Subject Knowledge and Methodological Competency
“A teacher who cannot explain any abstract subject to a child does not himself thoroughly understand his subject; if he does not attempt to break down his knowledge to fit the child’s mind, he does not understand teaching.”
My Vision
Subject knowledge and methodological competency refers to a teacher's knowledge of teaching strategies, educational theories, subject matter, and the importance of real-world connections to the subject. The educator should be familiar with common learning disabilities and allow students to learn from and with one another while still being self-sufficient.
Teachers must provide a clear picture of a child's existing level of knowledge, abilities, and understanding in a specific subject, taking individual differences into consideration, to plan appropriate actions for the child to develop further and help children who struggle.
Inside the classrooms, it is vital to provide an international learning environment and to promote the development of critically conscious global citizens.
Teachers should be concept builders who encourage students to form their own subject knowledge through the use of the Internet, books, and visitors (Cremin & Burnett, 2018, p. 107).
The subject knowledge of effective teachers is integrated within a teaching context, according to the Medwell et al. (1998) study: effective teachers only understood their material from how they represented it to children. Their knowledge seemed to be fully rooted in pedagogic practices as a result of their teaching experience (Cremin & Burnett, 2018, p. 108).
It is important to let children become creators of their own learning and to use children's background knowledge and build upon it to let children move forward within their ZPD. This allows students to become independent, lifelong learners.
Self-evaluation
Through my studies I have been able to learn and practice different methods of teaching, to learn how children learn, how to differentiate a lesson and how to identify their struggles and support them through scaffolding.
I gained Mathematics subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge and methods of how to teach English to EIL learners.
Thus, I was able to use this knowledge to create engaging student-oriented CLT lessons and Math lessons that involve active learning applying smart maths and different forms of concrete and semi concrete ways of visualizing the content to improve students' conceptual understanding.
I still need to improve my knowledge about specific subject content in science subjects, although personally I think it is more important to know strategies of teaching than being able to know the entire content of each subject as this will differ depending on where I will be teaching. It is important to broaden my understanding of the subjects because in an ever-changing world and so will the subject content and teaching methods.
Before and while teaching at a special needs school I did a lot of research and observations teaching children with ASD and applied methods and strategies specified to each individual students needs.
Feedback:
"Julia knows the curriculum and can plan and implement lessons based on the students' competencies.
To enable autonomous learning, Julia is always prepared and considers possible difficulties in advance.
During her internship, Julia was able to gain a lot of experience about the perceptual peculiarities of
children with ASD, whereby she studied additional literature on this topic on her own motivation."
- Astrid Mitschka (Classroom mentor teacher Year 2)
Self-evaluation and Feedback
Personal Development Goal - Year 2
CLT lesson
Because I was teaching in classroom where most students were provided with individual lessons for most subjects, I had to plan a one on one lesson with only one ELL. Before I started planning the lesson I was able to observe the student and become aware of his English competency level. I noticed during previous lessons with other teachers and me, that the student gets distracted easily, thus has difficulties concentrating on his work. I was also able to observe that although Friday lessons are supposed to be CLT lessons, my classroom teacher often relies on school books and easily falls back into grammar lessons. When it was my turn to plan the lesson I was provided with various textbooks to use. Although I was given different exercises from the book I took the topics of these exercises "I like/ dislike and must and mustn't" and created my own activities that involved pictures of pokemon that I knew the student was interested in and pictures of other topics that were talked about in other lessons or were topics related to current events.
To end the lesson I decided to plan an activity that allowed the student to be active and combine English conversation with sports which I knew he liked (Throwing balls), to help him stay focused.
I asked my teacher if my changes to the lesson were still acceptable and my teacher was very impressed with my ideas, especially to include his interests.
The lesson was a big success. The student who usually starts rebelling against teachers' lessons, was participating the entire time told me many interesting things about the pokemon including what they liked, was helping me set up and take down other activities, and allowed me to witness and challenge his English conversation skills.
"Julia I give you green light for becoming a teacher!" -Jonas (student)
This lesson allowed me to apply and think of teaching strategies for communicative language teaching, making connections to the student's interests and environment and based on the students level of understanding.
Year 2 (Inclusive school - class of students with ASD)
Evidence - Phonics Project
Together with two peers I created a language arts learning resource to support grade 2 teachers in navigating through the book: Finn’s Feelings. On the website teachers will find material that will assist them in utilizing the book as a springboard to teach about Phonics, morphology, sight words and important vocabulary from the book.
This project made me reflect on, include and think of additional teaching methods to improve students reading competence by applying the phonics teaching strategies.
To create it based on the students level we had to research, compare and modify our ideas to the grade reading level.
Year 2
Evidence - Math Tool
This mathematical tool is an audio tool designed to assist Grade 3 – 5 learners with word problems. It is also designed for Grade 5 learners with autism spectral disorder. This tool was created after our findings indicated that many students struggle with word problems.
Many students with ASD struggle with word problems due to lack of social experiences which are often referred to during word problems. Furthermore, our research showed that students struggle with word problems largely because of reading comprehension.
The tool comprises of written and audio stories and word problems. In addition, it includes a section where students can create and record their own word problems, as well as activity sheets and pictures that help them to visualize their thinking according to their own preference of representation. The stories are easily relatable as they have real-life context and are written in such a way that helps the students relate to social interactions and understanding other people's emotions and actions, which will be especially advantageous for autistic learners and students from different cultures.
The ideology behind this tool is the Universal Design for Learning framework as students can decide whether or how to make use of the audio, the pictures, activity sheets and the teacher can also create word problems according to the students’ needs (Goldwait, 2017).
Creating the tool we had to do literature reviews, to see what is already out there, we had to observe and empathy with our students and we had to create a tool that supports the needs of our students and students with similar needs. Previous math lectures helped us make the age-appropriate, exploratory math connections.
Year 2
I was able to observe various teaching strategies used by my mentor teachers and lecturers. To remember these methods and future methods used in teaching practice schools, I will collect them in a journal.
In addition, I will do further research about teaching practices and improve my content knowledge about science subjects. To do so I will contact a family friend who teaches biology and history to elementary school students and ask her for good materials and teaching methods.
I will research teaching strategies for students with special needs and ask lecturers of inclusive education for research material.
To learn about teaching practices and content for teaching Art, Music, Theatre and Dance, I chose the elective Arts and Culture next year.
Further Development
Bibliography
Cremin, T., & Burnett, C. (2018). Learning to teach in the primary school. London: Routledge.