History Lesson

Plan Analysis

By Samih Chami

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102086 Designing Teaching & Learning

Assignment 2: QT Analysis Template

Evaluate the lesson plan according to the following NSW Quality Teaching model elements.

Evaluation score – refer to NSW QTM Classroom Practice Guide for each element

1 Intellectual quality
1.1 Deep knowledge
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 ‘Deep Knowledge’ is evident as the lesson content is focused upon the key

concept of evaluating historical sources using the ‘Information Process

Skills’, which is central to the history KLA. This is apparent as the sources

examined by the students throughout the lesson were all related to the topic

of ‘Ancient Rome’.
1.2 Deep understanding
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 ‘Deep Understanding’ refers to the amount of opportunities students are

given to demonstrate their understandings of the key concepts they have

been examining. This is evident as for the majority of the lesson (forty of

the total sixty minutes), most students were able to apply their knowledge

about the ‘Information Process Skills’ in group tasks either before the

classroom or within their table-groups.

1.3 Problematic knowledge
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 This element explores the notion that knowledge is social constructed and

open to various perspectives and interpretations. In this lesson, the

students’ primary tasks are centred around evaluating resources derived

from diverse locations such as the encyclopaedia and books using their

‘Information Processing Skills’. This allows them to examine multiple

perspectives of historical events associated with the topic of ‘Ancient

Rome’.
1.4 Higher-order thinking
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 ‘Higher Order Thinking’ refers to the way in which students’ thinking is

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exclusively directed to focus on the key concepts of the lesson. This is

evident in the lesson as all the activities (which span for forty of the sixty

minutes of the lesson) require students to apply their ‘Information Process

Skills’ to analyse various historical sources.

1.5 Metalanguage
1–2–3–4–5 ‘Metalanguage’ refers to the extent to which key terms, jargon and

specialist language are commented upon or explained by the teacher.

Unfortunately, the use of metalanguage in this lesson was low as although

the class worked together in groups to examine the language and content of

various sources, there was no indication of the teacher defining crucial

terminology related to the lesson activities such as the distinction between

primary and secondary sources.

1.6 Substantive communication
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 There is a high level of substantive communication in this lesson as

students are regularly engaged in sustained conversations about their

application of the ‘Information Process Skills’ to evaluate their various

sources about ‘Ancient Rome’.

Quality learning environment
2.1 Explicit quality criteria
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 This element encourages teachers to provide students with ‘Explicit

Quality Criteria’, whereby students are well-informed about the quality of

work they are to produce and can use these criteria to assess the level of

their work. In this lesson, the teacher begins the lesson with outlining the

success criteria and learning intentions behind the lesson and concludes the

lesson with a review of how these learning intentions were met.

2.2 Engagement
1–2–3–4–5 This lesson displayed a high level of engagement, as students spent forty of

the sixty minutes of the lesson engaged in interactive group and whole-

class activities targeted at applying their ‘Information Process Skills’ to

evaluate various historical sources about ‘Ancient Rome’.

2.3 High expectations

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1–2–3–4–5 This element requires teachers to cultivate a learning environment wherein

students are encouraged to challenge themselves and take risks

academically. The expectations of students in this lesson were moderate, as

there were very limited opportunities for students to take risks and some

students appeared to have found the lesson to be non-challenging.

2.4 Social support
1–2–3–4–5 ‘Social Support’ refers to the quality of relationships within the classroom,

whereby it is ideal for these relationships to contribute to the establishment

of a positive classroom environment that is supportive of learning. This is

evident in the lesson as the learning atmosphere is clearly positive and

students receive regular positive reinforcement from their teacher and

peers.
2.5 Students’ self-regulation
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 This element is concerned with the amount of classroom time spent on

correcting student behavioral matters to return to a productive learning

environment. This lesson displays extremely high levels of ‘Students’ Self-

regulation’ as there were no interruptions to deal with students

misbehaving since students displayed autonomy in regulating their own

behaviour.
2.6 Student direction
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 ‘Student Direction’ is concerned with giving students some control over

what and how they learn. This lesson displayed a moderate level of student

direction, as students had the freedom to select which type of resources

they wished to apply their ‘Information Process Skills’ towards in the

classroom activities. This included selecting historical sources from an

encyclopedia, from books, or from online websites.

3 Significance
3.1 Background knowledge
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 This element is encourages teachers to ensure that lesson content is

connected in some way to students’ prior school knowledge or even their

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‘out-of-school’ personal knowledge to increase their levels of engagement

with and understanding of the content. Unfortunately, there was no

reference to students’ background knowledge in this lesson.

