PROFESSIONAL

LEARNING PLAN
Assessment 1

EDFD462/452
Transition into the Profession

Name: Eman Abdulrahim

Student Number: S00174770
Professional learning is an effective way for educators to develop different ways of thinking
and teaching and to learn new ways of teaching (The NSW Department of Education, 2020).
To become an efficient teacher, professional learning and knowledge is essential.
Professional learning develops teacher’s knowledge therefore, a teacher is able to guide
students into a progressive learning environment and provide a higher standard of learning
and teaching to the students. Professional learning is important as it provides teachers
strategies to improve their teaching and how to implement it effectively and appropriately in
the classroom. With innovative teaching regularly developing, it is imperative educators are
continually developing their knowledge and skills to continue to be informed about the new
ideas and strategies (Department of Education & Training, 2005). Professional learning
allows educators to develop different ways of thinking and teaching and to learn new ways of
teaching (The NSW Department of Education, 2020). This will affect student learning and
development beyond the classroom where students learn to become independent learners
(Department of Education & Training, 2005). Effective professional learning occurs when a
teacher attends multiple sessions and not just a once off session (Department of Education &
Training, 2005).

Efficient educators have a profound understanding of what knowledge they are teaching, they
also understand how their students learn and are able to include strategies and activities in
their teaching that support student’s skills and development (Department of Education &
Training, 2005). Engaging in professional learning is a fundamental way for teachers to
become build their confidence in their teaching and develop an effective learning
environment that encourages student participation and supports their wellbeing (Department
of Education & Training, 2005). It is essential teachers engage in professional learning as it
provides Teacher’s an opportunity to understand how to teach a subject effectively, how to
engage the students and how to assess students understanding (Department of Education &
Training, 2005). Professional learning sessions equip teachers with new knowledge and
require teachers to modify their thinking and beliefs (The NSW Department of Education,
2020). Students learn differently and therefore it is important that teachers understand how to
differentiate their teaching to support students different learning styles (Sargeant, 2014). This
is a vital reason as to why attending several professional learning sessions is essential for
educators as it is important they are able to accommodate for students different learning
styles. A lot of time is spent in the classroom and it is important to make efficient use of the
time to deliver a meaningful learning that supports students’ academic learning and
achievement (Sargeant, 2014). As teachers, we should lead with attitudes and behaviours that
we want our students to learn from and display. By attending professional learning sessions,
Teachers are not only building their knowledge of becoming effective teachers, but they are
also teaching students how to become responsible and independent learners (Sargeant, 2014).

The Australian Professional Standards state the importance of becoming an effective educator
and to empower educators to become confident to develop a better quality of teaching for
their students (Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership, 2017). In order to
achieve the Australian Professional Standards, it is essential to attend professional learning
sessions to understand how to incorporate these standards to create a better learning
environment for students.

The three focus areas that were chosen for my development plan, are standard 1.3 Students
with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds, Standard 4.1
Support student participation and Standard 5.1 Assess student learning. Through these
standards, I will aim to develop my knowledge and skills further. This will be done through
the attending Professional development sessions, meeting with my mentor, research,
attending workshops that will develop my knowledge and exploring ideas to create
meaningful and safe learning environment for students.
Professional Learning Action Plan
Focus Area Number One Domain: Professional Knowledge
Standa 1. Know students and how they learn
rd
Focus 1.3
area Students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic
backgrounds

Gradu Demonstrate knowledge of teaching strategies that are responsive to the learning
ate strengths and needs of students from diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and
descrip socioeconomic backgrounds.
tor
Current Knowledge, Skills, Attributes & Strategies:

 Placement: During placement, creating and implementing unit and lessons

plans to accommodate for students learning requirements. I worked closely
with students who were from an EAL background. By working closely with
these students, I was able to understand that they learn better through the
use of visuals and through hands on learning. These experiences allowed me
to differentiate my teaching where I was more inclusive by incorporating
strategies in my teaching that accommodates and supports students different
learning styles.

 University: attending lectures and classes, through writing essays, creating

Individual learning plans it allowed me to come across research such as
articles, books and journals that provided insights on how to incorporate
different strategies that support students learning. Through these
 experiences and resources, I was able to come across students learning
styles models such as the Felder-Silverman Learning Style Model and
Gardner. Through these experiences, I was able to understand that students
learn differently and students who come from diverse backgrounds may
require different teaching styles and activities to support their learning.

