Assignment 2 James La [1800 3723]

Part A – Quality Teaching Model Comments

1.1 Deep knowledge

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Comments: Teacher knowledge on the topic was deep and retained focus on key concepts and ideas.
Could have been better if there were additional explanations on why these stock characters act the
way they do.

1.2 Deep understanding

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Comments: Some students understand the central concept of the topic. Students seem to only be
following the teacher’s instructions so it may be nice if students are able to think of their own stock
character poses and teacher comments whether it is good.

1.3 Problematic knowledge

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Comments: All knowledge on stock characters were presented only as facts. Class was very teacher
directed. Can be improved by allowing students to offer their opinion on how stock characters pose
and act before teacher giving their intake of it.

1.4 Higher-order thinking

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Comments: Students demonstrated low-order thinking but were able to perform higher-order
thinking at some point during the activities. Students performed the required actions set out but
showed few signs of high order thinking,

1.5 Metalanguage
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Comments: Periodic uses of metalanguage by both students and teacher. The comments of each
other’s performance bringing in metalanguage of space and posing was good.

1.6 Substantive communication

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Comments: Substantive communication between students and teacher was constant. Students were
constantly engaged in activities – responding to the teacher’s activities.

Quality learning environment

2.1 Explicit quality criteria
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Comments: Teacher provided detailed criteria concerning the quality of work. The instructions on
how to pose certain stock characters were explicit with students following her instructions easily.

2.2 Engagement
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Comments: All students were deeply involved in the entire duration of the lesson. All students
showed enthusiasm and focus when acting out the roles of the stock characters which was good to
see.

2.3 High expectations

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Comments: All students participate in the lesson and tried hard but there was no risk to be seen by
following the teacher’s instructions. To improve the risk taking, students could be tasked to create
their own version of what the prescribed stock characters could be and teacher to grade them.

2.4 Social support

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Comments: Social support toward students were positive. All students participated in the activities
with bright smiles and in class discussions as well.

2.5 Students’ self-regulation

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Comments: All students knew how to self-regulate themselves and demonstrated autonomy and
initiative. None of the students interrupted the teacher or any other students while they were talking.

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 2.6 Student direction
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Comments: There was some control in which students had in the lesson. They were allowed control
over the stock hero role they could choose.

3 Significance
3.1 Background knowledge
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Comments: The students’ background knowledge was only briefly mentioned. It was only
mentioned once at the start of the lesson with a few connections to out-of-school background
knowledge.

3.2 Cultural knowledge

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Comments: No explicit knowledge of culture evident in the lesson. The teacher could explain the
origins of the stock character characteristics as a part to incorporate cultural knowledge.

3.3 Knowledge integration

1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Comments: No connection between other topics or subject areas. Teacher was solely focused on
melodrama and movement with no reference to other topics. Teacher could give insight on how this
topic may relate to other subjects such as History and facts behind the stock heroes.

3.4 Inclusivity
1–2–3–4–5 Comments: All students participated in all activities. Everyone looked like they were having a fun
time acting.

3.5 Connectedness
1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 Comments: Students are shown connections to the classroom knowledge and outside of the
classroom. Students should be thinking of questions that will improve their performance or meaning
in Drama.

3.6 Narrative
1–2–3–4–5 Comments: Narrative was always used to enhance the significance of the lesson. It allowed students
to get into the role and play the part as practice.

Identifying Areas for Improvement

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

QT model
1) Cultural Knowledge 2) Problematic Knowledge
3) Knowledge Integration 4) Higher-order thinking

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Part B – Lesson Plan

Time Teaching and Learning Actions

5 min Lesson Preliminaries/Administration
 Learning space needs to be free from tables/chairs (push to sides if needed).
 Settle students into the classroom, ask them to sit in a circle on the floor.
 Mark the roll.

5 mins Direct Instruction

7 mins  Welcome students and remind them of the topic (melodrama). Ask students what
they can remember from the previous lesson.
 Remind students about the four stock heroes in melodrama: Hero, Villain,
Sidekick and the Damsel (these are the ‘action figures’).
 Give/allow students to attempt to summarise the origins of where these 4 stock
characters originated from
 Focus of today’s lesson is movement in melodrama, mainly walking and posing.

15 mins Movement Techniques

 Teacher to ask students how each stock character act and demonstrate to students
the class the movement which characterises each of the stock heroes.
 Teacher to correct student or demonstrate how a real stock character should act.
If teacher has excellent video of stock heroes, play that on the computer instead.
 Teacher to comment on student’s performance (good or bad and why)
 Get students to spread out and to mimic the teacher/student’s movements and
vocalisations. Each movement/vocalisation is overemphasised and melodramatic
for each stock character. (Only students that teacher believes is a good
impression of stock character should be mimicked).

10 mins Movement Improvisation/Practice

 Students will now improvise a movement and vocalisation in character.
 Students to pick a partner and decide who is A and B.
 Student A is to be a toymaker. Student B is a lump of plastic. Assign a different
stock hero to the Student Bs. Allow students to assign roles in their pairs but all
cannot be the same.
 When the teacher says go, the toymaker will create an action figure by moulding
the lump of plastic into a position that they’ve just learnt for the allocated
melodrama stock hero.
 Repeat the previous step to create another pose.

5 mins Performance Preparation

 Students are to take the role of a stock hero in a performance. There will be four
students in each performance. They need to come up with one word/sentence
and gesture to accompany the role they are playing. Give an example using the
hero.
 Students also need to work out the order each stock hero will perform their
sentence/gesture.

