Professional Experience Office

School of Education
Telephone: 8201 3330
Fax: 8201 2568
Professional Experience Report 2014
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE FINAL YEAR
Middle & Secondary Schooling
Year 4 Undergraduate & Year 2 Master of Teaching
Pre service teacher name Alice Dunn Student No. 2092936
Site Tatachilla Lutheran College Year level(s) taught 9
Site mentor teacher Melissa ODonnell, Subject History
Site coordinator Geoff Lienert University liaison Jamie Harvey
40 day placement
Site Context School Coordinator - Context statement about your school
School sector (DECD), Independent.
School size, class size and composition of
campus
(R-12, Area, Primary, Secondary)
Physical and/or unique characteristics.
Students with specific needs.
Socio-economic factors.
Lutheran School. Based in Mclaren Vale. Approx size
1100 with 25 students in the class. The class is of
a mixed ability, with one student with a diagnosed
Language Disorder, three students diagnosed with
Dyslexia, and one student with borderline range
intellectual assessment. Socio-economic status of
students at the College is hugely varied.
Mentor Teacher - Summary Statements
Professional Relationships Comments
PROFESSIONAL & COLLEGIAL LEARNING
Teachers actively engage in personal and
collegial learning within the professional
community
Alice attended relevant faculty meetings and
contributed to professional discussions. She also
attended workshops on student free days. Alice
reflected upon her lessons and was able to identify
strengths and weaknesses. She made decisions about
what to change or keep and was willing to accept
and act upon advice. Alice further developed
personal and professional relationships with
colleagues by shadowing them on yard duty.
LEARNER RESPECT
Teachers foster trusting and respectful
relationships with all learners
From her first observation lesson of this class,
Alice worked to establish appropriate relationships
with the students, learning their names and taking
an interest in their activities outside of the
classroom. This enabled her to form a contextual
background for discussion and opened a respectful
line of communication within the classroom.
PARENT/CAREGIVER & COMMUNITY PARTNERSHIP
Teachers work effectively with
parents/caregivers and the wider
community
Alice attended parent-teacher interviews and
observed these interactions. We also discussed how
she would deal with a parental discussion for a
student who was struggling with aspects of the
course work and time management, however, Alice was
able to work with the student and encouraged them
to complete the work and demonstrate their learning
before the situation escalated.
Professional Knowledge Comments
LEARNING PROCESSES
Teachers know about learning processes and how
to teach and implement
The way that Alice approached both her planning and
delivery of content, demonstrated her understanding
of the importance of building on students' existing
knowledge at the beginning of a unit. Furthermore,
Alice ensured that she structured her teaching plan
by logically building on student knowledge and
developing skills in every lesson. Her ability to
clearly scaffold and vary her learning activities
to engage students, ensured that all students were
able to achieve the minimum standards against the
Australian Curriculum.
LEARNING CONTENT
Teachers know the content they teach
Alice demonstrated an excellent understanding of
the subject content and the historical skills the
students needed to learn. She located a wide
variety of relevant resources, which were highly
appropriate for the skill level of the students.
LEARNING CONTEXT
Teachers know about learner contexts and
diversity
From the beginning of her observation lessons Alice
was able to identify students who would need
greater differentiation in the delivery of content.
She sought further information about these students
and, in some cases, developed alternate worksheets
and modified assessment tasks for them. Alice
consulted with her colleagues to ensure that the
activities she planned were suitable for the
learning needs of all students prior to the lesson,
allowing herself ample time to make changes if
necessary.
Professional Practice Comments
PLANNING AND TEACHING
Teachers plan and implement teaching
strategies for successful learning experiences
Alice's planning and preparation was very good. She
initially consulted with me and was happy to create
a unit of work to fit in with the common tasks used
in all Year 9 classes. Alice was not fazed at the
prospect of having to teach topics she had not
taught before and looked at curriculum documents to
determine exactly what was required before writing
an overview of how she would go about her teaching.