Rationale for Choice of Focus Area:

Students with diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and socioeconomic backgrounds was
chosen as a focus area as I believe every student learns differently and student’s life at
home can potentially affect how they learn and behave in the classroom. I want to develop
my knowledge & skills in this area to allow all students to have an equal chance of learning
in the classroom. It is essential that all students have equal opportunities to learn without
limitations (Evertson & Harris, 1992). Students may not have the extra support at home
with the assistance of their parents or guardians.

Learning Goals (You may have 2 or 3)

 Meet with supervising/mentor teacher to discover ways to incorporate

lessons to support students learning needs.
 Through the help of research, create a plan that outlines different ideas I can
use to support students from diverse linguistic, cultural, religious and
socioeconomic backgrounds. The plan will include teaching strategies and
lesson ideas I can use in the future.

Barriers/Concerns

 It can be difficult to incorporate strategies that are effective for all students learning
Students who come from different background may feel they are in the spotlight
due to coming from different backgrounds, therefore it may be a challenge to
incorporate certain strategies without students feeling that they are different to their
peers in the classroom.
 It is important to be culturally sensitive toward students who come from different
backgrounds when implementing lessons that support their learning.
 Plan of action/Relevant Resources
Access the high impact teaching strategies website and research ways to be
differentiate teaching to support students from different backgrounds:
https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/school/teachers/support/Expired/
0000highimpactteachstrat-expired.pdf

Focus Area Number Two: Domain: Professional Practice

Standard Create and maintain supportive and safe learning
environments

Focus Area 4.1 Support student participation

Graduate descriptor Identify strategies to support inclusive student participation

and engagement in classroom activities.

Current Knowledge, Skills, Attributes & Strategies

Placement: During placement, through the implementations of lesson plans and discussions
with my mentor teacher.
Staff meetings during placement focused on promoting and incorporating engagement in
the classroom and ensuring students felt safe and listening to ways teachers from all grades
provided ideas to support student wellbeing.
I would stay back with my mentor teacher as well as the other teachers who taught the
same grade and I would gain ideas and strategies to add into my lessons to differentiate my
teaching to support engagement and participation in the classroom. Participation is heavily
driven by engagement, throughout my time of placement I was able to implement
engagement in my lessons to increase participation in the classroom, this was conducted
through the use of media, group activities and by allowing students to make decisions
about their own learning.

Tutoring: Teaching one on one allowed me to focus on the students learning style and
adapt the activities and strategies to suit their learning technique. I was not confident in the
beginning as I felt my activities were too vague and not tailored to my student, however
after research and looking over activities from placement, the student began to want to
participate and became more focused. I also implemented activities that required the
student to be more hands on and I found that they were less distracted.
Rationale for Choice of Focus Area

The focus area support student participation was chosen a focus area as I believe it
is important. Students learning comes first and it is essential to engage students to
increase their participation in the classroom. When students are engaged, it can lead
to positive behaviour and students can become less distracted and more focused on
the task. By focusing on student’ participation, I want to build my confidence in
being able to adapt my teaching strategies that incorporate engaging activities that
are educational as well as meaningful to the students. I believe when activities are
meaningful and hands on, students are more likely to participate. Meaningful
learning allows students to make connections with their own experiences that they
are familiar with and incorporate it in their learning, therefore I want to explore
ideas and research ways to make my teaching more meaningful for students (Vis,
Strandbu, Holtan & Thomas, 2011).

Learning Goals (You may have 2 or 3)

 Conduct research of activities that are effective towards students learning, but are
also engaging and meaningful
 Researching inquiry learning and how to make it meaningful for students.

Barriers/Concerns
 Research can be time consuming and may not work as expected. An
activity may seem efficient, however may not be realistic in the classroom.
 Students all have different learning styles, therefore it can be difficult to
 meet students’ learning needs and to differentiate teaching to benefit all
students.
 Students may not see inquiry learning as “actual learning” like they would
in numeracy & literacy.
 Students may not find activities engaging and therefore may not want to
participate. I find this a challenge as I would not feel confident with
introducing new activities that may not work.

Plan of action/Relevant Resources

Attend a Kath Murdoch workshop
on the 30th April to explore inquiry  https://www.kathmurdoch.com.au/seminars-
learning and how to incorporate it in and-workshops
the classroom.

