi used for the assignment, the worksheet used as well as examples of student work is
attached to the Prezi as well)