Entry 1: Professional Knowledge - Standards 1 and 2

Standard 1: Know students and how they learn

1.5    Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of strategies for differentiating teaching to meet  the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities.

While having had a few encounters with having to differentiate teaching for students, this is something that really came into practice during the professional internship. I have learnt that there are a variety of ways to differentiate teaching within the classroom, and that these methods will not all work with the same children. Differentiation can firstly occur within the actual planning of programs. Whether this is in relation to simply adjusting a program for particular students, or creating an IEP, is irrelevant, as both of these count as differentiated teaching.

Another way to differentiate teaching for students is to differentiate instruction. The reasoning behind this is that not all students learn in the same way, meaning that some need to write information to absorb it, some need to see or hear it, or some need to actually participate in the process and have a hands on approach. I was very mindful of this not only throughout the year, but particularly during my professional internship, so I always endeavoured to provide a range of learning experiences for my students that would fit into all of these categories.

Other ways I embedded differentiated teaching into my practice, was to actually differentiate individual tasks. There was quite a range of abilities in my classroom, so as I got to know the students I realised that some tasks were too difficult for particular students, and the same tasks could be too easy for other students.  As a result my each task would be simplified for those students who would have more difficulty, and extended for those who needed more of a challenge.

The first piece of evidence I have included to demonstrate my ability to provide differentiated teaching includes a photographs of one way I used differentiated instruction when teaching my students about electrical circuits. The second piece of evidence is a student work sample- the particular student was given an extension in during our poetry lesson, where they had to write another poem from the perspective of a character who they like from either television or a book.

Ways which I would like to improve, and implement differentiated teaching more efficiently in the future would include finding clear methods to adapt all tasks, as well as being able to quickly identify students who may require an IEP or significant adjustments to their learning. I would also like to improve my ability to extend tasks even further, particularly for students who are gifted and need significant extension. If there are any professional development courses that arise relating to this over the next few months, I plan to attend. If not, there is a great amount of literature on the topic which I wish to look at.


Standard 2: Know the content and how to teach it.

2.6    Implement teaching strategies for using ICT to expand curriculum learning opportunities for students.

ICT was not something that was used very often when I attended school myself. With the rapid changes in technology that have occurred over the past ten years, the benefits of using smartboards, laptops and more recently, iPads in the classroom have been advertised widely. Having had some experience using smartboards and some other forms of ICT in my lessons while completing other placements, I was extremely pleased to find that my professional internship classroom had both student computer desks, as well as a large smartboard placed centrally in the classroom.

During the course of the professional internship, I endeavoured to utilise teaching strategies which involved ICT, particularly the use of the smartboard as well as the computer stations. Using the smartboard helped me not only to differentiate instruction, but also enabled me to engage students in a very practical way- particularly as the smartboard was in a central location in the classroom.

Ways in which I used the smartboard to expand the curriculum learning opportunities included engaging the students with interactive games, to either test or gauge the students on certain aspects of content.  In particular this was used on a regular basis for language lessons such as the use of similies, metaphors, and adjectival phrases in grammar. Grammar was taught two times a week- the first lesson involved students working from their unit grammar book. For the second lesson students would be tested on their understanding through the use of interactive games on the smartboard, as well as other hands on and written activities.

Other ways in which content was extended, and teaching strategies were diversified using the smartboard, included playing videos to students about certain concepts that were being introduced in a lesson. I found that introducing topics in this manner, not only engaged students from the outset, but also helped them have a clear understanding of where the lesson was heading. Of course there are risks that are accompanied with the use of ICT in the classroom, so the importance of checking websites and videos I was planning on using in the class at home first became clear.

Throughout the professional internship I endeavoured to implement the use of ICT into my learning sequence through the use of the student computer stations. Consequently students received multiple opportunities to conduct research, write assignments, and create presentations on the computers. While this did create another aspect that I would need to closely monitor during lessons, particularly as students were searching on the internet, I believe this was beneficial for their learning, and also in increasing their own technological skills.

The first piece of evidence I have used to demonstrate how ICT was used to extend the curriculum is a photo of students using computer workstations for a task. Their task was to create a photo story using photo story software of their excursion to Mundaring Weir. They were required to pick 30 photos from a class photo folder, which included photos taken on the excursion. Once they had picked the photographs, they had to sequence them, as well as add text and effects.

The second piece of evidence shows students presenting an advertising campaign that they created for reading to the class. The task involved students creating their own advertising campaigns to endorse drinking recycled water. The picture included is of students who chose to create a tv advertisement for their campaign.

The third piece of evidence included is a certificate I received for attending a professional development session on using Notebook on the smart board to enhance learning experiences, at an intermediate level. The professional development session was run by Hayley Oldfield from the company Electroboard.

In the future, I would like to utilise ICT to an even greater extent, as I believe it provides countless opportunities to engage students, make learning relevant, and extend content and curriculum. Ways in which I would like to utilise ICT include with the use of blogs, and twitter (particularly for class discussions, lesson summaries, or for writing class poems), real time classroom polls, video blogs particular if were able to communicate with schools from around the world, as well as augmented reality. I believe that technology provides us with the tools to continually develop learning, and make it meaningful.