Prac Placement

Like Leisha and Elizabeth I too have not been told where I am going to prac yet. However, usually I haven’t been told till around 2 weeks before I am due to begin the placement…I still keep checking inplace every second day anyway. I am really excited for prac but I’m also nervous (which I think is pretty normal). I have so many good memories from my last prac which was in a prep class. I met so many amazing little people and learnt some great things from my mentor and teacher aid. Like Elizabeth, the reason I like to know where I am going early is to make contact with my mentor teacher early enough to understand the student needs, classroom dynamics, behavioural management techniques, and where possible the unit/lesson contents that we will complete together. In his blog, Wilson provided this article which is all about getting the most out of prac. It was definitely worth the read.

Back to working on assignment two…

Skye

 

 

 

Unit Plan Assessment

I have found this week’s learning path pretty full on to be honest! The aspect that I have read over a few times now that I am struggling to really have a good understanding of is developing the assessment task and rubric. Yes, I have developed an assessment task and rubric before so I have no idea why I am finding this so challenging. I have decided to break everything down into small pieces.

On the learning path, David has outlined a 5-step process to developing the assessment task and rubric for our unit plan.

The five steps used in the process will involve answering the following five questions:

1. What are the learning objectives? (already chosen)
2. What criteria match those objectives? (already chosen)
3. What kind of evidence do you need to gather? (semi-chosen)
4. What assessment task will you use?
5. What task specific descriptors should you use in the rubric?

The next question I need to ask myself is which of my chosen learning objectives must the assessment task I submit gather evidence against?

The following learning objectives are the objectives I will use for students to submit evidence against:

• The main characteristics of the continents of Africa and South America and the location of their major countries in relation to Australia (ACHASSK087)
• Locate and collect information and data from different sources, including observations (ACHASSI074)
• Interpret data and information displayed in different formats, to identify and describe distributions and simple patterns (ACHASSI078)
• Present ideas, findings and conclusions in texts and modes that incorporate digital and non-digital representations and discipline-specific terms (ACHASSI082)

 

The following criteria (which have come directly from the year four geography standard elaborations) are:

Geographical knowledge and understanding.                                                                               Knowledge and understanding:

• Comprehensive description of the location of selected countries in relative terms. Identification and detailed description of simple patterns in the distribution of features of places.

Geographical inquiry and skills.                                                                                            Questioning and Researching:

• Development of geographical questions for investigation and collection, recording and considered use of information and data from difference sources to effectively answer these questions.

Communicating:

• Accurate and detailed representation of data and the location of place and their characteristics in simple graphic forms including large-scale maps that use the cartographic conventions.

I am now at the point where I need to ask: What kind of evidence can students produce that will convince me they have done the required learning? Thinking about this will help me to consider how I might sequence the development of this evidence by deciding what I will use for the formative assessment. I had already written in my formative assessment last week as I worked through the learning path, however it wasn’t an actual task so I will need to rethink this section.

Till my next blog post,

Skye

Applying the RAT to a learning activity

……it’s back.

As part of one of our week 4 learning path tasks, we were asked to analyse one of our ICT-based learning activities using the RAT framework. These steps outline how we would complete this task:

1. Pick one of the learning objectives from your unit plan and a matching learning experience/activity.
2. Apply the RAT framework to that learning activity (as per the example on the previous page).
3. Write a post in the discussion forum.

Year level: 4.                                                                                                                                          Learning area: Geography                                                                                                                  Learning objective (Constructing Knowledge): The main characteristics of the continents of Africa and South America and the location of their major countries in relation to Australia (ACHASSK087)                                                                                                                                   Matching learning experience: Students will use Mapmaker to create a map and label Australia, South America and Africa.

Student learning process

Amplification: Student learning is amplified as students are using ICT to engage with an online mapping program to create their own map and represent where the three continents are located.

Instructional Methods

Amplification: Teacher instructional methods are amplified through the use of ICT as the teacher has used an online map program to assist students to represent data and locate continents on a map.

Curriculum Goals

Transformation: By using ICT to engage with the MapMaker program there will be an opportunity to help students develop their ICT general capabilities. It will also develop students’ capabilities to sort and represent data and the location of places and their characteristics in different formats.

I had to briefly go back and do a quick revision on the rat model to familiarise myself again, as the rat model definitely does not come easy to me!

