Standard Four: Learning Environment The competent teacher structures a safe and healthy learning environment that facilitates

cultural and linguistic responsiveness, emotional well-being, self-efficacy, positive social interaction, mutual respect, active engagement, academic risk taking, self-motivation, and personal goalsetting. This artifact was chosen because, as a class syllabus, it outlines the desired learning environment I want to create for my class which includes many of the above characteristics. This artifact is a good representation of the standard because it highlights a safe and healthy learning environment through cultural responsiveness, positive social interaction, mutual respect, active engagement, and self-efficacy. This syllabus was created as an assessment for a class in my education coursework. The assignment required that I put my educational philosophy into words and use it to create a structure for my classroom that would encourage student learning. Being a government class, I wanted there to be a lot of discussion that related our studies of the structure of government to some of the present issues and discourse on government structure. Talking about politics in any form is bound to bring disagreements and possible controversy, so I thought it was extremely important to incorporate a section on being respectful to one another during these discussions. Additionally, I wanted my class to be one where the students had many opportunities to succeed. I created various forms of assessment to encompass diverse learners and give all students multiple ways to succeed. Active engagement was another area I believed was valuable to this class. Having engaging, respectful and diverse discussions will benefit everyone in the class and will allow everyone to hear multiple perspectives about the various topics. This project was challenging to create because it was hard to conceptualize how I would want a fictional class to function. It did help me grow as a teacher, gave me a start and structure to creating future class syllabi. I think setting up the expectations from the beginning of the course are extremely important to how it will run for the rest of the semester or year; having a strong and clear syllabus can greatly aid in establishing the desired learning environment. Classroom management is a part of teaching that can either make or break how a class runs and the syllabus is a large part of that. Besides just speaking to students about the expectations, I believe it is a good practice to let them have those expectations, not only for behavior but for assignments as well, in writing as it gives them guidance and structure. In writing this syllabus, I realized how hard it is to condense all the expectations and explanations in a way that is easy to read and understand for students; however, I do think that I grew and learned a great deal from having to do this so early in my education career.