Graduate level: Physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students.

My understanding of this focus area is that it is vital for teachers to have an understanding of children's physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics so they can create effective learning goals and use this information when planning and implementing lessons or learning experiences. It also allows teachers to cater for the children's learning needs in regards to extending or modifying tasks to meet student's ability levels.

The developmental checklist was a document I created on my second year professional experience in a child care (kindergarten room). This checklist was used to observe, assess and document information about children’s cognitive, emotional, language, physical and social development. The evidence piece is an example of me completing it on one child and it gives clear information about the child’s areas of development and if they are always, sometimes or rarely doing something. I completed this at the start of my professional experience and then created learning experiences to meet her individual needs work on areas that needed to be improved.

This evidence clearly displays how to gather information about children’s developmental areas through observation. This document allowed me to plan specific experiences and set learning goals based on the individual child’s areas of improvement which shows that I have an understanding of children's overall development and how this may affect their learning.

Graduate level: Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of research into how students learn and the implications for teaching.

My understanding of this focus area is that teachers need to show that they have knowledge, understand the research behind how children learn and how this can be embedded into the curriculum, learning experiences and managing the learning environment.

The first evidence piece is an essay written for the subject Managing Learning Environments (3007) which was completed in the third year of my degree. The essay shows my understanding of setting clear expectations with children, verbal and non-verbal communication strategies, forming relationships with students, having resources available, being organised and minimising whole group times. In the essay it discusses the importance of these strategies to underpin and assist with children's learning and engagement in lessons. 

The second evidence piece shows a mathematics unit plan created for the topic of data and statistics in professional experience four. The unit plan is annotated to demonstrate the theory and information provided from my mentor teacher which I used to help me with planning and implementing the lessons.

The evidence piece demonstrates my teaching at a graduate level for this area because the annotations explain why I chose to include specific strategies in my teaching which in turn benefit children’s learning. The annotations show that I have linked my practical teaching to the theory that has taken place at university and the collaborative conversations based on children’s learning that were undertaken with my mentor teacher.

Graduate level: Demonstrate knowledge of teaching strategies that are responsive to the learning strengths and needs of students from diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socio-economic backgrounds.

My understanding of this focus area is that it is important to use teaching strategies that create an inclusive, warm, welcoming environment where ALL children feel that they have a sense of being and belonging. This includes providing opportunities for children to share their diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socio-economic backgrounds. It is responding to children's learning abilities and needs through providing opportunities for them to be successful, which includes having a range of strategies in place to support them.

This evidence piece was collected during my fourth year professional experience and shows that I meet this focus area because I demonstrated the use of teaching strategies that were responsive to children's learning strengths and needs from diverse backgrounds. I used strategies such as inviting children and their families to share their culture, language and religion with the rest of the class through show and tell times, books and every day conversations. This included educating students to be respectful and accepting of other children's culture, religion and background. Some strategies to support children with EALD included using visual prompts, writing information on the board for lesson and leaving it there so they could refer to, supporting and building children's comprehension skills and encouraging them to keep their first language alive by sharing it with the rest of the class. To support the child who lived in poverty (socio-economic) I used strategies of ensuring the child was being fed throughout the school day through the 'breakfast club' and keeping in contact with the father about support systems available. 

Graduate level: Demonstrate broad knowledge and understanding of the impact of culture, cultural identity and linguistic background on the education of students from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds.

My understanding of this focus area is that it is important for teachers to display knowledge and understanding of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people's culture, linguistic background and identity. This is important because it allows these children to feel accepted, respected, included and feel a sense of belonging. Strategies for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children need to include allowing these students to bring their culture, background and history into the classroom and share it with their peers.

This evidence piece comes from my second year professional experience in a child care setting (kindergarten room) and demonstrates my knowledge and understanding of educating Aboriginal children. The evidence piece demonstrates how I worked with a number of children who had an Aboriginal background and to ensure the children's culture was acknowledged and respected, I implemented experiences into the everyday curriculum so all children could learn about their background. This included strategies of the children using their native language and sharing it with others and singing an Aboriginal welcome song every morning to show respect for their culture and history. I provided opportunities for the children to be connected to the land through the 'Aboriginal Respect' area outdoors. Other strategies I used included reading books about the Aboriginal culture, listening to Dreamtime stories on YouTube, respecting their child rearing practices and welcoming each family member into the centre.

Graduate level: Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of strategies for differentiating teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities. 

My understanding of differentiation when teaching is creating opportunities through learning tasks for children with different ability levels to be successful. This includes creating different levelled tasks as well as modifying and extending activities so all children can be challenged and successful in their learning. This includes assessing and identifying where all of the children are at to ensure they have their needs met and are not given work that is too hard or too easy.

These evidence pieces come from my fourth year professional experience. They include a lesson plan for daily 5, excerpt from my written report completed by my supervising teacher and an evidence statement discussing the differentiation strategies put in place. Some of the differentiation strategies included extending children's work through creating more challenging questions, grouping children based on their ability levels and then providing similar work for them, modifying tasks so they are more achievable for students, providing children with supportive documents (such as Jolly Phonics sound mats) and working with small groups of children who needed extra assistance and support to meet their learning needs. 

An example of modifying work can be seen in the evidence statement which talked about modifying the graphing tasks so the child with cerebral palsy could participate and meet his Foundation level of learning. To extend children's learning, I provided opportunities for them to look at other people's graphs and make inferences from them. This demonstrates my ability to differentiate for children's learning needs across the full range of abilities because I have implemented effective strategies whilst on placement.

Graduate level: Demonstrate broad knowledge and understanding of legislative requirements and teaching strategies that support participation and learning of students with disability.

My understanding of this focus area is that it is important to be aware of the legislative requirements as a teacher to provide an inclusive environment for students with a disability. These include curriculum, legal and policy requirements that need to be met. The Disability Standards for Education was created in 2005 and it falls under the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Carpenter, Dole & Hyde 2017). This was created to ensure vulnerable groups are protected. The United Nations created the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Australian Human Rights Commission 2012) and Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNICEF Australia 2016) to ensure all children are included and protected, especially those with diverse needs. These documents align with the first evidence piece which is an excerpt from my Inclusive Education (EDUC 3055) assignment completed in my fourth year of university and includes research on the legislative documents I need to be aware of when working with children who have disabilities.

The second evidence piece was completed on my fourth year professional experience and it shows how I planned and implemented for a student who has cerebral palsy in the subject of Mathematics. It demonstrates the strategies of modifying work, ensuring tasks were changed to meet his fine motor skill level of development and critically reflecting on my practice after each lesson.

The evidence shows the strategies I used to support a child with a hearing impairment. These included putting her hearing aid in after breaks and ensuring she was seated at the front during whole group times. These evidence pieces demonstrate my ability to support children who have disabilities because the strategies put in place were effective to the children’s participation, link to theory and the legislative requirements.

References:
Australian Human Rights Commission 2012, United Nations conventions on the rights of persons with disabilities, viewed 7 June 2020, <https://humanrights.gov.au/our-work/disability-rights/united-nations-convention-rights-persons-disability-ucrpd>.

Carpenter, L, Dole, S and Hyde, M 2017, Diversity, inclusion and engagement, 3rd ed, Oxford University Press, South Melbourne, Victoria.

UNICEF Australia 2016, A simplified version of the united nations rights of the child, UNICEF, viewed 7 June 2020, <https://www.unicef.org.au/Upload/UNICEF/Media/Our%20work/childfriendlycrc.pdf>.