Professional Knowledge
"Stephanie, you will make a wonderful teacher. You have a natural ability to connect with the children and to teach them in a fun way."
- Frances De Valle (Mentor teacher), 2013
Standard 1 - Know students and how they learn
1.5 Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students
across the full range of abilities
In teaching at Kunyung Primary School, I have experienced a wide range of abilities within one class due to both the combined grade composition (Year 3/4), as well as the natural variation between individual students. I have always attempted to cater for these different abilities, interests and learning styles in my lesson planning and implementation. For example:
Open-ended tasks - Utilising questions and activities which can accept different 'correct' answers or opinions according to each students' own level. For example, I have often adapted simple games such as using playing cards and popsicle sticks to create and compare written fractions such small groups of students have different rules to increase or decrease the complexity.
Levelled reading groups - Students work in literacy groups according to their current Fountas and Pinnell reading level, completing either the same tasks but with differentiated texts or working on a particular individual focus area.
Mathematics continuum - According to the whole-school approach at Kunyung Primary, each student is tested and placed at their current level of understanding along the continuum for a specific mathematical concept, e.g. multiplication and division. Students then work independently or with other students at the same learning point to achieve the appropriate outcome, demonstrating their learning to the teacher before moving on to their next learning goal. Individual or small group needs can then be catered for through focus groups as necessary.
Flexible assessments - At the end of some inquiry units, students were given choice in how they wished to report on their research findings; through ICT, writing, drawing, presentations, etc.
1.2 Understand how students learn
In addition to knowledge of teaching and learning formed through university and placement experience, the strategies I use are also informed by current educational research and recommendations.
Research by Harvard University's Project Zero team suggests that the use of Visible Thinking routines in the classroom are beneficial for students' development of deeper understanding and more sophisticated thinking practices while learning. Informed by these findings, I have implemented many of the core thinking routines into my teaching at Kunyung Primary School, as tools for both new learning and reflection. The "Think, Puzzle, Explore" routine has provided a useful jumping-off point for thinking about new units of inquiry, while other routines such as "Connect, Extend, Challenge" work well to enhance individual responses to texts, including multimodal.
"Steph plans tasks that motivate and engage students... Her program fosters independence, co-operation and collaboration."
- Anne Allchin (Mentor teacher), 2014
Standard 2 - Know the content and how to teach it
2.2 Content selection and organisation
Throughout my teaching at Kunyung Primary School, I have worked as part of a collaborative team with other Year 3/4 teachers to create weekly planners combining content from both the AusVELS curriculum and International Baccelaureate PYP. Drawing on these planners, I was then able to create my own work programs, adapting the content and sequence to suit the needs of my own class.
For example, in teaching the information text writing genre, I organised the teaching and learning content into the following sequence:
1. "Cold write" and prior knowledge
As a formative assessment tool, or pre-test, students were asked to choose a topic they were an expert on and create an information text demostrating what they thought a good information text should look like.
2. Direct instruction
Subsequent lesson began with a 'mini lesson', providing exposure to an information text and highlighting a writing feature to focus on (e.g. structure, language choice including tense and vocab., fact vs. opinion). This focus then gave direct to the writing practice in that lesson.
3. Collaborative rubric and peer feedback
Reflection on each session was used to create a "class rubric", adding criteria for each writing feature as it was taught. Students were then given opportunities to 'be the teacher' and give constructive feedback to a partner on their current writing according to the rubric, highlighting areas of improvement for the next session.
4. Finetuning paragraphs
Once students had masters the basic format in writing about known topics, they were given the opportunity to research new topics of interest. To practice organising facts into cohesive paragraphs (an area of need for my class), students used "hot spots" sheets to record individual pieces of information which were then cut out and 'grouped' according to subject.
5. Final writing and publishing
Using the 'groups' created in the "hot spots" research activity, students were then able to write their facts into sentences and paragraphs to create new information texts. These writing pieces were then edited and revised using the class rubric criteria before being published using ICT.
This sequence effectively met the needs of my students as it gave them a focus for their daily writing, balanced instruction with opportunity for practice, maintained student agency in assessing the task and catered to different areas of interest.
The progression of one student's writing can be seen in the work samples below:
2.6 Information and Communication Technology (ICT)
I believe that working with information and communication technology is a necessary skill for students in the twenty-first century. Throughout university and placement I have endeavoured to gain both and theoretical and practical knowledge of the use of ICT, using computers, IWB facilities, video content and technology such as iPads to engage and expand learning opportunities for students in my classes. Students in my classes have used personal computers for literacy practice and comprehension activities, inquiry research and presentations, testing, and maths content such as mapping and 3D shapes.
I also consistently use ICT for the creation of teaching resources, including interactive presentations, blog content for online lessons and websites for communicating information to parents/carers and colleagues (see blue link buttons). Moreover, I believe that ICT can be used to integrate learning content from across the curriculum and enhance effective learning and teaching sequences, as demonstrated in my planning of the Integrated ICT Sustainability Unit available below.