2.2 Content selection and organisation
Organise content into an effective learning and teaching sequence.
2.3 Curriculum, assessment and reporting
Use curriculum, assessment and reporting knowledge to design learning sequences and lesson plans.
During the course EDS4407 Secondary Arts Curriculum and Pedagogy which I undertook in semester 2 2023, I created a sequence of 3 lesson plans for a senior secondary grade 12 class. Using the QCAA syllabus I constructed these lesson plans as part of an assessment piece for this course. These lessons use direct curriculum links to the senior syllabus and assessment procedure and design (QCAA 2019).
My responsibility in this task was to create a lesson sequence designed around Unit 3 of the QCAA General Drama senior syllabus to establish clear links to summative assessments as outlined in the syllabus and to formative assessment opportunities. This was accomplished through a range of both subject specific pedagogies and strategies and more generalised education strategies and pedagogies (see artefact 3 for the lesson plans in Examples of Teaching).
These lesson plans used the process of backwards mapping to effectively open up students for the completion of Internal Assessment 1 (IA1) as per the senior syllabus (QCAA, 2019). The backwards mapping pedagogy and strategy was used across the lessons as it provides explicit learning goals for students and outlines key ideas in a more direct path than generalised planning and teaching (Bowen, 2017). The backwards design also allowed for establishing clear goals and then a focus on understanding and completing the summative assessment. These lessons offered clear and deep content knowledge to inform the creation of both summative assessment and formative assessment types. As well they provided students with subject and content specific teaching strategies such as the Socratic circles in lesson one, and more generalised strategies such as the cooperative learning strategy in lesson 2 or JIGSAW activity in lesson 3.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development through research in 2017 found that better content knowledge can lead to higher student achievement (OECD, 2017). By applying this principle to these lessons content knowledge has been used to inform both formative and summative assessment throughout. Within the formative assessment, opportunities were embedded into each lesson following strategies such as those from Robert Marzano these strategies provided self-reflection, responses to prompts and questions, and immediate feedback for students (Marzano, 2017).
Constructing these lesson plans gave me a deep understanding of the impact the senior syllabus has in forming both content and assessment. These lessons provide students with clear content knowledge and assessment readiness and which supplied me with opportunities to implement content specific and generalised education strategies and pedagogies.
Bowen, R. (2017). Understanding by Design. Vanderbilt University Centre for Teaching. https://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/understanding-by-design/.
Marzano, R. (2017). The new art and science of teaching.Solution Tree Press.
OECD. (2017). Teachers’ Pedagogical Knowledge and the Teaching Profession. OECD. https://www.oecd.org/education/ceri/Background_document_to_Symposium_ITEL-FINAL.pdf.
QCAA. (2019). Drama 2019 v1.1; General Senior Syllabus. Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority. https://www.qcaa.qld.edu.au/downloads/senior-qce/syllabuses/snr_drama_19_syll.pdf.
