1.1 Physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students

1.2 Understand how students learn

1.3 Students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds

1.4 Strategies for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students

1.5 Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities

1.6 Strategies to support full participation of students with disability

​

Diversity is integral to the role of schools in today’s society. In affecting everything from legislation to curriculum, inclusion allows us to celebrate our uniqueness, broaden our knowledge base and makes life so much richer. That’s why inclusion is the socio-cultural pillar of effective learning and the most crucial of all teaching principles for me. Within the classroom it accepts all children, and their right to learn with their peers. Afterall, we all want to belong.

​

As a pre-service teacher I understand that the best way for me to acknowledge children from diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds, and those with disabilities, is to use a range of teaching strategies to suit the learning characteristics of each student, with an personalised, student-centred model of learning, Lessons and units of work are planned to take account of cognitive and physical characteristics of students relating to their age, also remembering Gardner and Bloom's suggestions of diverse ways and levels of learning. 

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

In practice, teachers can reflect on their own cultural identity and how characteristics shape their schooling lives. I grew up in a multicultural family and with a physically disabled sister so I like to think that these experiences have opened my eyes and made me more sensitive to the needs of diversity and inclusion..

​

Last year, as part of my Master of Teaching CSD subject, I created my own newspaper called Education Mail. The,assessment, on the five overarching principles for a positive learning environment at school, has served me well on all my placements. 

Alfred Adler believed we all have one basic desire: to belong and to feel significant. Therefore, by addressing Inclusion, Safety, Support, Engagement and Achievement, it is likely basic human and education pre-requisites for learning have been put in place and that a positive classroom environment can be achieved.  Discover More: My Education Mail.

2.1 Content and teaching strategies of the teaching area

2.2 Content selection and organisation

2.3 Curriculum, assessment and reporting

2.5 Literacy and numeracy strategies

2.6 Information and Communication Technology (ICT)

​

In the middle and later years, knowing the content and teaching strategies for Media Studies was crucial. The curriculum, and in particular the Study Design for Media Studies was my go-to. In early years teaching, the AusVels gave me the structure for teaching literacy and numeracy, above all else.

I embrace that all teachers are teachers of literacy; it is integral to all areas of learning. But being literate, is more than being able to read and write. To me it is about understanding and making connections, and then being able to show knowledge about a particular subject.

​Today, meaning is made in ways that are increasingly multimodal, in which written-linguistic modes of meaning are part and parcel of visual, audio and spatial patterns of meaning.

Likewise, it is also maintained that for numeracy to be useful to students, it must be learned in multiple contexts, to deal with quantitative aspects of life, such as reasoning with data and the ability to draw on a range of prerequisite mathematical knowledge and tools. (Click on the above photo for a numeracy lesson on patterns, including ICT, I created and taught to a Foundation class at a school with limited resources).

​

​For me as a preservice teacher, the implications of digital literacy are challenging and exciting.

Teaching “headware” (not hardware) skills makes sense. Every digital device should be considered for its academic potential but the goal is not to teach technology but to teach thinking skills and challenge students to communicate their understanding of the learning outcomes in whatever way that speaks to them.

So successful technology integration is more than just getting the tools into the classroom; engaging students, enlivening lessons and enhanced learning is what it is all about. Discover More: My Year 10 lesson on how to identify social values in the media, my reflection, plus teacher feedback.

3.1 Establish challenging learning goals

3.2 Plan, structure and sequence learning programs

3.3 Use teaching strategies

3.4 Select and use resources

3.5 Use effective classroom communication

3.6 Evaluate and improve teaching programs

3.7 Engage parents/carers in the educative process

​

​

All students should be challenged at their appropriate level of ability, something that I recognise comes from high expectations  and that can result in a sense of achievement for all. Lessons should be interesting and interactive, take into account technology, include group work and be detailed in planning. So teachers must design learning experiences that are at an appropriate level of difficulty, challenging and specific, providing strategies and ideas for students to success, providing ongoing and informative feedback and provide scaffolding to ensure successful outcomes are within the grasp of the student.

​

Students need tangible experience of success so they know they have talent; a big motivator in all humans is to feel they have achieved something. Children need opportunities to develop problem-solving abilities and demonstrate their level of creativity and talent.

