WHAT TO INCLUDE
WHAT TO INCLUDE
Part A: Description of early learning setting and focus children
Describe the characteristics of the early learning setting (5 marks)
Some points you might consider and discuss in your "observation of the setting/ situational analysis":
Research the setting (web search)
Name of local council
Total No of enrolments
Group sizes
No of staff/educators
Environment/location (geographic)
Logistical details (e.g., length/operating hours of the centres day)
Facilities in the setting
Learners cultural or socioeconomic backgrounds (This information can be accessed through the demographic data of the local council area or through theAEDC data)
Other demographics (based on local population and/or the setting):
Gender/sex
Indigenous
EAL/D
About the centre:
What is the settings main focus e.g., mission? vision? values?
special activities offered in the centre
partnerships/community engagement
Describe the physical, social, and intellectual development characteristics of a small group of focus children within the placement setting (10 marks)
For example, through your observation, you might notice the group of children are well developed in their linguistic capabilities yet seem to experience difficulties in emotional regulations. And this means later in your experience plan in Part B, you can leverage their linguistic capability and design learning experiences using storybooks related to expressing one's emotions. Or you might notice the group of children are especially active and seem to desire lots of tactile sensory input, and then in your Part B, you might plan messy play such as mud play, water play, or sand play to provide a sensory diet in the educational program to meet their needs. For another example, you might observe that the group of children are having difficulties in terms of social relationships, and particularly having issues entering into play, then in your part B experience plan, you can then design learning experiences to support their social relationships.
An important thing to remember in this part is, that your summarised analysis needs tocover all three areas of development (physical, social, and intellectual). In addition, you need to focus both on the strengths and the needs/challenges of the group of children. The needs or challenges might be that children are from an English as a second language background, have a low socioeconomic background, with special needs and so on.And you need to link your summary of the developmental characteristics of your focus children in this section with your experience plan in the following part. How do you think the experience you planned caters to the strengths and needs of the focus group of children.
WHAT TO INCLUDE
Part B: Experience Plan
Part B: Experience plan
Weighting: 15 marks (out of 50)
The experience planmust be informed by your analysis of the developmental characteristics of the group of children in Part A,i.e., it must be suitable for your learners based on the information you provided in Part A.
Use the experience plan providedhere, you can see that it is similar yet different to the EDEC111 experience plan template. It is modified to help you meet the marking criteria of Part B. You only need to plan one learning experience in this template. However, what is different is you need to provide intext citations to support your experience plan.
You DO NOT use this template for your placement Instead, you use the EDEC111 experience plan template for your EDET100 placement.
Part C: Annotations of Experience Plan
Weighting: 20 marks (out of 50)
Part C involves making connections/links between Part B (experience plan) and a list of specific Standards from the APST.
You will annotate your experience plan, which should take the form of providing evidence that demonstrates the links to (connections with) EACH of these specific focus areas from theAustralian Professional Standards for Teachers (Graduate):
Domain: Professional Knowledge
Standard 2:Know the content and how to teach it
2.1Content and teaching strategies of the teaching area:Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the concepts, substance and structure of the content and teaching strategies of the teaching area.
2.2Content selection and organisation:Organise content into an effective learning and teaching sequence.
2.3Curriculum, assessment and reporting:Use curriculum, assessment and reporting knowledge to design learning sequences and lesson plans.
Domain: Professional Practice
Standard 3: Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning
3.1Establish challenging learning goals:Set learning goals that provide achievable challenges for students of varying abilities and characteristics.
3.2Plan, structure and sequence learning programs:Plan lesson sequences using knowledge of student learning, content and effective teaching strategies.
3.3Use teaching strategies:Include a range of teaching strategies.
Part C is about making connections to AITSL = Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership:https://www.aitsl.edu.au/This is aboutYOUR TEACHING.To be qualified to work as a teacher (ranging from Birth to Year 12), the Federal Government requires all teachers to demonstrate skills and knowledge addressing AITSL'sAustralian Standards for Teachers(APST):https://www.aitsl.edu.au/teach/standardsThroughout your ITE course, each education unit will connect to specific focus areas from the APST. When you have successfully completed your course, you will have demonstrated all 37 of the focus areas from the seven Standards as required by the APST: Graduate level.
