Standard 2.2: Content selection and organisation.
Standard 2.3: Curriculum, assessment and reporting.
This section of a lesson plan was collected from a unit sequence I had created from completing the third year university unit 'ESH402 – Health Education: Curriculum Study'. This particular health unit plan was designed for Year 7 students, focusing on the dangers of tobacco smoking. I was also fortunate enough to implement this unit into practice, teaching health to Year 7 students at East Doncaster Secondary College.
As the health sector of education is a true passion of mine, I had confidence teaching this unit and demonstrating my knowledge to the Year 7 students. Each lesson plan within this unit sequence was completed in great detail to ensure I remained organized and that content remained interesting and effective. Initiating a pretest of 10 true or false questions to begin this unit of work gave me a valuable idea of each individual student's knowledge of tobacco smoking, and what actions to take.
ESH402 Assignment 2 Lesson Plan 1
2.5: Literacy and numeracy strategies.
As I am completing my final year of practicum placements within a Foundation classroom, my mentor teacher explained that her 22 students were separated into different literacy and numeracy groups called literacy and numeracy 'Learning Centres'.
Students were grouped with other members of the class that have similar learning abilities within literacy and numeracy units. The class as a whole would focus on a particular topic, however each 'Learning Centre' would have a different activity based on knowledge required and difficulty. My mentor teacher gave me the responsibility to create and choose different activities that would suit different learner's needs, and demonstrate appropriate teaching strategies for the different 'Learning Centres'. I thrived on having the responsibility to choose an appropriate activity for each 'Learning Centre' and ensuring that activities were engaging for each student. Abbasi & Iqbal (2009, p. 505) explain that it is the teacher's responsibility to make sure that the learning environment and lessons taught in the learning environment are lively and interesting to accommodate student learning.
The video below explains an activity that required students to match the number card with the correct word card. This game was implemented early in the school year, and was designed for the highest numeracy 'Learning Centre'.
Number/Word Match Activity
2.6: Information and Communication Technology (ICT).
Completing my final year practicum placements in a Foundation classroom at Serpell Primary School, I quickly learned that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) was used frequently throughout the school day. I quickly adapted to understand each program that was being used and the purpose that each one had.
Every Monday morning, the students began the school week with a one-hour session of journal writing. At the beginning of this session the teacher would begin a new journal entry on the classroom interactive whiteboard. I ran this particular session and whilst providing my journal entry example, I purposely made spelling and grammar mistakes throughout my short entry. This was to prompt students to identify where I made mistakes, and how to fix them. The photo provided is my journal entry after the class had completed correcting my spelling and grammar mistakes.
My mentor teacher complimented my teaching strategy of prompting the students to critically think of spelling and grammar in general, enabling me to feel comfortable teaching journal writing every Monday morning moving forward. Kostaris et al., (2017, p. 261) explain that in the modern day, in a positive way students are becoming more dependent on ICT, as digital competencies promote more student-centered approaches to teaching.
