Sandra Cultrera
Primary School Teacher
2. Know the content and how to teach it.
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The more content that myself as a teacher can engage with, the more learning opportunities I can create for my students. Organizing content can then be manipulated, created and effectively implemented to suit the needs of the student body.
The Grade 1 / 2 class that I was about to organise an integrated unit for were a small class of students who’s learning truly thrived though structured, visual lessons. Therefore the integrated unit ‘Undersea Life’ which combined literacy, art and sustainability, was a unit in which involved weekly lessons that followed a particular sequence in order for students to collect information to choose an animal they wished to present as a project. My supervising teacher conducted the first 2 weeks of the unit, then I implemented the commencing 3 weeks. The students knew what the theme of each lesson would be each day, which allowed them to prepare themselves to comprehend the information about to be presented. This was the most beneficial learning sequence that suited their learning needs, and I was aware of the classes learning style as I had interacted and observed them each week for 8 months. Along with this unit plan, I created individual lesson plans to guide the language I wanted to use during the session and to practice time management skills.
Undersea Unit: Crinigan Road Primary (Volunteer Work, 3rd year student 2012)
Each week there was a different undersea animal focus presented in slightly different ways, however the structure of the lessons remained the same.
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I thoroughly enjoyed planning and implementing this unit each week as I needed to gain knowledge about these undersea creatures myself, deciding to remain in the boundaries of Australian waters, and collected and created resources for myself and the children to use as an aid for learning. These resources included graphs, diagrams, wordfinds, creative presentation of information and interactive activities that the students could participate in. Despite the units basic structure, the activities within them varied to maintain student engagement and interest, and also to personalise certain undersea animals so that students could better remember them and decide which one to choose for projects.
Religious Education: Monotheistic Faiths, Sacred Heart Primary (4th year placement)
This unit of Religious Education surrounded students knowledge of their Christian heritage, but also two other monotheistic faiths: Islam and Judaism. This unit was one that was extremely dense in substance, therefore it needed to be presented clearly and implemented starting from what students already knew: Christianity. A teaching strategy and tool for presenting comparisons between concepts such as Old and New Testaments, Judaism and Christianity was the Venn Diagram
The Composite Model for teaching and learning Scripture was used in order to structure and prepare the unit of work including the chosen scripture. This included
- The Scripture Text: What do I need to know or find out?

- Prepare to hear the word: What do students need to know in order to deepen their understanding (Get Ready)

- Hear and Encounter the word: develop activities that allow the students to engage with the text (Get Up Close)