And I realise that this comes with much planning and making the most of resources to sequence learning programs. Creating the opportunity for achievement starts with creative teaching, relevant life content, moving onto developing competence by developing responsibility and group tasks, and setting high expectations with clear goals and teacher affirmation.

​

In a practical sense, there may not be one single or right way to design experiences or environments to foster motivation but there are important things to consider when planning for engagement, starting by putting the learners centre stage and continually considering their needs and desires.

Discover More: This attached Year 6 unit of work highlights cross curriculum priorities and the general capabilities important for 21st century living, strives for personalised and authentic learning and acknowledges the characteristics of this age group without compromising high expectations.

My colleagues and I planned both individually and collaboratively on drafts and selected resources and teaching strategies that were relevant and effective to an inquiry-based approach.

​

4.1 Support student participation

4.2 Manage classroom activities

4.3 Manage challenging behaviour

4.4 Maintain student safety

4.5 Use ICT safely, responsibly and ethically

​

Inclusion allows us to celebrate our uniqueness, broaden our knowledge base and makes life so much richer. That’s why, for me, supporting student participation is a crucial teaching principle. It is articulated in both the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with a Disability. Consistent with ratifying these, the Australian Government expresses its commitment to inclusive education in many documents and policies, including the National Disability Strategy, Australian Curriculum, Australian Professional Standards for Teachers, National Quality Framework and the Early Years Learning Framework for Australia.

​

I have been lucky to get further insight into supporting different children as a teacher's aide. Some of my most successful teaching strategies come from these moments of differentiation, (Discover More: Please click below for my differentiated unit of work called What does it mean to be Australian?)

​

Explicitly promoting inclusion and diversity also benefits class behaviour management. The fact that all individuals need to belong, to be with peers, provides the basis of a group-oriented class management model with rules of conduct like mutual respect, co-operation, shared responsibility and social equality.

​

As a democratic teacher I hope to set clear-cut expectations and parameters and encourage ­­­­– effort and recognise inappropriate behaviour comes from attention seeking, power, revenge or withdrawal, and observing my reaction modify the motivation.

Lastly but not leastly, student safety amongst all this is paramount. Schools and their staff have a duty of care to students to provide a safe environment which, according to the Victorian Government’s Department of Education website (2016) includes “protection and support against bullying, abuse, assault, undertaking preventative measures to address the risk of inappropriate alcohol consumption, misuse of drugs, abiding by mandatory reporting requirements, police protocols or search and/or seizure of property guidelines, facilitating access to support services.”

​

Social media also makes it crucial we take the time to explicitly teach about cyber-bullying, copyright, plagiarism, digital footprint, and proper conduct online. Even though our students are immersed in technology it’s not a given that they know how to use it for learning nor how to use it responsibly.

5.1 Assess student learning

5.2 Provide feedback to students on their learning

5.3 Make consistent and comparable judgements

5.4 Interpret student data

5.5 Report on student achievement

​

Assessment and its feedback are essential to enhancing the learning process: data shows teachers where students are at, where they need to go, and how best to achieve their potential. Assessment results and reports, and particularly the understanding and knowledge gained form these, inform teaching, guide planning and school curriculum design, and provide information to parents about achievement and progress. But assessment has to meet the needs of a system, school, parents and the individual without adversely impacting on the critical relationship that exists between teacher and learner. The teacher must be supportive and build learning confidence and rapport with students while judging their work and giving feedback.  (Discover More:  Click below for A study into Reporting on Assessment Data).

​

During my placements, I learnt that for me, feedback about learning needed to be positive, immediate and relevant. Some of the characteristics my mentor teachers used, and that worked for me, included:

• Timely, specific and constant acknowledgement during lessons.

• Modelling: e.g. In the later years, sharing previous SACs and examples of what an examination paper looks like.

• These four questions: What can the student do? What can’t the student do? How does the student’s work compare with that of others? How can the student do better? This helped differentiate learning for all individuals.

• Peer feedback; rubrics were second nature to students.

• High expectations that were explicit, and reinforced regularly.

