Assessment Item 3 - eLearning Design

Conducting a Profile - Mini Unit of Work

"Life in Antarctica"

Conducting a class profile of students allows the teacher to become aware of the individual learning needs such as those underlined by Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences. In this instance, the teacher will discover with each student if they learn best by visual, audio or kinaesthetic learning experiences.  For me, having a class of 28 students that are fortunate enough to be a one-to-one student to laptop ratio, was the starting point for my profiling. The 28 students took the time to complete a primary school version of the Birmingham Grid for Learning, this particular test was intriguing to the students because at the completion of taking the test they had the chance to see their results in a colourful graph which they printed off. I also found a great website resource which had printable posters to explain to the students in easy to understand terms what their results meant including both strengths and weaknesses. At the completion of this test, I was able to print off a 'SMARTS' pizza graph which was displayed on one of the wall's of the classroom and around this was the posters from the above mentioned website resource so that the students could freely check their test results and be able to understand what type of learning activity or scenario in which they will learn from best. In addition to this I also took simple anecdotal records, notes from my mentor teacher’s class data folder and I provided students with a KWL Chart (what do I know, what do I want to know and what have I learnt) about "Life in Antarctica" which I scaffolded the questions appropriately for my students to complete.  When combining the results of these four types of profiling tools I found the following results.

In this class I have found that there is one student with Autistic Spectrum Disorder, one student with a speech disorder, a further eight students with learning difficulties, two students which English is their second language, one student who is identified as Torres Strait Islander and Indigenous and four students who are identified as being gifted and talented.  From the SMARTS results in particular, my students were found to be kinaesthetic and visual style learners.

LMQ1: What do my learners already know?

By carrying out a knowledge and skills audit I found that my learners prior knowledge of the mini unit we are focusing on this term ("Life in Antarctica") consists of basic facts including the animals, however, they did confuse Antarctica with the Arctic at some stages such as mentioning Polar bears and similarly students knew limited facts about the climate being cold in general. My students struggled to answer further questions in regards to location, exploration, survival and several common facts about Antarctica.

I believe that my students perceived needs include identifying the difference between Antarctica and the Arctic as well as learning many of the facts surrounding Antarctica's geography, climate, natural resources, Antarctic Treaty, human and natural changes, physical features of the continent, exploration and the hardships faced, the technology and equipment changes over time, survival, animal and plant life and lastly, what it would be like to live and work there. 

LMQ2: Where does my learner need/want to be?

The intended learning outcomes in my mini unit of work are from the essential learnings as follows;

Studies of Society and the Environment (SOSE)

Ways of working;

• pose and refine questions for investigations

• plan investigations based on questions and inquiry models

• collect and organise information and evidence

• evaluate sources of information and evidence to determine different perspectives, and distinguish facts from opinions

• draw and justify conclusions based on information and evidence

• communicate descriptions, decisions and conclusions, using text types selected to match audience and purpose

• share opinions, identify possibilities and propose actions to respond to findings

• apply strategies to influence decisions or behaviours and to contribute to groups

• reflect on and identify personal actions and those of others to clarify values associated with social justice, the democratic process, sustainability and peace

• reflect on learning to identify new understandings and future applications.

Knowledge and understanding;

• Environments are defined by physical and human dimensions

• Interactions between people and places affect the physical features of the land, biodiversity, water and atmosphere

• Physical features of environments influence the ways in which people live and work in communities

• Sustainability of local natural, social and built environments can be influenced by positive and negative attitudes and behaviours

• Global environments are defined by features, including landforms, location markers (Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, and the Equator), countries, regions, continents, and climatic zones.

• Maps have basic spatial concepts that describe location and direction, including north orientation and four compass points, symbols and a legend or key.

English

Ways of working;

• identify the relationship between audience, purpose and text type

• identify main ideas and the sequence of events, and make inferences

• recognise and select vocabulary and distinguish between literal and figurative language

• interpret how people, characters, places, events and things have been represented and whether aspects of the subject matter have been included or excluded

• construct literary and non-literary texts by planning and developing subject matter, using personal, cultural and social experiences that match an audience and purpose

• make judgments and justify opinions using information and ideas from texts, and recognise aspects that contribute to enjoyment and appreciation

• reflect on and describe the effectiveness of language elements and how the language choices represent people, characters, places, events and things in particular ways

• reflect on learning to identify new understandings and future applications.

Knowledge and understanding;

Reading & Viewing

• Purposes for reading and viewing are identified and are supported by the selection of texts based on an overview that includes skimming and scanning titles, visuals, headings, font size, tables of contents, indexes and lists

• Readers and viewers draw on their prior knowledge of language and texts when engaging with a text

• Words, groups of words, visual resources and images can be included or excluded to elaborate ideas and information and to portray people, characters, places, events and things in different ways.

• Readers and viewers use a number of active comprehension strategies to interpret texts, including activating prior knowledge, predicting, questioning, identifying main ideas, inferring, monitoring, summarising and reflecting.

Language Elements

• Paragraphs separate ideas in texts and contain a topic sentence.

