Planning for Teaching (Transcript)
M2: On placement, obviously a little bit is dependent on what the school ... what requirements the school are going to have for you. I mean I know that some have had experiences be handing ... I've been handed curriculum, been handed almost specific lesson plans, but given a lot of sort of direction. So there's less perhaps work on the planning side of things. On my placements with my English I was given the opportunity to plan an entire unit of work based around advertising. So then just sort of when ... the way I was ... I always go from sort of the end to beginning in so much that I look at the learning objective, the goals I want the students to have achieved by the end of the five week period that I was given to do the topic. And then sort of plan backwards from ... from those, and those goals and those objectives to actually sort of determine more specific lesson plans and so forth. So I guess I look at the overview to begin with and where I want the students to be by the end of that five week period and then work back and come up with pedagogies and activities and so forth and build in assessment that will match and enable the students to get to where I want them to be at the end of that five week period. So I guess in essence that's how I go about planning curriculum. I was given that opportunity on placement and thoroughly enjoyed it. Yeah, it was good. There can be no doubting that it's ... it's hard work and that it is time consuming. You know, the luxury was afforded to me was be having involvement in the school prior to my placement. I very early on found out what I was going to be teaching and had discussions. And I can only recommend that ... I know there are constraints through the universities as to when exactly you find out about your placement but the sooner you do, the sooner you make contact, the sooner you get the, you know, what you're going to be teaching and you can put the hard yards in and what I mean by that simply is you know I suppose an awful lot on the internet, I can't lie, I mean it's ... it's such a vast sort of resource base sort of you know, to tap into that I got a lot of information off that. Experiences that I'd had teaching in the UK I drew upon, you know, not so much specifically to advertising but methods and different pedagogies and activities to blend in. I spoke with other English teachers, you know, I was very ... one thing I've learned is that even having taught prior to coming on to this course, you're learning all the time, you know, 20 ... 20 year veteran teachers will be the first to say that they're adapting and learning on a year by year basis. And that's very much my philosophy that you know, I came into the ... on to this course knowing how, you know, beneficial it could be to me in getting ideas even from pre-service teachers who perhaps haven't had the experience but have got all these great ideas. So I spoke with my mentor on placement, I spoke with other English teachers in the Department, you know, I ... just ... I just, every available option, I got library resources within the school, externally as well I tapped into and also advertising is ... is all around you so there's ... there's obvious things, links in various forms of media, movies, you know, it's constant bombardment about it which is why I really chose that as a topic because it is so almost intrusive into our lives, and the students' lives as well which is why I thought it would be very engaging.
F7: On the interest side, observe them. For example, one day they kept asking me what the time was, they want to look at your watch all day. So the next week we made clocks and just focused on time and that's what they wanted to learn. It was spring so we did a lesson about spring and they made spring mobiles, whatever they were interested in we just planned for that. Just so with spring, for example, we just got anything that was spring related to set up in different parts around the room, spring books, Lego that had flowers in it, outside we just had some flowers and some potting mix ready and the kids saw it and said oh what can I do with that Kylie? Then I'd say let's go and plant some beans or something, so just ... just the, yeah, resources around the room and let them explore them themselves.
M4: My resources came from the internet but I had to really sort of look at like good websites and get some activities off them. A lot of my ideas were just things like simple sort of half game things like crosswords and things like that that get the kids sort of not just writing in their text books. A lot of my classes, the students didn't write in their text books much at all. It was more about sort of getting them involved I their learning and getting them to properly understand what they're dealing with instead of just turning off and copying notes down or whatever. Yeah, I made a lot of my resources. So it was very time consuming. For every class that I took I, like it was a 50 minute class and I'd spend probably two hours, a good two hours getting that lesson sorted so I knew it would go smoothly. And without that time it's just sort of, oh, yeah, you've really ... you really have to set two hours per class just to sort of get it gong.
