Daniel Colley 17660772 Designing Teaching and Learning

E-Portfolio Teacher Standards Task

Daniel Colley 17660772

Designing Teaching and Learning

PART A

2.6.1 Implement teaching strategies for using ICT to expand curriculum

learning opportunities for students:

The introduction of this lesson plan is largely through paper, verbal

instruction/discussions and board based teaching. Within the body, however, the

teacher opens up the lesson to website searches for new images they personally

select. They use these ICT images to implement the procedure they have learnt

for designing similes, furthering the original curriculum learning of

experimenting with text structures (ACELT1800). In doing so, the images can be

more personalised and varied and the variety of similes is in turn increased,

providing a more comprehensive view of student interests and engagement.

Alongside this activity, the use of interactive white boards (IWB), screen

projectors and iPads expands the ease and opportunity for the classroom to

share and find materials in a collaborative space which may extend beyond the

English subject area.

3.5.1 Demonstrate a range of verbal and nonverbal communication

strategies to support student engagement:

Throughout the lesson, several different verbal communications; such as

discussions and direct instruction, are used alongside nonverbal

1
Daniel Colley 17660772 Designing Teaching and Learning

communications; ranging from writing to visual queues and interactive white

boards (IWB). Given that the content of the lesson plan is similes and imagery,

and these are a method for producing visual sensations through written and

verbal forms, this is particularly appropriate. As a focus for standard 3, this

range of verbal and nonverbal communication strategies organises this lesson

well as foundation for future lessons. The lesson establishes itself as a

preliminary or entry point into symbolic language by encouraging present tense

writing as a simple description of stagnate images. Moving from this basis, future

lessons could then use past tense narrative voice, active video images and more

complex symbolism atop of this simple description.

4.1.1 Identify strategies to support inclusive student participation and

engagement in classroom activities:

The largest strategy for inclusive participation is the student feedback within the

conclusion of the lesson, although collaborative classroom discussions are

present throughout the lesson. This student feedback provides an opportunity

for each student to interact on an academic level with one another although the

level of privacy is not detailed. The lesson plan does not state whether the

samples or the feedback have a name attached or are anonymous, although it

would be more beneficial in interest of privacy and safety, as obtaining to

standard 4, if all elements of the student feedback was anonymous, and only

those who desired feedback had their work publicly displayed on the board.

Outside this largely student driven classroom activity, several discussions are

held throughout the lesson, allowing students to give their opinions and

2
Daniel Colley 17660772 Designing Teaching and Learning

knowledge to the classroom as a whole as well as feel involved in the classroom

content, increasing the engagement of different student groups and perspectives.

5.2.1 Demonstrate understanding of assessment strategies, including

informal and formal, diagnostic, formative and summative approaches to

assess student learning:

The primary assessment of students work is a peer feedback task, requiring

students to evaluate one anothers work at the conclusion of the lesson. As well

as providing constructive feedback, this somewhat formative task gives the

students involved an approach to apply to their own work as well as the other

students in what was done well and what could be improved on early into the

unit on similes. By allowing the students to facilitate this activity, a teacher can

access their critical skills and give students an insight into assessment feedback.

By adding the informal, anecdotal notes the teacher will make throughout the

lesson (likely based on bookwork and discussion occurrences), the teacher

demonstrates a sound understanding of different assessment strategies. The

teacher can then use this formative information to inform future lessons in order

to cater to differences within the class.

3
Daniel Colley 17660772 Designing Teaching and Learning

PART B

Section 1 how the selected focus areas in the lesson plan would cater for

students learning needs (including literacy needs, individualised learning

needs such as indigenous, cultural and linguistic needs):

This lesson plan was designed for general use across Australia in years eight or

nine (Australian Curriculum Lessons, 2013) and as such does not have sections

dedicated to meeting the needs of specific students within a class but rather

attempts to work for the general public. Even within the general public of

students though, many will have different abilities in different intelligences and

will prefer to undertake a task in accordance with their stronger intelligence (Lo

& Pong, 2002), so this lesson plan delves moderately into differentiated learning.

Alongside this, the lesson plan indirectly caters to some culturally diverse

learning needs as well as touching on the learning needs of students with

cognitive developmental issues. For future lessons, the teacher using this lesson

plan could utilise the formative data collected through the assessment strategies,

undertaken in the peer assessment and anecdotal notes, to determine any other

diverse learning needs present within the classroom.

Differentiated Learning operates under the concept of Multiple Intelligence

Theory (Moore, 2012), or that students have strengths in tasks that operate

within a certain way and teaching should be conducted to facilitate many

different ways of performing a task. Centring on the verbal/nonverbal

communications focus area outlined in Part A, four different intelligences are

utilised within the lesson plan to varying degrees. The primary intelligence used

4
Daniel Colley 17660772 Designing Teaching and Learning

within this lesson is the Verbal/Linguistic Intelligence and considering the topic

of the lessons is similes, this is quite appropriate. Similes are a verbal and

linguistic literary technique and the activities use verbal strategies such as

discussions and verbal instruction as the foundation of the teaching but also

written strategies such as listing/writing on the board, written resources and

having the students create their own written similes. An inherent intelligence

within similes is also the Naturalistic Intelligence, present in the connections

made between two different items of a simile, as expressed in Introduction part

3 of the lesson plan. This intelligence is under utilised in the activities though

and little focus is put into aligning different comparisons verbally or nonverbally.

Another prevalent intelligence within the activities is Interpersonal Intelligence.

