Week+Four


 * Week 4 - Planning for Learning

Lecturer: Pete Sanders**

//Week beginning March 23rd 2009//

Hi All, its Bec here with the Week four lecture outline. Hopefully this can help us all understand the detail of VELS and lesson plans a little better!

Our week four lecture for Issues in Education was taken by Pete Sanders. Pete gave us a comprehensive overview of VELS (Victorian Essential Learning Standards) and went through the La Trobe University Lesson Plan in detail also.

The Victorian Essential Learning Standards set the standards at which each child in Victoria should be achieving at from Prep to Year 10. VELS is organised as follows:

• Physical, Personal and Social Learning • Discipline-based learning • Interdisciplinary learning
 * Strands:**

The Strands are then broken into

• (From the Physical Personal and Social Learning Strand) Health & Physical Education, Personal Learning, Interpersonal Development, Civics & Citizenship • (From the Discipline-based Strand) The Arts, English, Humanities, LOTE, Mathematics, Science • (From the Interdisciplinary Learning Strand) Communication, Design Creativity & Technology, ICT, Thinking
 * Domains**

The **Domains** are further broken down into

• (From the Mathematics Domain) Number, Space, Measurement, Structure • (From the English Domain) Reading, Writing, Speaking, Listening
 * Dimensions**

After taking us through the structure of VELS Pete explained the role of the levels in VELS.

There are 6 levels in VELS:

VELS 2 = yr 1&2 VELS 3 = yr 3&4 VELS 4= yr 5&6 VELS 5 = yr 7&8 VELS 6 = yr 9&10** (The VELS levels are further subdivided into progression points that are much more specific than the general outlined levels)
 * VELS 1 = Prep

Pete took us through which Domains are introduced at which level, i.e. English, Mathematics at VELS level 1, Economics, geography, LOTE at VELS level 4. He noted also that the levels outline the level a child should be at at the end of that year. I.e. A child should be at VELS level 2 by the end of year 2, and should be at VELS level 4 at the end of year 6 etc.

The Domains are ordered into sections according to year level, and outline the specific achievements students should be reaching at each level. Each level has its own learning focus statement and a set of standards for each dimension.

Pete followed the outline of VELS with a detailed run through of the **La Trobe University Lesson Plan**. The Lesson Plan is divided into sections to make planning easier and clearer:


 * Learning Purpose**: Pete explained that although there could perhaps be two learning purposes for a lesson, it is essential that the learning purpose be of reasonably narrow focus, specific, with clear objectives and a practical tone. The learning purpose sets the objective and context for both teacher and the students. All should be aware of the learning purpose when the lesson is taking place.


 * VELS References**: It is important to reference the relevant area of VELS that relates to your lesson. Include the progression point/s you are aiming at. Pete mentioned that this can be a little harder in a composite class, however it is possible to be aiming at multiple progressions points within the same lesson.


 * Engagement**: There should be a 10-15 min block (approx. this would obviously vary depending on the lesson) devoted to engaging children in the lesson topic. In this part of the lesson plan you would include specific questions you would ask children to engage them. This is the part where the lesson is made relevant to the student’s lives, and it should include links to previous learning.


 * Procedure**: In this section you must be explicit in explaining each step you will be taking the students through throughout the lesson. This should include each learning activity, and movements between whole-small group learning etc. The number of steps will vary depending on the lesson.


 * Pulling it together**: This is the section where you explain how the lesson will be summed up and ideas left open for further learning to take place. Once again, the questioning approach should be included at this point – what questions are you going to ask the students to draw out the learning that has taken place, and to invoke further learning after the lesson? Pete mentioned that it is important here to reference your learning objective to link everything together.


 * Group set up**: Use steps from your procedure here to outline the types of group set ups that will occur during the lesson. It is important to cater for different learning styles by using varying types of group set ups throughout the week.


 * Materials**: List all of the materials used for the lesson – very helpful as a checklist for the teacher!


 * Observations of Students Learning**: Specify here the techniques you will be using to observe and record the students’ learning process and outcomes. Use a mixture of formal and informal assessment and observation.


 * Teacher’s Resources**: A list of resources the teacher needs to use to prepare for and conduct the lesson. Another useful checklist for the teacher.


 * Catering for Inclusion**: Include techniques to ensure all students will be engaged and able to learn during the lesson. Be mindful of varying ability levels and behavioural issues.

-What went well and why -What went wrong and why -How engaged the students were and how you encouraged this -What else you could have done to improve the students’ learning -How responsive you were able to be with the students -What you learnt
 * Your Reflection:** Here you have the opportunity to reflect on the following:


 * Supervisor’s comments**: Whilst on practicum it is important to ensure that your supervising teacher completes this section so you receive the feedback you require.

