EDET695 - Effective Teaching 2: Engaging Learners

Year

Credit points

Campus offering

Prerequisites

EDET595 Effective Teaching 1: Professional Practices

Incompatible

EDET690 Effective Teaching 2: Engaging Learners

Unit rationale, description and aim

Includes: 25 days professional experience placement in a secondary school setting

Effective classroom environments are established when the teacher places the learner at the centre of their planning and teaching. Teachers must understand the characteristics and contexts of their learners and use this knowledge to engage these learners through the application of appropriate teaching and learning strategies that create and maintain learner motivation, engagement and support. This unit is the second of three units that form an Effective Teaching sequence.

This unit builds on the key theories and contemporary research related to adolescent learners that were introduced in the Educational Foundations units and explores the contemporary research, theories and practices related to maximizing student motivation, engagement and learning in classroom contexts, including the use of ICTs to facilitate and enhance learning.

This unit also builds on the foundational communication, management and organisational skills that were established in the Effective Teaching 1 unit and examines philosophies and strategies for engaging learners who display challenging behaviour.

Pre-service teachers will have opportunities to practise and apply their developing skills in engaging student learners through undertaking a 25-day Professional Experience Placement.

The aim of this unit is to enable pre-service teachers to further develop the knowledge, understanding and skills to effectively plan and implement classroom learning activities that promote positive and meaningful engagement in learning.

Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

Australian Professional Standards for Teachers - Graduate Level

On successful completion of this unit, pre-service teachers should have developed the following industry specific knowledge based on the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers - Graduate Level standards:

Content

Topics will include:

• An introduction to a range of teaching/learning strategies that support inclusive student participation, engagement and the finding of relevance in what they learn. Such strategies may include:
• Discovery learning
• Problem-based learning
• Dynamic discussions
• Autonomous learning
• Collaborative learning
• Guided experimentation
• Simulation
• Role-playing
• Negotiating autonomy and accountability
• Self-assessment
• Advanced approaches to classroom communication and organization
• The use of ICTs to facilitate and enhance learning
• Classroom management – philosophies and strategies for working with difficult classes and with individuals that demonstrate more challenging behaviour
• Evaluative processes to enhance teaching and learning in order to build reflective practice based on a range of sources of evidence

The Professional Experience:

• Teacher self-care: physical and mental wellbeing and building resilience
• Planning, teaching and classroom management skills
• Observation, reflection and applying constructive feedback as strategies that guide professional learning and growth

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

This is a 10-credit point unit and has been designed to ensure that the time needed to complete the required volume of learning to the requisite standard is approximately 150 hours in total across the teaching period.

This unit applies a social constructivist approach to develop pre-service teachers’ understanding of the complexities of the teacher’s role through engagement in a range of a learning activities such as reading, reflection, discussion, and engagement with webinars, podcasts and video resources. Knowledge of curriculum and teaching strategies and planning skills are introduced and developed through designing learning experiences and lesson plans appropriate for the educational context. The placement enables pre-service teachers to observe and engage with experienced practitioners and to make links between theory and its application to the learning environment.

The learning and teaching strategies may include:

• Formal online weekly input by the teaching team
• Input from guests (e.g., early career teachers, experienced teachers, school leaders)
• Online activities.

The unit is hosted on a Learning Management System (LMS) site with resources and online links, announcements, and a discussion board to post questions and reflections that promote connection between content and educational experiences.

Mode of delivery: This unit may be offered in different modes to cater to the learning needs and preferences of a range of participants.

Multi-mode

Learning activities are delivered through a planned mix of online and in-person classes, which may include full-day sessions and/or placements, to enable interaction. Activities that require attendance will appear in a student’s timetable.

Online unscheduled

Learning activities are accessible anytime, anywhere. These units are normally delivered fully online and will not appear in a student’s timetable. 

Online scheduled

All learning activities are held online, at scheduled times, and will require some attendance to enable online interaction. Activities will appear in a student’s timetable.

ACU Online 

In ACU Online mode, this unit is delivered asynchronously, fully online using an active, guided learning approach. Pre-service teachers are encouraged to contribute to asynchronous weekly discussions and receive regular and timely feedback on their learning. They will have an opportunity to attend facilitated synchronous online sessions with peers.

PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: TEACHING REQUIREMENTS

Within this Effective Teaching unit pre-service teachers will undertake, in pairs where possible, a Professional Experience Placement comprising 25 days in a secondary school setting (with at least 15 days of continuous engagement ie., ‘a block’).

