INTRODUCTION

1.1 My teaching philosophy

My philosophy and practice is designed and built on the belief that students need to engage and
immerse themselves within authentic and meaningful learning experiences. Providing students with
a variety of rich learning opportunities focusing on open-ended inquiry and catering to all students
learning styles, allows students to scaffold their individual knowledge through critical thinking skills.
Flexibility is practiced through differentiation strategies and providing a safe and warm environment,
ensures that students feel comfortable and their ideas and feelings are valued. Student focused
learning provides a collaborative environment between teacher and student learning ensuring all
students become independent lifelong learners for the 21st century.

1.2 The importance of teaching standards

The Australian Institute for Training School Leadership (AITSL, 2011) aim to ensure that teacher
quality is consistently demonstrated and regulated through all schools, in particular from graduating
teachers. It is important that graduate teachers are given these standards to work towards, as they
have only taught in classrooms that have already been organized by other teachers, there lesson
plans and their teaching skills are reviewed daily helping them to improve, which is far from reality
when entering into full time teaching after graduation. Making graduate teachers work towards
these standards allows them to self-regulate their teaching, linking back to everything that they
learnt and putting it into practice and guides them through an experience that may be
overwhelming. This self-assessment gives them a framework to work towards helping them
recognize the professional development required. AITSL (2011) are a great tool for all teachers as
they provide a range of standards and that allow teachers to continually develop their professional
development and help build resilience.

The Melbourne declaration on the Educational Goals for Young Australians [MDEGYA, 2008) explains
that the most vital resource for education, that is the key for achieving educational goals and
inspiring young children is the quality of teaching. AITSL supports the MDEGYA as they both use
goals and standards to support and guide the next generation of teachers to promote excellence and
equity across the nation (AITSL, 2011; MDEGYA, 2008). AITSL standards are appropriate and effective
as they require teachers to prove their abilities focusing on 7 different essential areas of teaching.
The 7 standards and 42 sub strands allows teachers to demonstrate their accountability for their
profession. The 7 areas focus on knowing the student, knowing the content,
RATIONALE

Standard 1: Sub strand 1.2: Understand how students learn

Artefact: Lesson plan putting fractions in order
This standard focuses on understanding how students learn which looks at visual, verbal, physical
and aural styles of learning. This lesson plan uses visual, verbal and physical elements in the lesson
plan. I believe that being able to identify and cater for most learning styles within each lesson,
demonstrates an understanding on how students learn. This lesson uses individual, partnered and
whole class activities, which also demonstrates an understanding towards different teaching styles.
This lesson demonstrates my philosophy collaborative learning leading towards self-monitoring.

Standard 2: Sub strand 2.2 Content selection and organisation

Artefact:
This artefact is a template that organises the content for an inquire through 5 different steps. I chose
this artefact as I believe it shows a clear guide of a teaching sequence that was conducted, with
effective learning outcomes for each lesson. The 5es inquiry model I believe is a highly effective
model as it allows the student to engage, explore, explain, elaborate and evaluate, creating a flexible
and effective teacher sequence. Students within these activities are engaged with the content which
is essential for scaffolding their knowledge, it allows students to explore using their own inquiry
questions and it also focuses on authentic experiences. This teaching sequence encourages self-
monitoring and self-reflection.

Standard 4: Sub strand 4.1 Support student participation

Artefact: Coping with change
This sub strand focuses on using strategies for providing a supportive and safe learning environment.
I have included this lesson plan although the implementation and strategies used within this lesson
were more linked for this standard. I have chosen health as it focused on students feeling
comfortable and safe to express emotions, feelings and thoughts about topics that may be quite
personal to them. When introducing this topic I provided a personal story to the students which is a
strategy I believe helps the students to feel comfortable sharing and expressing their emotions. I
never chose students to share personal stories although it was encouraged. When it came time
creating plays students were chosen at random (through pop stick selection) so no one felt excluded,
and they presented to the whole class. The students responded very well to this lesson and I believe
learning experience sequence allowed them to feel safe and comfortable enough to be able to
effectively express themselves through drama.