Forthisassignment,ALL THE SIX focus areas fromStandards 2 and 3must be addressed in Part C.
Eachof your six focus areas should include at least the following:
1)Annotation(approx. 100 words per focus area)explaining how your learning experience aligns with the focus area. This might include in-text citations/references to relevant literature.
2)Evidence- an "artefact" as a piece of evidence. See additional details below, plus an example (from a different unit).
Each page of the ePortfolio should include aReference list(in APA format) of items relevant to the page.
Here is a sample of what a populated page could look like(from a DIFFERENT unit, so the criteria were different):
INCLUDEPICTURE "https://leo.acu.edu.au/pluginfile.php/5591234/mod_book/chapter/501672/image.png" * MERGEFORMATINET
What should you consider when writing annotations?
(How to guide:https://www.aitsl.edu.au/teach/improve-practice/how-to-guides/annotating-evidence)
When writing annotations for professional learning, it is helpful to consider who the audience is. If the annotations are for personal use, then it can be less formal than if it is for more formal requirements such as registration or certification purposes.
Length:Short, concise, approximately 100-150 words long.
Timely:Evidence and annotations should be dated for authenticity.
Context:Explain the who, when, why and what. What you did is an integral part of your annotation. This should include not just the professional learning activity, but any follow-up actions taken in your classroom or school
Clarity:Use short, simple sentences and avoid jargon. The annotations should be easily understood by a third party.
Australian Professional Standards for Teachers: align your professional learning with a career stage, identify the Standard(s) and/or Descriptor(s) being accounted for and explain links between the evidence and the specific Standard/Descriptor.
Impact:Identify the impact of the learning, including the impact on your colleagues and learners. How did the professional learning inform your practice and what were the outcomes?
Models to follow for annotating evidence:
STAR Model
Situation Describe the situation, professional learning, class, or school/setting. Tell your story and contextualise the evidence.
Task - What did you need to accomplish to deal with the situation? What were you hoping to achieve? What was the reason for undertaking the professional learning/task? What was your role?
Action What did you do? Set out the steps you took including how the professional learning was implemented into practice.
Result What was the outcome? What was accomplished and learned? Was it the outcome you expected? How do you plan to use the learning in the future?
CARES Model
Context Context of activity, lesson, topic, event, professional learning.
Action - What did you do? Set out the steps you took including how the professional learning was implemented into practice..Results - What was the outcome? What was accomplished and learned? Was it the outcome you expected? How do you plan to use the learning in the future?
Evaluation - Your reflection on the actions and results.
Standards - The relevant focus areas of the Standards that you have evidenced.
There are two models that you could use to help write annotations.
EVIDENCEThink about what would evidence would best demonstrate your understanding. Some examples of suitable evidence are listed below and explained in further detail on the next page. If you have an idea of a different type of evidence, that's okay too!
Resourcesyou would use for your lesson/activity(e.g., YouTube clips, photos, posters, storybooks, play resources, and so on)
Examples of children's work samples(or what might be expected such as drawings, pictures of block constructions, clay work, paintings and so on)
What a Good One Looks Like(e.g., the provocations for learning experiences you provided)
A shortfilm of yourself(e.g., the I Do component of an experience) as a demonstration of how to do/make. You are NOT expected to show examples of yourself teaching, however.
If your experience plan is based on a real-life reflection, you could also includewrittenfeedbackprovided by a teacher/mentor or learner.
excerpt (e.g. screenshot) from your learning plan document with keywords highlighted
photograph (eg of project webbing on a whiteboard )diagram eg seating chart of the room
audio recording produced by a group of children, eg a video of children's social dramatic play
links/embedding to external sources/documents/webpages/videos that have informed your learning
