1.
Know students and how they learn
During this lesson I presented the assessment task and went through the rubric. I had spoken to the class about what would be in the assessment on several
occasions before this, but this was the first time that we had looked at the assessment sheet as a class.
Considering the following “several studies have confirmed that nearly half of student answers are at a different cognitive level than the teacher question,
yet teachers generally accept these answers as sufficient without probing or prompting correct responses (Walsh & Sattes).” I engaged students in many
conversations and tried to dig deeper into their answers.
Considering the following “repetition matters because it can hasten and deepen the engagement process. If one cares about quality of learning, one should
consciously design repetitive engagement into courses and daily teaching (Bruner, 2001),” I designed a structure which utilised repetition, making sure to
state the learning objective or question several times and in different ways.
2. Know the content and how to teach it
By the time that the assessment task sheet was being read out the students had spent lessons on each aspect which would be assessed, this lesson was a
summary of how these elements would be brought together into 1 task. By asking the students what was expected for each element, I gave them an
opportunity to demonstrate that they already had the skills to succeed in this task. I addressed each component on the rubric and asked to students to
explain the difference between the different grades for each.
Since the assessment was a narrative writing task, I gave the students 10 minutes at the start of each English lesson to experiment writing a new narrative
which incorporated the skills learned in previous lessons. This was done for no less than 15 lessons. This gave the students confidence and allowed them to
practice the skill that they would be assessed on.
In the lesson prior to this one, I taught a lesson wherein every student wrote a narrative which was directed by me. The class wrote silently, while I would
give them a prompt and then give them an allotted time to write a certain amount of words on that element. I differentiated by ensuring that the students
who I knew to be slower were spoken to in order to ensure they understood what was being asked and letting them know that they did not need to write as
much.
Since the theme of the assessment was displacement, I asked the class in this lesson to write a 3 rd person narrative about an ATSI child who had been
removed from their home, either today or in the 1950’s. This was designed to give them practice at writing a displacement narrative before attempting
their assessment task, and to also incorporate AITSL standard 2.4 into learning.
During this formative guided narrative task, I addressed each of the assessment criteria for the upcoming summative assessment task, while coaching the
class as they silently wrote their narratives. The goal behind this was that each student would have had an opportunity to write a narrative which qualifies
as meeting the criteria for the upcoming summative assessment. This analogue would make sure that every student was fully aware of what was expected
and what it would look like when done well. Further, I stated that if students wished, they could modify and build on the narrative from this lesson and
submit it as their summative assessment. This meant that every student had been given multiple opportunities to write a narrative, get feedback, and hear
other student’s examples of how to do this assignment well.
3. Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning
This lesson was the culmination and summary of many weeks of learning and practicing how to write narratives. The principle of repetition was used a lot
during this unit. Students were able to learn a concept, then practice it, then the next day write a narrative incorporating their new skill, with freedom to
choose what to write. This cycle continued and culminated in this lesson where these skills were to be used in the one summative assessment. This meant
that the skills were not so much being taught during this lesson as the students were recalling what they had already learned and practiced.
My use of communication in this lesson could have been much better. I asked for student input, but in so doing, I allowed the volume to get too high and
there ended up being too many side-conversations occurring. I should have slowed down and focused on classroom management, however, the situation
was somewhat artificial because I was very conscious that I was recording the audio, meaning that I wanted to get through it in a certain amount of time,
but this was the very thing which reduced my effectiveness.
I used this question and answer time in part to determine how effectively the class had learned the narrative writing principles which had been taught.
4. Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments
This lesson demonstrated good student participation, but the students talking while others were answering was not appropriate and I should have dealt
with this better. My goals for this lesson were to have high student participation, but the way which I asked questions in quick succession lifted the energy
of the class too much and I needed to take a moment to bring it down and make sure that everyone was listening. The challenging behaviour in this lesson
was students talking to each other, I needed to do the ‘silent stare’ and wait for them to be quiet, but I was too conscious of the lesson being recorded,
which I understand is counterintuitive.
5. Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning
The ‘question and answer’ format was designed to see whether students understood the concepts in the unit on narrative writing and to then clarify if
students misunderstood any elements. After the recording I went around and spoke to each student to see if they understood what was required for the
summative assessment.
6. Engage in professional learning
Before this lesson I had spoken to my mentor teacher and two of the other year 8 English teachers to see what they thought about my approach to this unit
and they liked how I used the low-stakes narrative writing at the beginning of each lesson to practice narrative writing skills. This gave me confidence to use
this method.
7. Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community
Although not in this lesson, I participated in parent-teacher interviews for 5 students from this class. On each occasion the parents had been told about me
by their child, with positive things to say. I used each meeting as a chance to see if there were any concerns or information that staff should have to cater to
their child’s needs better, and on each occasion I gave helpful feedback to parents about their students learning.
I also used a Facebook page dedicated to English teaching ideas to help inspire me, although my ideas were original to me.