Standard 5: Sub strand 5.1 Assess student learning.

Artefact: Summative assessment marking rubric Year 6 Volume, capacity, mass and procedural
writing.
This artefact is a marking rubric that was created for a summative assessment at the end of a
sequence of learning experiences that focused on volume, capacity, mass and procedural writing. I
chose this artefact as I believe it demonstrates a detailed summative assessment on all skills and
understandings that was focused on through the learning experiences which links extremely closely
to all outcomes, curriculum links and achievement standards.

Standard 6: Sub strand 6.3 - Engage with colleagues and improve practice.
Artefact: Mentor reflections
This artefact was chosen as it shows clear reflections and engagement with my teaching mentor on
my previous practicum on my teaching skills and content. This template that she focused on was
effective as it broke down different areas that I need to consider when teaching the class. She also
provided positive feedback and constructive feedback which was focused on and improved within
the next few lessons.

TAKING ACTION

As a graduate teacher I am aware that there are standards that I will complete and demonstrate
comfortably, although there are still quite a few sub strands that I need to focus on as it has not
been demonstrated through my practices. Reflecting on the rationale it became evident that there
are 2 standards that I believe need to be focused on when entering into my profession after
graduation, these include,
Standard 5: Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning
Standard 7: Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community
-Sub strands 7.3: Engage with the parents/ carers
Assessments and feedback have been emphasized and focused on throughout my degree, which has
led to extensive research and planning behind the theories and evaluating the best practices.
Assessment is integrated within learning and essential for student understanding and achievement. I
feel comfortable with understanding the different types of assessments and have practiced
summative assessment before, although I need to build of my skills and practice using formative
assessment as well as provided more and higher quality feedback for students learning. Entering my
upcoming practicals within a classroom and entering the workforce post-graduation, I understand
that I need to plan, practice and revise strategies and skills towards assessing and providing
feedback to students pre, mid and post lessons. This will be done through:
Plan teaching sequence and lesson through backwards design:
This is a new technique that has been recently taught to me. I believe by practicing this technique I
will be able to design and implement assessments more effectively. It will also help improve my
feedback as I have a clear idea on the outcomes and the knowledge needed for the summative
assessment.
Plan lessons by including a range of questions for feedback, state where formative
assessments can and should be included and ensure that I have created a range of different
formative assessments throughout a single lesson.
By have a sound understanding of what learning should be occurring, have a selection of formative
assessment available and creating a wide range of questions that may relate to the learning, I will
feel more confident and will be more flexible with conducting formative assessments and feedback.
Continually self-reflect for each lesson, as well as consult mentor teacher on strengths and
weaknesses, planning for future teaching.
Continual professional development
This will be done through opportunities which may arise from consulting my mentor and the school I
am teaching at, as well as accessing the Curtin University Professional Learning Hub and attending
and viewing seminars. I have already joined teaching groups on Facebook to expand on my teaching
networks and have looked into The Centre for Professional Learning.
Engaging with parents is an area that I would like to focus on, as I believe strong parental
engagement is essential for students learning. I want parents to feel comfortable with approaching
me as a teacher and I want to be able to communicate with them regularly. On my prac I am going to
consult my mentor about sending an email to parents informing them a little about myself, what I
am going to be teaching the students and provide them a contact for me if they have any questions
or concerns.
 References:

AITSL. (2011). National Professional Standards for Teachers. Retrieved from

http://www.aitsl.edu.au/verve/_resources/AITSL_National_Professinal_Standards_for_
Teachers.pdf

Ministerial Council on Education, Employment, Training and Youth Affairs (2008). Melbourne
declaration on educational goals for young Australians. Retrieved from
http://www.curriculum.edu.au/verve/_resources/National_Declaration_on_the_Educat
ional_Goals_for_Young_Australians.pdf