Year 5 Unit of Work: Teaching Strategies and Rationale for Engagement

This report addresses the creation of a Year 5 unit of work designed to engage and motivate students, particularly those known to be difficult to engage. It begins by outlining five key instructional design principles, based on the research of Linnenbrink-Garcia, Patall, and Pekrun (2016), which emph...Read More

Running head: MASTER OF TEACHING (PRIMARY)
MASTER OF TEACHING (PRIMARY)
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

1MASTER OF TEACHING (PRIMARY)
Part 1
In the article by Linnenbrink-Garcia, Patall, and Pekrun (2016), five principles of
instructional designs have been discussed that would guide the educators and the policy makers.
The instructional designs that has to be used are a) student’s feeling of competence b) enhance
the autonomy, c) use personally relevant and the active tasks d) emphasizing on the learning and
de-emphasizing social comparison and e) encouraging feelings of belongings. These
instructional principles can be used for guiding students and to constrict any curriculum for any
grade.
Creative writing is a part of the curriculum for grade 5, where children are made to use
some fairytale convention. While writing creatively, a student can engage in an exercise that
would allow the students to truly develop their own voice and perspectives without any
consequential limitations. While writing creatively, one might worry coming across as an
authority or a reliable source. Creative writing in initial stages engage in self-expression. Hence,
in order to increase creativity in child, student should be given autonomy while choosing topics
for writing. Teaching about the basic grammatical skills are also an important part of the syllabus
of this grade. Good grammatical skills assists students in essay or report writing and most
importantly creative writing. Another current trend of technology in education is a flipped
classroom model that alter the learning process. In a flipped classroom concept the students
usually learn by watching video contents outside the normal class hours and continue with the
group dialogue among the peers and the instructors. As it has been already stated, that creative
writing needs imagination and excellent vocabulary and grammatical skills. Videos can be used
to teach grammatical skills. Animations can be very good options for teaching grammar. The
main aim would be to construct a blended a blended learning environment. Video lectures can be

2MASTER OF TEACHING (PRIMARY)
made to motivate the students for watching, learning and engage in online discussions among
themselves regarding the video lessons. In order to retain, the attention of the students, short
video lectures can also be used from free websites. According to Zainuddin and Perera, (2019)
these kind of pedagogical methods is an emergent learning trend that would eventually enter the
mainstream education. These instructional methods would generate a sense of being and
belongingness in children. Group discussion with the peers would boost up confidence in
students. Linnenbrink-Garcia, Patall and Pekrun, (2016) have stated that promotion of autonomy
is not a one-off activity. Technological advancements like ipads, e-readers like Kindle can be
used for interactive reading, which can be a wonderful feature for the English learners. Simple
tools like dictionary, and thesaurus can be helpful to the students to increase their vocabulary,
while the spelling and grammar can be used to correct the errors. Many new tools can be used to
promote autonomy in students. Interactive learning with improved retention, including a team-
based learning projects, flip classrooms and discussion groups that would facilitate the students
to take an upper hand in learning (Gilboy, Heinerichs & Pazzaglia, 2015).

3MASTER OF TEACHING (PRIMARY)
Part 3
Toolkit folder
Toolkit strategies
The learning environment
 Young children are affected by the surroundings. Use of space, materials, space,
materials, furnishing and how the factor rubrics are communicated are the important
features that affect the teaching and learning process, learning environment had always
been a critical factor in the teaching and learning experience. It is necessary to create a
literacy rich environment that is interesting and would offer a variety of materials like
Print related materials such as job charts, calendars daily schedules, reading materials like
the magazines, books, flyers. Writing materials such as pencils, crayons, letter stamp,
electronic readers and computers should be present.
Goal: Teachers would be able to use a large number of user friendly tools to facilitate
learning.
 Gilboy, Heinerichs and Pazzaglia, (2015) have emphasized on positive learning
environment that is important for the growth of children. Children needs to feel
orderliness in the environment. Furniture should be arranged in a way that would help to
open their minds to new things.
Goal: Educators should maintain an order in classroom and should avoid clustering.
 Health and safety needs to be the basic concerns for the educators for creating a learning
environment. Strategies would include removal of the health hazards as well as the
environmental allergens.

4MASTER OF TEACHING (PRIMARY)
Goals: Educators should make sure that the classroom is free from hazards like exposed
cable wires or sharp edges of furniture.
 The classroom environment should support diversity like addressing the need of special
or gifted children or with those having multiple disabilities (Kontra, Goldin‐Meadow &
Beilock, 2012). Assistive tools like audiovisual aids, audio readers, large prints, page
turner for disabled students, ramp ways can be used.
Goals: Teachers should be able to foster an inclusive classroom environment by
developing positive relationship with the student, using assistive devices and following
appropriate curriculum.
Relationships and social emotions
 Teachers can establish a conducive environment in order to remove the boredom of the
studies. This will be helpful for the students who are introvert.
Goal: Teachers should be able to incorporate humor in to their lessons, such that students
feel free to approach the teachers.
 Treating every students with respect. No attempts shall ever be made to use a sarcasm or
to discriminate a student, or any attempt to embarrass them. Educators should manage
things professionally.
Goal: Teachers should be able to hear each of the student choice and should be able to
address them as per their understanding.
 Showing interest in the lives of the students in their lives of the schools. Children can be
asked about the interests even if he/ she does not share the same passion. For gifted
students, whose scope of learning is much greater than that of what is being taught in the