I found the N. Postman and C. Weingartner reading Whats Worth Knowing very interesting this week. As we’ve been talking so much about the questioning approach in teaching across all of our subjects, I found the content really relevant. I think that to be a successful questioner as a teacher, it is important to let go of the impulse that we all have to instruct, and to ‘tell’, when we know and understand something ourselves that someone else does not. This reading went even further and talked about asking students themselves to set questions that they thought were ‘worth knowing’. I was very taken with many of the questions suggested in the text, and it certainly raised a few of my own. I like the idea of the teacher being a guiding force rather than an instructing one. This type of teaching surely guides the child towards understanding how to learn, rather than just being fed facts to remember.

Whilst reading this text I started to think about how often in life I don’t question things, and how helpful and enriching it could be if I questioned more often – then I might find answers to things that are different to what I had accepted as truth, or discover new things about myself and the world. If I had had a teacher as a child who had valued and encouraged my own questions, and my own ability to find the answers to these questions, I might already behave this way as an adult. I hope I can learn to question more this year, and therefore pass on a genuine interest and curiosity to my students in the future.

Hi it's Nick. Wow Bec amazing work with the summary! I have nothing additional to add except to say that for me this was by far the most useful week so far. The lesson plan gives us the ability to connect and structure all the new ideas we've learnt. I agree with Bec on the What's Worth Knowing reading, I has lots of great questions we could use in an everyday lesson, I particularly like the suggestion of answering a question with a question to break the question:answer routine. I also really like the idea of asking really thought provoking questions like, 'what makes a good person?', I imagine at Level 4 that could be a real discussion starter. I found the other reading, A Tool Kit For Learning, useful for illustrating other ways that children learn eg. gossip.

Personally I am feeling good about the course now that we have passed some assessment hurdles. I almost feel like the past week has been a miniature lull after the frenetic start we all experienced. Before I finish I would like to say that I've just finished reading the essential chapters of Zevenbergen, the key maths textbook, and it is really excellent and gives a clear idea of what key concepts we will need to communicate to the kids, how they connect, the order they need to be taught and some useful exercises and examples, it is all about number lines as far as I can tell.

Cheers all, Nick

Hi everyone. This is Ken Nee. This week we were introduced to Lesson Plans. When creating a Lesson Plan, we have to be aware of the relevant VELS directives, so we can be clear about our teaching and learning purpose(s) and objective(s). How will we introduce the topic and engage children's interest ? How can we engage them in analytical thinking and active problem-solving ? What sort of relevant and challeging questions shall we ask them ? How can we organize a lesson so that it caters to children of different types of mixed abilities ? How shall we organize groups ? What are the resources we shall use ? How can we gauge students' learning during the lesson ? We also have to remember to self-reflect at the end of each lesson. How did I conduct the lesson well ? How could I improve ? What did the students think ?

Finally, to wrap up week 4, it’s Ian. I share Nick’s sentiment toward Bec’s summary. Pete’s lecture on lesson planning was important and needed the coverage that Bec kindly supplied to us. Thanks Bec. I am sure that with due practice (and there are plenty of opportunities approaching), lesson plans will become second nature. Hopefully! I enjoyed all of your reflections on questioning that arose from reading ‘What’s Worth Knowing? I thought that it was interesting that you all took this opportunity to start to think about some questions of your own to ask. Ken Nee, I liked the way you asked yourself a series of open ended questions in relation to lesson planning. I found the ‘Questioning Techniques’ of [|Teacher Tools] useful in starting to think of how questioning fits into my identity as a Teacher. The fact that questioning is ‘the most common form of interaction’ between the student and the Teacher just states its importance. I know that I am going to have to think about my own approach to questioning. This will include thinking about different types of question (Empirical, Conceptual and Value). It will also need to take into account the Bloom’s Taxonomy framework in order to lead to more effective questioning. I will also need to avoid the pitfalls of too many closed and short answer recall-based questions. When taking all these factors into consideration, it becomes clear to me that effective questioning is a tool that requires much planning, practice and intelligent thought. In relation to lesson planning, I understand that as a Teacher, I will need to plan time not just for questioning but also for personal and group reflection of the questions. I thought it was also important this week to share with you an article that appeared in the Age on Monday, titled ‘Schools must explore full riches of learning’: http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/the-riches-of-learning-20090320-93zi.html?page=-1 The article as you can see focuses on a report titled ‘The Cambridge Primary Review: Towards a New Primary Curriculum’. I think this article highlights the battle that we will all have as Teachers in combating the established systems. I have also provided a link to this website which looks at other media response to the report: http://www.primaryreview.org.uk/Press_and_media/Curriculumreportcoverage.html I believe we are, as new Teachers, central in employing the ‘broad, rich, balanced and well-managed curriculum’ that the report advocates. This will require passion, drive and determination from all of us! I also had an important teaching experience this week. I visited Heidelberg Primary School where I will be undertaking my fieldwork and first block of practicum. I spent a few interesting hours at the school meeting staff and looking at the classrooms. I discovered that I will be undertaking a ‘Habits of Mind’ project during my fieldwork: http://www.habits-of-mind.net This will involve going through the schools resources and creating a tub for each of the 16 ‘Habits of Mind’. I am really looking forward to getting involved and sharing my reflections on this experience through the wiki.