Proposition+2

// Proposition 2: Teachers Know the Subjects They Teach and How to Teach Those Subjects to Students //
**Artifact: Lesson Plan on Visualization** I recently completed a course entitled Action research and Case Study for the Classroom. A requirement for the course was to identify an area of concern related to our teaching/student learning and develop an action research project around that particular issue. I choose to focus my research on the effectiveness of visualization as a strategy to aid in student comprehension and retelling. Visualization, the creation of “mind pictures” when we are reading, does not automatically occur for all students. Therefore I choose to implement a series of lessons over the course of a two-week period that focused on visualization. Throughout this unit I was able to demonstrate my knowledge of the content, incorporate a variety of learning styles, build upon prior knowledge, as well as help my students make connections to the content being taught. Teaching reading is a complex art. A variety of considerations/determinations are necessary to make in order to best understand the specific area to direct our focus. Is the student struggle to decode thus, affecting their accuracy. Is fluency the issue, affecting comprehension? Does the student have a variety of comprehension strategies that they are adept at in order to comprehend what they are reading? We should never assume that readers are visualizing the text they are reading. If a student is unable to visualize recall is more difficult and retelling tends to be poor subsequently affecting comprehension. Providing my students with the tools necessary to create visualizations is what I strive to do on a daily basis. Incorporating visualization activities more frequently in my lessons is a direct result of the action research I conducted with my second grade students.
 * __Rationale:__**
 * __Reflection:__**