I had just started my final year of university and was eager to start my final practicum. Operating out of the assumption that I could potentially get a job offer at the end of the year if I put my best foot forward and preformed exemplary during my practicum, I decided that I must make a conscious effort to present myself as a calm, confidant and composed individual. In order to receive a job offer at the end of the year, I needed to be knowledgeable of both the content being taught and of the teaching strategies to use with the current demographic of students.
Task
As the start of my final practicum approached I made a concentrated effort to analyse my own shortcomings in my practice. I would then use this information to research and implement new ways of teaching content. This would be done to ensure that my students could learn all that was delivered to them in the most effective way possible. Going over my previous practicums and results from my univeristy study, I found that I had a weakness in teaching the humanites and social sciences. This had to be rectified to ensure that all students would internalise the content that was being taught to them.
Action
I discussed my misgivings with my mentor teacher and requested that my first unit of work be focused on the Humanaties and Social Sciences area of the Australian Curriculum. She agreed to this and commended me on my ability to analyse my own weaknesses and attempt to fix them. Taking this into my stride, I began researching various ways to deliver a sequence of lessons based upon Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander rights. Initially, I looked to other staff members for inspiration and ideas. I was fortunate enough to be given a book that focused on this area of the curriculum. I went home that night and began creating engaging and rich tasks for my students to complete by combine suggestions from this book and further research online.
After these tasks were created, I began delivering them to my students. After each lesson, I critically reflected against the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers and on how I could improve my delivery of this content. This eventually saw me delivering a highly engaging final lesson for the unit, to which the students left that classroom that day still commenting on various civil rights issues that were discussed. I did this by engaging the students with a social experiment based upon Jane Elliot's "Blue-Eyes, Brown Eyes" experiment. After this, I actively promoted the Aboriginal students, in a careful and considered manner, to discuss some of the discrimination they have faced and then apply this to the lives of the other members of the class. Students then wrote a small text focusing on what it may be like if they were discriminated against by an alien species and it turned out humanity was the minority in the universe.
Result
My mentor teacher praised me on such an engaging and well thought out lesson sequence and further suggested how to improve. I continued to seek guidance and support from the various staff members at the school and continued to improve my practice accross all areas. I also began reflecting upon all of my lessons against the Professional Teacher Standards and created as template that allowed me to do this with ease.
Professional Knowledge Standards Covered
2.1 - Content and teaching strategies of the teaching area I actively sought new knowledge of how to teach Humanties and Social Science to mys teudents.
2.2 - Content selection and organisation I organsied the content I found and critically reflected on its usefulness and application to my teaching.
2.4 - Understand and respect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to promote reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians By having the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students discussing some of the discrimination they have faced, a sense of empathy was created among the students.