Till my next blog post,

Skye

Measuring the success of ICT integration

This week in the learning path, we were asked to consider the following questions: How will you know if your use of ICTs in these learning experiences was successful? How will you know if the use of ICTs you designed was good, brilliant, okay, or very limited? What would success look like? These were my answers that I posted to the forum:

I would know if the use of ICT in my learning experiences was successful if:

• Students are using ICT to construct and transform knowledge.
• Students are using ICT to achieve learning objectives and goals.
• Students are not just learning from ICT but learning with ICT.
• Students are using ICT to develop deeper understandings of the principles and concepts of the topic.
• Students are developing confidence when using ICT.
• Students are engaged whilst learning with ICT

I liked that I had similar views to Maderson on the level of engagement of students, achievement of learning goals and students’ confidence levels when learning with ICT. After doing some further research, there are actually ways of measuring that a teacher has successfully integrated ICT into the classroom. This article was a great read as it discusses ways that teachers can successfully integrate ICT in the classroom and examples of how one might measure the success of ICT integration. This paper which is funded by Education Queensland is also a great resource for measuring the use of ICTs in the classroom. When I was reading, I came across this great and interesting quote:

The purpose of integrating ICT has been stated as being “to improve and increase the quality, accessibility and cost-efficiency of the delivery of education, while taking advantage of the benefits of networking learning communities together to equip them to face the challenges of global competition” (Bruniges, 2003).

Till my next blog post,

Skye

References

Bruniges, M. (2003). Developing performance indicators for ICT use in education: Australia’s experience. Retrieved April 04, 2016, from http://www2.unescobkk.org/education/ict/v2/info.asp?id=13249

Ideas for ICT-enriched Learning Experiences

I have begun to think about the learning experiences that will align with my learning objectives in my unit plan for assignment two. This includes student activities and teacher strategies. Let’s go back a step to my learning objectives that I have chosen for my year 4 Geography unit from the Australian Curriculum:

Constructing Knowledge

• The main characteristics of the continents of Africa and South America and the location of their major countries in relation to Australia (ACHASSK087)
• The importance of environments, including natural vegetation, to animals and people (ACHASSK088)
• The custodial responsibility Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Peoples have for Country/Place, and how this influences views about sustainability (ACHASSK089)

Transforming Knowledge

• Record, sort and represent data and the location of places and their characteristics in different formats, including simple graphs, tables and maps, using discipline-appropriate conventions (ACHASSI075)
• Interpret data and information displayed in different formats, to identify and describe distributions and simple patterns (ACHASSI078)
• Present ideas, findings and conclusions in texts and modes that incorporate digital and non-digital representations and discipline-specific terms (ACHASSI082)

For the assignment, it is required that I amplify and transform student activities and teaching strategies to achieve my learning objectives above. A section of this week’s learning path was focused on how we might come up with ideas about how you can amplify and transform each of these components through the use of ICT. The week 7 learning path also reminded me of revisiting the distinction made between learning from ICT and learning with ICT. Nicole found a great website called Glogster which is a GREAT resource for students to create multimedia posters and Lesley shared the website Classtools which is a website that provides a huge amount of ways to include ICT in a unit plan. I will be using the following week to start getting together ICT-enriched resources that encourage students to learn with ICT so that I can start to work through stage 3 of my unit plan.

Till my next blog post,

Skye

Using Bloom’s to Develop Learning Experiences

Bloom’s Taxonomy supports moving students in their learning from simple to complex. The three learning experiences we have been asked to develop for our unit planning you can see that Bloom’s supports this by describing what sorts of activities will facilitate learning at different levels. To quickly revise what Bloom’s Taxonomy is, it is a model of classifying thinking according to six cognitive levels of complexity. The lowest three levels are: knowledge, comprehension, and application. The highest three levels are: analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. The University of Wisconsin Teaching Academy describes the taxonomy as hierarchical; in that each level is subsumed by the higher levels. In other words, a student functioning at the ‘application’ level has also mastered the material at the ‘knowledge’ and ‘comprehension’ levels.

Each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy are defined as:

• Remembering: Retrieving, recognizing, and recalling relevant knowledge from long-term memory.
• Understanding: Constructing meaning from oral, written, and graphic messages through interpreting, exemplifying, classifying, summarizing, inferring, comparing, and explaining.
• Applying: Carrying out or using a procedure through executing, or implementing.
• Analyzing: Breaking material into constituent parts, determining how the parts relate to one another and to an overall structure or purpose through differentiating, organizing, and attributing.
• Evaluating: Making judgments based on criteria and standards through checking and critiquing.
• Creating: Putting elements together to form a coherent or functional whole; reorganizing elements into a new pattern or structure through generating, planning, or producing.

(Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001, pp. 67-68)

I really liked Jacinta’s  way of mapping out her key ideas for her Geography unit plan using bubbl.us. This map identifies the learning objectives that will form her curriculum for the learning experiences she includes, defining what the students should learn. It also breaks down the ICT-enriched resources she will use that align to her constructing knowledge and transforming knowledge content descriptors from the Australian Curriculum.

Till my next blog post,

Skye

References

Anderson, L. W., & Krathwohl, D. R. (Eds.). (2001). A taxonomy for learning, teaching and assessing: A revision of Bloom’s Taxonomy of educational objectives: Complete edition, New York: Longman.

Stage 3- The Learning Plan

Quick update: As we move onto the week 7 learning path, the focus is on stage 3 of our unit plan for assignment two – the learning plan. I am running behind to complete this week’s learning path and the reason for that is I wanted to make sure I had decided on the context in which my unit plan will be set, selected the learning area and the learning objectives my unit plan will focus on and identified the criteria that match the learning objectives I’ve selected. I have changed my ‘somewhere’ since a blog I posted sometime last week. I initially chose to work on a Foundation Year Geography unit from the Australian Curriculum but since changed to working on a Year Four Geography unit from the Australian Curriculum.

Whilst I was doing a search on the internet and planning ahead for ICT-enriched resources, I came across the blog Geography is Easy which is a personal, non-profit making blog for Geography resources as well as The Star Blog which is the blog of a teacher who shares learning experiences that she does with her students in a primary classroom. My favourite blog post that I found that links perfectly with ‘my somewhere’ was Curriculum Texts who provide a wide variety of excellent, age appropriate texts that can enhance the way teachers explore the Year 4 Geography curriculum with their students. This blog introduced me to GeogSpace which is an initiative of the Australian Geography Teachers Association and supported by the resources of Education Services Australia. GeogSpace provides a support unit called ICT’s in Geography which I will definitely be saving for future reference!

Till my next blog post,

Skye

Stage 2 – Assessment Evidence

Working through the week 4 learning path, it mentions that stage 2 will contain a summary description of the assessment tasks we have planned for our unit of work including both:

1. Formative assessment tasks; and,
2. Summative assessment tasks.

Something that I have learnt from the week 4 learning path is that I need to include in the assessment evidence part of the unit plan (not only in this subject but every education subject) a “task name” and a “description” for the formative and summative assessment tasks. I also found the information valuable about the difference between formative assessment and teaching strategies. The Queensland Curriculum and Assessment Authority have provided a great video detailing how to design good assessment. This page from Education Queensland is another great source I found that explains assessment and breaks the information down into what assessment is used for and the different types of assessment. Education Queensland provides some great resources on assessment and their website is definitely worth checking out to get a better understanding. In her blog, Lucy has provided a great post about backwards design and how assessment ties in with the three stages to effectively lead to quality learning for students. I am looking forward to the EDC3100 tutorial tomorrow to do some more work on my unit plan for assignment two and make sure I am on the right track with my understandings.

Till my next blog post,

Skye

Assignment Two: My Somewhere

As part of the learning tasks for week four, we were asked to put into practice the selection of constructing and transforming knowledge objectives that we will use in our unit plan for assignment two. The steps I went through to achieve this task were:

1. Identifying the curriculum I am planning on using for my unit plan.
2. Identifying the specific learning area I am going to focus on for my unit plan.
3. Looking through the curriculum and identifying two related learning objectives that would be suitable for my unit plan (ensuring that one outcome is an example of constructing knowledge and that another is an example of transforming knowledge).

This is what I came up with:

I have chosen to work on a Foundation Year Geography unit from the Australian Curriculum. My chosen content descriptions are:

Constructing Knowledge:

The places people live in and belong to, their familiar features and why they are important to people (ACHASSK015).

Transforming knowledge:

Draw simple conclusions based on discussions, observations and information displayed in pictures and texts and on maps (ACHASSI008).

Content descriptors retrieved from Australian Curriculum F-6/7 HASS.

I am slowly forming my unit plan by working through the learning tasks which are helpful and I appreciate them being broken down.

Till my next blog post,

Skye

 

 

Assignment One Lesson Plan

For assignment one, we are required to to find and evaluate an ICT-based lesson plan for inclusion on the AES website. I have chosen to use a lesson plan that I have previously created for this task. The link for the lesson plan can be found below.

EDC3100 Skye Clarkson Lesson Plan

Till my next blog post,

Skye