Every teaching process the teachers used should be aligned to the NCAF. It is a policy which is more like guide book for teachers where it provides them guideline or specific requirements for their profession on learning areas, skills, attitudes and values. Therefore, in this writing it will describe my teaching experience and what I have learnt after implementing this essential component.
Initially, doing a teaching experience gives me the opportunity to apply the NCAF principles such as student-centered approach. This approach reminds me to always let students to work in groups to share their ideas, solve problems and complete a task on their own especially on IBL (Inquiry based learning) tasks (refer to the appendix) This approach allows students to get involve together and work collaboratively in groups (refer to the journal) . According to the article (Implementing Group Work in the Classroom | Centre for Teaching Excellence, 2020), it states that “group work can be an effective method to motivate students, encourage active learning, and develop key critical-thinking, communication, and decision-making skills”. Therefore, by applying this approach during my teaching experience I have had come to understand that it is really effective as it makes the lesson achievable and remove obstacles or barriers students might have in the learning especially underachievers students it gave them a chance to learn from fast learners.
Similarly, another aspect I have learnt from the NCAF is that a teacher should connect the content of the subject with students’ lives or own experience. Referring back to my teaching experience I usually connect the subject content to students’ real life situation if the topic is related to their own life experience to support their understanding (refer to the lesson plan) . For instance; I gave them a task to draw the picture of any behavior that would help contract of teenage pregnancy and STIs in our health&PE lesson, they should relate their diagrams with what they have seen and experienced relating with this topic. By doing this, I have learnt that it is very effective as it helps students to easily understand the content of the lesson and most importantly, it helps student to build bridges of meaningful between home and school experiences and also it encouraged student to use their own experiences as point of comparison when learning about other peoples’ experiences in different time, places and culture. Supported by Autumn Battista he stated that It is important for students to be taught about cultural heritage because, through a proper understanding, a student will be able to connect and appreciate cultural heritage and they will be able to apply it to their own life.
Moreover, another aspect of NCAF I had demonstrated during my teaching experience is that taking my learning outcomes and activities from the curriculum or the syllabus. For example; I delivered the topic which is How coral islands formed, my activities were taken from the teacher guide and one of them was making the experiment on how different coral islands formed (refer to the teacher guide activity). By doing an experiment gives students the opportunity to learn effectively and thus our hope and expectations for them as teachers are beyond what we have estimated in which students are to understand what they’ve learnt and would apply it or relate it to their context/environment (Claire Mclachlan, Marilyn Fleer & Susan Edwards). Therefore by developing lessons which are aligning to the curriculum or syllabus would leads students to reach the benchmark that they are expected to achieve.
In conclusion, it has proven that NCAF is crucial for all teachers to clearly understand the content of the curriculum that possibly enables them to know what and how to access the learning methods that truly foster learners to attain the benchmarks.
Bibliography
Battista, A. (2019). 5 Reasons Why We Should Teach the Value of Cultural Heritage to High School Students · Cultural Heritage through Image. Retrieved 10 November 2021, from https://culturalheritagethroughimage.omeka.net/5-reasons-why-we-should-teach-the-value-of-cultural-heritage-to-high-school-students
Centre for Teaching Excellence. 2020. Implementing Group Work In The Classroom | Centre For Teaching Excellence. [online] Available at: <https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/teaching-resources/teaching-tips/alternatives-lecturing/group-work/implementing-group-work-classroom> [Accessed 21 October 2021].
McLachlan , C., Fleer , M., & Edwards, S. (2018). Early Childhood Curriculum. New York: Cambridge University Press