• A sentence can be either simple, compound or complex.

Writing & Designing

• The purpose of writing and designing includes entertaining, informing and describing

• Writers and designers can adopt different roles, and make language choices appropriate to the audience

• Words and phrases, symbols, images and audio affect meaning and interpretation.

• Text users make choices about grammar and punctuation, to make meaning.

• Sound, visual and meaning patterns, including word functions, are used to spell single-syllable and multisyllable words

• Writers and designers refer to authoritative sources and use a number of active writing strategies, including planning, drafting, revising, editing, proofreading, publishing and reflecting.

Literary & Non-Literary Texts

• Aspects of subject matter can be included or omitted to present a point of view

• Literary texts entertain, evoke emotion, and convey messages and information.

• Non-literary texts report, inform, present and seek opinions, present arguments, persuade and negotiate.

• Information and news reports, articles, features, simple arguments, descriptions, explanations, group discussions and formal presentations are types of non-literary texts.

• Main ideas are established by identifying who, what, where, when, how and why.

• Reports and arguments have structures, including an introduction or a general statement, elaboration of information or reasons, and a conclusion.

The personal learning needs and goals of my students are as follows;

The students in this class have such a wide range of skills and abilities, for this reason I have designed the mini unit of work to be based on a student-centred approach.  This means that the students will be able to have a bit of flexibility to work independently by themselves at their own pace with good quality scaffolding provided by the teachers.  This will also give the teachers a chance to work more one on one with the students who have learning disabilities.  The lesson sequence will also be based on my students need including plenty of visual stimulus and engagement in ICTs wherever possible.

Therefore the learning outcomes for this unit of work are to;

1.Research information on the materials from weeks one to five about Antarctica.

2.Engage in information and communication technologies when possible.

3.Examine adaptations that man makes to survive in extreme conditions.

4.Develop an understanding of human survival and adaption in the unique environment.

5.Decide upon 6 items for survival.

6.Set up a Glogster.

7.Present Glogster to class. 

LMQ3: How does my leaner best learn?

To be able to offer the students a supportive learning environment, I found that my students became somewhat more equalised when working hands on with a physical task, a visual styled learning experience or working with information and communication technologies which were incorporated into their learning experience plans. For this exact reason, I believe that there were no disadvantages, as the whole class came together and became really gelled which works well.  At the same time, there were still two students that required extra support from myself and my mentor teacher by means of prompting, further explanation, alterations to their assessment items, help with spelling and writing as well as several of the gifted and talented students who required extra planning resources for when tasks were completed before the rest of the class had finished, so I had created some additional higher order thinking activities that align with Bloom's Revised Taxonomy.

My Design Rationale

In accordance with the learning theories including engagement, constructivism and connectivism, this mini unit was planned to enhance, extend and transform learning for my students with the major emphasis being on information and computer technologies that are integral to the lesson sequence such that the learning outcomes could not be achieved in any other way.

Below is the lesson sequence which outlines briefly the learning experience plans for this particular mini unit of work.  It aims to achieve excellence in acquiring, integrating, extending, refining and using knowledge meaningfully by providing a wide range of digital pedagogies and scaffolding so that the students are able to learn effectively.

Lesson 1:

Students will discover what and where is Antarctica by exploring the continent on Google maps and researching factual information on website resources such as Classroom Antarctica and Australian Antarctic Division.  Classroom discussion will be focused on Antarctica's location, climate, geography, natural resources, treaty and human and natural changes.

Lesson 2:

Students are to investigate who explores Antarctica and how do they explore Antarctica by looking at digital images, digital videos, timelines and email correspondence of scientists and expeditioners.  Classroom discussion will be focused on the hardships faced and changes in technology over the years as well as the purpose for exploration.

- Digital Video of Mawson's Expedition in 1912. 

Lesson 3:

Students will start to understand human survival in harsh environments by reading survival stories such as Shackleton's and looking at survival tools.  Classroom discussion will be focused on the dangers and preventative strategies for personal safety.

Lesson 4:

Begin introducing students to their Assessment Items (Antarctic Survival Kit and Learner response multiple choice questionnaire) inform students on what they are and why they are important.  Start planning and preparation of their survival kits, model one necessary for a desert environment and introduce students to Glogster.

Lesson 5:

Students are to look at what it would be like to be living and working in Antarctica by exploring information on blogs and project rooms.

Student Assessment for this mini unit of work includes:

1. A multiple choice questionnaire which will be presented by using the Interactive Whiteboard, the student’s laptops and a flipchart created as an Active Expression Session.  The questionnaire will consist of materials learnt in weeks one to five.

2. An Antarctic Survival Kit, by selecting the six most important items that are essential for preserving life in an emergency situation which will be presented by the students creating a Glogster.

3. Other informal assessment methods that will be used include classroom discussions, teacher walking around classroom to observe that students are on task, informal questions and answers and monitored student involvement, participation and complete of tasks.

Further resources used in this mini unit:
-ANARE
-Virtual Teacher
-Cool Antarctica
-Penguin Weather Forecast
-Tents for survival