In my first teaching role, in discussions with a colleague I learned about an activity she used successfully with junior year students which she called The Amazing Race.
The activity consists of five sub activities which in pairs or threes need to be correctly solved before the teacher releases a secret letter. Once all the activities are completed and the 5 or 6 letters are issued, students unscramble to letters to reveal the secret word and win the prize.
My colleague used the Amazing Race in final period lessons where students needed an activity that felt less like content and more like fun. The great thing about this activity, which I experienced first hand, is the enthusiasm students bring and the way learning can be embedded subtly.
I used this activity on the final day of term and it truly was Amazing. Perhaps the lure of a prize helped but more than that, the students enjoyed rising to the challenge, keeping their work top secret, and using different strategies in their teams to try to finish first. All teams completed the activity in the lesson which was more than I could have achieved in a content driven lesson on the final day.
Incidentally, the secret word I gave them to unscramble was “STARS” and I got a few smiles from students when they figured it out.
The activity documents issued to students are shown below.
In my first teaching role, in a Year 8 geography class, I incorporated an activity in which rather than reading the article below to consider SEEP (social, economic, environmental and political) criteria, I converted the article into a Synthesia AI Video for students to watch.
A screen shot of the Synthesia video is shown below
This opened up discussion as many students were shocked the video was made using AI. We discussed how we need to be very careful with what we see presented to us now because really polished videos like this can be prepared in a half an hour.
We later used Synthesia to create an exam revision video of an activity the students completed in class.
In my first teaching role, I worked part time, co-teaching five lines including a Year 11 Business class of 29 students. One of the challenges with this class was a group of 5 or 6 boys who found creative ways to disrupt the class.
The assessment we were working towards was an exam. I decided once a week to convert the activities students would normally do in their books, to written tasks with feedback opportunities for students in the lead up to the exam. Sometimes, we would begin the activities as a class and at other times, where the material was conducive to doing so, the entire activity would be carried out under open book exam conditions in the last 30 minutes or so of the lesson.
While providing written feedback, I kept a record of student effort and accuracy and my co teacher and I used the evidence gathered to reach out to parents to provide feedback and evidence of student effort to support student preparation for the exam.
After three weeks of this, the disruptions started to reduce and all students in the class were able to benefit from the feedback provided.
In my first teaching role I worked part time, co- teaching across five lines. We used a spreadsheet to plan the lessons. I also used this to communicate essential information about how the lessons went so we could coordinate effectively.
In my first teaching role, I prepared some “getting to know student” exit tickets and I used these as backups. On occasion, I would pivot from a planned exit ticket and use these ones instead. I would do this if we had less or more time than I anticipated or if I felt that the students were too fatigued to benefit from a content related exit ticket.
I found these exit tickets really valuable in supporting rapport. The year 8 students in particular really appreciated being asked what worked for them. I not only learned a lot from the exit tickets, but it gave me valuable information about student preferences to incorporate student voice and choice in the activities, where possible.
In my first teaching role, seating plans were not compulsory but after a particularly disrupted lesson in which we did not finish getting through all the content, I implemented a strategy with the year 8 students which I learned during an observation in my second practicum.
This strategy allowed students to begin the lesson in their chosen seating plan. During the lesson, students would be given three chances which were written on the whiteboard at the beginning of the lesson and were rubbed out each time I had to wait more than a reasonable time to regroup the class. If all three chances were rubbed off the whiteboard, we would revert to Seating plan 2. I only had to put the students into the second seating plan on two occasions but knowing it would happen was an effective strategy in keeping the class on task.
In my first teaching role, I gained valuable experience of the value of pastoral classes to support student safety, belonging and connection. One of the challenges in these short 20 minute segment classes was to overcome student reluctance to interact with students outside their immediate social group. During these classes we sometimes had life skills activities to go through with the students. At other times, we as teachers could use our initiative to develop our own activities.
One strategy I used was to incorporate games and other activities, some samples of which are shown below to support student interaction.
The next activity followed on from a Blooket in which students had to guess random facts about me.
In my first teaching role, I marked the Year 8 exams, a sample of which demonstrating rubric interpretation, feedback and marking is shown below. In this class, we had a number of students with adjusted exam papers as shown in the second and fourth links below.
In my final practicum, I had the opportunity to work with a group of year 12 accounting students on the content aligned to IA3. I thoroughly enjoyed teaching in my specialist area. I prepared a series of lessons which focused on balance day adjustments. The lesson sequence culminated in a revision lesson, slides from which are included below.
