Importance of Australian Professional standards for Teachers by Senani Dahanayake

Standard 1: Know learners and how they learn

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Every child is unique. They have different abilities and interests and they come from diverse linguistic, cultural, religious, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Preservice Teachers observe the child to gather information about the child’s learning as well as communicate with parents/carers to learn more about the child to strategically plan an equitable play-based curriculum to scaffold their diverse needs for learning. We continuously liaise with various specialists that provide services to the children in our settings to provide a more inclusive curriculum to suit children with disabilities. We participate in professional development and training to keep up with the current research and theories to provide children a learning environment that is culturally safe, reflects children’s ideas and needs, uphold children’s rights, and promote their agency.

Standard 2: Know the content and how to teach it

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Apply different teaching strategies to gather information about children’s knowledge on subjects that they like to explore using mind maps, open-ended conversations, floor books to gather and record information on their learning. Provide a range of play based activities that promote children’s wellbeing, social interactions, literacy, numeracy, music and arts, physical activity and sustainability in indoor and outdoor environments and documentation of planning cycle linking between observations, planning, evaluation, and assessment. Providing transition statements to schools that provide an overview of the child’s learning and development. Incorporating Aboriginal and Torres strait islanders’ perspectives to foster children’s understanding and respect for their history, language and culture through play-based experiences and exposure. Integrating ICT and other multimodal elements to scaffold children’s diverse learning needs in their literacy and numeracy.

Standard 3: Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning

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Plan a set of challenging yet achievable individual learning goals for all children in all domains of development in collaboration with the families. Plan a play-based curriculum for the children to work towards their goals that reflect VEYLDF outcomes. Use intentional teaching strategies to scaffold children’s goals through their interests, interactions and routines. Documenting their learning through learning samples such as drawings and writing, children’s problem-solving skills and critical thinking with the use of traditional and technical methods. Use of a wide range of resources including ethical use of ICT to provide meaningful learning experiences. Effectively communicating with the children using verbal and nonverbal communication to ensure participation of all children. Reflect on our practices through continuous assessment and feedback from families to change our teaching strategies.

Standard 4: Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments

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Facilitating children’s inclusive, respective, and positive interactions among their peers to negotiate their space and resources to effectively collaborate with each other to problem solve and resolve conflicts. Implementing a progressive routine to maximize the engagement of learners to minimize interruptions to their play. Create behavior management plans to reflect VEYLDF practice principles to manage children’s behavior in collaboration with families and the child to address children’s behavior promptly and respectfully. Implementing Victorian child safe standards to ensure the learners safety in all aspects including mandatory reporting. Continuous risk assessment of the environment to protect the children from potential hazards to maintain a safe learning environment. Incorporate ethical, safe, and responsible use of ICT when teaching to ensure children’s safety.

Standard 5: Assess, provide feedback and report on learning

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Recording children’s observations, jottings, learning samples, stories in their portfolios to analyze children’s learning inline with VEYLDF outcomes. Assessing children’s learning goals through summative assessments to families and providing transition statements to schools to have an overview of students learning. Educators have respectful conversations with children and provide them feedback at the time of their learning to acknowledge children’s achievements. In our service we use an application called toolbox, created as an interactive game to assess children’s knowledge in literacy and numeracy. This data is used to change the curriculum to scaffold the learning of every child. This assessment is carried out in different intervals through the year to check the child’s progress over time. The outcomes of the assessments are shared with the families in a positive and respectful way.

Standard 6: Engage in professional learning

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We as preservice teachers deeply reflect on our practices to identify any shortcomings of the routines and children’s learning. We regularly consult our colleagues and management to gather different perspectives to review our strengths and weaknesses to challenge our approaches. Participate in professional development to gather new information and learn new strategies to apply in our daily teaching practices. It is also important that we maintain a professional journal that holds reflections and self-analysis of our professional learning and development. Share the relevant new information with colleagues and discuss their points of view at regular staff meetings to uplift our professional knowledge and practice. Take on professional reading on contemporary issues in the changing world and learn the current research and theories to address the everyday challenges in our learning environments.

Standard 7: Engage professionally with colleagues, parents, carers, and community

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We are guided by the code of ethics of Early Childhood Australia to uphold the rights of the child according to United Nations Convention on the rights of the child to inform our current pedagogical research and practices (Early Childhood Australia, 2016). We comply with the relevant legislation schemes stipulated by the National Quality Framework and Victorian Children’s Service Act 2010 (ACECQA,2019). Furthermore, there are various policies and regulations set up by the organization to guide our daily practices to safeguard all stakeholders in an early childhood setting. It is also important to have collaborative partnerships and respective relationships with children’s families in our daily interactions as well as regular parent teacher meetings and information sessions. Moreover, we engage with different professional organizations and community networks to expand our knowledge and to improve our practices.

References:

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Early Childhood Australia. (2016). Code of ethics. Early Childhood Australia; Early Childhood Australia. https://www.earlychildhoodaustralia.org.au/our-publications/eca-code-ethics/

ACECQA. (2019). National Regulations. Acecqa.gov.au. https://www.acecqa.gov.au/nqf/national-law-regulations/national-regulations

Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL). (2017). Australian professional standards for teachers graduate career stage. Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. https://www.aitsl.edu.au/standards/graduate