Classroom Teacher

Organisation: Brunswick East Primary School

Job Title: Classroom Teacher

Word Limit: None

Location: Brunswick East Primary School

Demonstrated understanding of initiatives in student learning, including the Standards, the Principles of Learning and Teaching P-12 and Assessment and Reporting Advice and the capacity to implement curriculum programs consistent with their intent

 

My near-completed formal training in a Master of Teaching (Primary) has ensured that I am well versed in the professional standards and guidelines that apply to current teaching practice. In my educational roles to date, I have demonstrated my understanding of these materials and my capacity to deliver positive curriculum outcomes. This is evidenced through;

 

• Ensuring that where possible, students’ needs, backgrounds, perspectives and interests are reflected in the learning program. For example, during my teaching at Brunswick East Primary School, a number of my students had talked about their interest in the movie ‘The Hobbit’. I therefore incorporated this interest in to a lesson on descriptive language, including reading them the description of the Shire and the Hobbit Hole from the corresponding book. This strongly captured the students’ imaginations, and they asked to further explore this theme. This led me to assign individual students to replicate the descriptive writing style to describe rooms within the Hobbit Hole. The incorporation of student interest allowed me to teach core curriculum content in a way that was highly engaging for the students and resulted in strong retention of the material taught.
• Ensuring that the curriculum intent of each lesson is clearly formulated and expressed. In conducting my lesson planning, I start by referring to the required curriculum outcomes for the subject and work to develop activities and teaching materials that will allow students to progress towards the outcomes. In my classroom teaching, I commence each lesson by stating, either verbally or in writing, the learning outcome that is being sought by the lesson. Depending on the context, individual learning intentions may be assigned to individual students. Having this clear expected outcome allows me to develop a range of assessment activities that accurately measure student understanding and knowledge.
• Establishing a supportive and productive learning environment in which students feel comfortable and safe. Adopting the Reggio Emilia approach in my work as a Child Care Assistant and during my teaching placements and internships, I have utilised the learning space where possible as a third educator. This has involved providing the students with options on how to arrange or use their space, using the student’s artwork to reflect themselves in the space, and making the environment comfortable for learning.
• Catering for diverse needs and multiple intelligences in teaching and learning activities. For example, in teaching students about expression of emotions, I asked them to represent an emotion using a colour, a symbol and a picture. In teaching maths concepts, I demonstrate using verbal delivery, written material and tactile materials that can be manipulated. This ensured that all learning styles were catered for, thus ensuring that all students were engaged in their learning.
• Using curriculum goals as the focus for lesson planning. In undertaking lesson planning for my internship and placements, I have used the AusVELS curriculum and its intended outcomes to guide my lesson planning. Undertaking a process of reflection after delivery of the lesson ensures that the intended teaching and learning goals have been attained.

 

My classroom teaching experience to date demonstrates my capacity to understand and apply initiatives in student learning and provide an appropriate focus on curriculum outcomes in my classroom teaching. In my professional practice as a Teacher, I will continue to be guided by the Standards, the Principles of Learning and Teaching P-12, and Assessment and Reporting Advice in planning and delivering teaching and learning activities that reflect and achieve the intended curriculum outcomes.

 

Demonstrated high-level classroom teaching skills, the capacity to work with colleagues to continually improve teaching and learning

 

My experience in teaching to date has provided me with exposure to team-teaching practices and working collaboratively with colleagues, as well as the opportunity to develop and display my classroom teaching skills. My capacity to effectively work in these contexts and continually improve my teaching practice has been demonstrated through;

 

• Demonstrating appropriate classroom management strategies. In a large learning community, I have found that it is important to be observant and aware of the potential for behaviour management to become challenging. Some strategies that I have utilised to ensure effective classroom management have included segmenting learning activities with alternate instruction periods to prevent students from losing focus after too long on one task, and providing students with challenges and open-ended questions that can be built on to establish deeper understanding. Through maintaining students’ interest and engagement with these strategies, I have been able to maintain a productive learning environment.
• Enabling students to demonstrate their learning in a variety of ways. Through providing students with alternative methods of displaying their ideas, I not only cater to the multiple intelligences of individual learners, but I am also able to gain insight into the thought processes that the students are experiencing. For example, one of my students has been very reluctant to read and write and appears to be somewhat afraid of the process. In order to observe his reading comprehension abilities, I asked him to draw me pictures representing his thoughts about the story that I read to him. This allowed me to observe his thought process in understanding a story, whilst catering to his particular needs and abilities.
• Providing for differentiation of learning activities for students of varying needs and abilities. Through observation and application of appropriate assessment methods, particularly pre‑testing upon introduction of a new learning topic, I am able to identify current levels of understanding and ability amongst my students. Streaming of ability groups, assignment of individual learning goals and adaption of expected learning outcomes is then possible, allowing each student to be challenged and supported at an appropriate level.
• Liaising with a team of colleagues to share knowledge and resources. During my internship at Brunswick East Primary School, I have been teaching in a team-teaching environment of three Teachers for a community of learners of up to 60 students. In this environment, I have had the benefit of receiving feedback and advice on ideas for improving my lessons and teaching practice, as well as recommendations of useful books and resources to guide my lesson planning and pedagogical development.
• Conducting personal reflections following the delivery of teaching activities and refining my practice based on the results of these reflections. Through considering the outcomes of my own teaching and the observations that I make of the practice of my experienced colleagues, I am able to develop and build on my own teaching practice to ensure positive learning outcomes.

