3.

1 ESTABLISH CHALLENGING LEARNING GOALS

This is a summative assessment I constructed for students to complete the end of a shapes unit. This assessment establishes achievable
yet challenging learning goals based on the unit and incorporates the local community to increase engagement.

When I think of challenging learning goals I think of learning and cognition, which I studied in my first year of University. In this class we
learnt about the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) refers to the gap between a student’s
achievement and development that is achievable through collaboration and guidance of more capable peers e.g. parents, teachers,
classmates (Vygotsky 1978, p.86). A child’s Zone of Proximal Development can become greater through the collaboration and guidance of
more knowledgeable others and experts (Khaliliaqdam, 2014, p.891). I acknowledge that this is different for all students and tried to make
my assignments open ended for this reason. Another thing I tried to do was make learning relevant for students as seen in this
assessment. I presented student with the challenge of building a 3D town in a vacant block of land near by the school. This block of land is
about 500 metres away from the school and was well known by all students due to club and school sports. I found that students were
challenged by this task in the beginning but through group work and familiarisation became capable and sufficient.
3.2 PLAN, STRUCTURE, AND SEQUENCE LEARNING PROGRAMS

My first piece of evidence shows a rough unit plan that I constructed and had approved by my mentor teacher before I began a shape unit.
They gave me feedback on it and I adjusted it accordingly. My second piece of evidence is a term plan for a year 8 outdoor education class
that was taken from an annual plan I constructed as apart of a fourth year university assignment.

Many things were considered when constructing my first piece of evidence, including student prior knowledge that was previously
distinguish through an interactive test and the ACARA content descriptors for shape in year 5. The sequence began with easy things to
understand and then progressed to more difficult concepts. A graduate teacher would do all of these things to ensure students are
learning the content in a sequential and appropriate matter. If I wasn’t at a graduate level and started with features of 3D shapes for
example students would have limited understanding due to the sequence of learning. Acknowledging that you can’t start a unit with the
most difficult topics that need to be included in it demonstrates that I am at the graduate level for this standard. My second piece of
evidence is a more extensive plan that I constructed which considered more details such as my pedagogical approach, students must,
should and could for learning and the scope of the topic. For the assignment this piece of evidence was extracted from I was required to
construct my own class context which challenged my planning and sequence of learning programs. I had to ensure units took place in a
sequential order. One example of how I did this was starting the unit with a group dynamics unit as the class context explained the
students didn’t know each other well due to just coming to the school as year eights.
3.3 USING TEACHING STRATEGIES

My first piece of evidence is of a students work taken from their book after explicit teaching. My second piece of evidence is a screen
clipping taken from a students feedback about me as an educator. My third piece of evidence is a photo of a textbook that shapes my
physical education pedagogy and my fourth piece of evidence is a screen clipping of a lesson plan that demonstrates this.

As a teacher I try to steer clear of explicit teaching wherever possible on placement. This means I am constantly getting students to be
hands on as I believe that is how they learn best. When required I do conduct explicit teaching at which stage I get students to copy
transcripts into their books (evidence 1) so they better understood it and could recall on this information in later lessons. By incorporating
a lot of teaching strategies and making the experience hands on when possible I got a lot of responses for kids about how I made “subjects
fun” (evidence 2) which is a testament to me and my approach. Level of engagement plays a vital role in ability to learn as well as the
production of positive behaviour (McDonald, 2013). Reeves (2004) describe engagement as an individual’s persistence, ongoing attention
and effort within the classroom in his engagement model. As an educator it is a difficult task to continuously engage an entire class in their
learning given many factors such as disinterest, special needs and cultural background, however having strategies in play to maximise
engagement will benefit students as they will further applying themselves enabling to reach their full capacity of learning. I feel happy to
have received comments like this from not only students but teachers around me as well. My third piece of evidence is a textbook called
Play Practice by Wendy Piltz which moves away from the classic approach of teaching sport through drills and instead teaches sport
through modified games. This is something in cooperate in my own pedagogy as seen in my final piece of evidence. In this lesson plan I use
two modified games in a vortex lesson. These modified games are similar to one another and are played in the same space meaning
students can be instantly engaged and thus develop an interest in the sport and maximise maximum individual participation (MIP).
3.4 SELECT AND USE RESOURCES
My first piece of evidence (Primary Mathematics) is a book I used to construct a unit plan and find resources as it had direct links to
ACARA. My second piece of evidence. My second piece of evidence (Play Practice) is a resource I gathered in my first year of university and
continue to use today to locate lesson/ unit ideas and adapt my pedagogy.

