quality teaching rounds

Quality Teaching Rounds – Observation Sheet

Stuart Southwell – Year 11 History

Element Evidence Code

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1.1 Deep Knowledge

The concepts being dealt with are reliability and usefulness of sources. The teacher gave the reasoning behind needing to know these particular terms and how they apply to history: “these help you to evaluate the sources and how they are reliable and useful to you.” The teacher also linked these concepts to the HSC and in particular how these terms will be used in their exam. Giving definitions of each term: “reliability is asking can we trust this source, while usefulness is asking what is the source telling us and what is useful about it?”

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1.2 Deep Understanding

Deep understanding is uneven. Students are demonstrating some understanding of the concepts but only a select few are volunteering the evidence that they do understand. Basic question/answer from the teacher and students: “Would this source be able to show us USA feelings towards communism, would it be reliable then?” “Yes, it would”. Some deeper answers to questions are demonstrated however it is very shallow and minor in occurrence: “So you’re saying it’s reliable even though it’s propaganda?” “Yes, because you’ve asked what the public would assume of it.”

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1.3 Problematic Knowledge

Knowledge is seen as socially constructed, with multiple and/or conflicting interpretations presented and explored to an extent that a judgement is made about the appropriateness of an interpretation in a given context. In the map source activity, students were encouraged to draw their opinions from what they saw. Some students stated that it was public propaganda used to persuade the public of the threat of communism, while others said it just demonstrated how communism was moving through the ASIA region, as it was presented as bias information.

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1.4 Higher-Order Thinking

Most students demonstrated HOT in one major activity in the lesson. In reference to the map interpretation exercise students offered some deeper level thinking and used their prior knowledge as well as constructing meaning from the information provided. When students are asked of their opinions on the map they were able to construct deep thinking answers, such as: “It is representing how the threat of communism was presented to the public”, “It’s demonstrating what would happen if the reds take over these areas and how the borders of neighbouring countries would be affected”, “Back the the word red was just the generalization of communist nations.” Students were able to see both sides of the map reading exercise, from a Western and a communist perspective.

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1.5 Metalanguage

Periodic use of metalanguage with comments on the language during the lesson. The concepts of reliability and usefulness are the main sources of history specific metalanuage and are dealt with for the majority of the lesson.

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1.6 Substantive Communication

Communication is primarily the teacher asking a question and only a small proportion of students answering them. The class is engaged in a length discussion for a small portion of the lesson and are willingly engaged without any teacher prompting, however this is only one example.

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Explicit Quality Criteria

Only general statements about student work was made: “I want you to tell me: is this source reliable with regards to the west’s view of communism?” Apart from this, students didn’t really get an opportunity to complete any written work until the last few minutes of the lesson.

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2.2 Engagement

Most students appear engaged in some aspect of the lesson. The opening part of the lesson, students were very engaged in what the teacher was saying, however by 11:15am students had begun to seem disinterested and proceeded to be distracted by their computers.

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2.3 High Expectations

Many students participated in challenging work such as the map reading activity where they were asked to draw their own opinions from it and then justify their answers. However, the majority of the lesson was heavily centered around discussion and so students were only recognised for their answers to the discussion.

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2.4 Social Support

The teacher demonstrated high social support amongst the students, encouraging all to take part and calling on the more reluctant students. Effective and positive feedback was given too: “I really like what you said there” and “I particularly liked what you said about what time it was written.”

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2.5 Students’ Self-Regulation

Students demonstrated high self-regulation in their behaviour, and the lesson continued without any interruption. 5

2.6 Student Direction

No student direction was given. 1

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3.1 Background Knowledge

Background knowledge is elicited to several times during the lesson, and was related specifically to the concepts being focused on. Students were asked what they remembered about perspective, which was needed in providing opinions on the core concepts for this lesson. Students were also asked “can you remember ADAMANT? Can you elaborate on what each of the subheadings mean?” Students also drew upon their own knowledge about the RSL and how this particular organization is relevant to their study of the Vietnam war.

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3.2 Cultural Knowledge

Some cultural knowledge was mentioned but it was treated very superficially. As students viewed sources from the Vietnam War, they would have had to make reference to that specific culture and what the historical sources were telling them about the ‘reds’ or communism in general.

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3.3 Knowledge Integration

No obvious connections between topics and KLA 1

3.4 Inclusivity

All students were engaged and included in all aspects of the lesson. As this was only a small class, students were easily included and participated in the class discussion and questions that were asked of them.

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3.5 Connectedness

Students are able to recognise minor connections between the classroom and the outside world. The teacher made the connection between the content needed for the HSC such as reliability and usefulness, to the real world of history study and professional circumstances.

