Personal reflection to the readings
Please be clear that this is not an exam! There is no time limit and you can leave and enter as many time as you want to. We’re using Exam.net for its efficiency in uploading our responses and sharing them with your Head of Subject/s. Copies of the readings can be downloaded from the ‘resources’ section of the task. They have also been emailed to you.
Directions: read the chapters and reflect on them as you respond to the questions in the designated spaces below.1. Are there any aspects of the chapters that you feel you can confidently implement in your classroom? I believe that this overarching framework serves me well in application to my teaching method:
Collaboration:
We share our professional knowledge and skills with others and work collaboratively to improve teacher effectiveness and student achievement. Collaboration is defined as staff working together to achieve shared outcomes and goals, working together to plan learning programs, assess students’ formatively and support colleagues to grow their practice. Since I started at BC I have actively pursued this, already networking with Lauren Knight and Lucy Price.
Empathy:
Our students have never been on a harder road than this one. We have an invaluable opportunity to improve and maintain the mental health and wellbeing of our students through targeted, well structured, well developed teaching that maximises outcomes and helps students feel enriched and accomplishied.
Flexibility:
I support all members of our community colleagues, students and parents, and treat them with compassion and understanding. I embrace the challenge of change and adapt to support our students, our colleagues and our school. This means being flexible in timetabling, lesson delivery and student outcomes.
Fairness:
I embrace the challenge of change and adapt to support my students, my colleagues and the school. I act impartially and without bias in my decision making, and share opportunities and gratitude with others.
Humour:
I value humour in the work place and relationships characterized by warmth and joy. I understand that this is a fundamental part of connection with and inspiration with the students I teach, therefore a vital part of the lesson structure.
Respect:
I build respectful relationships with all and treat our colleagues with civility and dignity at all times.responsibility:
I value the professional expertise and experiences of my our colleagues and engage with openness and honesty. I accept where colleagues are as individuals at different places in their professional journey and try and support all to grow their practice and capacity. I value individual and collective responsibility and hold our self and each other account able for our successes and challenges.
Passion:
I am positive, energetic and enthusiastic in my approach to our roles and am committed to growing professionally and seeing dynamic growth in the students individual capacity and resilience.
Reflection:
I am committed to both self-reflection and reflecting in groups to celebrate our successes and strengths and identify challenges and opportunities for growth into the future.
2. How can the strategies in the readings improve your classroom practice?I have always used a 4 step taxonomy for every single curriculum, unit and lesson I have ever taught since graduation from Uni. When followed, in sequence, It has never failed to engage and produce top shelf outcomes for students. The strategies I have gleaned from these readings are already providing enhanced learning in my lessons. I discuss these in Q.3. I have embedded them into the framework below.
1. Connection. This happens before anything. I resolve that before anything I find a point of connection with what is taught, how it is taught, and the student’s overall mood. If students are connected and resonate with what I do, they will learn. If they aren’t they won’t. Simple.
2. Inspiration. This happens straight after connection is established. There is a clearly established goal for the lesson, for practising during the week, the term, the year. There’s no drifting. There is a flexible plan and the student is connected into it.
3. Education. This happens in direct application to the connection and inspiration. The knowledge imparted is relevant, succinct, targeted and appreciated. Nothing is wasted.
4. Edification. At the end of the lesson, the student feels a sense of accomplishment, has clear and effective strategies for rehearsing at home and feels confident to tackle the tasks ahead in self motivated learning. If there is an issue with any part of the work set the student knows that it will be addressed in a positive way in the next lesson, thus strengthening the learning even more.3. What are the implications of the readings for your lesson and unit plan documentation?lesson Phases Warm-UpReview of known content. Recall, Recite, ApplyResponses are targeted to maximise student engagement Brisk presentations are designed to bring them into the lesson, not to demonstrate.I do, you do, we do.I DO (Model Practice) Lesson Goal – expressed as WALT WILFActivate prior knowledge, Concepts and definitions, Introduce key vocabulary, Explain, model, demonstrate – step by step Think Alouds Brisk presentation YOU DO (Independent Practice) Independent Practice Differentiated Instruction – mini lessons Re-teachingIndividual and / or cooperative learning tasks Application of skills and knowledge Spaced and cumulative practice. Plenary Checking for Understanding Feedback Students demonstrating and articulating learning.Each lesson has a clear learning intention clearly stated as a WALT (We are Learning Today). Each lesson intention to be supported with a WILF (What I am Looking For). The WILF should clearly articulate what success looks like.The explicit modelling of new concepts and skills should include activating prior knowledge, concept definition, introducing key vocabulary and step by step modelling. Think Alouds or scripting should are to be used.Constant checking for understanding and feedback to students is essential -TAPPLE is a useful model:1.Teach.2. Ask.3. Pause.4. Pick 5. Listen with care.6. Effective feedback – echo response if correct, elaborate when the student response is tentative or partly correct, explain or re-explain when the student answer is not correct.