M1: We had 17 to 18 year olds in there and we also had mature age students, so they could all be in the one class. So that was unusual. And I had to think about how I would cater towards those different learning styles that different learners had. But also it was kind of a refuge for students who were kind of disengaged from normal high school settings and, yeah, so we ... we had students who were expelled, students who were, you know, who had gotten into trouble with the law and they all ended up there. So it was kind of like okay, this is ... this is going to be challenging. But it was also good because then you kind of focused on how you were going to engage them rather than where they came from and what their backgrounds were because they were all the same, they were all students and learners. With the plumbers, they were more practical focused and they liked more to do things with their hands and I distinctly remember a lesson where I kind of got into a discussion with them about how English literacy was important or relevant to them and they were not really that convinced but I persisted anyway. So I think they were half convinced, I'm not sure. But in terms of planning, yeah with VCAL it was more curriculum that you created yourself. There's no set curriculum, so in that way you were free to be as creative as possible. And well we had a cut and paste activity for example and with the cut and paste activity I was teaching them about the meanings of certain words that they might not have encountered before. But instead of just asking them, okay, what's the meaning of this word, can you tell it to me, you know, either in written form or verbally, we had ... we created on Excel a printed sheet of paper. So we had word meanings on the one side and the actual words on the other side. And so we got ... and they were jumbled up, they were scrambled. So we got them to cut these things out and then to ... to match them up and then paste them on another piece of paper. At the ... at the end of it they ... we got them to report back to the class. So by getting them to do that hands on activity, it kind of engaged a different part of their brain I think. And so they really got involved in that and they enjoyed doing it and while they were doing it they were talking of course and so that gave a really kind of lively atmosphere to the ... to the class. So it created energy, it was involving and I think that worked really well.
M2: I did a lesson on haikus last year. The last placement I had was in a special developmental school so it was a bit different. But in the last sort of mainstream placement I did a lesson on haikus which I thought went very well simply because ... because, like I mentioned, knowing the students I knew how I could get their interest. I knew I could grab their interest at the start of the lesson which his obviously very important, especially when doing something as abstract as poetry. The ... the lesson was planned such where I knew which people worked well together who would be interested in poetry, so therefore they would be made the group leaders. Little details like that kind of do make a real difference in how a lesson runs. I also find having a backup in case something goes wrong, especially with something like, as I mentioned, abstractive poetry. If they don't get it, or they're just not interested, you need something to sort of fall back on. I would say planning is in the detail. The ... the sort of bigger picture can almost look after itself I think.
F1: Well over the four years I think the best thing that I've done is collect planners and that probably sounds really silly, but there's so many different ways of setting out a lesson plan, so many different ways of setting out a week planner, literacy planner. So I found that I've collected those along the way because it will differ depending on what content I'm teaching and how long I'm teaching for. So I've ... I started my first year, I was doing straight lesson plans that were very detailed and step by step that I usually had next to me to refer to as I was teaching. But as I've gained experience I've moved away from lesson plans more into I'll do up a daily planner and a weekly planner and if there's a lesson within that day that I'm ... I feel will be a challenge, then I'll probably sit down and do a lesson plan for that one just to go through the motions of what I want to do. But it's been a gradual build up from the lesson plan through to a daily planner, a weekly planner, being involved with staff at schools and doing term planners. And just collecting them all along the way 'cause each school will do it differently.
F6: I guess you've got to first work out where ... what your objective is, what you want the kids to arrive at at the end of the lesson. One particular lesson I was asked to plan was on shape and we hadn't studied that in numeracy yet. And I thought, great, where do I start? And I mean talk to your peers, your students, other students in the course, senior maths tutors and get ideas from them. There's plenty of resources on the internet, more than you even imagine but you have to be careful and make sure they're appropriate and you can incorporate them into your lesson somehow. Observe, it's important to observe what the students are used to, like whether they're used to having rotational activities. And in saying that, when you plan your rotational activities, take into consideration abilities of students. Whereas some might be able to complete something faster than others, where does that leave students who finish early, that sort of thing. Also like don't be afraid to have a lesson run over two lessons because there's never enough time in the day. Planning a lesson, timing's a real problem. And I mean timing does get better with practice but you just sort of have to just be able to adjust as the lesson goes on. Talk to your mentor about it. I know some mentors might thing oh no, that's going to be way too difficult for them or it's a bit easy, or something like that. And just the mentor really are your guide, guiders there so talk with them. And when I was writing up my lesson plans I sort of used a reflection strategy that the classroom use quite a lot which is the parking lot where you've got four squares and one is issues, one is improvements, one is what went well and questions that you have. So I found that is a good ... a great tool to reflect on my lesson in the end and discuss with my mentor how it went and I was a great way of getting feedback.