Focus area 2.1 Content 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.
Focus area 2.2 Content selection and organisation – Organise content into an effective learning and teaching sequence.
Focus area 2.3 Curriculum, assessment and reporting – Use curriculum, assessment and reporting knowledge to design learning sequences and lesson plans.
Focus area 2.5 Literacy and numeracy strategies – Know and understand literacy and numeracy teaching strategies and their application in teaching areas.
In a recent assessment, I was asked to produce a learning sequence for a Senior Accounting class to prepare students for the third assessment aligned to the Queensland Senior General Accounting syllabus. The class was described as predominantly engaged students with average B to C grade. Five students were highlighted for consideration with differentiation needs including literacy or numeracy lower than expected, gifted, talented and disruptive when disengaged and a student struggling with suboptimal attendance. My task was to prepare the unit plan aligned to the assessment task and with consideration of differentiation strategies and adjustments for the five highlighted students.
I prepared a unit plan (2.1, 2.2 Artefact1) around three key learning experiences. Strategies and tasks designed to support students with different needs including extracurricular activities and feedback to support literacy and numeracy development, additional projects, scaffolding and continued contact due to poor attendance (1.5, 2.5 Artefact2, Artefact3) were also included. The problem-solving model, outlined in the Accounting 2025 v1.1 General Senior Syllabus (QCAA, 2024), was incorporated in several exercises within the unit plan to align to the requirement to use this model to complete the assessment (2.3). Given the heavy focus of the topic on content and procedural tasks, Gradual Release of Responsibility (GRR) framework was used supporting student progression from heavily scaffolded use of the problem-solving model in the first sequence to more independent practice in the second sequence and in the final sequence to independent application of the model to higher order tasks of predicting, concluding and communicating findings (Fisher & Frey, 2008). Understanding by Design (UbD) also underpins the planning of this unit with the use of driving questions to hook and anchor student learning and the use of backwards design to map tasks aligned to understanding core unit objectives and achieving success in the assessment (2.3, Wiggins & McIntyre, 2005).
Marker feedback was that although the proposed literacy and numeracy strategies (2.5, Artefact2) were insightful and detailed and learning was aligned strongly to summative objectives and suitably embedded in the lesson sequence (2.3, 5.2, Artefact4), assessment justification could have better articulated assessment as learning and the unit plan was too detailed, reading more like lesson plans and not adequately focusing on unit objectives. As Patel (2010) notes, unit plans are designed to clarify the objectives (why), the content (what), the learning activities (how) and the testing (evidence of achievement) of a unit. It is from the unit plan that the draft daily lesson plans are prepared, often changed as assessment for and as learning inform appropriate next steps for learning to take (Flygare, Hoegh and Heflebower, 2023) (2.2, 2.3). My unit plan was a hybridised unit and lesson plan. As such, it was ineffective for both purposes.
I have come to appreciate the power of incorporating assessment as learning to drive critical thinking and problem solving, in which student metacognition is activated through the reflection of feedback and drives changes in student understanding or approach (Earl, 2006) (5.2, 2.3). I will continue incorporating new literacy and numeracy strategies in my future practice to ensure students have equitable access to course content (Whatt-Smith, Elkins & Gunn, 2011) (2.5). In future, I will need to ensure a unit plan is fit for purpose, serving as a tool to capture the big ideas of instruction as mapped to the curriculum and to identify the learning cycles from which lesson plans can then be prepared (Flygare, Hoegh and Heflebower, 2023) (2.2). I will continue to use backwards design in my practice to ensure alignment of assessment and learning (2.3).
References
Earl, L. (2006). Assessment-A Powerful Lever for Learning. Brock Education, 16(1), 1.
Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2008). Better learning through structured teaching : a framework for the gradual release of responsibility. Alexandria, Va.: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Flygare, J., Hoegh, J. K., & Heflebower, T. (2023). Planning and teaching in the standards-based classroom (1st ed.). Solution Tree Press.
Patel, R. N. (2010). Educational evaluation : theory & practice (Rev. ed.). Himalaya Pub. House.
Wiggins, G. P., & McTighe, J. (2005). Understanding by design (2nd ed.) Pearson.
Wyatt-Smith, C., Elkins, J., & Gunn, S. (2011). Multiple perspectives on difficulties in learning literacy and numeracy. Springer.
