Jonathan Saldana

Vanguard University

EDUG-510

Fall 2017
 "How can I make the content accessible and understandable for the
students in my classroom?"

Throughout classroom discussions and readings, we have learned that students in

our class will affect instruction and classroom management. It should be every teachers

goal to be the most effective teacher they can be for their students to be successful

learners. One of the best initial approaches a teacher can have is to become familiar with

and get to know the different learning styles and needs of every student. Additionally,

being organized and developing the most appropriate methods of instruction is critical for

making content understandable and accessible.

For students in my classroom, I will reflect on the background knowledge that my

students posses and will try to tap into that prior knowledge for better understanding of

new information. From our assigned reading, past experiences create expectations that

certain actions will bring valued benefits (Bandura, pg. 19). Making connections from

past experiences to new and current information will create anticipation thus encouraging

positive behavior and motivation. For example, when introducing a lesson on physical

fitness, I shared with students a personal story of the fitness goals I had created for

myself and included the steps I took in order to achieve those goals. After creating

anticipation and tapping into prior knowledge, I plan on using a direct instructional

approach to relay new information. In direct instructional approach or teacher-centered,

the teacher structures the learning environment and is primarily the conveyer of

information (Burden & Byrd, pg. 123). I like this approach because it will allow me to

lecture and explain to the students exactly what is expected of them. Additionally, and

just as important, it allows me the opportunity to demonstrate and model the behaviors
that are necessary to show successful understanding of a lesson. During modeling, it is

important for students to stay engaged in order to grasp the understanding of something

new. People can not learn much by observation unless they attend to, and perceive

accurately the significant features of the modeled behavior (Bandura, pg. 25). It does no

good to students if a teacher simply begins to explain new information without building

or accessing any prior knowledge. As a result, students may lose motivation if they are

not engage from the beginning and fall behind. Students will have a difficult time

understanding, making connections on their own and learning what the objective is for a

particular lesson.

Furthermore, another attempt to help students understand content would be to

include visualizes and imagery. This would be a form of differentiating instructions to

make content more accessible for students who learn differently or who just learn better

through imagery and visualization. Bandura claims that, observers who code modeled

activities into either words, concise labels, or vivid images learn and retain behavior

better than those who simply observe or are mentally preoccupied with other matters

while watching (Bandura, pg. 27). Symbolically coding information serves as a memory

guide that students create to help them retain and use learned behaviors appropriately and

accurately. Incorporating non-linguistic representation of information through the use of

graphic organizers would be helpful when introducing a new activity. Graphic organizers

help students categorize information recognize systems and help them retain and make

connections to new and past information.

Making content understandable and accessible to every student demands

instructional approaches that target multiple learning styles. Planning, development and
organization of instructional strategies provides students the opportunity to use past and

current information to make real life connections to subject matter and be successfull.

According to the California Teaching Performance Expectations, Connect subject matter

to real-life contexts and provide active learning experiences to engage student interest,

support student motivation, and allow students to extend their learning (TPE, 1.3).

Aligning lesson plans with California standards and expectations facilitates students to

become successful life long learners.

 Reference

Bandura, Albert, 1977. Social Learning Theory

Burden, P.R., & Byrd, D.M. (2016). Methods for effective teaching: Meeting the needs

of all students (7th ed.). New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc.

California Commission on Teaching Credentialing (CTC). (2016). California Teaching

Performance Expectations, TPE 1.3, p. 5