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. 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 250-500 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 1,000-1,250 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, 3-4 interesting and important statistics relating to the booth’s topic and young children, and a 50-100 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 250-500 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 2-3 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 2-3 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.
This assignment uses a rubric. Review the rubric prior to beginning the assignment to become familiar with the expectations for successful completion.
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. [CEC 1.2; NAEYC 1a; InTASC 1(b); GCU Mission Critical 2]
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. [CEC 7.3; NAEYC 1c; InTASC 3(c), 3(f)]
COE 1.6
Collaborate with students, colleagues, families, and the larger community to plan for children’s development and learning using data-based information. [CEC 7.1; NAEYC 2c; InTASC 1(a), 1(c), 2(f)]
COE 5.8
Collaborate with students, peers, families, and community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation. [CEC 7.2; NAEYC 2c, 6c, 6d; InTASC 9(d), 10(d), 10(e), 10(g), 10(k); ISTE-T 3b]
COE 5.9
Use collaboration to promote the well-being of individuals with exceptionalities across a wide range of settings and collaborators. [CEC 7.3; NAEYC 2c, 6c; InTASC 10(j)]
4. 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.
5. 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?
6. Use the attached document titled “Your GCU Experience” in order to gain insight into your community and college experience.
7. The “Time Management and Study Skills” essay in Chapter 4 of your eBook discusses various tips to help you manage and organize your time better and put the most effort into your studying.
7. Which of these have you had the most problems with in the past, and how do you intend to address these?
8. 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.
9. 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?
10. 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.
Name:
Course:
Date:
Instructor:
11. Topic 4 Purpose Plan: Academic, Spiritual Life, and Career
12.
Directions: 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. Please respond to each of the questions directly on this document (the boxes will expand as needed).
Academic Plan
To help you get the most out of your campus experience, our departments, offices on campus, offer services, events, and resources that enhance your academic pursuits and help you experience Lope life. Find your major and program on the following website http://www.gcu.edu/degree-programs/ and complete the table below:
In which program of study are you enrolled? Or plan to enroll.
Identify some of the program core courses you are looking forward to taking?
Which courses do you anticipate being the most challenging? Explain why.
Spiritual Plan
GCU is committed to integrating faith across all aspects of the GCU community, which stems from GCU’s mission to educate students from a Christian perspective and to prepare them for careers that honor God while serving others. Read through GCU’s “One Foundation” and watch the three videos of President Brian Mueller and Dean Jason Hiles, “Integration of Faith, Learning, and Work,” “Ethical Positions Statement,” and “Doctrinal Statement Introduction,” located at http://www.gcu.edu/about-gcu/christian-identity-and-heritage.php
What did you take-away from these videos? How can you apply this to your experience while at GCU? (50-100 words)
What does service outside of the classroom mean to you? How can you apply service while at GCU? (50-100 words)
Career Plan
Grand Canyon University offers several career service tools to help you discover potential career paths, build a resume, search for employment, and more. Take a few minutes to take the 5 Assessments within the Career Compass located at https://www.focus2career.com/Portal/Register.cfm?SID=810 (Access Code: Purpose). Even if you have completed an assessment such as this in the past, it is good to reassess yourself every so often to reevaluate your goals, focus, and direction based on your growth.
After you complete the survey, fill in the following table:
Based on your Career Compass results, research the details. Then describe at least three job descriptions.
1.
2.
3.
Based on your results, what surprises did you find? If there are none, explain why. (100-150 words)
After completing your current program/degree, what is your plan? (grad school, internship, career plan, etc.)
