1 EDUC4644 Mathematics: Curriculum studies Assessment Task 2 Evaluating and teaching with digital resources Due Date: 25 March 2021 Weighting: 30% Purposes: To connect your knowledge about curriculum, mathematical learning and teaching approaches. To develop your skills in searching and evaluating high quality digital resources relevant for teaching. To encourage you to use digital resources as a source of practical ideas for the classroom. To apply the ideas of reform, mathematical understanding and student motivation in the form of a lesson plan Task To complete this assignment, you will first need to find three different digital resources of varying quality in different areas of mathematics that each focus on practical ideas for teaching or learning a specific mathematical topic taught in Years 7-12 (e.g., quadratic equations, visualising geometric transformations); if a resource is more general, you must find a way to highlight a specific topic within that resource. Part A. Academic audience. Critically evaluate the usefulness of each of the three resources in terms of addressing the principles of reform, motivation, understanding and/or connection outlined in the course. You should use the lecture notes and Goos et al. (2017) Chapters 1-4 to support your arguments (300-500 words each). Part B. Academic audience. Select the best of the resources in Part A and use the Australian Curriculum to clearly identify a key concept within a grade level (Year 7-12) that the resource could be used to teach. Utilise relevant chapters of the Goos et al. (2017) text to identify and discuss difficulties that students are likely to face in learning this concept. Suggest general teaching strategies for overcoming these difficulties (300-500 words). Part C. Teacher audience*. Upload a link, image and write a brief teacher-friendly overview of the selected digital resource (for teachers to skim and see if it’s relevant for their needs) into the appropriate area in the class wiki (50 words) Part D. Teacher audience*. Design a lesson (45-90 minutes) that incorporates the digital resource and capitalises on it in creative ways to promote student understanding of your selected content (two pages). Part E. Teacher audience*. Select three resources from your peers’ submissions that you consider to be exceptionally useful for teaching the content described in the overview and write a brief comment (10-30 words) below each resource in the wiki why you think the resource will be useful. (This is not used to mark the resources, just ensures that you LOOK at the resources submitted.) *Note: Audience is VERY important! You are expected to write in a genre appropriate for teachers: succinctly with clear language and formatting, keeping in mind that teachers are busy, intelligent, committed people. 2 Australian Professional Standards for Teachers: Focus Descriptor 2.1 Content and teaching strategies of the teaching area Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the concepts, substance and structure of the content and teaching strategies of the teaching area. 2.6 Information and Communication Technology Implement teaching strategies for using ICT to expand curriculum learning opportunities for students. 3.3 Use teaching strategies Include a range of teaching strategies. Criteria 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Part A: Evaluation of resources Perceptive evaluation of resources in terms of relevant teaching and learning principles. Convincingly justifies resources’ strengths and weaknesses to support students to learn the intended concepts. Highly effective evaluation of resources linked to general principles. Explanation of resources’ strengths and weaknesses to support students to learn the intended concepts. Useful evaluation of resources. Description of how the resource can help students learn the intended content. Limited evaluation of resources. States that
the resource can be used to help students learn. Evaluations are illogical, incoherent or incomplete. Superficial or unsuccessful attempt to evaluate resources. Missing evaluation of resources. Parts C, E: Uploaded resource Uploaded resource is innovative, engaging, highly relevant and topic specific. Peer resources rated as required. Uploaded resource is motivating, highly relevant and topic specific. Peer resources rated as required. Uploaded resource is interesting and relevant. Peer resources rated as required. Uploaded resource is of some relevance. Peer resources rated as required. Resource is superficially relevant. Resource is irrelevant. Resource is missing. Part B: Understanding of mathematics teaching and learning principles Insightful analysis of potential learning difficulties astutely aligned with the lesson aim. Makes clear and insightful use of literature and course material in articulating explicit links between these difficulties and suggested teaching approaches. Strong analysis of potential learning difficulties aligned with the lesson aim. Makes relevant use of literature and course material to clearly indicate how suggested teaching approaches may help overcome these difficulties. Sufficiently identifies and discusses potential learning difficulties in relation to lesson aim and suggests appropriate teaching approaches using literature and/or course material. Demonstrates superficial understanding of potential learning difficulties; suggests teaching approaches of limited usefulness. Significant learning difficulties unclear or omits suggested teaching approaches. Identifies inappropriate learning difficulty or teaching approach. Superficial attempt to identify a learning difficulty or teaching approach. Part B: Identification of content Key ACARA content and proficiencies are discerningly selected, highly relevant and explicitly identified. Key ACARA content and proficiencies are carefully selected, relevant and easily identified. Related ACARA content and proficiencies are appropriately selected and identified. Content and proficiencies identified. Content and/or proficiencies not clearly identified. Content and/or proficiencies not identified. Content and proficiencies missing. Part D: Design of lesson content and activities Lesson plan provides thoughtfully developed content and structure, uses carefully chosen and well- integrated teaching strategies and exploits the digital resource in original and engaging ways. Lesson plan provides coherence, logical development of content and structure, uses a variety of teaching strategies and takes advantage of the digital resource. Lesson plan provides logically sequenced content, includes multiple relevant teaching strategies and uses the digital resource in interesting ways. Routine lesson plan includes teaching strategies and makes use of the digital resource. Lesson content not appropriate or takes little account of the teaching strategies; use of digital resource inconsistent with lesson aim. Lesson content inconsistent and takes little account of the teaching strategies. Lesson content missing or inappropriate. Overall: Quality of written communication Writing throughout is concise, fluent, well-structured and error-free. Format and structure target the audience and are within word limits. Writing is concise, clear and coherent, with few or no errors. Format and structure appropriate to audience and are within word limits. Writing is descriptive. Format and structure appropriate to audience. Writing and/or formatting make it difficult to follow the writer’s intent. Writing contains multiple errors. Poor attention given to format, structure or audience. Errors hinder communication or formatting lacks coherent structure. Communication incoherent.