Standard 1: Know students and how they learn

1.1-Physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students (focus area)

Use teaching strategies based on knowledge of students’ physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics to improve student learning.

All students have different needs and characteristics. During a lesson, students may all be working on the same topic but are at different stages of skill and knowledge. The way I set up my classroom helps me cater towards all student's needs. For all lessons, we join together on the floor for an introduction to the lesson. I have made sure that I have left space in my room for all students to come to the floor. This year, I had a smaller space and often found that students tried to spread out in between tables and chairs. To combat this, I placed to markers along the floor to remind students of where they should sit. After an initial introduction, students are able to return to their tables to begin/continue their work. Students have assigned seating and are placed into mixed skill levels. I am a great believer that students learn from each other and have set up a room that allows for this. At each table, I try to ensure there is a mix of students as different abilities and social skills. Students are able to work together and learn from each other. This means that students can often ask each other for help before asking me. I have also ensured there is space in the room to easily move around and help students as required. While I have high expectations from all students, I know each of my students well and help them to achieve their greatest.

All students are individuals and have different ways of learning and I need to be responsive of this in my planning and teaching (links to 1.1). As I get to know my students, I begin to learn if they are a visual, kinaesthetic or auditory learner. As a result, I use a range of methods and strategies in my teaching to suit. One way I have been able to engage more students and their different learning styles is through song and movement using youtube videos. Recently, students have been learning to skip count by 2,s 5s and 10s. I have used videos where students sing as they skip count and have actions to copy that are shown on the video. This has helped me enagge each style of learning and has the students constantly asking to do it again.

This picture shows students following actions and singing along to a 'counting by 10s' song by Harry Kindergarten Songs <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQSdKlNvrmw>. During this, all students were engaged and joined in skip counting.

1.2 -Understand how students learn

Structure teaching programs using research and collegial advice about how students learn.

In all my planning and teaching, I make sure to introduce students to the 'basics' at the beginning of each topic. There is no point in asking a child to write a recount if they don't know what they need in their writing to create that genre. Each program across the curriculum needs to be structured in a way that optimizes student learning. One program I have used in my teaching is Jolly Phonics and Jolly Grammar. Jolly Phonics teaches students to read and write using phonics based learning. An important part of the program is the order in which students are introduce sounds. The program is structured so that the most common sounds are introduced first, allowing students to be able to start reading and writing words quickly. In the second year of schooling, students begin Jolly Grammar. The focus changes from phonics to alternative spellings (e.g. ai, a-e and ay), alphabetical order and learning more 'tricky' words. As the structure of the program changes, so does the way I present resources to students. For example, during Jolly Phonics, I ensure that wall displays have the sounds shown in order that they are learnt.

When students are learning about alphabetical order, I change the display to reflect the learning and structure of the program. Not only to I change the sounds to alphabetical order, we begin putting tricky words under the letter the word begins with.

This has just shown one example of the way my teaching program is structured to suit the way students learn. As you see more evidence of my teaching and planning throughout my portfolio, many more connections with be made to this standard showing more examples.

1.3-Students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds

Design and implement teaching strategies that are responsive to the learning strengths and needs of students from diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds.

While many students I have taught have been from similar backgrounds, there have been some students with more diverse backgrounds. As I get to know my students, I begin to learn more about their backgrounds and can responsive in my planning to be engaging and inclusive of those students. This year, I had a student join my class having recently moved to Australia from the United Arab Emirates. While the student speaks and understands English well in most situations, There were small changes I needed to make in my practise. First of all, I wrote a letter to the student's parents asking if there were cultural or religious differences I would need to be aware of when teaching and working with their child. The next was that some topics needed a more thorough introduction, especially if about Australian cultural events or lifestyles.

I ensure that my class library has a range of books with characters and stories from different countries and cultures.

1.4-Strategies for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students

Design and implement effective teaching strategies that are responsive to the local community and cultural setting, linguistic background and histories of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students.

In my planning and working with an Aboriginal student, I worked with my line manager to create an Individual Learning Plan to ensure that I was using effective teaching strategies and ensuring that my teaching was responsive to the student's background and his current skills and knowledge. For this particular student, his ILP focused mostly on literacy as he has had some speech and language difficulties.

In my teaching, I make sure to use a range of visuals such as books, videos and pictures to meet the students ILP. I also ensure that lessons are differentiated to suit the student (and others) and make sure that I follow up learning intentions and tasks with the student to ensure understanding.

An important aspect of teaching and working with ATSI students is to make sure teaching is inclusive of diverse backgrounds. I always make sure to include indigenous perspectives in my teaching. I make sure that our class library includes indigenous stories and include some Kaurna language in the classroom. Please see 2.4 for examples.

1.5-Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities

Develop teaching activities that incorporate differentiated strategies to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities.

One example of differentiation in my teaching is in my reading program. Using the Daily CAFE program, students are introduced to different reading strategies covering Comprehension, Accuracy Fluency and Expand Vocabulary. The stratgies we learn as a class are placed on the CAFE wall for students to refer to as needed. In my guided reading groups, students are grouped by reading ability. Every week, each group works on a different strategy which suits the learning needs of the students in that group. While group one may still be working on blending sounds to read unfamiliar words to build accuracy, group 4 may be re-reading for understanding to build their comprehension.

As well as working on a strategy with each group, I will often give students their own strategy based purely on their own needs. I will explain, demonstrate and practise the strategy with the child before writing a note in their reader about what their strategy is. I often assign strategies after completing a reading test and I can explain to students what area of their reading they need to work on before their next test.

1.6-Strategies to support full participation of students with disability

Design and implement teaching activities that support the participation and learning of students with disability and address relevant policy and legislative requirements.

One of the students in my class has Sensory Processing Disorder. As a result of this, the student can often become too physical with other students not realizing that they are pushing 'too hard'. Another result is that the student often needs to move around and struggles to stay still. Having a Year One class, we don't tend to stay sitting on the floor or at tables for too long but it can still be a problem. One behaviour that was becoming a safety issue was that the child would lean so far back in their chair that they would be able to put their feet on the table. This was not only a concern for the child's safety but others around. To combat this problem, I have replaced their ordinary school chair with one of our computer chairs. This chair is on wheels so cannot lean, it can also twist and turn allowing the child some movement when sitting but not enough to distract others around them.

To accommodate the child's need to extra movement, I often ask the child to do special jobs such as cleaning the whiteboard (which allows stretching), returning library books (a heavy, slow task) or even just running a note to another teacher. Some other strategies I have been trying include having times when the lights are turned off and playing quiet music after coming in from breaks to allow time for the student (and others) to calm down and regulate themselves ready for the next session.