Domain 3: Components

1. Communicate clearly and accurately
2. Use questioning and discussion techniques
3. Engage students in learning
4. Provide feedback to students
5. Demonstrate flexibility and responsiveness

| MN Standard 4 | MN Standard 6 |

MN Standard 4: A teacher must understand and use a variety of instructional strategies to encourage student development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills. The teacher must:

1. understand Minnesota’s graduation standards and how to implement them;
2. understand the cognitive processes associated with learning and how these processes can be stimulated;
3. understand principles and techniques, along with advantages and limitations, associated with various instructional strategies;
4. enhance learning through the use of a wide variety of materials and human and technological resources;
5. nurture the development of student critical thinking, independent problem solving, and performance capabilities;
6. demonstrate flexibility and reciprocity in the teaching process as necessary for adapting instruction to student responses, ideas, and needs;
7. design teaching strategies and materials to achieve different instructional purposes and to meet student needs including developmental stages, prior knowledge, learning styles, and interests;
8. use multiple teaching and learning strategies to engage students in active learning opportunities that promote the development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance capabilities and that help students assume responsibility for identifying and using learning resources;
9. monitor and adjust strategies in response to learner feedback;
10. vary the instructional process to address the content and purposes of instruction and the needs of students;
11. develop a variety of clear, accurate presentations and representations of concepts, using alternative explanations to assist students’ understanding and present varied perspectives to encourage critical thinking; and
12. use educational technology to broaden student knowledge about technology, to deliver instruction to students at different levels and paces, and to stimulate advanced levels of learning.

Personal Reflections on Minnesota Standard 4

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MN Standard 6: A teacher must be able to use knowledge of effective verbal, nonverbal, and media communication techniques to foster active inquiry, collaboration, and supportive interaction in the classroom. The teacher must:

1. understand communication theory, language development, and the role of language in learning;
2. understand how cultural and gender differences can affect communication in the classroom;
3. understand the importance of nonverbal as well as verbal communication;
4. know effective verbal, nonverbal, and media communication techniques;
5. understand the power of language for fostering self-expression, identity development, and learning;
6. use effective listening techniques;
7. foster sensitive communication by and among all students in class;
8. use effective communication strategies in conveying ideas and information and in asking questions;
9. support and expand learner expression in speaking, writing, and other media;
10. know how to ask questions and stimulate discussion in different ways for particular purposes, including probing for learner understanding, helping students articulate their ideas and thinking processes, promoting productive risk-taking and problem-solving, facilitating factual recall, encouraging convergent and divergent thinking, stimulating curiosity, and helping students to question; and
11. use a variety of media communication tools, including audiovisual aids and computers, including educational technology, to enrich learning opportunities.

Personal Reflections on Minnesota Standard 6

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