teaching portfolio

 

Clusters: 1 (Standards 1 - 5) | 2 (Standards 6-9) | 3 (Standard 10)

Standards: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

 

Standard 2 - Design/Implement learning experiences developing language, literacy and numeracy

 

I recognise that literacy and numeracy skills are essential for students to utilise higher order thinking (HOT). To teach these skills I utilise different frameworks such as the Four Resources (Healy & Honan, 2004) and Multiliteracies (The New London Group, 1996) to target and strengthen their abilities. Students must understand and communicate effectively using terminology of the context or subject area before they can appropriately analyse, synthesize and evaluate the texts used in their learning (Bloom, 1956).

 

While on professional experience, I created numerous exercises and revision documents for a grade 12 IT Applications class. The class consisted of nine boys and two girls at a catholic school in Victoria. With the exception of gender, diversity was limited to ability. The revision worksheets (artefact 2) and user guides (artefact 1) were developed to prepare students for their in-class database project.

 

Inspired by the Four Resources concept of “code breaking,” the guides focused heavily on the language of databases. As part of informal assessment, I had determined that students had not fully grasped many of the terms such as normalisation, objects and relationships. I designed a presentation for students (saved on the school’s learning management system - Moodle) allowing them to review from school or at home. This user guide (artefact 1) demonstrated step-by-step how to create a well-designed database, using a footy tipping topic that connected with the students’ love of Australian Rules Football (in line with “situated practice” of the Multiliteracies model).

 

Each step of the process highlighted the key terms with the focus that students should understand and use them as part of their work. For example with objects, the terms “tables” (artefact 1 slide 3) and “attributes” (artefact 1 slide 4) were emphasised. Types of relationships between tables were discussed utilising the “one-to-one”, “one-to-many” examples. As part of relationships, I also explicitly used the textual e.g. “one-to-many” and visual representations e.g. “1 - ∞” (artefact 1 slides 9 and 10).

 

The students achieved their highest results for an assessment item to that point in the year. My mentor teacher remarked how well the students had worked and how much improvement they had shown.

 

New teachers must constantly use and reinforce the language of their subject. If your students are to communicate effectively in your subject area, they need to be immersed in it. By using the numerous frameworks available such as Multiliteracies or Four Resources, you have the opportunity to target specific subject literacies and numeracies.

 

As a pre-service teacher I have been fortunate to see some of the ways schools use ICT for literacy learning such as using Virtual Environments (MUD and MOO). While I believe I have skill in communicating my subject specific (IPT and ICT) languages, I would like to discover effective methods of using ICTs to improve students’ general literacy and numeracy skills.

 

References

Bloom B. S. (1956). Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I: The Cognitive Domain. New York: David McKay Co Inc. 

The New London Group. (1996). A pedagogy of multiliteracies : designing social futures. Harvard Educational Review , 66 (1), 60-92. 

Healy, A., & Honan, E. (2004). Text next : new resources for literacy learning Primary English Teaching Association (PETA), Newtown:NSW.