Professional Standards and Returning to Teaching - Report Example

Student’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Code: Date Assignment is due: Professional Standards and Returning to Teaching Standard One: Design and implement engaging and flexible learning experiences for individuals and groups. This essay analyzes the first of the ten value and practice statements that constitute the Professional Standards of Queensland Teachers. This standard, just like all the others, is aimed at ensuring that teachers are able to apply their understandings about all learners in the classroom in an effective manner. The statement highlights the need to design and implement learning experiences that are both engaging and flexible for individuals as well as groups. This is aimed at facilitating classroom communications that all schools, teachers and learners can value. Many learning and assessment strategies are at the disposal of teachers in their efforts to implement this Standard One in the classroom. The element of flexibility in classroom learning is crucial for learners, both as individuals and as groups. One of the best learning strategies involves use of information and communication technology (ICT) tools. Using these tools, teachers can become excellent professionals through application of their knowledge in an efficient manner. Today, there are many ICT tools that facilitate a coherent understanding of the existing curriculum frameworks and their relevance to learners. Knowledge of the curriculum requirements is not enough for a teacher; the professional also needs to understand the various ways in which the knowledge can be applied in group and individual learner settings. In the classroom setting, a holistic approach needs to be adopted, whereby the goals and requirements of different categories of learners are put into consideration. These different categories of learners include students, caregivers and families. Tailoring curriculum content to cater for the needs of these groups is a practice that should be nurtured among teaching professionals. Contemporary teaching practices emphasize the need for an accurate understanding of the meaning of effective, curriculum assessment, reporting issues and implementation of the syllabus. Assessment is a crucial undertaking for a teacher who wants to be effective in classroom teaching activities involving both individuals and groups. Assessment is simply the process through which information about students’ learning is identified, gathered, and interpreted. On the other hand, reporting is the process through which information on the achievement and progress of students is communicated. Reporting is useful since it enables learners, teachers and parents to get direct feedback about their progress in the classroom setting. In order for the Standard One of the Queensland College of Teachers (QCT) to be fulfilled, there are three different ways in which comparisons can be made in the process of reporting learners’ progress. First, the students’ work can be compared against a standards framework containing syllabus outcomes. Secondly, a comparison can be made between the students’ current performance and that of prior learning achievements. Thirdly, the students’ achievements can be compared to those of other students in the classroom. The best thing, though, is to combine all these three methods in order to come up with a comprehensive analysis. Teaching professions can choose to adopt any of the many approaches that exist in efforts to implement the first QCT standard. Currently, the outcomes-based approach is the most commonly used perspective. This approach is essential for both assessment and reporting purposes. However, the success of this approach depends on the appropriateness of the assessment and reporting practices that have already been embedded in classroom teaching and learning process. The world in which we live has become extremely competitive highly dynamic. The implementation of teachings standards using the outcomes-based approach should be considered against this backdrop. Although the demand for schools continues to increase among citizens, likewise, the need for competent citizens who can think flexibly and independently continues to grow. In order to meet the arising challenges, teachers are forced to customize teaching and learning strategies in order to make the best use of classroom learning. The relevance of the appropriate curriculum must be emphasized as students continue to encounter many dynamics of teaching in their pursuit for the highest possible levels achievement standards. Standard One for QCT teaching professionals contains a practice statement that guides the tasks of teachers in a structured format, thereby giving students an opportunity to achieve the most out of the today’s dynamic learning environment. The practice reflects the role and relevance of classroom learning experiences to all learners, the school, employers’ policies and the government. There are many ways through which a teacher can make use of the classroom learning setting in order to gather and analyze all relevant information from a variety of sources in order to evaluate individual learners’ experiences. Additionally, this information can be put into productive use in various ways, leading to improvement of the way teaching, learning and assessment strategies as well as resources are utilized. Incidentally, both parents and industry players have recognized the need for schools to more than merely rank their students from the best to the poorest performers. The events that take place in the classroom reveal much more about the students’ ability to achieve than what academic assessment will ever tell. No wonder that nowadays, emphasis is on assessment and reporting of what individual students know, understand and can do. This sounds like a holistic approach to assessment and reporting, a practice that is yet to be embraced in many classroom situations today. Standard One requires teachers to be equipped with the right kind of knowledge so that they can transfer it to learners both individually and in their group settings. Today, professional standards are highly regarded in the teaching profession, especially when applied to classroom settings in order to bring about positive results. Emphasis is being put on the link between different content areas as described in the curriculum. Although it is important for teachers to acquire knowledge relating to their profession, knowledge in itself is not enough. They need to be able to be able to apply this knowledge in order to enable learners understand the link that exists between different areas in the curriculum. This entails a social, cultural and historical understanding of all knowledge that learners encounter. In every classroom setting, all teachers always find themselves having to confront the issue of behavior among learners. Standard One contains values that should guide teachers shape the behavior