Know students and how they learn
Focus Area 1.1: Physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students
FOCUS AREA 1.1
Physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students.
AITSL APST DESCRIPTOR
WHAT YOU WILL OBSERVE
WHAT YOU WILL DISCUSS
Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students and how these may affect learning.
- Communication strategies appropriate to children’s development stages
- A variety of Developmentally appropriate resources to account for individual learning needs of the children.
- Interactions focussed on intentional teaching with child/ren to scaffold learning
- Learning experiences to support identity, well-being, connectedness, engaged learning and communication
- Children’s specific physical, social and intellectual learning needs
- Curriculum frameworks that support and enhance each child’s learning and development outcomes
- Appropriate modifications to delivery of the learning program and the physical learning environment
- Environment designed to support all learning experiences
Examples of Artefacts/Evidence to Add to Your Portfolio
- Records of children’s learning and development including both formative and summative assessment that reflect the five learning outcomes of the EYLF.
- Plans for learning and play experiences that respond to children’s diverse learning abilities.
- Plans for learning and play incorporating teaching strategies, principles and practices that specifically address an individual child’s learning interests and abilities.
- Records of learning and development that show an individual child’s learning journey.
- Plans for learning and play that include learning opportunities in routines and transitions.
- A cycle of planning that reflects links between what is observed about children’s learning and development. This would include analysis based on observations, planning to support learning and development, and evaluation of these plans.
- Further assessment and follow up that continues the cycle for each child would be evident.
- Critically reflective notes that inform future planning.
- Analysis of the effectiveness of teaching decisions, strategies and approaches to care routines.
- Critical reflection that demonstrates that a variety of teaching strategies are engaged and adaptations are made to enhance children’s learning in all domains.
- Plans for learning in a play-based curriculum that incorporate strategies to address the child’s interests and abilities.
- Notes from formal and informal meetings with parents/carers/families that informed planning.
- Notes from meetings with other professionals that informed planning and curriculum decisions.
- Evidence of collection of information for each child.
Demonstrate your achievement of specific APST using a framework such as STARR. Use artefacts you have gathered across your teaching practice (including at the graduate level assessment tasks and professional experience samples) as evidence of achieving the standard and competencies.
Artefacts could include lesson plans, created learning resources, analysis of student performance data, annotated samples of student work, reflections on student outcomes and influence on teacher practice, assessment strategies, evidence of professional learning experiences and application to practice etc.
Ensure you annotate your evidence and artefacts to provide context:
- Why have you included this item?
- When/where/why did this occur?
- What was the impact on student learning?
- Personal reflections.