• For Year 10, feedback was encouraging; this counter-balances this challenging age bracket and behaviour management.

​

Meanwhile, for me, peer assessment, effective questioning and portfolios were all authentic ways of assessing students by not only monitoring but also promoting student learning. 

​

One of my favourite units I taught on placement was on poetry, students chose a completed free verse or concrete poem to include in their portfolios. Narratives, and logos made in Art and Design, were used as well. I was particularly fond of this one, Humiliate.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

6.1 Identify and plan professional learning needs

6.2 Engage in professional learning and improve practice

6.3 Engage with colleagues and improve practice

6.4 Apply professional learning and improve student learning

​

Identifying my own learning needs is an ongoing process: Teachers use the Standards to inform the development of their professional learning goals, provide a framework by which they can judge the success of their learning and assist self-reflection and self-assessment.

As a media studies and English major, I was lucky enough to have taken part in a professional development program that showed me how to approach writing through engagement and fun. Big Write and VCOP (Vocabulary, Connectives, Openers and Punctuation) is designed to make the children want to write and to be continuously challenged throughout the writing journey. 

​

Other professional learning opportunities included a First Aid course, which covered student safety, resuscitation and asthma and anaphylaxis awareness, a Curriculum Documentation and Mapping webinar, the development of a Health and Student Wellbeing report and a bullying seminar.

​

But perhaps the most relevant and effective professional learning came from my colleagues.

Wednesday morning staff meetings at Catholic College (pictured above) were always dynamic, with more than 100 teachers and administrators on staff. These meetings were only the tip of the iceberg at the busy school: 

My time with the Integration and Learning Support team taught me how to scaffold, model and use the simplest of strategies for the most effective learning. This is also where I was introduced to extension classes, and how gifted children can often be the most challenging and overlooked. Asking questions of the teachers in the staffroom over lunch was a quick-fire way of getting many responses at once!

​

Above all, my mentor teachers were a fountain of knowledge at my fingertips. Lesson feedback, and then reflection, was by far where I gained my most knowledge and progression. Everything from effective questioning strategies (shall I wait for the popcorn in the microwave, I ask while waiting for a few more hands to go up in response to a question) to behaviour management (bring down the noise and then wait some more for that right moment to process) was learnt on the job.

​

My Professional Engagement Report from my Year 5/6 mentor teacher.

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

​

Discover More:  My Professional Experience Reflection on a Foundation numeracy lesson called Our Coins.

7.1 Meet professional ethics and responsibilities

7.2 Comply with legislative, administrative and organisational requirements

7.3 Engage with the parents/carers

7.4 Engage with professional teaching networks and broader communities

​

As teachers we have a professional responsibility to our students: to foster a love of learning and achievement in a safe and positive environment. Part of this commitment is developing relationships with families, in particular parents and care-givers, and the wider community.

​

Research shows that the effects of family and parental involvement in their children’s schooling are profound and support the need, not just the commitment, to foster collaboration.

Parents employ schools and teachers to educate their students and we are accountable for our performance. We are also held accountable by the Australian Professional Standards. We must, at our different levels of proficiency, working effectively, sensitively and confidentially with parents and carers and involve them in the educative process through a range of effective strategies (AITSL, 2016). 

​

From my experience, schools can do this by:

• Putting out the welcome mat.

• Communicating their intention to collaborate, in the enrollment package, at the front office and on the website.

• Welcoming parents as volunteers: Fetes, working bees, sports carnivals and camps, maintenance work are fun ways to foster the school community.

• Creating a parent resource centre. Provide materials on issues such as child development, health and safety, drug education, special education.

 On a more personal level, teachers can foster positive interaction by:

• Communicating with parents: straightforwardly and. Many family members have personal, work, health or other problems that we know nothing about. Avoid being judgmental.

• Thank and recognise parents regularly.

• Ensure parents have regular access to clear information that could include sending home weekly folders of student work, monthly calendars, a regular class newsletter or weekly email.

During my later years placement, I also helped my mentor teacher maintain a classroom web site that included a parent page and a homework hot line students or parents can call to get forgotten or missed assignments.  

Discover More: My PD presentation to staff on how to foster positive parent relationships.