3.2 Cultural knowledge
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 This element promotes the recognition, valuing and acceptance of diverse

cultural knowledges derived from various social groups. There was a

limited amount of cultural knowledge incorporated in this lesson as some

cultural knowledge about the Romans were scrutinised in the resources

examined by the students; however, these were examined in a superficial

way through the framework of the dominant Australian culture.

3.3 Knowledge integration
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 ‘Knowledge Integration’ refers to the extent to which lesson content can be

connected to content between different topics and/or subjects. This lesson

displays a low level of knowledge integration as the information derived

from the resources examined by the students is only applicable to the topic

of ‘Ancient Rome’ and cannot be applied to other KLA’s.

3.4 Inclusivity
1–2–3–4–5 This lesson displayed high levels of inclusivity as students from all cultural

backgrounds were respected and faced no threat of discrimination or

prejudice, thus being able to participate fully in the lesson. The teacher

also provided additional support for linguistically diverse students by

allowing them to complete the lesson tasks with the assistance of ‘Google

Translate’ to ensure these students were not excluded from participation.

3.5 Connectedness
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 ‘Connectedness’ refers to the extent to which school knowledge can hold

value outside of school and be applied in real-life contexts. Unfortunately,

this lesson did not display any possibilities of applying the learned content

to anything beyond the classroom environment.

3.6 Narrative
1–2–3–4–5 This element emphasises the extent to which narrative can be used to

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enrich student understanding and learning. This was evident throughout the

majority of the lesson as all the resources concerning ‘Ancient Rome’ that

were examined by the students were in narrative format.

Identifying Areas for Improvement

Identify the four NSW QT model elements you are targeting for improvement.

QT model

1) Metalanguage 2) High Expectations

3) Background Knowledge 4) Knowledge Integration

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MODIFIED LESSON PLAN:

Lesson Plan – Ancient Rome

Syllabus: HT 4.5 Stage: Stage 4 Topic: Ancient Rome

identifies the meaning, purpose
and context of historical sources

Outcomes Assessment Students learn about Students learn to

Syllabus: HT 4.5
identifies the meaning,
purpose and context of
historical sources
Informal formative Sources and evidence in Evaluate sources,
assessment. History. summarise key
information and use the
information process
steps.

Note: Not all activities may be captured by the video. Assume they were covered by the teacher.

Time Teaching and Learning Actions

5 min Lesson Preliminaries/Administration
 Settle students into the classroom.
 Mark the roll.
 Success criteria and learning intention explained.
o Explicitly outline what is expected of students in this lesson.

 Explain that several group activities will take place throughout

the lesson whereby students will be required to examine historical

sources and evaluate their relevance/reliability using the

‘Information Process Skills’.

20 mins Direct Instruction
(originally  Welcome students and explain how students are going to research sources about the
10mins) development and historical features of Ancient Rome.
 Begin the lesson with a non-formal mind-mapping activity about Rome, where

students can contribute their prior knowledge about the topic

o To prompt responses, ask questions such as:

 Who were the romans?

 What were some historical landmarks they built?

 When did they rule?

 Ensure that key terminologies that are related to the examination of historical

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sources are explicitly defined, for example:

o Define/distinguish between Primary and Secondary sources:

 ‘What is a Primary source?’ + examples

 ‘What is a Secondary source?’ + examples

o What is ‘Bias’?

 ‘How do we identify if there is any Bias in this source and how

does this influence its potential reliability?’

 Introduce students to key inquiry questions to look for when examining sources, such

as:

o Who is?
o When did this happen?
o How did this change of develop the society?
o Why did this happen?
o What effect did this have?
 Key historical terms and concepts.
20 mins Research and group work
(originally  Students in groups of 5 explore and use a scaffold to collect evidence from a range of
30mins) primary, secondary, text and website sources.
o Include sources from other KLA’s to exemplify how source analysis is

an imperative skill to have for more than just History.

 For example, sources for the English KLA could include:

 Primary source: Shakespeare poems from 17th century

 Secondary source: a book review published in the 21st

century about a book originally published in the 18th

century.

 Students engage with ICT and share notes to develop and organise their findings.
 Students consider the reliability and usefulness of the information from the sources.
 Adjustment- EALD student to use Google translate to assist with note-making and
information skills.

