Re: Programming

Dear Amy,


               Creating a programme as a beginning teacher can be a challenging task. Hearing that your programme isn’t good enough is tough for anyone to hear, especially if you’ve put a lot of time and effort into it. University teaches us a lot about how to cater for different needs and how to manage a classroom, but no one really ever teaches us how to create an effective programme. According to Hinde-McLeod and Reynolds (2007) a quality program for effective learning is designed considering why, where, when and what, as well as the who and how of teaching. Effective teachers develop programs of work that start at the level the learner is and guides them to where the learner can be.  Element 1 of the Professional Teaching Standards (NSWIT, 2006) states that teachers should know their subject content and how to teach that content to their students. Programs need to show a correlation between everyday experiences and the state and school requirements. Element 2 of the Professional Teaching standards (NSWIT, 2006) also states that it is important for teachers to know their students, how they learn and the level that they are working at before programming.

 

A quality program not only includes teaching activities and lesson plans. It should also include your own personal teaching philosophy, cater for the diversity of learning needs within your class, identify areas of assessment, and be inclusive of all students to ensure each student has the opportunity to reach their maximum potential. At the beginning of the year it may be hard to create a programme if your classes are not finalised however after you’ve been allocated your class for the year, you will be able to begin designing a program that incorporates all of these things.

 

We have identified some different ways that programming can take place. Long term planning can be presented in the form of a unit of work and term overview. Short term approaches can include using a day book or creating a lesson plan. The short term approaches once compiled together will create and in-depth program. We recommend the use of a day book. They are effective because they are a legal document that identifies what you as a teacher achieved in class today. It records observations and areas causing concern, it identifies tasks or activities that need to be re-worked into another lesson and it explains any changes to the daily timetable of the classroom.

 

Any teacher would be able to tell you that it’s impossible to cover every outcome and within such a restrictive timeframe. Thus the idea of an integrated curriculum came about. Beane (1995) states that curriculum integration begins with the idea that the sources of curriculum ought to be problems, issues and concerns posed by life itself. Students, through the investigation into these issues, develop values through learning that is authentic, relevant and purposeful. An integrated curriculum is important in addressing the issue of a curriculum that is overcrowded and demanding. It is impossible cover all of the outcomes in the syllabus if you focus on each Key Learning Area individually. Bredekamp (1987) states that learning does not occur in narrowly defined subject areas. By integrating key learning areas, not only are students benefitting from it through the investigation of “big ideas”, but the teacher benefits through maximising the coverage of outcomes through minimising the amount of work they have to do.

 

There are many theories that underpin a quality teaching program. We are sure you are familiar with the following theories through your study at university however we have provided a few examples of how these theories can influence your programme in order to assist you in designing an effective one.

 

Piaget’s stages of cognitive development are important to take into consideration in the primary school classroom when programming and planning. As you know, the school is already structured to take into account the different stages of development. Kindergarten and Year 1 classrooms and curriculum are structured differently from the other grades, centralising play and imagination into lessons. The Kindergarten classroom will be filled with tactile objects and resources and there will be many opportunities for play. As students move throughout the primary school grades, the classrooms and the curriculum become more formalised. Students depend more on textbooks and written work, than “hands-on” experiences, and the curriculum incorporates a higher frequency of critical thinking and higher order thinking skills.

 

It is also important to take Vygotsky’s view that children learn through social interaction, into consideration, when structuring your classroom, organising reading or math groups and designing activities for lessons. A Vygotskian classroom would place an emphasis on assisted learning and guided discovery. The children would be encouraged to talk and would be placed in groups of mixed abilities. When creating your program opportunities should be given for students to interact with their peers and be involved in different group dynamics.

 

A quality program should also incorporate Bloom's Taxonomy. Bloom’s Taxonomy is a multi-tiered model of classifying thinking according to six cognitive levels of complexity. "The taxonomy is hierarchical in that each level is subsumed by the higher levels. In other words, a student functioning at the 'application' level has also mastered the material at the 'knowledge' and 'comprehension' levels." According to Krathwohl (2002) it provides a clear, concise visual representation of the alignment between standards and educational goals, objectives, products, and activities. Using Bloom’s Taxonomy when programming is important to work towards understanding what students should be able to synthesize and evaluate at the end of a unit of study. From that teachers should consider what opportunities students will have to analyse information and the opportunity they will have to apply their knowledge. Planning for the steps beyond knowledge and comprehension provides opportunities for differentiation.



A Multiple Intelligence approach can assist in strengthening the academic learning of struggling students by using children’s experiences in their area of strength as pathways into other learning areas and academic performance. (Chen et.al, 2000) When programming for learning it is important to take into account different learning styles of the students and create a curriculum that gives each student an equal opportunity to succeed. In a program this could be a series of lessons incorporating activities that allow students to learn through visual, auditory and tactile means as well as incorporating creative aspects eg. music, drama and physical movement eg. PE, dance.

 

Amy, we have identified the theories that you need to take into consideration when designing your programme, however the biggest piece of advice we can give you is to know your students- their interests, their abilities, their knowledge, their experiences- and find away to incorporate their strengths into your programme. Start with a Scope and Sequence of what you want to achieve and then design overviews of units of work. It is important to provide clear links to assessment and to justify your reasoning behind approaching a task in a particular way.

 

There is no “right” or “wrong” way to programme. It sounds to me that the issue your supervisor has with your programme is that it’s too vague. This means that all of the essentials are there; they just need clearer explanation and more depth to them. Don’t be afraid to consult other teachers about their programmes or how they approach a particular grade. Not every teacher will be willing to share their ideas and programme however some teachers will surprise you. Instead of just letting your supervisor tell you that your programme is wrong, ask your supervisor what you could do to make it better. This letter holds many of the answers to your problems; however we recommend that you only use this as a guide. It is important for you to reflect upon your original programme and identify the areas that you could improve on. Amy, good luck with redesigning your programme and remember, don’t be afraid to ask for help.

 Kind regards,

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Project BEAM