Graduate Level: Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the concepts, substance and structure of the content and teaching strategies of the teaching area. 

My understanding of this focus area is that teachers need to understand the areas they are teaching because it helps them to create engaging learning experiences and respond to questions and queries students have on topics. The courses I have completed throughout my four year bachelor degree have assisted me to have knowledge about concepts, content and teaching strategies for the different subjects I will be teaching.

This evidence piece is a Science unit plan I completed on my fourth year professional experience and it demonstrates my understanding of the content and concepts, structure of the content and strategies used for effective teaching in this area. The teaching strategies include incorporating a prior knowledge assessment, the children observing, recognising and recording information, working in small groups, working with scientific diagrams and labelling, using inquiry questions and implementing a summative assessment.  

This evidence demonstrates my teaching at a graduate level for this area because the unit plan clearly states the teaching strategies used in Science. It shows that I have an understanding of the topic, concepts and content and know how to structure units of work. This highlights that I have the skills and will continue to create unit plans of a high quality that will enrich children's learning. 

Graduate Level: Organise content into an effective learning and teaching sequence. 

My understanding of this focus area is that teachers need to have the knowledge and understanding about how to effectively plan and organise content into a teaching sequence that will create rich learning experiences for children where their learning in maximised.

This unit plan on length was created in my third year professional experience and it clearly shows the sequence of learning and progression of tasks throughout the unit. The unit plan is detailed and explains explicitly what took place in each lesson and how this was extended and progressed from non-standard units of measurement. estimating their measurements, measuring with body parts to introducing the metric system concepts with centimetres and metres.

This demonstrates my teaching at a graduate level for this area because it clearly displays my ability to select resources, organise content and create a sequenced unit plan effectively. When implementing the unit plan, I was able to see the children use their knowledge from previous lessons and apply it to new tasks which demonstrates that the learning experiences were effective because the children were retaining the learning and skills.

Graduate level: Use curriculum, assessment and reporting knowledge to design learning sequences and lesson plans.

My understanding of this focus area is that it is important as a teacher to have knowledge of the Australian Curriculum, assessment strategies (prior knowledge, formative and summative, rubric, feedback) and report back to students and parents both verbally and in writing to support the design of sequenced lesson and unit plans .

The three evidence pieces were collected during my fourth year professional experience. The unit plan for Science shows links to the Australian Curriculum with concepts and learning intentions aligning to ACARA which inform the planning of learning sequences. The unit plan demonstrates using the assessment strategy of prior learning which was completed in the first lesson and included work samples and teacher jottings being analysed. This was to ensure I knew where the children's understanding was at so I could make changes to the planned lessons if needed so their learning needs were met.

The unit plan demonstrates my understanding for this focus area because it outlines the assessment strategies of prior learning, formative, summative, rubric, jottings,  checklist and analysing and interpreting work samples to support the process. The plan outlines what was assessed, how and when it was completed and when reporting to students (verbal and written feedback) and parents (written documentation) would take place.

The second and third evidence pieces include documentation of informal conversations and formal reporting (rubric) with parents about children's learning. This demonstrates that I have an understanding of how and why it is important to report to parents about their children's learning.

Graduate Level: Demonstrate broad knowledge of, understanding of and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and languages.

My understanding of this focus area is that it is important for me as a teacher to educate students about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander histories, cultures and languages and teach them about being respectful towards their beliefs and customs. In turn, this enables reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians because there is an element of respect, understanding and acknowledgement towards the Indigenous Australian people. In order to achieve this, it is important that I ensure my knowledge and understanding of the Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander people is accurate, factual and informative.

The evidence piece comes from my work as a qualified educator in an early learning centre in 2019. The evidence piece is an intentional teaching component of a weekly plan based on the Aboriginal people, their culture, beliefs and customs. I created the plan because I noticed the children were looking at pictures in books of Aboriginal people and showing a high interest.  I taught the children about Aboriginal people being the original custodians of Australia and it shows that I educated children respectfully about the Aboriginal people's history, culture, beliefs, languages and traditions. 

The evidence piece demonstrates that I educated the children respectfully about the Aboriginal people's language through songs as well as their history, culture and traditions through conversations, YouTube videos, musical instruments, Dreamtime stories and the Aboriginal people's original map of Australia.  

Graduate Level: Know and understand literacy and numeracy teaching strategies and their application in teaching areas. 

My understanding of this focus area is that it is important for myself as a teacher to have a variety of literacy and numeracy teaching strategies and understand how these are implemented in the classroom. These strategies allow me as a teacher to continue improving my practice and in turn benefit children through fostering engagement and in depth learning (Victoria State Government 2019). 

The first evidence piece was collected during my fourth year professional experience. The evidence is a lesson plan which was created for daily 5 (literacy) and covers multiple literacy areas (reading, handwriting, narrative writing and comprehension). The plan demonstrates incorporating different literacy tasks into one lesson. It shows differentiation and literacy strategies which include using a narrative planner after guided reading, questioning techniques to promote comprehension and providing children who are writing independently with phonics, adjective and sight word mats.

The second evidence piece comes from Studies in Mathematics Education 2 (EDUC 3063) which was undertaken in the third year of my degree and it is a unit plan I completed as part of an assignment. The unit plan lists numeracy strategies (highlighted) with links to research/theory which include providing practical learning experiences for real world learning, explicit role modelling, children using number lines when counting, asking children to explain their thinking and ideas, technology for engagement and differentiation to cater for individual needs. These evidence pieces demonstrate my awareness and ability to incorporate effective literacy and numeracy strategies into my practice as a teacher and show that I meet this focus area.

Reference:
Victoria State Government 2019, High impact teaching strategies, The Education State, viewed 22 October 2020, <https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/school/teachers/support/high-impact-teaching-strategies.pdf>.

Graduate Level: Implement teaching strategies for using ICT to expand curriculum learning opportunities for students. 

My understanding of this focus area is that teachers must incorporate the use of ICT in their lessons to expand children's learning and development across all of the subject areas. ICT is becoming an integral part of the world and future and it is important that children are exposed to it so they will know how to use it in the future and to extend their current learning. 

This evidence piece comes from my fourth year professional experience and it shows the ICT strategies I used when I was teaching to engage children and educate students about being responsible with the programs used. It is important to ensure that my professional knowledge and understanding of using information and communication technology is up to date so I can provide interesting and engaging opportunities for children to experiment with ICT and how to use it in an appropriate way.

This evidence piece shows that I meet the graduate level for this area because it demonstrates the strategies I used which include using iPad's to access learning programs such as 'Raz Kids' and for children to take photos, extending children's Mathematics learning through computer programs, incorporating YouTube videos into the daily curriculum and lessons and creating power points to place on the interactive whiteboard. This evidence shows that I understand programs that are available which include the use of ICT and how it is essential that these are integrated into all curriculum areas.