4.1 Support student participation
4.2 Manage classroom activities
As aforementioned in Standard 2 and 3 of this portfolio, I undertook a professional experience at a small, rural Catholic School with students from Years 3-6. During this time, I planned and taught an English unit on appropriate use of language features in written texts. Throughout my planning of classroom activities, it was imperative I utilised a variety of pedagogical approaches and tasks in order to support participation from the broad range of ability levels (4.1, 4.2).
During this lesson, students were asked to examine, identify and annotate language features from a short piece of text I had written about Notorious Ned (Artefact 1) and then begin brainstorming ideas for their own text. This lesson was towards the end of the unit sequence were I was gradually releasing responsibility (GRR) to students as their understanding of language features was evident from analysing their formative assessment (Churchill et al, 2019; Webb et al, 2019). In effectively managing classroom activities and providing clear direction, at the beginning of the lesson I wrote different expectations for each year level on the whiteboard so that if they finished a task, they knew what to progress on to next (4.2). For example, once students had annotated the text, they could then move onto brainstorming their own Australian character and landscape using a t-chart with positive or negative words to assist their writing process in the lessons following (4.2).
To support participation from the Year 3 student with Autism, I asked my supervisor to work closely with him as he underlined various language features with different colours (Artefact 2) (4.1). I ensured that he gave verbal reasoning for his choices to justify his understanding, and my supervisor took running records as part of formative assessment (Stokes et al, 2017). I made the conscious decision to offer him teacher guidance and support, as individual work was often anxiety inducing for this student due to his low literacy levels (Churchill et al, 2019). Another instance of supporting student engagement and differentiation was for the high ability Year 6 student, where she not only annotated language features, but she also had to identify any positive or negative words within the text (Artefact 3) (4.1). Due to knowing the learners and their capabilities, I had planned that there would be fast finishers, therefore I correctly managed classroom activities to ensure everyone was engaged, had work to complete and felt challenged in that work (4.1, 4.2).
As a result of offering differentiated tasks to the students in this class, individual’s were able to participate and work through content at their own pace and to the best of their ability (4.1, 4.2) (Tomlinson, 2017). I finished my placement before being able to engage students in the summative task, but after analysing and reflecting upon all of their formative data during the unit, I feel confident that my management of classroom activities and engaging tasks set the students up to experience success in writing using language features (4.1) (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority, n.d.; Churchill et al, 2017). Out of my three placements so far, I feel that I flourished the most during my time at this Catholic Primary School. Those experiences have greatly shaped my literacy and numeracy practices, my understanding of student participation and effective classroom management strategies to support diverse abilities (4.1, 4.2).
References
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA). (n.d.). Literacy. Australian Curriculum. Retrieved September 18, 2021, from https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-curriculum/general-capabilities/literacy/
Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. (n.d). Australian professional standards for teachers. https://www.aitsl.edu.au/teach/standards
Churchill, R., Godhino, S., Johnson, N., Keddie, A., Letts, W., Lowe, K., Mackay, J., McGill, M., Moss, J., Nagel, M., Shaw, K., & Rogers, J. (2019). Teaching: Making a Difference (4th ed.). John Wiley & Sons Australia.
Tomlinson, C., (2017). How to Differentiate Instruction in Academically Diverse Classrooms (3rd ed.). ASCD.http://www.ascd.org/publications/books/117032/chapters/What-Differentiated-Instruction-Is—and-Isn’t.aspx
Stokes, M., Thomson, M., Macmillan, C., Pecora, L., Dymond, S., & Donaldson, E. (2017). Principals’ and teachers’ reports of successful teaching strategies with children with high-functioning autism spectrum disorder. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 32(3-4), 192–208. https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.usq.edu.au/doi/pdf/10.1177/0829573516672969
Webb, S., Massey, D., Goggans, M., & Flajole, K. (2019). Thirty Five Years of the Gradual Release of Responsibility: Scaffolding Toward Complex and Responsive Teaching. The Reading Teacher, 73 (1), 75-83. http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.usq.edu.au/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=d10e2098-42a5-48e0-b5a3-994267cb12be%40pdc-v-sessmgr01