 Further Adjustment- ‘Gifted Learners’:

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o For learners who do not find this task at all challenging, encourage them

to engage in further, more daring activities. This could include

differentiated or accelerated activities such as:

 Creatively compose a ‘primary source’ of your own where you

pretend that you are a citizen living in Ancient Rome. This could

be in the format of a diary entry or letter to a friend or relative.

 Additionally, gifted learners can create a ‘secondary source’ by

interpreting/analysing one or two primary sources about a specific

person/place/event from Ancient Rome.

10 mins Questioning
 Students peer share and organise their notes.
 Collaborate on how they will develop their assignments around key ideas, terms and
concepts with teacher.
 Teacher leads brief class discussion to summarise and clarify how they have used the
Information Process Skills to identify, summarise, organise, analyse and evaluate
sources about Ancient Rome.
 Conduct a 5 minute ‘Kahoot!’ quiz to assess the students’ content retention:

o Should be conducted as an informal, formative and engaging assessment.

o Questions could revolve around defining and distinguishing between key

terminology, alongside identifying important people, places and dates

that are relevant to ‘Ancient Rome’.

5 mins Direct Instruction
 Teacher consolidation of the learning and success criteria.
 Reemphasise how the ‘Information Process Skills’ are adaptable to other KLA’s.

How am I measuring the outcomes of this lesson?

Learning Outcome Method of measurement and recording

HT. 4.5 Informal questioning of student understanding as the lesson
progresses.
+ Informal, Formative Assessment – ‘Kahoot!’ quiz.

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ACADEMIC JUSTIFICATION:

Overall, the aforementioned History lesson plan performed well when analysed using the

NSW Quality Teaching Model (QTM). There were, however, some elements of the QTM

which I felt could have been addressed better, including ‘Metalanguage’, ‘High

Expectations’, ‘Background Knowledge’ and ‘Knowledge Integration’. Consequently, the

numerous modifications I made to the lesson plan were aligned with these elements, with

aspirations of representing these elements better and ultimately improving the overall quality

of the lesson plan.

One of the first modifications I sought to make to the initial History lesson plan

revolved around the QTM element of Metalanguage. This element encourages teachers to

explicitly identify, define and differentiate key terminology and “specialist language”

relevant to the lesson content so as to shape students’ foundational understandings of the key

concepts of the topic (Ladwig, 2005, p.77). Unfortunately, the initial lesson plan failed to do

this proficiently, as several terminologies such as primary and secondary sources were

mentioned in the lesson activities with no indication that these concepts were to be defined

and differentiated from one another. The lesson plan was therefore modified to include an

additional activity to the ‘Direct Instruction’ section at the beginning of the lesson, whereby

the teacher would assist students in defining and clarifying certain foundational terminologies

such as ‘bias’, ‘primary sources’ and ‘secondary sources’. As the intrinsic cognitive load

required for this task is quite low, I allocated roughly five minutes for this task and modified

the time for ‘Direct Instruction’ accordingly. As a follow-up activity to measure how well

students retained these key foundational concepts, I modified the ‘Questioning’ section

towards the end of the lesson where the initial lesson plan sought to have the teacher lead a

classroom discussion and question students about the content discussed. My addition

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included conducting a five minute 'Kahoot!' quiz which would include interactive and

engaging questions relating to these foundational terminologies to ensure that students

confidently understood them. I decided to use ‘Kahoot!’ as Hughes et al. (2018) identified it

as one of the forerunning technological applications which promoted “higher order thinking

in their students”, whilst also serving to “increase student communication and collaboration”

within learning environments (p.298).

Another modification I sought to make to the initial lesson plan revolved around the

QTM element ‘High Expectations’. One of the provocative questions that Ladwig (2005)

mentions in reference to this element includes “to what extent is conceptual risk taking

encouraged and rewarded?” (p.77). Unfortunately, the initial lesson plan did not seem to elicit

any opportunities for students to take these risks and consequently some (presumably gifted)

students in the video recording of the lesson appeared to have found the work non-

challenging and finished the tasks early. The lesson plan was therefore modified to add some

differentiation for ‘gifted learners’ in the ‘Research and Group Work’ segment of the lesson.

Here, I suggested that these gifted learners could be encouraged to engage in more

accelerated and conceptually daring activities, including creatively producing their own

primary sources by figuratively placing themselves in the context of Ancient Rome or

interpreting and analysing primary sources to formulate their own secondary sources. I

decided to incorporate differentiation to meet the needs of gifted learners in this lesson plan

as “best practice research” evidence suggests that “gifted learners need accelerated learning

tasks” that address higher levels of thinking and “employ creativity through open ended and

alternative tasks” to cater for their advanced learning proficiencies (VanTassel-Baska, 2007,

p.6).

