Know students and how they learn
Physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students
While on placement in a year one intervention program, I discovered that academic deficiencies were not the only issue students may struggle with. There were many areas that this program aimed to strengthen; gross and fine motor skills, oral language, phonemic awareness and social/emotional skills. These deficiencies meant that students could not regulate their behaviour, were not able to perform physical tasks like holding a pencil and walking long distances and received multiple warnings in their classroom which distracted them from learning within their classroom.
The lesson plans for each category of development were vastly different. The lesson plans for social and emotional included various team work games where the focus was on regulating behaviour, taking turns and sharing toys or resources. These skills were important to strengthen to build confidence in the students and help them interact in a more productive way in their classrooms.
Students requiring physical development often were bigger students or students who struggled with pencil control or scissor use. Lesson plans that I created for these students involved games that stimulated the big muscle groups; running, reaching down and quick turns. Fine motor development included activities with tweezers and picking gems out of rice tubs. Any physical lesson plan started with a warm up stretch to increase student flexibility and limit muscle pain.
Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities
During my last practicum, I taught a mathematical unit on patterns. To cater for the mixed abilities in the classroom I used a couple of strategies. The first strategy was to place them in mixed ability groups. This allowed for peer mentoring with the students working together to complete the tasks. While in these groups I was able to observe which students were struggling with the concept and which students were ready for further extensions.
For the students needing extra support I found a resource with heavier scaffolding for patterns. They used physical shapes and were required to place them into the matching shape. This activity focussed in simple patterns like AB and ABC. These physical manipulatives helped to build conceptual understanding and the heavier scaffolding built up their confidence and created a good foundation of continuing patterns.
For the students needing extensions I used a resource that included pattern rules so they would have to identify the rule, apply a colour to each letter and continue the pattern. This caterpillar rule activity included various difficult pattern rules that went beyond AB patterns. This was a multiple step activity and allowed for students to extend and deepen their pattern knowledge.
Strategies to support full participation of students with disability
While on placement in a Special Needs School, I developed many resources and strategies to engage and support the full participation of students with a disability. The Disability Discrimination Act (1992) makes disability discrimination unlawful and promotes equal rights, equal opportunity and equal access for people with disabilities. To ensure my lessons met the legislative requirements I would reflect on whether all students had equitable access to my lessons, resources to communicate with and opportunities to communicate.
A key strategy for my lessons were creating communication opportunities, using visual images and having physical manipulatives. During this Practicum I developed a Positive behaviour for Learning lesson on putting rubbish in the correct bins. I created a bingo game with waste and recycling items and once called out if the students had that item they would cross the item out. To support physical impairments I had bigger pencils handed out for larger grip area. The physical items of rubbish helped visual impaired students as well as general understanding of the items for intellectual impairments. The students were able to feel the items and decide whether it was hard or soft and if it should go in the recycling bin or the waste bin. The bingo cards had pictures to aid literacy deficits and the students got involved with physically placing the items in the classroom bins. Staff was there to assist in helping communication with AUSLAN and PODD books. This allowed all students to converse with the teacher and share answers. This was reinforced by my supervising teacher's comments that the lesson "had all the students engaged".
Know the content and how to teach it
Content and teaching strategies of the teaching area
Prior to starting the unit plan on patterns, I researched the Australian Curriculum and the content descriptors around 'patterns'. I identified that the skills the students had to display by the end of the unit were investigate and describe. The content would need to include number patterns with skip counting and patterns with objects.
Working backwards to plan my unit, the unit would need to start with an investigation of patterns. Showing the students real-world examples and investigating continuing patterns will help with the first skill listed in the content descriptor. The second skill will be to describe patterns. Describing the rule of skip counting and simple patterns will be the next step in the sequence. The final step will be for the students to identify the rule in a pattern (AB or +5) and continue the pattern following the rule.
Curriculum, assessment and reporting
Following on from the Curriculum, my next step was to create an assessment item and marking rubric. Since the summative assessment item and marking rubric was created prior to the term I was unable to design my own summative pieces. I analysed the marking rubric and identified what skills the students had to display. To receive a 'standard grade' the students have to correctly continue patterns with numbers and objects. To obtain higher they have to describe the pattern rule and create their own pattern and rule.
Knowing the reporting system helped me to design a diagnostic assessment based on continuing patterns which will highlight which students are at standard and who will need extra support to reach standard.
Literacy and numeracy strategies
The unit was designed around the patterns and algebra content descriptor “investigate and describe number patterns formed by skip counting and patterns with objects” (ACARA). To be able to describe a number pattern, the students must display content vocabulary. This vocabulary was explicitly taught at the start of a new topic lesson. This vocabulary was basic to begin with; patterns, continuing and repeating. The vocabulary was then developed to include ‘pattern rules’ and ‘skip counting’. Vocabulary was explicitly taught as a literacy general capability. This literacy skill was required by the students to perform well during this unit task. Numeracy and Literacy always go hand in hand in any lesson. A typical numeracy lesson like patterns and algebra where numbers and patterns make you assume its purely a numeracy lesson will have literacy intertwined within it and in this case as the vocabulary to be able to describe the pattern relationships.