Subject Knowledge & Methodological

The Competency

The international primary school teacher must help children to acquire the necessary cultural and international baggage, which each citizen in the European society needs to be a full member of that society. That is the international primary school teacher’s responsibility. In order to be able to fully take this responsibility the international teacher must have sufficient knowledge of subject matter and teaching methods (or is able to learn it quickly).

An international teacher who is competent with respect to subject knowledge and teaching methods creates a powerful learning environment in his/her group and lessons. Such an international teacher

gears his/her behaviour and way of acting to the children and takes individual differences into account
motivates the children to engage in their learning tasks, challenges them to do their best, and helps them accomplish the tasks successfully
teaches the children to learn from and with each other, also to enhance their independence.
provides an international learning environment in which children can discuss their personal involvement as part of becoming active European and international citizens

Feedback

Hannah understands how young children learn through play, and supports the children’s engagement and learning through careful /detailed planning.

- Debbie Smit (Year 1 Mentor)

The narrative sequencing/ vocabulary exercise is appropriate and challenging. Hannah models the activity including the language used in the ‘trading’ of spring word cards, so that students can begin confidently. The continued modeling of the trading dialogue helps the learners to keep using the words.

- Caroline Ferguson (Year 1 Visiting Lecturer Observation)

You are a very bright and engaged student, who quickly absorbs and retains challenging concepts and educational theories. This is especially evident in your knowledge and understanding of all three fields of Science: Biology / Chemistry / Physics.

What is equally impressive is how you are then able to demonstrate your innate and advanced knowledge of Science in discussions about the practical side of Primary teaching and in your lesson planning. This could be clearly seen both in your very impressive IPC presentation earlier this year and Science Day.

The activities planned and delivered on Science Day were outstanding and showed an absolute understanding of the need for differentiation / structure / pace / engaging resources / varied methodologies.

- Vanessa Armstrong (Year 1 Coordinator, Science Day Feedback)

Hannah definitely meets this competency. She and I were discussing a lesson she did with our class

and she noted that she may have used language a bit above the students’ level. She was able to

identify this and modify language used. There were no obvious misunderstandings from the students,

but Hannah’s capability to reflect on this shows familiarity language acquisition.

-Caroline Starnes (Year 2 Mentor)

Each learning experience designed by Hannah has been extensively differentiated to keep in mind the (sometimes very) diverse needs of learners, while still attending to the overall learning taking place within the class. Hannah has proven herself supremely capable of guiding learners through well-organized progressions of learning in a varieties of subjects.

- Jason Wilson & Martin Van Hooijdonk (Year 3 Mentors)

Very good questioning and ability to lead children to finding the answers, was unafraid to let an incorrect answer be present on the board until it was corrected by the children themselves.[...] Was unafraid to let children look up things online, e.g. the name of a 9-sided shape (a nonagon, we all found out!)

- Natalie Shaw (Year 3 Visiting Lecturer Observation)

Hannah has demonstrated a strong awareness and understanding of her learners and their individual needs , leading to equitable learning opportunities for all students. The cultures and beliefs of all learners were validated and explanations were given in an academic, unbiased manner and students were shown how to ask and discuss cultural differences and similarities with sensitivity. In doing this Hannah created a learning environment that was safe for every learner through determining each student's readiness for learning, identifying multiple access points to the curriculum to increase engagement and success and developing and demonstrating greater emotional intelligence in the classroom.

- Martin Van Hooijdonk (Year 4 Mentor)

Year 4

Experience & Self-Assessment

Designing a Cross-Curricular Unit

When I decided to make a gamified unit, I wanted to aim big. So, I turned the entire day into part of the game. This required many of the learning goals across all subjects to be combined. Although there were several activities which were only one discipline, most activities made connections to two or more.

Additionally, all of the activities needed to be significant to a bigger picture - either in game or the real world. I believe I successfully designed the unit to encourage students to make connections between multiple subjects and real world applications. In fact, so successful that students were eager to share new connections and experiences they had outside of the classroom as well.

Evidence of Development

Examples of Cross-Curricular Activities

Robotic Visionary: Science, Math, Technology & Engineering

Students learned about and used the Engineering Design Process to design a robot that can fix a real-life problem.

Space Station: Technology, Literacy, History, & International

Students researched a range of sources to make a timeline on the creation of the International Space Station including who and what was contributed to each event.

Packing for Mars: Math and Science

Students organized a list of items to bring on the rockets by size and weight. Then calculated how to get all of the required materials over to Mars within 3 trips based on the rocket's volume.

Planet Propaganda: Science, Literacy/English & Visual Arts

Students created an advertisement poster for one of the planets in our Solar System using persuasive language and techniques to convince tourists with facts.

Robotic Visionary Booklet

Space Station - Quest Outline

Packing For Mars ZIP

Gamification Theory: A New Method?

In previous teaching experiences, the focus when developing this competency has mostly been on the academic subject knowledge. This year, I have had ample opportunity to research and observe how students develop holistically through the implementation of gamification. Gamification has been proposed as a new method of teaching which aims to improve learning behaviors and attitudes.

Through my literature review and analysis of my own research, I was able to contribute to the understanding of the theoretical effects of gamification in an educational context. To briefly summarize the theory, there are 5 proposed relationships when considering gamification's effects on learning outcomes which can be seen in the figure above. The relationship observed in my study was specifically the mediating process of gamification on student learning behaviors and attitudes (blue arrow.) The results of this study and further explanation of the theorized relationships can be found in the thesis paper.

Planet Propaganda ZIP

Reflection & Future Development

Though I did not have a specific subject I aimed to develop this teaching experience, I feel all of the knowledge I have gained over the past few years just clicked into one very successful unit. Even through extreme circumstance the unit was able to provide opportunities for students to make connections across various subject and real world applications.

I know that in the future the will be less time to plan such an extravagant gamified unit. However, I think there a multiple valuable aspects of gamification which can and should be implemented in my future lessons. Even if it makes things better for just one student.

Hannah Nicole Taylor