Task 3: Portfolio In this task you can draw upon any of the work that you have provided for the first two assignments. It is expected that you will draw extensively upon your experiences on the...

1 Standard 1: Know students and how they learn

1.1 Physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students
Children are all capable learners in their own right. They are naturally endowed with a unique range of abilities, needs, understandings, capabilities and challenges. They are each different in their attitudes and behaviours when it comes to learning (Tomlinson, 1999). As a pre-service teacher, I have struggled with the students of my class (year 2) during the duration of my teaching and observed their physical, social and intellectual development along with their individual characteristics, and how these may have affected their learning, I used the class list as well as relevant images to help me remember student names. This has helped me identify the students who require scaffolding so that I can assist them in learning more effectively.
Subsequently, in relation to Erickson's understanding of social development, this class of Year 2 students are at Industry vs. Inferiority stage, I have noticed that peer support is a significant source of their self-esteem. The class uses the ‘My Turn “charts to indicate their emotional state with the red roads signifying they are upset and the green roads signifying they are not. This indicates to the teacher if something is wrong or not. Additionally, students are demonstrating specific competencies that are valued by the society and developing a sense of pride in their accomplishment and resilience
It is evident from my observations of this class, that the boys in particular "thirst for opportunities to interact with peers” while developing their own sense of identity when compared to girls (Englehart, 2013, p. 105). Attention seeking is one of the behaviors most often observed in students of this age. This is undertaken by students in different ways, both boys and girls. While girls tend to focus on their achievements, boys like to go wild and noisy.
As a pre-service teacher, I realized that I want to help my students achieve better as learners. I hope not only to maintain but improve their individual learning skills by observing them using relevant theoretical frameworks and developing a strengths-based approach to plan and design my teaching methods. In addition, I want to pursue further education in the field such as Masters of Learning and Development (Early Childhood) to become more efficient.
Tools used-
Daily fitness = active bodies open the mind
Hand clapping to get students attention (eyes on me )
1.2 Understand how students learn
In order to exhibit my understanding of standard 1.2 (AILTS,2017) on how students learn and its implications for teaching practices, I will discuss the issues involved with teaching students who have learning difficulties. Throughout my placement, I used an array of different teaching strategies to cater to students with learning needs to learn effectively.
After giving instructions to the whole class I would go around to the students who I had identified to require more help and individually assisted them. I used visual, written and aural prompts to help them better understand what was required of them to complete the tasks /activities.
My observation during my placement was that due to dyslexia some students reading, writing and speaking was affected. They often experienced confusion regarding similar sounding words and the direction that numbers, and letters faced. Additionally, while on placement I shadowed a learning support teacher who helped the students having difficulty with spelling and phonemic awareness. I observed how the program (Mini Lit) focuses on the student’s strengths while scaffolding their learning on the weakness. According to Williams and Lynch, students with dyslexia often have strengths in thinking and reasoning.
Tools used-
Handwriting – trace over
Excursion, Role playing
    
Standard 2: Know the content and how to teach it
2.1    Content and teaching strategies of the teaching area
Knowing your students is an important part of teaching. However, knowing the content and strategies used to teach it are another part of teaching that cannot be underestimated. In order to effectively teach students the relevant content, as a pre-service teacher, I reviewed and understood the new publications of the Australian Curriculum which was recently published. By taking this initiative, I am now fully equipped with sound knowledge on how to inspire my students and how to teach certain concepts. Throughout my placement I used the Australian Curriculum, to develop my lesson plans and plan relevant programs and units of work.
As a pre-service teacher, I believe using explicit teaching approach will maximize student's growth since the procedures designed using this approach are highly instructional (Archer & Hughes, 2011). I used distinct and open teaching methods to guide my students through their learning with clear expectations and demonstrations of why we are learning a new skill. Additionally, I supported the students with feedback until they had mastered the concept. Bloom's Higher Order Thinking method (Forehand, 2005) was what I utilized to accurately sequence all my lessons to build on the students conceptual understanding.

Tools used-
Australian Curriculum
Bloom’s Higher Order Thinking Method
2.2 Content selection and organization
This section highlights the importance of being able to organize teaching content into a logical and effective sequence which will subsequently allow further development in students. As a pre-service teacher, I understand the necessity and importance of having structure because you are required to model activities and tasks so that students are able to grasp the concept being taught. I demonstrated this during my placement by providing students with flexible structures for lesson plans and unit plans. According to Bloom’s taxonomy, before we can complete higher order learning tasks, we must have a foundation of understanding (i.e. knowledge, comprehension), which reaffirms our reasoning for this. Also, if a clear relevance is demonstrated to students through examples or tasks that relate to their lives they will be more involved in their learning.
Additionally, the students were taken on excursions and camping, so that they are able to visualize the concepts. The MT helped me by advising me that selecting content that is relevant to students, encourages them to actively engage with their work. During the course of my placement, we had a weekly group discussion with another grade 2 teacher where we sequenced the week together on our planners.
Tools used-
Excursions and Camping
Weekly group discussion with teachers
2.3     Curriculum, assessment and reporting
During my placement, I also understood the importance of following the curriculum and its relevance to the development of student's understanding of concepts as well as the world around them. Having an interactive as well as comprehensive curriculum ideally designed for an age group facilitates not only their learning but also advances their thought patterns as they grow.
In our class (year 2), we focussed on various concepts in literature, maths, and sciences. I was able to appreciate the connection between these concepts and their practical applications just as much as the students.
In order to ensure proper understanding of these concepts, we planned relevant assessment tools both on the individual as well as class levels. Multiple assessments enabled us to get a complete...