rationale and reflection

7/28/2019 Rationale and Reflection

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Namrata Shipstone Student no. 15731790

Rationale and Reflection

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Rationale and reflection

When designing a Unit of Work, it is essential for the teacher to think of all

aspects of the topics that need to be taught, for both the student and the teacher.

It is beneficial for teachers to therefore decide on a teaching approach that

enhances student learning. The following essay explores the reasons behind the

choice for the topics to be taught in the unit, along with the reasons behind

designing the lessons in the format that they are.

The topic for the VCE Unit of Work design is Social Life Between the Wars. The

subtopics covered in this unit would be The Roaring 20s, Social and Economicchange, Modernism in art and literature, advent of Cinema and mass

entertainment. These topics are currently part of the VCE Unit 2 curriculum and

therefore, can be rationalised as being an appropriate topic to be taught.

However, personally the reason for selecting this topic is very different.

The Unit of Work consists of activities that need to be taught over a period of

four weeks, which are four lessons eighty minutes each. Due to the fact there is alot that needs to be covered in these four lessons. The topics could have easily

been limited to one Area of Study from the unit design, Social Life, however to

give students a better perspective of the time period they are studying, it was

important to also cover the second Area of Study, Cultural Expression. Both

Areas of Study tie into each other, and one aspect influences the other. By

studying both areas of Study, students learn to make relationships and draw

links between the two.

Each lesson, is packed with activities so that students are completely engaged in

the information that they are being taught. The first two lessons, which are

mainly the lectures that deliver the knowledge, are packed with video clips and

images that enhance student interest and give the students a visual of the time

period they are learning about.


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For instance, in the first lesson, students will be shown video clips of the

Roaring Twenties and Life in the 1920s. These clips are entertaining and will

provide students with information, and the fact that it will be shown to them

before the lecture begins, they will be slightly more familiar with the topics to becovered in the lecture. During the lecture as well, students will be shown a video

clip of Charles Lindbergh, and this is not being done just to fill time. This is being

done to give them a better idea and visual of the invention of aviation at the time.

Again students will be shown the film Cinderella Man that depicts the struggles of

society during the depression.

In the second lesson, students will learn about Modernism and its influence of

art, culture and society. It can be questioned whether it is important for Year 11

students to learn about Modernism, however it is a personal belief that it is

important. And the reason for that is that Modernism is the birth of the modern

world we live in, therefore making it essential for students to learn and

understand. Modernism tackles cultural expression that students are familiar

with, such as the advent of cinema and mass entertainment.

While designing the unit and the lessons, the educational 5Es were taken into

account. The 5Es Learning Model was initially used earlier to enhance the

teaching and learning of Science (Scruggs, Mastropieri, 2008), however it is now

used as part of all other methods including Humanities. It is by far the best way

to design the lessons and unit using this model.

The lessons have been designed keeping the student Engagement in mind. The

lessons are packed with activities that will engage students. Through experience

during Practicum, students tend to respond well to being shown videos and

movies and are then able to pick out ideas to start a class discussion when the

teacher encourages them. These lessons have been designed keeping this fact in

mind.

The lessons have also been designed to help students to Explore the knowledge

they are being given. Throughout the lessons, as well as the research task they


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have been given an opportunity to develop ideas and construct their own

knowledge about the concepts they are introduced to. This approach is also

widely a constructivist view, where students will be able to interpret the

information and learn (Steffe, Gale, 1995).

Students will be given opportunities throughout in order to Explain the concepts

they have learnt, and this can be done in the form of class discussions

encouraged by the teacher. This gives students not only a chance to share

knowledge, but when they talk about something and explain it to other in class,

they will take in that knowledge themselves and learn. The last two Es Elaborate

and Evaluate can be observed in the way the lesson has been designed toenhance student learning by research and formulating a research question, and

also to assess this research by presenting their findings as part of the assessment

task designed for this unit.

As research goes, students have the options of the Internet and other sources

such as texts and visual evidence. The Internet has opened a whole new avenue

into research, especially for students since before the advent of the World WideWeb, students conducted research mainly via textual evidence (Killen, 2009).

However, having said that, it is essential for the teacher to guide this research

now, so that the research does not go off course. Therefore, in the unit of work,

students have been given the websites they are to use for research, and the

research lesson is designed for the students to learn how to conduct research

productively.

If one was to reflect on this task, it would be fair to say that, even though there

was a lot of work that needed to be done with the design of the unit and the

lesson plans, it was not as difficult as expected. There are always limitations that

are faced and this was no different. The limitation in this case comes during the

planning, and since this lesson design has not been tested on a class yet, it cannot

be classified as a success.


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Even though the 5Es have been used to design the unit, unless and until the

lessons have been taught, it is difficult to know whether they would have worked

on the students. During Practicum, that was an aspect, which I had noticed and

struggled with slightly, the not knowing if what I am planning for class willcaptivate the students or not.

I chose to model the unit of work on the format of the VELS unit of work design,

and this was done because the VCE study design was not as well laid out as the

VELS unit of work. There was no formatting as such and was rather a large

document. However having said that, aspects of the study design have been

taken into account in terms of the assessment and areas of study.

After completing the task, it has highlighted certain aspects of the unit of work

and lesson plan designs that can be done differently. It is not certain whether it

would be the correct thing to do; however if given the chance to alter the design,

the content would be reduced. I am satisfied with the content, however it will be

difficult to get through all the topics in such a short amount of time. Perhaps I

would concentrate on one aspect such as either the Social Life or the Cultural

Expression. The aim was to make it more comprehensive and let the students

select their area of interest.

It is a personal belief that students should be given an opportunity to make a

choice for themselves as to what they would like to learn. As an experienced

student, it is much more engaging to do a task, especially a research task, when

there is a genuine interest in the topic. Therefore, I chose not to make the change

and select only one area of study.


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References

Killen, R. (2009). Effective Teaching Strategies: Lessons from research and

practice. Melbourne: Cengage Learning.

Scruggs, T.E., Mastropieri, M.A. (2008). Personnel Preparation. Fairfax: Emerald

Group Publishing.

Steffe, L.P., Gale, J.E. (1995). Constructivism in Education. New Jersey: Routledge

Publishing.

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