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3.6 Narrative

History in itself is a very narrative based subject. Students engage with narrative in the form of primary and secondary sources, in particular this lesson that involved interpreting a map of the communist nations during the Vietnam War. The teacher offered his own perspective on his interpretation of history and alluded to the fact that this would differ from the students’ perspectives of history: “I have a particular view on history, an objective truth.”

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AUSTRALIAN PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS OF TEACHING/EVIDENCE POINTS APST 6.1 Identify and plan professional learning needs

6.2 Engage in professional learning and improve practice 6.3 Engage with colleagues and improve practice 6.4 Apply professional learning and improve student learning

7.4 Engage with professional teaching networks and broader communities EVIDENCE POINTS Professional Development and Reflection

• Engaging in Quality Teaching Rounds (QTR) with my fellow practitioners: PLC group

• Lengthy discussion in regards to the coding of each element • Reflection of the lesson we observed using: ‘I think, I wonder, next time’


Lucia Scherrer – Year 11 Chemistry


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1.1 Deep Knowledge

The knowledge content of this lesson included a discussion about water, in particular how water is distributed on Earth as a solid, liquid and gas. The key terms for this particular part of the lesson were solvent, solute and solution. Water density was also included, primarily so that a formula for working out the density of a substance was presented to the class: D=M/V. Students were given an opportunity to participate in an experiment that tested the boiling point of water and if the boiling point changed when adding salt – a solute. This demonstration of knowledge was a significant portion of the lesson.

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Students started the lesson by completing a close passage defining and identifying the key concepts of solvent, solute and solution. Students demonstrated both a shallow and a deeper understanding of these concepts at different points in the lesson, however most students just completed their work and did not show any evidence they were actually understanding and synthesizing the information beyond a shallow level.

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Knowledge is treated as fact. 1


The close passage at the beginning of the lesson is a demonstration of lower-order thinking, however the experiment where students are putting into practice the main concepts of the lesson such as water density and boiling point when adding a solute to the solvent demonstrated some higher-order thinking skills.

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1.5 Metalanguage

Chemistry specific language is dealt with for the majority of the lesson however the language isn’t commented on with non-specialist language specifically. The concepts of solvent, solute, solution, water density, solid, liquid and gas are regularly addressed during the lesson,

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however not as frequently or at a level of high non-specialist language commentary.


Teacher engages students in a discussion however this communication does not sustain for a length of time. Students during the experiment do converse with each other and discuss the concepts of the lesson related to their experiment.

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2.1 Explicit Quality Criteria

No comments on the ‘quality’ of work needed, all the statements were procedural and instructional. 1

2.2 Engagement

Most students appear to be on task for most of the time and seem to be taking the tasks seriously. There was however a constant chatter occurring throughout the lesson but this did not appear to disrupt the lesson at any stage.

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Work wasn’t particularly challenging – close passage, experiment and end of lesson discussion were the activities students engaged in. 2

2.4 Social Support

The teacher had a very welcoming and encouraging demeanor throughout the lesson, including when a bunsen burner exploded. The teacher was very quick to the scene and appeared calm asking “is anyone hurt? Are we okay?”

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Most students were regulating their behaviour and the work they were completing, however some smaller groups did appear off task and were talking amongst themselves.

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Students got to set the pace for how they set up their own experiment spaces, apart from that the teacher ran the timing and pace of the overall lesson.

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Water density touched on the concepts of water and ice, of which students would have to have a previous knowledge of. Students knew the definitions of the main conceptual ideas prior to this lesson and the lesson just spent more time discussing these in general.

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No cultural knowledge was evident. 1


Knowledge Integration occurred when discussing water density. The teacher asked if students knew what the rock was they were trying to work out the density of, which elicited to geology. This link wasn’t explicitly made however.

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3.4 Inclusivity

All students were included in the lesson and the teacher made an active effort to include students who hadn’t volunteered information in the lesson by calling on those who hadn’t had much contribution: “those boys up the back, what do you think?”

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3.5 Connectedness

Boiling water can be argued to relate to outside the classroom when boiling water for cooking, however this wasn’t explicitly said in the lesson.

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3.6 Narrative

Only limited examples of narrative was demonstrated and these were superficial to the overall lesson. 2


Helen Lee QT Rounds Teacher – Year 9 Honors English


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1.1 Deep Knowledge

Good introduction to the lesson with students being made aware of the content being addressed through the statement “We’re going to focus on Historical Fiction.” Key concept outline in this lesson was genre, with a specific look at Historical Fiction. Prior knowledge was drawn on in relation to the content being studied in this lesson, with students able to actively recall and explain. Most of the content knowledge was deep in this lesson, with some superficial aspects such as plot distracting from the main point of the lesson.