of learners. The values can be understood well if teachers went the extra mile to explore the differences that exist in students’ classroom behaviors as individuals and as groups. This understanding is necessary for guiding teachers through the process of reconciling the differences in learners’ needs both as individuals and as groups. Additionally, when teacher understand the motivation for various learners’ behaviors, they can prepare well for putting in place the right reinforcement measures as part of the learning process. Student information should be gathered using the various methods that are acceptable today. Dewar notes that such information is necessary for the process of designing various classroom learning experiences as required in the QCT first standard (1). Moreover, this information is increasingly being used by information literacy instructors to design various learning experiences. This task is normally undertaken on the basis of their personal beliefs on what is learning skills and outcomes are required by students. Standard emphasizes the need for teachers to incorporate the needs of students in designing curriculum frameworks. This awareness is closely related to a student-based approach to an instructional design that is student-focused. This entails investigating and taking into account the personal perspectives and prior knowledge of students. With the right kind of knowledge, a student-centered curriculum can be designed. The main challenge, though, arises in situation whereby teachers have to manage a classroom with too many learners. In other situations, the learners may be few but their needs may be too many to be managed effectively in the time set out for classroom teaching. For instance, the teacher may not have enough time to find out about each learner’s personal perspectives and prior real-life experiences. Teachers also need to understand how students acquire new knowledge and the role that personal experiences as well as prior knowledge plays in this process. Such an understanding brings about many implications on how teachers employ the first standard. For instance, in this era of dynamism in use of ICT, there is need for the teacher to ascertain precisely the level of his students’ information skills. He may get this information by assessing the perceptions that each student has towards information literacy and the connection they attach this to their academic success. This kind of analysis may defy a teacher-led instructional approach since most of the information comes from learners. In this regard, the main role of the teacher is to coordinate the discussion and synthesize the information for future learning activities and discussions on the topic. The information generated from students can be extremely useful in recommending future changes in the curriculum. The information could reveal fundamental weaknesses among students with regard to integrate ICT skills in their daily learning activities. The teacher may identify past weaknesses in curriculum design and implementation that may have largely contributed to this weaknesses. The best way to help other learners in the future would be to recommend and implement changes in the way the instructional curriculum is designed for early, middle and senior learning phases. Apart from highlighting the need for flexible learning experiences to be designed and implemented, the QCT’s first standard contains a framework of values for guiding teachers in their profession. Teachers need to uphold these values by working with learners of all ages as well as young people. They also need to believe that every student has the ability to learn, and, therefore, should be supported in order to achieve success. This can be achieved if the teachers can articulate and generate great enthusiasm for modeling of life-long learners through nurturing the right and learning skills in each individual. Moreover, integration of ICT into all classroom learning activities can be an ideal way of generating learning interest among all learners. Teachers can help their student become highly successful lifelong learners by using a problem-centered program. Such a program should focus on strategies of solving problems. These strategies should be founded on proper planning and careful understanding of the level of academic complexity that learners can handle. Typically, this does not happen in most classroom situations. Intensity in the problem-centered program should take the form of daily classroom engagements where the teacher takes an active role of guiding individual learners through concepts and systems. With time, the tasks can become automatic and learners can learn how to team up in group in efforts to solve problems. When this happens, the strategies will be said to have entered into all the students’ repertoires. Such an approach is beneficial not only in school performance, but also productivity in real-life situations. In a problem-centered classroom, a teacher asks open-ended problems and sets out to search for open-ended answers. Such questions stimulate learners to use not only their memory skills but also their reasoning power. Embedding technology into the classroom learning situation is one of the most daunting tasks a teacher can undertake. However, the ICT component is becoming increasingly unavoidable since it aspects almost every aspect of man’s encounter with his contemporary environment. Therefore, denying children exposure to ICT knowledge is tantamount to doing them a serious injustice. Other than learners who have an ordinary capability to grasp concepts, the QCT’s first standard also highlights the need to focus on learners with learning difficulties and disabilities as well as those who are extremely gifted. For all these categories of learners, the teacher’s first responsibility is to ensure that they do not feel as if they are the odd ones out. Efforts have to be made in the form of curriculum design to ensure that everyone within the classroom setting is part of the learning experience. In conclusion, the first QCT’s standard provide an efficient platform for teachers to be effective the way they steer the direction of classroom learning experiences at all levels. According to this standard, teachers need to understand many issues regarding classroom values, knowledge, scope and practice. In their efforts to implement this standard in the classroom setting, teachers face many challenges. Some of these challenges include lack of ICT skills among learners, special needs of different classroom learning groups, dynamism in contemporary approaches to learning, and criticism of various approaches to assessment and reporting practices. However, the values entrenched in this standard constitute a convenient guideline for teachers in their work of design and implementation of instructional curriculum. Works Cited Dewar, John. Professional Standards for Queensland Teachers. Victoria: Queensland College of Teachers 2006 Read More