- Respond to the word: prepare activities that encourage students to respond to the word
The scripture that we chose was one from the Old Testament, God's Promise to Abraham. I read and connected with the scripture, reflecting on the Composite Model. I prepared students to hear the word by going back to the scripture that came before it such as Genesis (as students knew scripture before Abraham), and the establishing of God being present within Old Testament and Judaism (and not Jesus). This led to the understanding that Christianity stemmed from Judaism, and then came other religions such as Islam.
Within encouraging students to Hear and Encounter the word, and Respond to the Word, I used visuals such as characters from the Old Testament, Culture and Traditions, Rituals and beliefs from that context within Judaism and then Christianity and Islam. This later led to exploring comparisons between the three Monotheistic Faiths​. Students wrote personal prayers, which integrated Literacy: Process of Writing Cards. Not only did students engage in factual information, responding to the word also included morality and accepting and treating others the way you would like to be treated, despite physical or religious differences.
Before the beginning of this unit starting from curriculum planning day, I engaged with literature including the Bible, Islamic history and traditions and online lessons about Judaism, Islam and their feast days, dress, values and beliefs. I am a practicing Catholic myself, however I still found it necessary to go back to the roots of Christianity to assist in my overall learning.
The grade 5 and 6 class and I finished our unit with a liturgy led by myself, along with a student reader and the whole class reading their prayers that they had written in regards to our future hopes for our multicultural society and world peace. This experience was shared in the presence of the grade 3 /4 class, principle and mentor teacher. The purpose of this liturgy was to reflect on all that we had learnt as a class, symbolizing the end of this unit and the beginning of the Lenten season.
Multi Domain Unit: My Body, My Life, Sacred Heart Primary (Volunteer Work)
I have planned and implemented a Multi Domain Unit outside of my placement in my fourth year called My Body, My Life for grade 5 and 6 students. This unit surrounded developing knowledge around the ten systems of the body, followed by choices that individuals make that effect the body.
Developing knowledge involved beginning with what children already knew about the body, and linking this knowledge with new knowledge. The children were supported with literature and various technologies in order to assist them with the assessment project. I created Project Questions that the students would have to cover.
My mentor teacher and I chose the partnerships that the students would be working with whilst researching their systems. As there were 20 students and 10 systems, the pairs systems worked precisely. We chose partnerships based upon zones of proximal development and support that each student could give to each other, not solely on ability. This achieved maximum potential for learning about the systems of the body as students helped each other process information and how they were going to present it in a way that the rest of the class would understand. This fostered the learning of the whole class, rather than just the partnership.
Whilst the students were finishing their assessment task on the body systems, I provided opportunities at the end of each lesson to share with the class information about their research and progress. This then led to the lesson by which students could connect their knowledge of the bodily systems together, consolidating the fact that they all interact and connect to each other. During this process, I thought it important that students were provided with not only the system names, but their visuals.
At the very beginning of the MDU, I made it very clear to students that as a class we would be talking about systems of the body and that would include things that they may possibly be shy or embarrassed to talk about. I also encouraged them to talk about what we were learning aboutin the classroom at home, and if they had any questions, to feel free to ask. Therefore, for any questions that they did not wish to discuss in front of the whole class, to create a safe environment during MDU, I made a ‘Question Box’ that students could anonymously use. They could place any questions in the box without their name on it, then I could use these questions as a base for discussion in class.
After this MDU teaching experience, I feel I have made a positive start to the Australian Curriculum in regards to classroom teachers being the providers of sexual education within their student body.
Multi Domain Unit: The Earth's Natural Changes
During my final 3 week placement, I planned and implemented our next Multi Domain focus: Our Restless Earth. As this unit was implemented in a busy school schedule due to the production of ‘Super kids’ and another R.E unit I was implementing, ‘The Sacraments’ , I decided to integrate it into Literacy. This was done by answering the inquiry questions by focusing on:
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Terminology and the building of words: morphemic
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Spelling focus words correctly
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Using terminology orally through drama: peer assessing these using technology
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Guided Reading groups
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Onomatopoeia: art
To build knowledge, I created a power point presentation that contained content of Earth’s physical changes, and Natural disasters, how they are measured, and the science that keeps humans informed of these changes. The children responded well to the key words within the content, and enhanced graphics through illustrations and YouTube clips.
I assessed students learning (for, as, of) through prior knowledge, spelling assessment, peer assessment of role plays and responses to Global Warming prevention strategies.
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Literacy Strategies
By beginning with a large scope of comprehension and decoding strategies within reading allows me to then apply these to term planners, weekly planners and guided reading groups. Making these focuses explicit was essential for consistency within the junior levels and AusVELS standards.
These could them be taken into focus when choosing correct texts surrounding focused content and explicit teaching of these strategies. In grade 1/2 at the beginning of term, the comprehension strategy of ‘retelling’ was made a focus for reading not only within the literacy curriculum planning but reading at home.
Making parents aware of the importance of comprehension was invaluable to our progress with reading within the junior years.
I believe that reading is understanding what one has read; being able to retell the text make connections to ones self, other texts and to the world (Stephanie Harvey, ). Fountas and Pinnell testing on students was the biggest indicator of levels of comprehension of students. All of these strategies were explicitly taught throughout Literacy followed after by giving students choice in regards to expressing their understanding using these comprehension strategies.
Click the link below for an example of a comprehension and decoding strategies list.
Numeracy Strategies: Importance of Place Value within the learning of numeracy.
Place Value builds the foundations of children’s knowledge of numbers. Knowing how to identify, make and order numbers from 0 to thousands and beyond depends on the understanding of place value.
In my experience as a graduate teacher, Place Value knowledge from test result data always was an area of improvement, particularly within the senior years. Therefore as a school this was brought to classroom teacher’s attention that we needed to be teaching place value throughout each term rather than a single unit within mathematics.
Making links with place value in everyday school routine, more so within mathematics sessions on a weekly basis, resulted in an extensive improvement in the area from the next years test results particularly within Prep to 3’s.
Not only was place value taught using place value mats and a variety of materials, but being able to use ICT technology games stressed the importance of children needing to be able to be flexible with numbers and counting in order to apply them to addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
Creating this flexibility with number and place value within Term 1 of the school year created solid foundations for mathematical understanding for the duration of the school year.
The importance of 'Thinking Tools' when teaching and learning
Thinking Tools are invaluable to the thinking, learning and consolidation of content information by organising student’s ideas and thoughts about a learning area or topic. It is essential that students learn the purpose of using a Thinking Tool so that when they use them, they are applying this knowledge and therefore appreciate the learning that can result in using a Thinking Tool. They can also be used across all curriculum areas which encourages students to see their use as one for ‘thinking’ and that this applies to any part of their learning.
Examples of Thinking Tools are:
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Linking Sheet.
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Brainstorm
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Behind the Door (retelling).
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Y chart.
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T chart.
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Fact File
During our unit of work on The Earth’s Natural Resources, we used a Fact File as we engaged with texts that students would need to pull important information out of in order to collect and then choose which resource they would choose to investigate. The students were working towards making their own non-fiction text about a natural resource in a way of their choosing.
We also began our unit by using a Linking Sheet which allows students to apply their prior knowledge to the topic. We then returned to this when the unit was concluding and it was amazing as to how much the student had learnt and the way they were able to articulate how they managed to learn about the topic.
My goal was for students to be able to choose which thinking tool they wished to use, choosing a Thinking Tool appropriate to their situation. It created a deeper level of thinking and greater student achievement outcomes.
Building Vocabulary
When approaching a learning focus, whether this be within Literacy, Numeracy, Health and Physical Education or Religious Education, students need to think about the vocabulary that they will need to be able to use. This allows them not only to create learning experiences and outcomes using new vocabulary, but encourages them to search higher for more new and sophisticated words and their meanings.
At the beginning of new unit of learning, after being able to articulate our prior knowledge, my students are given the opportunity to create word banks related to the topic to be placed somewhere in the room for them to refer to. They can be words, adjectives or phrases that students wish to have to help them throughout their investigations.
By having these as part of our learning environment, students had consolidated content and reflected upon their learning to a much higher standard compared to when they did not have vocabulary mobiles.
Graduate Teacher, 2014 to present