I try to vary the resources students were given and I used throughout lessons. I also try to ensure my resources are relevant and for this
reason commonly cross check them with ACARA and ask for the opinions of other teachers. In most cases the teachers are impressed by
this and asked if they could borrow the resources in some cases. I know through my schooling experience that I become disengaged when
schoolwork was not engaging, or I didn’t think it would ever be relevant to me. For this reason, as an educator I wanted to use a variety of
resources rather than simply just getting students to work from a textbook. On placement mathematics was one subject in particular I
would try and make engaging by incorporating ICT (iPads), however when necessary I found relevant mathematical worksheets and
questions that I would use in combination with explicit teaching or an engaging, hands on task. As this book used was sourced by myself
from another teacher at the school, I think it was great practice in gathering resources. Play practice (my second piece of evidence) is a
physical education textbook constructed by Wendy Piltz who works at the University of South Australia. This textbook encourages that we
give students an opportunity to play a sport/ activity before they practice the skills within it (REFERENCE). I use this resource continually
when planning Physical education lessons as it focuses on engaging student first and creating hooks for learning.
3.5 USE EFFECTIVE CLASSROOM COMMUNICATION
On my fourth-year placement the way in which I communicate with students was challenged and required refinement due to the behavior
management methodology that is practiced throughout the school (Play Is the Way). This piece of evidence is a photo of some of my notes
taken during a Play Is the Way induction with notes that involve my communication with students highlighted.

Coming into my final placement I was quite narrow minded about what effective classroom communication was. I believed that it was
dependent on the teacher and their understanding of the class. After engaging in this induction to PITW I could see a different scope for
communication that was on a school level. This meant that all teachers including pre-service teachers such as myself were implementing
communication strategies that focused on students rather than ourselves. One example of how my communication had to be adapted at
this school was removing I-messages from my pedagogy as they focus on myself rather than the students which is not a part of PITW. As
well as this I had to use a variety of verbal and non-verbal cues to get the attention of students. One that students constantly became
aware of was me looking at my watch which they knew was an indication that they were taking too long to re direct their attention to me.
Nonverbal cues are advised by PITW in these situations as they do not involve singling out student(s).
3.6 EVALUATE AND IMPROVE TEACHING PROGRAMS

This piece of evidence is a unit plan I constructed with a teaching team and then had annotated by fellow teachers at a PD day during my
third-year placement.

As I started placement the year 5 teaching cohort was about to begin a HASS/business/ design thinking unit as a collective. This involved
me sitting in on the planning process from the ground up and then continually being involved in discussions on how to improve the unit
and where they were at overall. On a Personal development (PD) day we then had to bring in this planning document to receive feedback
from other year level teachers who were instructed to do so on sticky notes. Being involved in a whole school scale task was a great way of
me getting to the graduate capability level for this teaching standard. I developed an understanding that teaching isn’t all sunshine and
rainbows, however it needs to be very flexible. During this unit we lost multiple lessons with school sports, pupil free days, public holidays,
assemblies and so on that it didn’t progress as it should have. As it was a design thinking unit too students weren’t going down the right
path in the beginning, so it needed to be adjusted and remade from the ground up so that the objectives and goals were clearer. Adding to
this was the feedback given to us as a year 5 teaching team by other year level teachers which we then had a meeting about in order to
evaluate and improve the unit.
3.7 ENGAGE PARENTS/ CARERS IN THE EDUCATIVE PROCESS

On Friday the 4th of September, the school I had my fourth-year placement at has a day where they celebrated and learnt about Aboriginal
culture. This day was apart of ACAW (Aboriginal Cultural Awareness week). As this was a significant day of learning for the students my
mentor and I decided to take photos and videos throughout the day and share them with parents/ carers.

In the photos I took of the children they were engaging in traditional Aboriginal cultural tasks such as spear throwing, body art, bark
painting and so on (as seen in my evidence). In order to engage parents/ carers in this educative process I used a website/ application
called SeaSaw. SeaSaw is used school wide as a way for parents to communicate and share learning experiences with parents/carers.
Parents/ carers can respond to these photos and messages and this is the main form of communication between themselves and teachers.
As a preservice teacher I acknowledge that some parents/ carers aren’t as tech savvy as others meaning they didn’t have SeaSaw. To
ensure these parents/ carers were given equal opportunity to engage in the educative process I printed out photos of their children as well
as the text and photo in my evidence. These printings were then handed out to these students and taken home. By printing these as well
as posting them online I am demonstrating my understanding my understanding of the importance of engaging parents in the educative
process and therefore that I am at the graduate level for this standard.