5MASTER OF TEACHING (PRIMARY)
classroom, teachers can make arrangements for provisional tuitions or guide them to
participate in contests and quizzes.
Goal: Teachers will be able to travel that extra mile for ensuring that they become
successful.
 While dealing with students with a wide number of learning disabilities, innovative
techniques can be used to facilitate a caring relationship. For these children, instructions
can be changed in to songs. As stated by Gilboy, Heinerichs & Pazzaglia, (2015), music
can be helpful to improve memory and understanding of the keywords.
Goal : Teachers will be able to engage students having learning disabilities in to learning.
Novel learning materials to elicit an emotional response
 Technologies can be used for harnessing the power of emotions of students. Interwining
technologies and emotions inside the classroom for student retention can be impactful
(Pekrun, 2006). For example, a teacher who teaches Shakespeare, recordings of live
performances or film clips can make this linguistically demanding work resonate with the
students. Group experience of watching TED talks might ignite emotional responses
among the students.
Goals: Teachers will be able to evoke student’s emotions for better retention and
understanding of the course materials.
 Almost 5 percent of the children has been found to be experiencing symptoms of
depression, persistent sadness and disabilities, demotivated in most of the activities,
feeling of inappropriateness or guilt.

6MASTER OF TEACHING (PRIMARY)
Goal: Teachers should be able to understand the students and should display
understanding and empathize. Understanding and empathy has been found to be more
effective than the attempts to alter behaviors by using incentives or reprimands
(Chernomas & Shapiro, 2013).
Goal: Teachers should be able to help students cope up with stress.
 Colorful learning materials can have a positive impact on children and enhance their
mood. Materials like workbooks, flashcards and colorful rhymes can be used (Ősz, 2013).
Colorful posters for multiplication tables and number lines or parts of speech in grammar
can be used in posters with pictorial illustrations.
Goal: Teachers would be able to use interesting learning materials to evoke interests in
students.
Differentiated teaching strategies
 In order to facilitate a differentiated learning, teachers should follow learning styles as
per the needs of the students. Each students have a specific learning style like the visual,
auditory and kinesthetic learners. For example, students might need hands on activities,
if he is a kinesthetic learner.
Goals: Teachers will be able to follow new learning styles of the students and choose the
learning materials as per their learning styles.
 Group learning can be used to teach science based concepts or project based learning
involving STEM based activities should be used .
Goals: Teachers will be able to use a large number of STEM based activities like
teaching scientific natural phenomena by using simple things for daily use (Tseng,

7MASTER OF TEACHING (PRIMARY)
Chang, Lou & Chen, 2013). For example, making of a simple pulley with the help of
pencils or making of popsickle catapult to give preliminary ideas about mechanics.
 Formative assessments should be made to assess the students. The content can be
adjusted continuously to meet the needs of the student. Daily assessments and feedbacks
can be used to monitor students learning for providing ongoing feedback which can be
used by the instructors for improving their teaching and students to improve their
learning (Tomlinson & Moon, 2013).
Goals: Teachers will be able to evaluate the quality of their teaching and the intensity of
their learning by using proper formative assessments.

8MASTER OF TEACHING (PRIMARY)
References
Barbot, B., Tan, M., Randi, J., Santa-Donato, G., & Grigorenko, E. L. (2012). Essential skills for
creative writing: Integrating multiple domain-specific perspectives. Thinking Skills and
Creativity, 7(3), 209-223.
Chernomas, W. M., & Shapiro, C. (2013). Stress, depression, and anxiety among undergraduate
nursing students. International journal of nursing education scholarship, 10(1), 255-266.
Gilboy, M. B., Heinerichs, S., & Pazzaglia, G. (2015). Enhancing student engagement using the
flipped classroom. Journal of nutrition education and behavior, 47(1), 109-114.
Kontra, C., Goldin‐Meadow, S., & Beilock, S. L. (2012). Embodied learning across the life span.
Topics in cognitive science, 4(4), 731-739.
Linnenbrink-Garcia, L., Patall, E. A., & Pekrun, R. (2016). Adaptive motivation and emotion in
education: Research and principles for instructional design. Policy Insights from the
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3(2), 228-236.
Linnenbrink-Garcia, L., Patall, E. A., & Pekrun, R. (2016). Adaptive motivation and emotion in
education: Research and principles for instructional design. Policy Insights from the
Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3(2), 228-236.
Ősz, R. I. T. A. (2013). New technologies mean new methods of learning. Recent Advances in
Modern Educational Technologies (editors: Hamido Fujita, Jun Sasaki), Iwate, WSEAS
Press, 59-64.

9MASTER OF TEACHING (PRIMARY)
Pekrun, R. (2006). The control-value theory of achievement emotions: Assumptions, corollaries,
and implications for educational research and practice. Educational psychology review,
18(4), 315-341.
Tomlinson, C. A., & Moon, T. R. (2013). Assessment and student success in a differentiated
classroom. ASCD.
Tseng, K. H., Chang, C. C., Lou, S. J., & Chen, W. P. (2013). Attitudes towards science,
technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in a project-based learning (PjBL)
environment. International Journal of Technology and Design Education, 23(1), 87-102.
Zainuddin, Z., & Perera, C. J. (2019). Exploring students’ competence, autonomy and
relatedness in the flipped classroom pedagogical model. Journal of Further and Higher
Education, 43(1), 115-126.