Students verbally discuss different features of the task throughout the lesson,

such as different senses and how one might express an image to a reader; but the

strongest interpersonal feature of the lesson is within the peer feedback at the

lessons conclusion. This assessment strategy is used formatively by students to

assess one anothers strengths and weaknesses within the newly completed task

and requires high interconnectivity and sociability to function properly. This

particular assessment also passively operates within the Intrapersonal level.

Keith Topping states that while it may not be immediately apparent to the

student, teaching students to peer assess will encourage them use metacognition

to reflect on their own work, even if only as Sleeper effects (2009, p. 23).

By using these different intelligences within the lesson under a differentiated

learning model, students are more likely to excel in their stronger intelligences

as well as gain experience within their weaker intelligences in order to have

their learning needs met.

5
Daniel Colley 17660772 Designing Teaching and Learning

Despite few culturally diverse learning needs being specifically mentioned

within the lesson plan, numerous learner needs are catered within the inclusive

participation focus area. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders generally learn

best from observation and invitation (Garvis, 2006), and so introduction part

seven of the lesson plan works well to model how to write similes and how they

are commonly used before inviting students to try creating similes themselves

within body part one. Further, culturally diverse students tend to learn better

when their culture is included within the classroom activities (Garvis 2006), and

the two discussions within the introduction of the lesson plan provide a suitable

place for indigenous and other culturally diverse students to present their

perspectives on different topics within the activities. For instance, in the

discussion of different senses there are five senses under Western culture

traditions but more within Eastern and Indigenous cultures (Majid & Levinson,

2011). Utilising these unique perspectives would expand the lesson as well as

increase the engagement and inclusion of culturally diverse students (Garvis,

2006), avoiding the damaging affects of loneliness commonly felt by English as a

Second Language (ESL) students (Gillies, 2013).

Focusing on the use of ICT within the lesson plan, the learning needs of students

with cognitive difficulties are also catered for, although ICT is under-utilised

within this particular lesson plan. Several students within comprehensive

schools experience one or more of a variety of cognitive difficulties, such as

autism, ADHD and memory deficiencies (Gillies, 2013). These students, while

benefiting from being alongside their peers with regular cognitive development

6
Daniel Colley 17660772 Designing Teaching and Learning

through collaboration (2013), often struggle with difficult concepts (such as

similes) and working with their peers (Drigas, Kokkalia & Lytras, 2015). ICT,

however, has been found to alleviate/cater to many of these learning difficulties

by creating digital collaborative spaces through which to connect with their

peers (Schad, 2011), having fewer or more focused stimuli to cognate whilst

dealing with difficult concepts (Drigas, Kokkalia & Lytras, 2015), and facilitating

higher levels of engagement and participation (Schad, 2011). These benefits,

however, are gained only to a small degree within this lesson plans use of ICT.

The implementations of ICT within the activities are rather basic and poised

towards research; web searches are used to gather images, iPads are used to

take pictures of student work for peer assessment and IWBs are used to display

the student work being assessed. Students are still directing their attention,

engaging with digital/visual materials and collaborating but more through

verbal and written communication than digital. Classes with cognitively

challenged students would benefit from more in-depth second generation

information technologies such as podcasts, voicethreads, games and video

recordings.

This lesson plan does not actively cater to much more than the learning needs

met by the differentiation of activities through verbal and nonverbal

communications. Passively though, its used of inclusive teaching allows for

greater cultural engagement and participation and its meagre use provides

somewhat for the learning needs of students if cognitive difficulties. The two

assessment methods used within the lesson plan could be utilised to discover

other learning needs within a classroom and then make more changes to

7
Daniel Colley 17660772 Designing Teaching and Learning

facilitate their learning amongst the already provided for children in future

lessons.

Section 2 how you incorporated peer feedback into the revised

explanations:

After receiving my peer feedback; I used the suggestions to fix the few grammar

mistakes present in the drafts, to add comments relevant to how each focus

catered to learning needs to the end of each focus area, and to also reassess what

kind of assessment the peer feedback in my lesson plan was. Prior, I had called it

diagnostic when, after having that questioned, I realised it was, in fact, formative.

My peers did not suggest any other revisions.

References

8
 Daniel Colley 17660772 Designing Teaching and Learning

Australian Curriculum Lessons. (2013). Snapshot writing lesson: Being descriptive by

appealing to the senses. Retrieved from

http://www.australiancurriculumlessons.com.au/2013/03/31/snapshot-

writing-lesson-being-descriptive-by-appealing-to-the-senses/

Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL). (2011). Australian

Professional Standards for Teachers. Retrieved from

http://www.aitsl.edu.au/australian-professional-standards-for-

teachers/standards/list.

Drigas, A., Kokkalia, G., & Lytras, D. (2015). ICT and collaborative co-learning in

preschool children who face memory difficulties. Computers in Human Behavior,

51, 645-51.

Garvis, S. (2006). Optimising the learning of gifted aboriginal students. International

Journal of Pedagogies and Learning, 2(3), 42-51, DOI: 10.5172/ijpl.2.3.42

Gillies, R. M. (2013). Loneliness and its effects on students with diverse learning and

adjustment needs. International Journal of Disability, Development and Education,

60(2), 71-73. doi: 10.1080/1034912X.2013.786536

Lo, M. L., & Pong, W. Y. (2002). Catering for individual differences. INSTEP, University of

Hong Kong Press.

Majid, A., & Levinson, S. C. (2011). The Senses in Language and Culture. The Senses and

Society, 6(1), 5-18.

Moore, K. D. (2012). Effective instructional strategies (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks: Sage.

Schad, L. (2011). As I see IT: Harnessing technology to meet your students diverse

learning needs. Learning and Leading with Technology, 38(6), 42-3.

Topping, K. J. (2009). Peer Assessment. Theory Into Practice, 48(1), 20-27.