Domain of teaching: Professional Knowledge
Standard 2 - Know the content and how to teach it
Teaching a full work load provided teaching experiences across all key learning areas, with consideration to cross-curriculum priorities and general capabilities. Units, sequences and lessons were designed to meet syllabus content and learning outcomes and incorporate teaching strategies appropriate to the subject and task.
2.1 Content and teaching strategies of the teaching area
Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the concepts, substance and structure of the content and teaching strategies of the teaching area.
A unit of work of Mathematics was developed and implemented meeting syllabus outcome MAe-3WM Reasoning: Uses concrete manipulatives and/or pictorial representations to support conclusions and MAe-4NA Whole Numbers: Counts to 30, and orders, reads and represents numbers in the range 0 to 20. This demonstrated my comprehensive knowledge of the central concepts of the subject and relevant pedagogies, through lesson plan design, explanation, and linking content and outcomes to NSW syllabus documents.
The three lesson sequence incorporated differentiated learning experiences and outcomes, an array of research-based numeracy teaching and learning strategies, and appropriate assessment tasks to reflect the diverse range of numeracy abilities and meet students' individual numeracy learning needs. The use of concrete materials was a core component of the unit, aligned with research into the ways students in the foundation years develop number sense and numeracy skills (Siemon, Beswick, Brady, Clark, Faragher & Warren, 2011). Lessons were designed to be interesting and meaningful to the lives of students. Teaching strategies were implemented for using ICT to expand curriculum learning opportunities for students (Link to 2.6 Information and Communication Technology).
2.1 Content and teaching strategies of the teaching area
Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the concepts, substance and structure of the content and teaching strategies of the teaching area.
A unit of work of Mathematics was developed and implemented meeting syllabus outcome MAe-3WM Reasoning: Uses concrete manipulatives and/or pictorial representations to support conclusions and MAe-4NA Whole Numbers: Counts to 30, and orders, reads and represents numbers in the range 0 to 20. This demonstrated my comprehensive knowledge of the central concepts of the subject and relevant pedagogies, through lesson plan design, explanation, and linking content and outcomes to NSW syllabus documents.
The three lesson sequence incorporated differentiated learning experiences and outcomes, an array of research-based numeracy teaching and learning strategies, and appropriate assessment tasks to reflect the diverse range of numeracy abilities and meet students' individual numeracy learning needs. The use of concrete materials was a core component of the unit, aligned with research into the ways students in the foundation years develop number sense and numeracy skills (Siemon, Beswick, Brady, Clark, Faragher & Warren, 2011). Lessons were designed to be interesting and meaningful to the lives of students. Teaching strategies were implemented for using ICT to expand curriculum learning opportunities for students (Link to 2.6 Information and Communication Technology).
Illustration of practice: The annotated lesson plan (Lesson 2 in the unit) highlights differentiated learning experiences and learning intentions (for students below, at and above stage outcomes), a variety of teaching, learning and assessment strategies, and range of resources. 'What are we learning to?' (W.A.L.T) and 'What I am looking for?' (W.I.L.F) points were written up on the whiteboard prior to the lesson. Two stars and one wish slips were written on behalf of the students at the conclusion of the lesson. Based on self-evaluation whilst delivering the lesson, enhancement notes have been added to the lesson plan for future reference and use.
2.2 Content selection and organisation
Organise content into an effective learning and teaching sequence.
The delivery of content was designed in a way which scaffolds students’ understandings, within a lesson and across a unit of work. Structural aspects include: engaging introduction to the unit/lesson (including stated outcomes), body of work (encompassing a variety of tasks, and teaching strategies, catering to diversity), assessment (diagnostic, formative and summative, to provide students with feedback and feed-forward), conclusion, reflection on the content learnt, and teacher self-evaluation of the program taught. Comments from my Supervising Teacher were positively received in relation to student progressions and student management to enhance the unit of work (Link to focus area 6.3).