LESSON STRATEGIES.
1. Sequence skills logically. Consider several curricular variables, such as teaching easier skills before harder skills, teaching high-frequency skills before skills that are less frequent in usage, ensuring mastery of prerequisites to a skill before teaching the skill itself, and separating skills and strategies that are similar and thus may be confusing to students.2. Break down complex skills and strategies into smaller instructional units. Teach in small steps. Segmenting complex skills into smaller instructional units of new material, addresses concerns about cognitive overloading, processing demands, and the capacity of students’ working memory. Once mastered, units are synthesized (i.e. practiced as a whole). Design organised and focused lessons. 3. Make sure lessons are organised and focused in order to make optimal use of instructional time. Organised lessons are on topic, well sequenced, and contain no irrelevant digressions.4. Engage specific targeted multi sensory learning, both within the lesson itself and as part of an effective a practise routine to be undertaken at home during the week.5. Begin lessons with a clear statement of the lesson’s goals and my expectations. Tell learners clearly what is to be learned (WALT) and why it is important. Students achieve better if they understand the instructional goals and outcomes expected, as well as how the information or skills presented will help them. Review prior skills and knowledge before beginning instruction. Provide a review of relevant information. Choosing a instructional method that helps achieve this will little or no extraneous effort is paramount.6. Verify that students have the prerequisite skills and knowledge to learn the skill being taught in the lesson. This element also provides an opportunity to link the new skill with other related skills. Provide step-by-step demonstrations. Model the skill and clarify the decision-making processes needed to complete a task or procedure by thinking aloud as I perform the skill. 7. Clearly demonstrate the target skill or strategy, in order to show the students a model of proficient performance.use clear and concise language. Use consistent, unambiguous language and terminology. 8. The complexity of my speed (e.g. vocabulary, sentence structure) should depend on students’ receptive vocabulary to reduce possible confusion.Provide an adequate range of examples and non-examples. In order to establish the boundaries of when and when not to apply a skill, strategy, concept, or rule, provide a wide range of examples and non- examples. 9. Provide guided and supported practice. In order to promote initial success and build confidence, regulate the difficulty of practice opportunities during the lesson, and provide students with guidance in skill performance. When students demonstrate success, I gradually increase task difficulty as you decrease the level of guidance.10. Require frequent responses. Plan for a high level of student-teacher interaction via the use of questioning. Having the students respond frequently (i.e. oral responses, written responses, or action responses) helps them focus on the lesson content, provides opportunities for student elaboration, assists me in checking understanding, and keeps students active and attentive.11. I Monitor student performance closely. Carefully watch and listen to students’ responses, so that I can verify student mastery as well as make timely adjustments in instruction if students are making errors. Close monitoring also allows me to provide feedback to students about how well they are doing.12. I Provide immediate affirmative and corrective feedback. Follow up on students’ responses as quickly as I can, immediate feedback to students about the accuracy of their responses helps ensure high rates of success and reduces the likelihood of practising errors.13. Deliver the lesson at a brisk pace. Deliver instruction at an appropriate pace to optimise instructional time, the amount of content that can be presented, and on-task behaviour. Use a rate of presentation that is brisk but includes a reasonable amount of time for students’ thinking/processing, especially when they are learning new material. The desired pace is neither so slow that students get bored, nor so quick that they can’t keep up. Only use a ‘focus’ lesson (ie, working on just one thing), when the intent is clearly communicated, the student agrees to focus on it and there is a sense of achievement at the end of the lesson.14. I help students organise knowledge. Many students have difficulty seeing how some skills and concepts fit together, it is important to use teaching techniques that make these connections more apparent or explicit. Well organised and connected information makes it easier for students to retrieve information and facilitate its integration with new material.15. Provide distributed and cumulative practise. distributed (vs. massed) practice refers to multiple opportunities to practise a skill over time. Cumulative practice is a method for providing distributed practise by including practise opportunities that address both previously and newly acquired skills. I provide students with mulitple practise attempts in order to address issues of retention as well as automaticity, readability and memorisation of concepts and material.
Grant Furneaux 