 

As my teaching experience grows, I intend to continue to refine and develop my practice through seizing opportunities to collaborate with, learn from and teach alongside my more experienced colleagues, as well as through engaging in thoughtful reflection on the outcomes of my teaching activities. In this way, I will continue to build high-level teaching skills that will benefit students.

 

Demonstrated ability to monitor and assess student-learning data and to use this data to inform teaching for improved student learning

 

In my developing practice, I incorporate a range of assessment tools and methods to observe student learning and inform my teaching and learning activities. Having had the opportunity to provide teaching and learning activities in my placement and internship activities, my capacity to monitor, assess and utilise student-learning data has been demonstrated through;

 

• Determining clear expectations and measurable success criteria for each lesson. Through making students aware at the commencement of each lesson of the intended outcomes of my teaching, I enable them to self-assess their own progress toward curriculum outcomes. During my 10-week internship at Brunswick East Primary School, I was involved in an ongoing action research project with my learning community colleagues. This required me to look at various protocols to identify students’ thinking progress, thus allowing grouping of students based on their needs. One of the many tools that we used included the ‘ATLAS Looking at Student Data’ protocol, where I was required to select work samples of a nominated student that depicted their thinking practises and strategies. The process required me to describe the data, explain what I thought the data suggested or caused me to assume about student learning, and what the implications of this assumption may be. From this process, my colleagues and I formulated actions to apply to our teaching practice. One of these outcomes was the introduction of ‘Learning Intention Strips’, to provide to students, to ensure that they were clear of their individualised learning goals in order to continually improve. Through this process, we also identified the need for more student-specific feedback, including something they did well and a personal goal for their next session. This allowed my fellow Teachers and I to monitor student learning and ensure that students were aware of how to extend their abilities.
• Undertaking ongoing observation of classroom activities and responding appropriately. During one of my placements, I commenced a term of teaching a maths class with a very time-focused approach to my planning and delivery. I would start by talking to the class for an extended period about the lesson’s topic, assign them a number of tasks to complete, and then bring the class back together at the end of the lesson for a final discussion. I rapidly observed that this approach saw the students becoming distracted or disengaged by the end of the allotted ‘activity’ time. In response, I began to plan and deliver the lesson in shorter teaching activity discussion segments and responding more to my observation of when students had had enough time to complete their activity, rather than sticking to a set amount of time. Applying techniques from R. Bruce Williams’ ‘Higher Order Thinking Skills: Challenging All Students to Achieve’, I presented students with ‘challenge’ situations and assigned more open-ended tasks that could be built on to deepen their understanding as appropriate.
• Utilising appropriate assessment tools. During my placement at Ivanhoe Primary School, I utilised Running Records to assign students instructionally appropriate level texts and to determine whether students were ready to move up a level. This process allowed me to identify where additional assistance was needed for particular students in order to provide them with adequate support and assist them to meet expected curriculum outcomes.

 

My ability to incorporate assessment appropriately in to my practice and to respond to assessment data ensures that my teaching practice evolves and develops in response to the particular needs and abilities of my students. This leads to increased student engagement and positive student learning outcomes.

Demonstrated high-level written and verbal communication skills and high-level interpersonal skills, including a capacity to develop constructive relationships with students, parents and other staff

Through my employment in the Early Childhood setting, I have had great exposure to communicating and interacting with a wide range of students, parents, colleagues and community networks. Utilising my well-developed communication and interpersonal skills, I have developed successful and constructive relationships of the type that will be an asset in my teaching practice, as demonstrated through;

