Foundational Understanding is a very broad competency theme that covers several bases.  A teacher's foundational understanding means an understanding of the subject content as well as how to teach that content.  It also means an understanding of the differing needs of young learners and the purpose that our education system has for these learners. 

This is a power point based lesson the Black Plague.  I chose this for the foundational understanding strand because it shows my 'foundational understanding' of how to mesh coverage of social studies content with methods that appeal to students.  This power point includes many different images, and it is designed to allow me to get student input throughout the lesson.  At several points I had students interpret what was going on in the images.  At other points I had them come up with possible answers and explanations, then had them hold those thoughts as we moved on with the lesson to evaluate whether or nto they were correct when we returned to those same questions later.