Focus Area Number Three: Domain: Professional Engagement

Standard
5. Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning

Focus Area 5.1 Assess student learning

Graduate descriptor Demonstrate understanding of assessment strategies, including

informal and formal, diagnostic, formative and summative
approaches to assess student learning.

Current Knowledge, Skills, Attributes & Strategies

Placement: Through Creating lesson plans, units of work, and teaching were experiences
that enabled me to develop skills on how to use different assessment strategies that were
effective. Assessment for learning, assessment as learning and assessment of learning.
There were times were my mentor used worksheets to assess student learning, however
through this experience I learnt other strategies to assess students that are beyond a
worksheet or a test.

University: Through assignments such as unit plans and essays, these experiences lead me
to come across research of different assessment strategies and how to incorporate it in my
teaching and activities. This was a good experience to be able to create these lessons plans
as they provided me with broader knowledge on the importance of using versatile
assessment strategies. During lectures and classes such as EDFD, the lecturers and teachers
expressed the importance of assessing students using different strategies that are not just
worksheets and using hands on activities to support students.

Rationale for Choice of Focus Area

Assess student learning is important as goals need to be set to see where student’s skills
and development are at and provides teachers an opportunity to provide further support to
students who are not showing improvement. Assessment is more than just giving students a
grade, it allows teachers to see how students are progressing and what measures need to be
put to improve student’s skills and development.
Assessment for learning, assessment as learning and assessment of learning are all
important measures that need to be used in order to assess student learning. I believe it is
useful to use different types of assessment measures as not all types can assess different
types of activities and skills.
I chose assess learning as a focus matter as I want to improve my skills in ways to assess
students learning. I found through my past experience that assessing students can be
repetitive and outdated such as the use of worksheets to assess student’s skills. I want to be
able to learn effective assessment strategies to use in my classroom that provide sufficient
indication of how each student is developing with their learning.
 Learning Goals

 Speak to mentor about assessment strategies and different ways to incorporate

assessment in activities.
 Develop an assessment plan that outlines the different types of assessments and
what activities can be used to support the assessment.
 Researching activities that are not worksheets and require hands on learning.

Barriers/Concerns

 Avoiding worksheets and tests to assess students may be difficult as students may
work differently on a worksheet rather than on a hands-on activity. I will need to
build my confidence to ensure that my hands-on activities have an effective way to
measure students learning.
 Creating rubrics that are effective to assess students learning that are compatible
with an activity or a lesson.

Plan of action/Relevant Resources

Access the assessment for learning website and complete notes on assessment task ideas
for each different type of assessment for Victoria. The website includes work samples and
assessments that follow the different types assessments and what type of activities that
support the particular type of assessment.
https://www.assessmentforlearning.edu.au/assessment_tasks/assessment_tasks_landing.ht
ml

Access a rubric website for teachers. The website provides templates and examples that
demonstrate ways to create rubrics. http://rubistar.4teachers.org/index.php.
 References

Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. (2017). Australian Professional
Standards for Teachers. https://www.aitsl.edu.au/teach/standards

Department of Education and Training. (2005). Professional Learning in Effective Schools.

https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/school/teachers/profdev/proflearningeffectives
ch.pdf
hand Training

Department of Education and Training. (2017). High Impact Teaching Strategies.

https://www.education.vic.gov.au/Documents/school/teachers/support/Expired/0000highimpa
ctteachstrat-expired.pdf

Evertson, C. M., & Harris, A. H. (1992). What we know about managing

classrooms.Educational Leadership, 49(7), 74. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-
com.ezproxy2.acu.edu.au/docview/224851463?accountid=8194

Kath Murdoch. (2020) Seminars and workshops. https://www.kathmurdoch.com.au/seminars-

and-workshops

Sargeant, J. (2014). Prioritising student voice: “Tween” children’s perspectives on school

success. Education 3-13, 42(2), 190–200. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2012.668139 The
NSW Department of Education. (2020). Teacher Professional Learning.
https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/professional-learning/mypl/Introducing-
MyPL/teacher-professional-learning

Vis, Svein Arild, Strandbu, Astrid, Holtan, Amy, & Thomas, Nigel. (2011). Participation and
health - a research review of child participation in planning and decision-making.
(Report). Child & Family Social Work, 16(3), 325-335.