Professional Knowledge
1. Know your students and how they learn. 1.1 Physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students. For me to be able to understand my students intellectual development throughout my placements, I used a few pre-testing strategies within my lead-in days to try and allow students to demonstrate to me as much prior knowledge about the topic of weather as possible. At the end of my unit, I revisited some of these same strategies so I could compare how my students learning was enhanced within the unit, and it showed that it was successful. |
1.2 Understand how students learn.
When first starting off my Professional Experience 3 students were required to do a pre test regarding addition and subtraction and their prior knowledge. This was used to determine which students needed to go into what maths rotation class. By looking at all the work samples, I was able to see the types of misconceptions my students had within their prior knowledge when doing this diagnostic test created by Tierney and Kennedy Press. From this, I was able to develop my maths unit plan in regards to how each of my students learn under pressure. Also by discussing with my mentor about the different external factors my students had which influenced their approach to learn also widened my perspective into how my students will learn within my classroom. When looking at these diagnostic tests, I could see students prior knowledge had misconceptions regarding partitioning numbers, the patterns of a 100’s chart and understanding and developing the relationship between addition and subtraction. So these three focus areas were my biggest concentration in my mathematics unit plan. In every new unit of work I taught to my classroom, I always started off with a prior knowledge lesson, this supported the theories developed by Piaget and Vygotsky. Every week for spelling, I ensured that I was to allocate two minutes at the start of the lesson for students to brainstorm different words that had the corresponding sounds in them, from this we would discuss more words with the sounds, and if there are any alternative letters that make up the same sounds.With English and Art, I had quite a few discussions with my mentor on student abilities, she suggested that in English, I have two levels within one lesson, so provide the simpler English tasks to all students, but provide an extension to those who found the initial task too simple. |
1.3 Students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
Within my final placement, I was given my students previous reports to show me what their levels were at in science, and how their social and emotional capabilities are developing throughout the year so I could develop a strategic plan to support my diverse learners. By analysing these reports given from my mentor, I was able to grasp an understanding on the type of behaviour these students have the potential to bring to the classroom and the types of strategies I will need to put in place if a complex behavioural issue were to occur within the classroom setting. |
1.4 Strategies for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.
When teaching my weather unit to junior primary, I was focusing on the seasons and how and why they occur here on Earth, and how they affect living things which include humans. Not only did I incorporate some AUSLAN into my lessons and taught students summer, autumn, winter and spring in AUSLAN, I also developed their vocabulary further and introduced students to the Kaurna Seasonal Calendar. Students enjoyed learning about the diverse culture of the native Kaurna people and how they viewed the varied weather patterns experienced in Adelaide. |
1.5 Differentiate teaching to meet the specific needs of students across the full range of abilities.
My main strength within placement was my ability to differentiate my teaching to suit all diverse learners individual learning needs and goals. Especially in Mathematics and Science, I ensured that each one of my students had a fair chance at achieving success. From my prior knowledge activity and the diagnostic testing, I designed a list of which students are in what group. When disclosing the groups to the class I ensured that I did not explain “which group was the higher, or lower” but rather explained that each group is focusing on addition and subtraction but working with different strategies to solve the sums. Group 1 was the group I knew students within could not partition numbers past 20, and needed as much hands on support as possible. The middle group had a bit more of a mix of student ability, so students were given the choice whether they wanted to work with hands on materials or start mental computation. The third group, focused purely on mental strategies as each student within the group did not want hands on materials. I thought this was a good differentiation between groups as throughout my placement students got the chance to move up a group as they demonstrated to me a higher order thinking skill. After I analysed the formative assessment, I created the summative assessment however, I ensured that each student was given the same assessment piece as for one, it did not limit students to want to extend themselves past their ability, and two, it showed me the range of abilities and where my teaching (and mentors) needed to go next. My professional learning plan focused on this standard. I decided to focus on how I could differentiate my instruction process to support the diverse learners within my classroom. This ranged from me explaining to students directly through verbal cues only, to adding on verbal and written cues, but at the end I found that verbal, written, non verbal and drawn cues best support students as students all perceive differently, and learn differently as well. |
1.6 Strategies to support full participation of students with disability
Before I commenced my full teaching block, I asked my mentor teacher if he would be able to get me records of all of my students who have an recognised learning disability. By having this list, I was then able to adapt my teaching to support those students as within my school context I had a few students who were diagnosed with autism, had a speech and/or language difficulty, a physical disability, an intellectual disability just to name a few. By having an idea of what my students may bring into the classroom, I could incorporate strategies to support the full participation of these students with disabilities. |