Critical Reflection

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Curriculum and Pedagogical Content Knowledge are critical competencies that teachers are required to understand to effectively organise and teach content (Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership, 2018). Within a teacher’s repertoire, they should acquire a diverse range of skills that flexibly and appropriately assist student learning, through presenting and demonstrating ideas or processes to engage individual students (Killen, 2015). Furthermore, accomplished teachers should also be able to address potential student misconceptions to make sense of and accurately correct learning by adjusting instruction through modelling or explaining (Chew, 2005).

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Teachers need to have an in-depth understanding of curriculum content in particular literacy and numeracy strategies because of the foundational skills that apply to the other curriculum areas. As a PST I have found it beneficial to experiment with different literacy and numeracy strategies to learn how to teach different students as well as figure out successful ways to teach curriculum content.

When planning I have found it valuable to create lesson sequences that align directly with the Victorian Curriculum so that I have confidence that I am teaching the correct content. Furthermore, this also supports the student assessment outcomes, as it aligns with the achievement standards outlined by the Victorian Curriculum. An area of my teaching that I identify needs improvement is being able to better differentiate assessments by using enabling and extending prompts.