Digital Portfolio

In order to target students and their individual learning needs, it is critical to ensure teachers have a broad knowledge of their students and their learning needs. Teachers valuing and embracing student’s experiences and learning styles can ultimately achieve this. It is crucial for teachers to maintain an inclusive environment, where all students can develop and maintain a mutual understanding of trust and respect (Yassin & Almasri, 2015). An important factor is the learning environment in which children are actively involved. I believe it is necessary to create an environment in which children can actively participate, and feel as if the curriculum they are undertaking is meaningful and valuable to them (Follari, 2007).

Through the following artefacts, I have demonstrated my ability as a pre service teacher to develop strong, meaningful relationships with my students therefore they feel supported, valued and safe in their educational environment. I have found it critical to ensure I have developed relationships that allow me to recognise the multiple aspects of a learner’s physical, social and intellectual development, thoroughly exploring and challenging their individual interests, strengths, potential challenges and learning needs. Thus, this has allowed my approach to teaching to have the flexibility of modification if necessary, according to the student’s needs and abilities. This has allowed me differentiate my teaching in a classroom, and as seen in the artefacts, has been acknowledged by associate teachers and co-learners.

Throughout my studies I have engaged in professional development regarding the education of various cultural groups, including the education of students from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander backgrounds. This has developed my understanding of valuing the history and culture of Aboriginal peoples through the use of “culturally inclusive content” (Keddie, Gowlett, Mills, Monk, & Renshaw, 2012).

I chose to use the Number timeline activity as my artefact for Standard 1, presenting worksheets taken from a Foundation class at River Gum Primary School. These worksheets were given to children as an activity in their mathematics block, as well as a different number of counters designated to each child. The counters were presented at random, and the timeline sheet was used to record the number of counters a child had, in different mathematics form- including circling the number on a number timeline, writing the numerals, writing the number word and drawing the amount of counters. A co pre service teacher and myself created this number timeline during professional placement, and the artefacts demonstrate a handful of samples we collected. 

This artefacts connects with Standard 1.1- Physical, social and intellectual development and characteristics of students, as we were able to determine by the worksheets, which areas children were struggling with, and provide follow up activities in terms of their previously shown abilities. It connects with Standard 1.2- Understand how students learn, as the worksheets gave us an exact idea of what ability level each child was at according to their responses, and show us what areas required improvement and to follow up on. It also connects with Standard 1.5- Differentiate teaching to meet the specific learning needs of students across the full range of abilities, as the worksheets were able to be modified according to each child’s abilities. If we could see a child was struggling with the amount of counters, we could modify the activity and give them less counters. This artefact correlates with my teaching philosophy as the child was able to complete the work sheet individually and utilise a model of learning in which they took control, yet were aware that teacher assistance was available to provide scaffolding only if required.

As an educator, it is critical to understand curriculum content and have a broad knowledge and understanding of different learning experiences to teach effectively. Providing students with these experiences can allow an educator to maintain engagement and provide learning spaces appropriate to the students needs. By providing experiences and spaces that nurture the interaction of teaching strategies and subject matter knowledge, quality learning experiences can be achieved, providing a foundation for pedagogical content knowledge that enables teachers to make ideas accessible to others (Gestwicki, 2011). 

The way a teacher presents different content in an educational environment needs to be critically executed in order to thoroughly engage students. When lesson planning, scaffolding is vital in order to support student learning and provide rich learning experiences. Scaffolding a child is an important role of the classroom teacher, as it allows the child to demonstrate their variety of skills and abilities but have the option to obtain further dynamic and active assistance if required (Gestwicki, 2011; Follari, 2011). In order for scaffolding to occur, an educator needs to have a strong understanding of the content in order to effectively teach it to the students and have a thorough understanding.

In order to initiate meaningful learning, educators need to utilize curriculum documents and framework. 

The Australian and Victorian Curriculum outline standards, expectations and outcomes required of students in the early years, in order to enhance their learning and development. Having a sound understanding of the curriculum as well as supporting frameworks and documents allows the educator to plan quality lessons, whilst meeting the appropriate requirements for the level of students (Harrison, 2011). Furthermore, It is critical to ensure the perspectives of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is a critical element in education as it is crucial to provide students with culturally inclusive content.

Artefact1 : Mathematics Interview.

Focus Area: 2.1, 2.3, 2.5