InTASC Standard #2

Brief Description of Evidence

During the Fall semester of 2019 in EDUC 240- Introduction to Physical and Health Education for Elementary Teachers, I wrote a grant proposal alongside a lesson plan. With a group of my classmates, we decided on a topic that we viewed important in our community: mental health. Together, we wrote out a grant proposal following this topic, as well as created and implemented a lesson plan that went along with it. The grant proposal covered an all-inclusive, “relaxation” room in school buildings. I then had the opportunity to present the grant and lesson plan to the rest of my class for feedback.

Analysis of What I Learned

As opposed to previous classes, my classmates and I were given quite a bit of leniency with this grant proposal and lesson plan. This gave us the opportunity to decide on a topic that we felt important to our community, as well as discuss ways to tackle this topic. While writing the grant proposal and lesson plan, I was able to take real-life scenarios and find ways to combat them. Focusing on mental health, my group-mates and I were able to do a lot of research about why and how stress affects children, and how we can help them deal with it.

How This Artifact Demonstrates my Competence on the InTASC Standard

I have demonstrated my competence over Standard 2- Learning Differences by actively writing a grant proposal and lesson plan focused on my community.  After discussing issues in the community that could be focused on and what resources are available concerning those issues, my group and I decided to focus on mental health- specifically stress in children. I realize that Muncie is a very diverse city, which is also heavily affected by poverty. Because of that, not everyone will be able to receive the resources necessary to them. Ruby Payne has devoted her life to studying poverty in children and how it relates to their education. I used her Framework for Understanding Poverty model while devising this decompression room, taking into account all of the different needs that we might be able to help meet with it. Implementing a decompression room into school buildings would help provide some of these recourses to students struggling with mental health, as well as to those who may not have it available otherwise. The goal is that providing these resources will help ensure student success in all communities. I believe that creating a positive, all-inclusive environment that offers some of these recourses to help alleviate the stress that children face during the school day will make a huge difference in the overall wellness of the students. I strive to help students meet high standards by providing them all of the resources I am able to. By including students from all backgrounds and offering them resources to cope with stress, I hope to help these students on their paths to success.