• Communicating effectively in a learning environment. In my verbal communications within the classroom, I am clear and unambiguous. I ensure that I use explicit direction where appropriate to guide students, but also adopt open-ended questioning, challenges or thought-provoking statements in order to facilitate a culture of enquiry. As a result of insight gained in my teaching placements, I am careful to repeat directions multiple times and in numerous ways. This includes checking for understanding and asking students whether they have any questions before breaking off in to activities. Utilising this style of communication ensures that the whole class understands what has been communicated to them and what is expected of them, and they are then able to remain focused on the tasks that I have assigned.
• Gaining knowledge about students’ individual interests and backgrounds in order to support their needs. In a childcare setting, much of the information about a child’s needs is gained from thoughtful interaction with their parents. As such, I will bring to my teaching career the skills in establishing strong parental relationships gained through my early childhood education experience. Through building strong and trusting relationships not only with students, but also with their parents and caregivers, I will be able to understand the student’s home environment and circumstances and how that may be impacting on their school behaviour or performance.
• Incorporating specialist communication practices to cater for students with individual needs. In my work as a Child Care Assistant, I collaborated with a Physiotherapist, Vision Australia and the mother of a blind student in order to learn a touch-communication technique to allow me to effectively interact with the student. Additionally, I have utilised an Individualised Education Program to work on communication skills such as eye contact and verbal interaction with an Autistic student.
• Providing information to parents about their child’s progress. In my role as a Child Care Assistant, I conducted parent-Teacher interviews with parents on a twice-yearly basis to provide a formal report on each child’s development and characteristics. This was complementary to the ongoing communication with parents over the whole year about their child’s experiences, needs and development.
• Seeking knowledge through learning from more experienced Teachers. Through my practical placement activities and internship, I have seized opportunities to ask questions of my Mentor Teachers about their pedagogies and experiences, in order to gain as much knowledge as possible to apply to my own practice.

My interpersonal skills and commitment to the wellbeing of my students has allowed me to establish productive and supportive teaching and learning relationships in my career to date. Through maintaining effective communication with students, their parents and my peers, I will continue to develop constructive relationships to aid the delivery of my teaching activities.

Demonstrated commitment and capacity to actively contribute to a broad range of school priority areas, community activities and a commitment to ongoing professional learning to enable further development of skills, expertise and teaching capacity

During my teaching experience to date, I have had the opportunity to participate in formal and informal professional development and engage with professional networks in order to strengthen my own teaching practice. I have demonstrated my capacity to contribute to the school community and my commitment to continued learning through activities including;

• Undertaking formal professional development activities. Through my internship at Brunswick east primary School, I have had the opportunity to complete training provided by the Victorian Association for Philosophy in Schools on the topic of how to teach philosophy as a Classroom Teacher. Through this training, I was exposed to a number of questioning methods and techniques that I have since adopted into my teaching pedagogy in a range of subject areas. For example, I have adopted an approach of acting as a facilitator of a ‘circle of enquiry’, allowing students to formulate their own ideas on a topic in response to open-ended questions. Recently in facilitating a conversation on the topic of “what is art?”, I observed that the students were having difficulty organising or expressing their thoughts, so I provided them with pictures of various items and asked them to sort these pictures in to piles of ‘art’ and ‘not art’. The enhancement of my teaching skills through professional development enabled me to assist students on a self-guided learning exercise in expressing their own ideas, rather than resorting to a ‘chalk and talk’ approach of defining the meaning of ‘art’ for them.
• Engaging with colleagues for the exchange of professional knowledge and ideas. As a Child Care Assistant at Kanooka Child Care Centre, I participated in the City of Monash Early Childhood Network, which allowed me to network and discuss issues effecting current childcare practises. During this time, I actively exchanged ideas, received feedback and had the opportunity to observe other early learning centres. This provided an opportunity to identify aesthetics of the centres from the perspective of the Reggio Emilia pedagogy, viewing the learning space as the third educator, and adopt certain aspects in my own centre. During my employment at Kanooka Childcare Centre, we were selected to take part in the Port Phillip Eco Centre Project. As a result, I initiated and implemented various centre practices, including a Kitchen Garden Program whereby the children were involved in growing, harvesting and preparing their own meals.
• Undertaking personal reflections on my teaching activities in an effort to strengthen my practice. As part of my practical teaching placements, I have completed a reflection journal and taken video recordings of my teaching. This has enabled me to analyse things like my tone of voice, positioning within the classroom, and the level of attention that I commanded from the class. This utilisation of self-analysis and reflection allows me to consider the success of my teaching and learning activities and to them build upon my knowledge and repertoire of strategies to improve my future practice.
• Willingness to undertake additional duties for the benefit of the learning community. As a Child Care Assistant, I organised regular working bees, in addition to initiating the kitchen garden program. At Brunswick East Primary School, I have participated in activities such as assisting with preparations, rehearsals and presentation of an Italian cultural activity and updating the school blog to inform parents about the writing festival activities.

My participation in school events to date is indicative of my willingness to become involved in and contribute my time and abilities to a range of whole school community activities. As a committed and enthusiastic teaching graduate, I will be delighted to take any opportunity offered to me to undertake professional development or gain experience to assist