Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Effective teachers strive to motivate and engage all their students regardless of how
diverse they are (Department of Education and Training, 2009). A lesson plan is
extremely necessary for an effective teacher, as it serves as a guide to meet both the
teacher and students goals. It is crucial for a teacher to have a clear understanding
and to take into consideration the following: what to teach, in what order, and for how
long. There are four factors that focus on the teachers decision making and the effect
they have on educational planning. These include the syllabus, the diverse learning
needs, previous assessment data and the Australian National Professional Standards
for Teachers. This essay will further explore these factors and critically analyze a
stage four lesson plan.
Syllabus
The Australian Curriculum sets the expectations for what, when and how all
Australian students should be taught, regardless of how diverse they are (ACARA,
2013). Teachers that are familiar with the curriculum have been found to be more
effective when programming and planning a lesson (OBrian, 2009, p. 48). The
curriculums main purpose is to outline the subjects that need to be taught and provide
methods to ensure every student has learned the content. The syllabus is another
crucial document that falls underneath the curriculum. It focuses on providing a
thorough list on what needs to be taught within a specific subject. Every state within
Australia has a different syllabus; hence it is important that the teachers are aware of
this. For example, the Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards
(BOSTES) produce the syllabus for New South Wales (BOSTES, 2015). The syllabus
is an outline and summary of content that needs to be covered in a lesson. This
framework provides a list of learning outcomes that summarise the essential content,
skills and values for all students in order to help them succeed. Furthermore, by
providing teachers a guide to follow when creating a lesson plan, it allows the
students to maximise their overall achievement (Dominowski, 2012, p. 18). Hence,
the syllabus plays a major role when creating an effective lesson plan.
Assessment Data
An effective teacher will consider the students previous assessment data when
designing a lesson plan. Assessment data may include: student performance,
understanding, skill development and the overall knowledge on the content.
Traditionally, assessments are used to measure the students overall learned
content/skills and whether they are meeting the standards set by the teacher (Renshaw
et al., 2013, p. 9). Recording both formative and summative assessment data provides
teachers with information on how effective their strategies have been, time needed for
instruction, the students level and how to improve their teaching style in order allow
the students to improve. For example, teachers from New South Wales use the data
collected from the National Assessment Program Literacy and Numeracy
(NAPLAN) to identify the students learning abilities while designing a lesson plan
that accommodates for everyone. It is extremely crucial that the teacher avoids
assumptions that all students have met the syllabus expectations; hence the teacher
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Syllabus
Teaching young people about health and the concept of risk is crucial as it prepares
them for real life situations. The lesson plan focuses on teaching stage four, strand
three of the syllabus, which looks into the Individual and Community part of health.
The outcome this lesson aims to achieve is:
Outcome 4.6: student describes the nature of health and analyses how health
issues may have an impact on young people (Board of Studies, p. 26).
In this lesson, students are looking deeply into the topic drug use, while focusing on
a specific drug, tobacco. Once again, the lesson takes into consideration what the
syllabus is expecting to be taught within a lesson:
Students learn about: drug use short term and long-term effects of drugs on
health and wellbeing (Board of Studies, p. 27).
Students learn to: describe the short term and long-term effects of tobacco
(Board of Studies, p. 27).
These outcomes are achieved through touching up on background knowledge, reading
from a textbook and further expanding their knowledge on the topic of drugs.
Therefore, it is evident throughout the lesson plan that the syllabus is taken into
consideration in order to have a productive and beneficial lesson.
Assessment Data
There is no evidence that the lesson plan takes into consideration previous assessment
data. However, one can argue that the teacher does start the lesson with a quick
revision on previous learnings. Though no assessment data has been used to
determine where the students stand within this topic, the revision helps identify which
student understands the topic and which one is struggling. This is classified as
informal date collection (Hoekstra et al., 2010, p. 193). The way the lesson has been
structured, it is not necessary to have the students assessment data collected, as all
they are doing is copying from a textbook. However, because health education plays a
vital role in young people, the teacher must always be aware of where her students are
at within both the current class and overall understanding. Therefore, for this type of
lesson, I would recommend a quick game based quiz towards the end of the lesson, to
both engage the students and find out if they have learned what the syllabus had
stated. The answers to this quiz will determine whether the teachers lesson has been
successful or if he/she will need to adapt different strategies to gain the understanding
of the whole class.
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(AITSL, 2014).
4.2.1
Organise activities for the lesson and provide clear and concise directions
(AITSL, 2014).
5.1.1
2014).
Standards 1.1.1 and 4.1.1 have been successfully met throughout the lesson plan, as
the teacher allows students to work in groups to prevent isolation and increase selfefficacy. Also, standard 4.2.1 is shown throughout the lesson as activities are well
organised and instructions on what to do is clear and concise. Lastly, standard 5.1.1 is
seen at the beginning of the lesson, where the teacher asks students to recall on
previous knowledge on that specific topic. Therefore, the lesson plan takes the
Australian professional standards for teachers into consideration.
Conclusion
In order for a class to have an effective educator and teaching practice, it is necessary
to always plan, keep a document and evaluate a students overall learning. During the
planning section, the teacher must ensure the lesson has followed both the Australian
curriculum and the syllabus while considered the various factors. Therefore, the
teacher must take into consideration the syllabus to confirm that the students are being
taught the correct content. Also, being aware of all the diverse learning needs allows
the lesson to become inclusive and avoid marginalizing students. Recording
assessment data helps the teacher to be aware of where each student stands and
determine how effective their strategies/style have been. Lastly, the Australian
professional standards for Teachers will allow the teacher to have an extremely
successful lesson plan that allows everyone to meet their goals. Therefore, by
applying all these factors in a lesson plan, there is no doubt that the lesson will be
effective and beneficial.
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Reference
Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Learning Authority. (2013). Curriculum.
Retrieved March 20, 2016, from:
http://www.acara.edu.au/curriculum/curriculum.html
Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. (2014). Australian
Professional Standards for Teachers. Retrieved March 23, 2015, from:
http://www.aitsl.edu.au
Bellanca, J. A., & Brandt, R. S. (2010). 21st century skills: Rethinking how students
learn. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press.
Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards. (2016). Syllabuses. Retrieved
March 20, 2016, from: http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabuses/
Board of Studies. (2013, July). Personal Development, Health and Physical
Education Years 7-10. Retrieved March 18, 2016, from:
http://www.boardofstudies.nsw.edu.au/syllabus_sc/pdf_doc/pdhpe-7-10-syllabus.pdf
Cole, R. (2008). Educating Everybody's Children: Diverse Teaching Strategies for
Diverse Learners, Revised and Expanded (2nd ed.). Alexandria, Virginia, VA:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.
Department of Education and Training. (2009). Effective Teaching. Retrieved March
20, 2016, from:
http://www.det.wa.edu.au/policies/detcms/cmsservice/download/asset/?
asset_id=6321214
Dodds, A., Lawrence, J., Karantzas, K., Brooker, A., Lin, Y., Champness, V., &
Albert, N. (2010). Children of Somali refugees in Australian schools: Selfdescriptions of school-related skills and needs. International Journal of Behavioral
Development, 34(6), 521-528. doi:10.1177/0165025410365801
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