In this assignment, you will reflect extensively upon your experiences from the professional placement. The Standards and focus areas that you are required to demonstrate are outlined in Assignment 1: Portfolio focus area template (PDF 910 KB) Download Assignment 1: Portfolio focus area template (PDF 910 KB). It is up to you to determine the sufficiency of the evidence you collect by making a professional judgement on how much evidence is enough. Make sure to stay within the word limit and show clarity and relevance (less is more). Your selection of what to include and what to exclude can say a lot about your values and beliefs; make sure your judgements reflect what you care about most. Select the best samples that demonstrate your competence in the Standards and focus areas.
Evidence may include, but is not limited to:
• observation protocols you have made while on placement
• reflections and self-assessment from placement
• actions you intend to take in regard to mentor feedback
• planning you have undertaken for placement
• teaching and learning resources you have created or collected
• images of practice (with permission and following confidentiality/ethics codes)
• mentor feedback (eg: Mentor teacher comments on lesson plans)
• actions you intend to take in regard to Mentor feedback.
These are just some examples of reflective practice. You can also:
• evaluate strengths and weaknesses of your practice
• make reasoned judgements according to evidence
• consider the relative significance of details within your selection of evidence
• signify why you chose to structure the information in this order
• highlight the interrelationships between pieces of evidence
• draw conclusions that specifically relate to the Professional Standards.
The workshop activities are designed to provide students with hands-on supported experience for these issues.
This is an evidence-based folio. You are therefore required to collect evidence that illustrates your achievement of each focus area, and create a reflective statement that clearly indicates how this evidence is linked with the particular focus area of the relevant Standard. It is important that you follow the Victorian Code of Conduct for Teachers and at all times maintain students’ privacy. It is therefore essential that students’ names, address, phone number, date of birth or any other personal information is de-identified. You may wish to add a disclaimer at the start of your folio that you have taken appropriate measures to protect students’ anonymity and used pseudonyms instead.
For each piece of evidence in your portfolio, write 1–2 sentences (annotate) that provide the context of the artefact and indicate which learning objective it illustrates. For example, this short description may include information about the class size or process taken. This short description is different from the reflective statement that follows.
You are required to write a reflective statement for each of the focus areas (23 in total) that moves beyond description and demonstrates why you have chosen the particular evidence, and how it develops your understanding of the relevant focus area, including supporting evidence. Each focus area statement should be approximately 1–2 paragraphs in length. With scholarly evidence and reflective discussion, this includes 23 separate pieces of evidence and reflective statements in total. Please note: some evidence may overlap across different focus areas; however, each focus area must still have its own individual reflective statement.
Your reflection needs to provide insight and answer questions such as:
• What have you learned and how has it changed your professional, intellectual, personal, and ethical development?
• What have you learned about yourself as a beginning teacher and about the teaching profession that you may not have been aware of before?
• What would you do differently if you had to do this again, and why?
• What was the impact on student learning? How do you know this?
Note: as word counts are difficult to measure for this type of assignment, you are required to produce no more than the equivalent of one A4 page in length for each focus area of the relevant Standard.
Other details:
• You are expected to draw upon the unit learning materials and scholarly literature to support your reflective statements, as well as scholarly literature found beyond the unit.
• One reference list using APA 7th Edition referencing conventions is to be included at the end of your assignment. Your reference list is not included in the word count.
• Use the first person when referring to your personal views and third person when referring to literature.
• You must demonstrate your ability to reflect critically and deeply upon the knowledge/experiences that you gained throughout your practicum.
Assignment 1: Portfolio focus area template (PDF 910 KB) Download Assignment 1: Portfolio focus area template (PDF 910 KB)lists the 23 focus areas that must be included in the portfolio. Please use this template as a checklist resource when collecting your evidence and when writing the reflections to ensure that all focus areas are included in the assignment.
Throughout your teaching and learning journey, you will be required to use the nationally approved learning frameworks (the Early Years Learning Framework or the Australian Curriculum) or the approved learning frameworks for your state or territory. To help you further build capability in this area, and to prepare you for placements, at Swinburne Online you may choose to use the nationally approved learning frameworks or the approved learning frameworks for your state or territory in your assignments. For further information specific to your assignments for this specific unit, please seek advice from your eLAs and/or your Unit Coordinator.
Supporting resources
The following resources will assist you with completing this assignment:
• Assignment 1: Portfolio focus area template (PDF 910 KB)Download Assignment 1: Portfolio focus area template (PDF 910 KB)
• APST (AITSL, 2011).