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Most of the students seemed to have a very deep understanding of the content and learning of the lesson. Active and a depth of discussion on Historical Fiction was reached at a high level, with students verbally communicating their ideas in a language of high standard which demonstrated their understanding to the topic. Connecting prior knowledge to new learning via the genre topic.

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Students explored the knowledge of Historical Fiction at a good depth of discussion, however this knowledge was not challenged or socially constructed in a way that students were able to see it from multiple perspectives.

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Most students demonstrated HOT in one major activity in the lesson. Students were engaged in thinking that allowed them to organise and synthesise the information they were receiving. The teacher was able to talk the students around and see the information from different perspectives. An example of this is when one student described a novel they had been reading and asked if it was counted as historical fiction if: “the context and fact were correct for the historical time, but the sub context was that of magic which is not seen as fact.” The teacher turned the question to the class who then used their previous knowledge and information on genre to decide whether it was in fact Historical Fiction, or a combination of genres.

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1.5 Metalanguage

As this lesson is for an honors English class, the level of language the students are using are of an incredibly high standard. Almost the entire lesson students were engaging with Metalanguage and discussing the text with very specific language. E.g. ‘omnipresent narrator and omnipotent’ which were specific to the context of Historical Fiction and genre.

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Students engaged heavily with oral discussion of Historical Fiction. Communication is focused heavily on the substance of genre, with developing knowledge on identifying the subgenres such as History and Fiction are done individually and then brought into one genre on their own. All students are participating in the discussion with small groups being formed to have a mock dinner conversation explaining the term Historical Fiction.

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2.1 Explicit Quality Criteria

No explicit statements about the quality of the work. As the class was mostly a discussion, students weren’t given scaffolding or a statement of how the discussion should unfold. They were given an opportunity to write some answers down for a few minutes but again no explicit statement regarding the quality of the work were given.

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2.2 Engagement

Most of the students are engaged and on-task with their work for the majority of the lesson. There were a select few who did not participate or engage in class discussion.

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Most students are participating and/or engaged in work that is challenging the majority of the time. Their level of work was not explicitly outlined by the teacher but students appeared to be engaged in a higher-order thinking discussion related to genre and Historical Fiction.

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2.4 Social Support

Social support was positive and the teacher actively tried to include all students into the conversation and learning experience. There was a moment during the lesson where a student raised their hand to answer a question but either forgot what they wanted to say or were having trouble trying to explain their thoughts. The teacher at this point used positive language to try and get the student to answer, by saying “just give me two words you’re thinking of, you know the answer” and the student was eventually able to explain.

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All students worked hard during the lesson and demonstrated autonomy in how they conducted themselves and their work ethic. 5


This lesson was lead purely by the teacher. No options were given to students with how they would have liked the lesson to proceed or go in a certain way. One comment: “Is this something you’d like to do next lesson” could be argued as giving students direction but this was only a minor comment not really related to the lesson itself.

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Connections were made to background/prior knowledge on numerous occasions. Example: the teacher started the lesson with asking the class to explain genre and the content they were talking about last lesson. This then moved into an activity where each student listed off an individual genre.

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Cultural knowledge is very superficial in that the range of diverse social groups in this class is very limited. 2


Minor connections between history and English were made, however these were trivial. Example: when talking about historical fiction in relation to a television show (Vikings) the teacher made mention that if a

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period drama is relying on the authenticity of the setting, then the anecdotes and facts need to be related to the time. You wouldn’t see a mini skirt in Victorian England, nor would there be zombies in a Jane Austen novel.

3.4 Inclusivity

All students are included in every aspect of the lesson, with most engaged in a class discussion for the majority of the lesson 5

3.5 Connectedness

Students recognised some connection between what they were learning and how it relates to the outside environment through the Vikings example.

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3.6 Narrative

Narrative was quite high in this lesson with many connections made by the teacher and students to other aspects of their lives. Example: many minor comments in relation to the authenticity of historical fiction – not having any out of place objects that don’t relate.

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AUSTRALIAN PROFRESSIONAL STANDARDS OF TEACHING/EVIDENCE POINTS APST 6.1 Identify and plan professional learning needs

6.2 Engage in professional learning and improve practice 6.3 Engage with colleagues and improve practice 6.4 Apply professional learning and improve student learning 7.4 Engage with professional teaching networks and broader communities

EVIDENCE POINTS Professional Development and Reflection • Engaging in Quality Teaching Rounds (QTR) with my fellow practitioners:

PLC group • Lengthy discussion in regards to the coding of each element • Reflection of the lesson we observed using: ‘I think, I wonder, next time’

quality teaching rounds

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