Standard 1: Know students and how they learn
Focus Area: 1.5 Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities
Attached below is evidence to demonstrate how I met the 'Australian Professional Standards of Teaching' 1.5 while undergoing my professional placement.
Attached below is evidence to demonstrate how I met the 'Australian Professional Standards of Teaching' 1.5 while undergoing my professional placement.
Reflection
While undergoing my professional placement I realised the importance of planning in order to reflect the needs of all students. I learnt to carefully consider diverse learning abilities and behaviours while creating lesson plans to ensure all students had quality learning experiences. I personally believe the planning process is a fundamental part of teaching as it is significant to maintain high teaching standards and create lessons that link to appropriate outcomes and learning goals while ensuring all students are engaged and challenged. Deep critical planning has been linked to various educational benefits, it helps teachers create activities which are motivating and engaging and allows teachers to prepare for differentiation as well as evaluate their chosen activities (Ball, Knobloch & Hoop, 2017).
While on practicum I focused strongly on planning and creating activities that were differentiated for each student, this is important as it ensures all students are learning regardless of their ability level (Van Geel et al., 2018). Through constructive feedback and advice from my mentor teacher I began to feel more confident with adapting my lessons to cater to diverse learning abilities and styles. It has been stated that well planned and well organised lessons are usually the most effective (Ball, Knobloch & Hoop, 2017). Moreover, I created writing scaffolds where I would create a sentence for the emergent learners and cut it out, they would then need to put it back together before they wrote it in their books (as mentioned in my report comment above). I would plan selective word work for the different reading level groups and choose appropriate level readers for each group (mentioned in my report comment above). During maths activities I would sometimes split students into ability-based groups and provide different activities to suit their individual needs but ensuring I targeted the same learning outcomes (this is demonstrated in the pictures below).
Below is an example of a TENS activity where students worked in ability based groups and each activity was differentiated. The emergent learns used standard ten frame dice where the advanced learners used 3x twenty frame dice. Each activity was slightly different but still focused on achieving the same outcomes.
While undergoing my professional placement I realised the importance of planning in order to reflect the needs of all students. I learnt to carefully consider diverse learning abilities and behaviours while creating lesson plans to ensure all students had quality learning experiences. I personally believe the planning process is a fundamental part of teaching as it is significant to maintain high teaching standards and create lessons that link to appropriate outcomes and learning goals while ensuring all students are engaged and challenged. Deep critical planning has been linked to various educational benefits, it helps teachers create activities which are motivating and engaging and allows teachers to prepare for differentiation as well as evaluate their chosen activities (Ball, Knobloch & Hoop, 2017).
While on practicum I focused strongly on planning and creating activities that were differentiated for each student, this is important as it ensures all students are learning regardless of their ability level (Van Geel et al., 2018). Through constructive feedback and advice from my mentor teacher I began to feel more confident with adapting my lessons to cater to diverse learning abilities and styles. It has been stated that well planned and well organised lessons are usually the most effective (Ball, Knobloch & Hoop, 2017). Moreover, I created writing scaffolds where I would create a sentence for the emergent learners and cut it out, they would then need to put it back together before they wrote it in their books (as mentioned in my report comment above). I would plan selective word work for the different reading level groups and choose appropriate level readers for each group (mentioned in my report comment above). During maths activities I would sometimes split students into ability-based groups and provide different activities to suit their individual needs but ensuring I targeted the same learning outcomes (this is demonstrated in the pictures below).
Below is an example of a TENS activity where students worked in ability based groups and each activity was differentiated. The emergent learns used standard ten frame dice where the advanced learners used 3x twenty frame dice. Each activity was slightly different but still focused on achieving the same outcomes.
Above is a comment from my mentor teacher on one of my lesson feedback sheets. This comment demonstrates that I have effectively implemented differentiation within the classroom and used strategies to cater to all students needs.
References
Ball, A., Knobloch, N., & Hoop, S. (2007). The Instructional Planning Experiences Of Beginning Teachers. Journal Of Agricultural Education, 48(2), 56-65. doi: 10.5032/jae.2007.02056
Van Geel, M., Keuning, T., Frerejean, J., Dolmans, D., van Merrienboer, J., & Visscher, A. (2018). Capturing the complexity of differentiated instruction. School Effectiveness And School Improvement, 30(1), 51-67. doi: 10.1080/09243453.2018.1539013
Ball, A., Knobloch, N., & Hoop, S. (2007). The Instructional Planning Experiences Of Beginning Teachers. Journal Of Agricultural Education, 48(2), 56-65. doi: 10.5032/jae.2007.02056
Van Geel, M., Keuning, T., Frerejean, J., Dolmans, D., van Merrienboer, J., & Visscher, A. (2018). Capturing the complexity of differentiated instruction. School Effectiveness And School Improvement, 30(1), 51-67. doi: 10.1080/09243453.2018.1539013