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15 mins Performances
13 mins  Ask students to sit in rows towards the back of the room, so that the front can
become a stage/performance area.
 Each group has 1 minute to perform to the class.
 Students can act their role how they interpret a stock hero is like (from whatever
culture or stereotype)
 After each performance, teacher asks students in the audience for constructive
comments about possible improvements to character voices/stances/gestures.

5 mins Debriefing
 Ask students to sit in a circle on the floor.
 Debrief the students by asking them to identify something new that they learnt
about melodrama from today’s lesson.
 Get students to give a high-five to the students sitting next to them.
 Thank the students and close the lesson.

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Part C – Justification

This justification will look at higher order thinking, problematic knowledge, knowledge integration

and cultural knowledge which are key standards that are extracted from the Australian Professional

Standard for Teachers (APST). These standards were ranked poorly due to the lesson plan created

by the teacher and has been adjusted to cater for the lacking standards – creating a better plan

covering more standards in one lesson.

High order thinking often involves themes such as reflection, applications of multiple criteria,

uncertainty and self-regulation (Barak, et al., 2009). Skills such as evaluation and analysis are high

order thinking skills (Barak, et al., 2009) and should be incorporated into the lesson plan. With the

changes made, there has been an added emphasis on analysing and evaluating student’s

performance and their background knowledge. From past movies that children watched involving

heroes and villains, they can draw the famous movie lines and/or poses the stock heroes say or do.

Alternatively, students can use those stock heroes as a model and create their own lines/pose –

enabling creativity. If students were to practice these roles, they will eventually involve themselves

with higher-order thinking skills due to having to “create a different or improved result”

(Classroom Practice Guide, 2006, p.19) from their actions. Another change made to the lesson was

the integration of Information and Communications Technology (ICT). With students now being

more involved in technology every day, students will tend to be more engaged in the content as

shown by Subran in 2011 from their study (Ganapathy, et al., 2017) where the use of high-order

thinking skills via ICT, improves student learning and teaching.

Within the lesson, there was a major flaw in terms of the problematic knowledge aspect of the

APST. The content that was taught during the lesson was a very ‘old school’ styled teaching

method. This method of teaching is known to be called “frontal” teaching and it is when the teacher

is the primary source of knowledge; where all facts, solutions and theories are true if the teacher

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says so (Luther, 2000). The teacher presented information about stock heroes in her perspective of

how they should be without giving the students a chance to express their view of stock heroes. With

the added change, students are now able to express their ideal stock hero poses and lines – creating

a more student directed classroom. Taking this approach is a step forward into the new method of

teaching. It allows students to experience collaborative learning and to meet certain

criteria’s/expectations set by the teacher (Luther, 2000).

Knowledge integration is seen when connections are made between one or multiple subjects/topics.

With this lesson, there were no signs of knowledge integration integrated into the lesson. Having

subjects such as History incorporated into the lesson makes it beneficial to the students where they

learn the historical roots of how the stock heroes come to be. If students were to understand the

historical past and flaws of stock heroes, they will begin to think more critically and possibly

challenge the ideas of why the stock heroes came to be (Chen, 2015). This will also in turn,

potentially enhance their higher-order thinking and deep knowledge skills.

Cultural knowledge was also not apparent throughout the entire lesson and needed to be worked on.

Extracted from an article, research shows that teachers are lacking awareness in how culture affects

their work (Hiede, 2011). According to Heide (2011), when teachers neglect the cultural aspect of

learning it limits the methods in which teaching is executed and as a result, students may suffer due

to their method of learning. When applied in Drama, students may perceive stock heroes differently

depending on how they are portrayed in their culture. This is beneficial to the class as now students

not only expand their horizons to new characteristics of these stock heroes, but it improves

professional standard areas such as engagement, knowledge integration and problematic

knowledge. Cultural knowledge is also linked to the knowledge integration professional standard,

which was explained previously, as when history is involved, so is the cultural aspect over the

many centuries in which the culture has thrived from.

Weebly Link – https://jamesla1.weebly.com/

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References

Barak, M., & Dori, Y. (2009). Enhancing Higher Order Thinking Skills Among

Inservice Science Teachers Via Embedded Assessment. Journal Of Science Teacher

Education, 20(5), 460-462. doi: 10.1007/s10972-009-9141-z

Chen, Q. (2015). Culture Teaching in English Teaching in Secondary Education. Theory

And Practice In Language Studies, 5(11), 2402, 2404. doi: 10.17507/tpls.0511.27

Classroom Practice Guide. Retrieved 14 September 2019, from

https://app.education.nsw.gov.au/quality-teaching-

rounds/Assets/Classroom_Practice_Guide_ogogVUqQeB.pdf

Ganapathy, M., Mehar Singh, M., Kaur, S., & Kit, L. (2017). Promoting Higher Order

Thinking Skills via Teaching Practices. 3L The Southeast Asian Journal Of English

Language Studies, 23(1), 76. doi: 10.17576/3l-2017-2301-06

Heide, R. (2011). Culture and the classroom: Teachers' perspectives of ethnic and

racial culture in the middle school classroom (Ph.D). University of Denver. Ann

Arbor, United States.

Luther,A. (2000). The "Old" Method of Teaching Vs. the "New" Method of Teaching,

35(2), 59-61. Retrieved from https://search-proquest-

com.ezproxy.uws.edu.au/docview/1292675793?accountid=36155