Syllabus overview, key assignments, reflections, and artifacts from this course.
Overseen by Ms. Darla Kay Hill, Module 1 of the Teach-Now program was built to equip me with the tools and orientation I'd need for the rest of the Moreland program, get me comfortable navigating the Teach-Now program systems, and lay the first building blocks of this professional e-portfolio.
Core topics covered in this module:
ED 501 Questionnaire
1. How can the EdPuzzle you completed in the previous assignment guide you as you progress through this program?
The EdPuzzle video and its accompanying quiz questions gave me a clear walkthrough of the core tools and resources I'll be relying on throughout the program — including where to find the Course Catalog, the Candidate Handbook, the InTASC Standards, and the Clinical Practice Guide. Having that map early means that when a question comes up later in the program, I already know exactly where to go looking for the answer instead of starting from scratch.
2. How can the information you discovered in the Course Catalog and Candidate Handbook guide you as you progress through this program?
The Course Catalog and Candidate Handbook (CCCH) are my source of truth for grading rubrics, attendance policy, and graduation requirements. I plan to come back to them directly whenever a question comes up, rather than guessing, so I stay an active participant in my own progress through the program instead of finding out the rules after the fact.
3. How can the InTASC Standards and Clinical Practice Guide help you as you progress through this program?
Coming into education from outside the field — my background is building free ESL practice tools and a storytelling competition with my wife Ploy, not working inside a school system — the InTASC Standards give me a concrete answer to what I'm actually being trained and evaluated against. They tell me what I'm supposed to walk away knowing how to do, and let me use my instructors', advisors', and mentors' time more deliberately instead of guessing what matters most.
As a growing list, this section will hold the artifacts and resources I collect as evidence of my learning through this module. First entry:
Literacy Guide
Even at the very start of the program, the resources covered in this module have already given me a clear sense of the rigor I should expect of myself as a teacher, the skills this coursework and my path into teaching will build, and the level of collaboration I should expect from — and bring to — this cohort.
This module's focus is mostly foundational — building systemic knowledge of the Teach-Now program itself, ahead of the deeper pedagogical and methodological work coming in later modules. So the InTASC connections here are more about setting up the scaffolding I'll map evidence against later than about direct evidence itself. See the InTASC Standards page for how each standard will be addressed as the program progresses.
My experience in this module's Activity 3 was genuinely eye-opening. I expected "literacy" to have a fairly universal definition, but seeing how differently my cohort defined it — set against the more official definitions we were given — showed me just how much ground the word actually covers.
What struck me most was the data on how literacy varies across different groups and languages, which lines up directly with what I've watched happen with English learners in Thailand: literacy isn't one fixed skill everyone either has or doesn't, it's a spectrum, and effective communication sits at the center of why any of this matters to me.