F2: All kindergarten or early years planning is supposedly around the interests of the children, but a lot of it is very, it's a bit of an American term but what they call canned curriculum. So it's everyone does make a spider. One child shows an interest in spiders so everyone has to make a spider with the eight foldy-up legs. And a lot of the activities are based around spiders or insects, for argument sake. But with this, with emergent curriculum at this particular kindergarten they just had an overarching philosophy of developmental goals that they would like the children to reach and the actual philosophy of the kindergarten. So as long as the activities that the children ... so you planned based on those philosophies and you planned on a ... well you planned on a weekly basis but each day you planned on a minute to minute basis. So if someone said there was a child, for argument sake, there was a child who was fascinated by building steps with those kinder blocks and he wanted to line them up and get them just right. And I'd been to Mexico at Christmas time and I said to him, oh this reminds me of the pyramids that we went to and I got out a book about pyramids. And he was suddenly became fascinated by pyramids and started to try and build a four ... and three dimensional steps arrangement. So a couple of the other children joined him and we then looked at pyramids for a few days until the interest waned, we had a few photographs, we had some books, we had different building processes, we talked about how they might have built the pyramids and the interest then waned, moved on to something else. So that was an immediate planning still within the philosophy of the ... of the kindergarten that no one could have planned for even five minutes before that and may never happen again. It was just one of those things, an interest that a particular child had, a piece of knowledge and experience that I had that I could relate to the child. So someone else, another teacher who was working there who hadn't been to Mexico, who hadn't seen the pyramids, who hadn't had that recent experience might say oh it looks like steps, let's make a building to go at the top of it or whatever. But yeah, so it's that interaction between the child and the particular adult who's with them that makes the curriculum emerge. And it was, yeah, a really, really rewarding experience and placement. So if you were moving into the early childhood stream, make sure that the teacher, that you ask the teacher for examples of how they plan. Make sure you ask them, when you make those obs ... 'cause the planning process is supposed to be the teacher makes observations about the child, perceives any interest or a need or a strength that they can build on. And so that observation then turns into some ... or is exhibited some learning activities, then it's assessed, how did that go? And then we continue on with the observation and that sort of thing. But lots of teachers who are very experienced don't have to actually put that in writing. They can say oh, there's three ... there are three children in the Grade who are struggling with scissors so we'll do lots of scissor type activities. For example, but for you as a student, you need to know where it comes from, why are they doing what they're doing. And some teachers will gladly share it with you and other teachers will just ... it's not a secret but they just don't think to share it, ask for examples of planning and ask for ... to see the process, how does it all fit together. Certainly in early childhood because it can seem as if it all just happens, we just put these activities out because they all look like fun and as a student you can walk into a kinder and think oh this looks lovely but you don't realise that there's a lot of planning that goes behind it. And as a ... as a student I would say the same thing, just as a B Ed student, ask lots of questions, don't be afraid to ask questions and ... and get to know the children because the children are what matters. I actually used the first ... the placements for the first year to actually get me through the course because I just thought I'm just not going to do this, I can't do this. But every week the placement was a thing that kept me going because that was the real key to the whole course, because eventually you'll be out there and teaching. Another really, really, really important thing is when you're teaching in a classroom is to remember that you're teaching in someone else's classroom, that you need to remember the ... the philosophy of that teacher, but the ... keep the classroom within that context. It's okay to try new things but you need to remember the culture of the classroom that you're in at the time and ... and know that one day you'll have your own classroom and that you can do those other things yourself. But you need to be respectful of the culture of the classroom. I've seen a few things go astray when people haven't remembered what ... what was ... that there is a person who actually has ownership of that classroom and you're a visitor.
F3: I did an introduction to a lesson on quotation marks which was half way through a series of lessons, series of lessons on this particular topic. And I think it went well because I prepared for it a lot. What I focused on was how can I convey my message to the kids so it will make sense for them. I tried to make things logical in a logical order so the kids will follow and it will make sense for them. And it was one of my challenges in this PP. And yeah, a lot of preparation I guess. But what I've learned from that, that I need to relax and enjoy and that's the most important thing.
F4: What I've learned is communication is vital with your mentor. Time doesn't always allow that but having a sit down and a clear discussion on her expectations, my mentor being a female, her expectations and what her outcomes are for that lesson. So that's the main objective of sitting down and having that discussion. And then if she has any resources that she recommends, other than that, the RMIT library is a fantastic resource. Just that if you have the time to come in after placement it's great, but if you have to deliver a lesson the very next day it's not always practical to come in. And the internet. Although the internet can be rather time consuming, it can be, yeah, sometimes you can get sort of, branch off a little bit but yeah, that's basically what I do, sit down, put my lesson plan together and what I find sort of works for me best is if I mentally step out my lesson, then I can sort of catch where there might be issues or where I can make allowances for. I don't always do that but I find that does help. I've got my lesson plan in front of me so I ...I sit down and I mentally go through my introduction and how I would convey that in a lesson. I ... depending on what class you're teaching, what level, you need to use, I found you need to use the right language so it doesn't go over their heads. And sometimes you know, I could use language and words that are probably a little bit, you know, too high, so I need to use precise and concise language for that year level. And so I sort of go through how I would say that and try and be as precise as possible.