Pre-service teachers will develop the habit of critically reflective practice through guided reflection upon their observations of their class and the educational setting. In collaboration with their supervising teachers and other professional colleagues, they will develop basic teaching skills through assisting in the delivery of high-quality teaching episodes and teaching small groups and whole classes. They will critically reflect upon their teaching, and self-audit their progression and attainment of key teaching skills and standards.

Required Teaching Experience

The following engagements are recommended across the 25-day placement for pre-service teachers undertaking professional experience placement in a primary or secondary school.

School settings: DAYS 1 – 5 Single days (e.g., once per week) OR incorporated into the block of 25 days

Day 1 - 3 Proposed Teaching Expectations

• Assisted immersion in school and class contexts to begin to experience aspects of the secondary school teacher’s role and responsibilities
• Structured observation and small group/team teaching
• Assisting the supervising teacher in the teaching and learning process
• Self-auditing and evaluation

Days 3 - 5 Proposed Teaching Expectations

• Structured observation and small group/team teaching
• One – two lessons/learning experiences per day, leading to whole class teaching
• Self-auditing and evaluation

School settings: DAYS 6 – 25 Block practicum

Days 6 - 10 Proposed Teaching Expectations

• Planning for teaching; Observation and small group/team teaching
• Two whole class lessons/learning experiences per day plus managing class routines
• Self-auditing and evaluation

Days 11 - 25 Proposed Teaching Expectations

• Planning for teaching
• Initially half days of teaching, plus managing class routines, increasing to approaching 0.8 of fulltime teaching load by the end of the placement
• Management of class routines
• Extra-curricular activities
• Self-auditing and evaluation 

Assessment strategy and rationale

The assessment load and weighting of the assessments in this unit have been designed to incorporate the professional experience. The written assessment load in this unit has been adjusted accordingly.

A range of assessment procedures are used to help the pre-service teacher to progressively demonstrate achievement of the unit learning outcomes and develop graduate attributes and academic standards consistent with University assessment requirements. The Effective Teaching units in this course focus on developing understanding of, and skills across the domains of professional knowledge, practice and engagement needed to meet expectations of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST): Graduate level.

The assessments in this unit focus on understanding the profession of teaching and the facilitation of pre-service teachers’ development of their communication and teaching skills.

Minimum Achievement Standards

To achieve a passing standard in this unit, students must engage in the full range of learning activities and assessments utilised in this unit, as described in the learning and teaching strategy and the assessment strategy. Pre-service teachers are required to demonstrate achievement of learning outcomes by submitting all assessment tasks.

Assessments in this unit includes a Critical Task: Assessment Task 2 – Behaviour Management

This task is core to the demonstration of a number of Australian Professional Teacher Standards.  Pre-service teachers must demonstrate mastery of every summative Graduate Teacher Standard identified and attain a score of at least 50% in Task 2 and obtain a combined score of at least 50%. In addition, pre-service teachers must attain a Pass in the two hurdle tasks. The first hurdle comprises a collection of preparatory tasks that must be completed to a high standard prior to commencement of the placement. The second hurdle task is the Professional Experience Placement – which is assessed on a pass/fail basis.

Overview of assessments

Representative texts and references

Required text(s)

Australian Curriculum https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/

Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) https://www.acara.edu.au

Relevant State and Territory curriculum documents. 

Recommended references

Allison, S., & Tharby, A. (2020). Making every lesson count: Six principles to support great teaching and learning. Crown House Publishing.

Churchill, R., Keddie, A., Apps, T., Batt, J., Beckman, K., Grainger, P., et al. (2021). Teaching: Making a difference (5th ed.). John Wiley & Sons.

Ewing, R., Glass, C., Kervin, L., Gobby, B., & Le Cornu, R. (2020). Teaching: Dilemmas, challenges and opportunities (6th ed.). Cengage Learning Australia.

Gutierrez, A., Fox, J., & Alexander, C. (2019). Professionalism and teacher education: Voices from policy and practice. Springer.

Kauchak D., & Eggen, P. (2017). Introduction to teaching: Becoming a professional (6th ed.).: Pearson.

Kennedy, K., Marsh, C. J., & Henderson, D. (2022). Becoming a teacher (7th ed.). Pearson.

Lemov. D. (2021). Teach like a champion 2.0: 62 Techniques that put students on the path to college. Jossey-Bass.

Mayer, D., (Ed.). (2021). Teacher education policy and research: Global perspectives. Springer.

Mentz, E., De Beer, J., Petersen, N., Van Vuuren, H., Botha, C., Botha, L., et al. (2020). Becoming a teacher: Research on the work-integrated learning of student teachers. AOSIS.