An additional modification I decided to make to the History lesson plan revolved

around the QTM element ‘Background Knowledge’. This element encourages teachers to

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attempt to link lesson content with students’ “prior school knowledge, as well as other

aspects of their lives” (Ladwig, 2005, p.77). In the initial lesson plan, this QTM element was

largely overlooked, as I was unable to identify any reference to incorporating students’

background knowledges in any section of the lesson plan. Consequently, the lesson plan was

modified to incorporate a ‘mind-mapping’ activity in the ‘Direct Instruction’ section,

whereby all students would be encouraged to contribute their prior knowledge about the

lesson topic on the mind-map at the front of the classroom. I decided to use a mind-mapping

activity to incorporate students’ background knowledge into the lesson as Dila (2019)

presented data derived from a quantitative research study conducted on “Junior High School”

students (who would be at the same stage as the students that this History lesson plan is

designed for) that supported the use of mind-mapping activities (p.23). In this study, it was

found that there was a “significant difference in improvement” in educational outcomes of

students when they utilised mind-mapping as a technique to cover lesson content (Dila, p.23).

This therefore led me to adapt this methodology to the lesson plan to elicit more of the

students’ background knowledge in aspirations of them attaining a better understanding of

and connection with the lesson content.

A final modification I sought to make to the History lesson plan revolved around the

QTM element ‘Knowledge Integration’. Ladwig (2005) asserts that it is imperative for

educators to think about the extent to which “lessons regularly demonstrate links between and

within subjects and key learning areas” (p.77). Unfortunately, the initial lesson plan did not

make an effort to integrate any of the lesson content to other key learning areas (KLAs). I

immediately sought to modify the lesson plan to improve this issue and did so by

incorporating an amendment to the ‘Research and Group Work’ section of the lesson. Here, I

emphasised that rather than depicting sources that only related to the topic of ‘Ancient

Rome’, the educator could additionally incorporate sources relevant to other KLAs. I

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provided the example of the English KLA by explaining that the teacher could present

primary sources such as poems from Shakespeare from the seventeenth century, alongside

secondary sources such as book reviews and have the students differentiate between them. I

believe that this would not take away any significance from the lesson as the lesson is

focused on the concept of ‘source analysis’, which is applicable to many KLAs aside from

history. By analysing sources from diverse KLAs, students would therefore be able to

recognise that source analysis is an imperative skill to work on as it is applicable to and

assists their understanding of many other KLAs in their education.

Although the initial History lesson plan performed well overall when analysed using

the NSW QTM, there was still room for improvement in regards to several QTM elements

such as ‘Metalanguage’, ‘High Expectations’, ‘Background Knowledge’ and ‘Knowledge

Integration’. I have therefore made numerous amendments to the initial lesson plan in

alignment with these QTM elements with the intention of representing these elements better

and consequently improving the overall quality of the lesson plan.

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REFERENCES:

Dila, F. R. (2019). The Effect of Mind Mapping Learning Methods on Social Studies

Materials Comprehension of Students. International Journal of Pedagogy of Social

Studies, 4(1), 23-32. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17509/ijposs.v4i1.15704

Gore, J. (2007). Improving pedagogy: The Challenges of Moving Teachers Toward Higher

Levels of Quality Teaching. In J. Butcher & L. McDonald (Eds.), Making a

Difference: Challenges for Teachers, Teaching, and Teacher Education (pp. 15-33).

Rotterdam, Netherlands: Sense Publishers.

Hughes, E. S., Bradford, J., & Likens, C. (2018). Facilitating Collaboration, Communication,

and Critical Thinking Skills in Physical Therapy Education through Technology-

Enhanced Instruction: A Case Study. TechTrends, 62(3), 296-302.

DOI:10.1007/s11528-018-0259-8

Ladwig, J. G. (2005). Monitoring the quality of pedagogy. Leading and Managing, 11(2),

70-83.

VanTassel-Baska, J. (2007). Leadership for the Future in Gifted Education: Presidential

Address, NAGC 2006. The Gifted Child Quaterly, 51(1), 5-10. https://search-

proquest-com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/docview/212066280?

accountid=36155&rfr_id=info%3Axri%2Fsid%3Aprimo

URL WEBLINK TO LEARNING PORTFOLIO:

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This assessment has been posted to my Online Learning Portfolio, under the ‘Standard 1’
heading, which can be found at:
https://samihchami-eportfolio.weebly.com/

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