Assignment:
1. What are your personal thoughts on the use of electronics by children in and out of the classroom? At what ages do you find electronic use most appropriate? What advice would you give parents regarding the appropriate amount of time for electronic use?
2. If you suspected that a student was not receiving proper nutrition at home, what actions might you take? Be specific.
3. Reflect upon the saying "failing to plan is planning to fail" in regards to effective lesson planning. Explain how an unprepared teacher negatively affects a teacher's instruction and his or her students.
4. Conduct research relating to differentiated instruction. What does differentiated instruction mean? How can a teacher incorporate this concept into their lesson planning? How do student's benefit from differentiation?
5. Benchmark - Wellness Fair
In this benchmark assignment, you will be planning a Wellness Fair for the students and families of your kindergarten class. The Wellness Fair will incorporate the mini-lesson plans you previously created in this course. You will also create a digital invitation to the Wellness Fair.
Part 1: Mini-Lessons Rationale
In preparation for the Wellness Fair, review the health, nutrition, safety, and fitness mini-lessons you designed throughout the course.
In 250 to 500 words, write a rationale explaining your instructional decisions for each wellness lesson. Make sure to include how those decisions directly support the characteristics and needs of the "Class Profile" students.
Part 2: Wellness Fair Event Plan
Health, safety, nutrition, and fitness are topics you have been teaching to your kindergarten students through your mini-lessons; however, it is also beneficial to educate the families on the same topics. Therefore, your goal in this section is to design a wellness fair to educate the families on these topics so they can support their children at home more successfully.
In order for the fair to be effective, you will need community support to assist in providing educational booths in the areas of health, nutrition, safety, and fitness. For this part of the assignment, you will create a 1,000 to 1,250 word plan outlining the wellness fair for your students' families, including how you will involve the community.
Include the following in your plan:
• Agenda: Outline the timing for each activity during the event in a simple agenda format.
• Welcome: Briefly describe how you will introduce the event to all participants.
• Opening Activity: Plan an opening activity for the families and children that will explain the purpose of the wellness event with the community and promote shared values and expectations in creating a healthy, respectful, and challenging learning environment.
• Community Resource Booths: Outline four community resource booths that will provide information on health, safety, nutrition, and fitness (one booth per topic). Include a community resource you will invite to represent the topic, 3 to 4 interesting and important statistics relating to the booth's topic and young children, and a 50 to 100 word description of why that topic is important to the development of young children. Briefly describe how each booth will address the needs of children in the class both with and without exceptionalities, based on the "Class Profile."
• Closing Activity: Plan a closing activity for the families and children that employs strategies and opportunities to ensure future collaboration with families while pursuing the well-being of students in the areas of health, nutrition, safety, and fitness.
• Rationale: Write a 250 to 500 word rationale explaining how the Wellness Fair supports collaboration between faculty, students, families, and the larger community. In addition, discuss why this collaboration is vital to promoting children's development and learning, including children with exceptionalities.
Support your plan with 2 to 3 scholarly resources.
Part 3: Digital Wellness Fair Invitation
Create a digital invitation to promote the Wellness Fair to families, colleagues, and the community as well as share information about the growth of young children in the areas of health, safety, nutrition, and fitness. The invitation should be concise, visually appealing for the audience, encourage participation and collaboration, and include 2 to 3 resources that support the content.
Prepare this assignment according to the guidelines found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center. An abstract is not required.
Submit all three parts as one submission. Parts 1 and 2 may be delivered as one Word document.
You are required to submit this assignment to LopesWrite. Refer to the LopesWrite Technical Support articles for assistance.
College of Education (COE) program competencies and national standards assessed in the benchmark assignment:
COE 1.1
Create developmentally appropriate instruction that addresses young children's characteristics and needs including strengths, interests, and needs that enable each student to advance and accelerate his or her learning.
COE1.3
Collaborate with students and colleagues to develop shared values and expectations to create healthy, respectful, supportive, and challenging learning environments for young children.
COE 1.6
Collaborate with students, colleagues, families, and the larger community to plan for children's development and learning using data-based information.
COE 5.8
Collaborate with students, peers, families, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation.
Use collaboration to promote the well-being of individuals with exceptionalities across a wide range of settings and collaborators.
6. You have been asked to create a professional development presentation for early childhood educators on the topics of mental health and bullying.
Create a 15 to 20 slide presentation that includes a title slide, reference slide, and presenter's notes.
Within your presentation include:
• A child's social-emotional developmental milestones and worldview for ages K-3.
• The effect of stress and the environment on the social-emotional development of a child.
• At least 2-3 activity ideas to incorporate whole group social skill lessons promoting positive peer interactions.
• At least 2-3 strategies for identifying bullying behavior and/or mental health concerns in young children.
• At least 2-3 community resources for both families and teachers concerning children's social-emotional development.
Support your presentation with 3 to 5 scholarly resources.
While APA format is not required for the body of this assignment, solid academic writing is expected, and in-text citations and references should be presented using APA documentation guidelines, which can be found in the APA Style Guide, located in the Student Success Center.
7. Discuss environmental factors that can affect the mental health of early childhood students. Identify possible signs of mental health issues and a recommended resource to share with families or other educators in properly dealing with concerns.
8. In Leviticus 19:18 it states, "You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord." Discuss how this passage relates to bullying and how you will incorporate it into your teaching.
9. Academic relationships are critical to your success at GCU. These relationships include faculty members, student service counselors, and student engagement. After reviewing the week's resources, how would these relationships be important to your success? Please provide specific examples of relationships you plan to develop and why.
10. Support groups are especially important when transitioning into the higher education environment. What support system(s) do you currently have in place? What support groups are available to you at home/community? If you currently do not have a support system(s) or group(s), how will you create a support group that best reflects you, and your academic and personal wellness support needs?
11. For this assignment, you will answer a series of questions designed to help you find and plan your purpose. These questions are broken into an Academic Plan, a Spiritual Plan, and a Career Plan. Use the attached document titled "Purpose Plan" to complete the assignment.
12. What happens if you do not pass a class? What are your financial responsibilities when you drop a class or fail a class? What do you have as a backup plan?
Please read the article "Make a Plan to Manage Personal Finances" by Michael Scheibach found in the Course Materials. This article lists 10 money saving strategies. Choose three of these strategies and discuss how they will help your personal budget? What additional tips or budgeting strategies do you use that were not mentioned in this article?
13. In 250 to 500 words, using the resources in the Topic Materials, please address the following questions using the attached GCU Style template.
1. Based on the objectives and resources from, what do you feel is the main idea you learned about personal finance and financial literacy?
2. In what ways will the tips you read in the topic articles guide your decisions in the coming months?
3. What areas do you feel you need to grow?
4. Taking into account your program of study and potential salary/pay, what impact will that have on your financial security?
Be sure to use the attached GCU Style template to complete the assignment.
14. During your time here at GCU you might be asked to use Microsoft Excel. This assignment will help you to see some of the basic functions of Excel. As you complete the steps in the worksheet, notice the changes within the cells.
Attachment:- Academic-Spiritual Life and Career.rar