She also adapted very professionally to the reality
of just how much a teacher plans for a lesson and
how that can change due to the circumstances of the
day. With regard to Alice's teaching style, she
actively engaged the students in their own learning
and skills development with creative activities
which were purposeful and lead to skills
acquisition, knowledge about the subject and
eventually assessment of those skills. Students
also appreciated her capacity to explain difficult
concepts and terminology by linking them to their
everyday lives. Alice was acutely aware of students
who had been absent for long periods and who needed
to be updated on missed work. She always found an
appropriate time, either in class or after class in
her own time, to inform students of what they had
missed and needed to do. Alice had a variety of
methods she used to help students' learning; from
small group work, peer assessment, teacher
instruction, and one to one teaching. In
particular, she used group work effectively so that
each student had a specific role within the group
to ensure the participation of all students. In
addition, Alice willingly ran lunch time study
sessions for those students wanting extra help with
tasks. Her delivery of content was clear and, while
she could vary her pitch, her voice is easy to hear
in the classroom and the volume is appropriate.
FEEDBACK AND REPORTING
Teachers assess and report learning outcomes
Both formative and summative assessments that Alice
carried out clearly defined the criteria on which
students were being marked. Her marking was fair
and correct according to the criteria and was
returned within a reasonable time frame. The
students received lots of written feedback on their
assignments with many positive words of
encouragement or notes on where they could improve.
Alice evaluated each lesson with me as well as the
overall programme and participated in internal
moderation across all Year 9 classes.
LEARNING ENVIRONMENT
Teachers create a safe, challenging and
supportive environment
During her practicum, Alice demonstrated a genuine
interest in the students with whom she came in
contact and was concerned for their welfare as well
as for their learning. She developed a very good
routine in the classroom, from setting up the
lesson and dealing with minor disruptions, to
checking homework. By developing relationships with
the students early, she quickly created an
environment where students felt comfortable to
contribute and share. At times when students did
not grasp difficult concepts the first time, Alice
showed patience and understanding,and a willingness
to adapt her planning to deliver the content in a
different way. She adopted and implemented
parameters for appropriate classroom behaviour
according to the college's behaviour management
policy. Furthermore, she continually sought to
develop this area of her practice by asking me for
feedback and self-assessing the situation where she
felt she needed to respond differently for a
different outcome. To her credit, Alice adapted and
refined her skills from the feedback given to her
and this approach will surely help her develop an
even wider repertoire of behaviour management
strategies in the future.
Pre-service teacher: Comments
Teaching this Year 9 class has been the absolute highlight of my practicum. The students
were interesting and interested, and I was able to learn so much from them every day. I
enjoyed each moment with this class from the challenges to the successes. It was this
class that made me realise how much I am in the right profession and I think this
passion and drive was visible to the students and to Melissa, who took me very seriously
as a young educator.
I feel a strength of mine during this prac was organisation which proved to be very
important and useful especially whilst marking and planning assignments.
An area of improvement for me would be to research and consider ways of differentiating
for early finishers and gifted and talented students as I feel more of my focus was
placed on students who struggled rather than those who excelled.
University Liaison: Summary statement
Alice has many facets which will ensure that she is a highly successful teacher. She has
a great sense of humour that students immediately respond to, an innate ability to
manage a classroom, and confidence to deliver interesting and engaging lessons. Rose
responded well to feedback and used this advice to perfect her pedagogical approach. The
professionalism she consistently demonstrated will ensure that she is very much in
demand upon graduation.
School Coordinator: Final Comments (optional)
Alice proved herself to be a competent, committed, enthusiastic and professional
teacher. We wish her all the best as she begins her career in teaching.
School Coordinator:
The pre-service teacher may wish to submit this report with an application for employment. Please
avoid the use of acronyms as student reports are often viewed by interstate and international
employers who are not always familiar with South Australian nomenclature
Name of School Mentor Teacher(s): Melissa ODonnell Date: 03.07.2014
Name of School coordinator: Geoff Lienert Date: 03.07.2014
Consideration has been given to the complexities and degree of challenge of the professional
experience context in evaluating the pre-service teacher's ability to meet the assessment criteria
for the professional experience.
In our opinion, the pre-service teacher -
HAS demonstrated competency in the professional teaching standards for registration in SA
SATISFACTORY
University Liaison
Name of University Liaison: Jamie Harvey Date: 09.07.2014
Report ID: 000854