The classroom observation analyzed a Year 10 social studies lesson on how workers are protected globally. The learning intention and success criteria provided an overview but did not specify the skills being learned. There were disruptive students who struggled with literacy and social studies credits. The teacher provided whole-class instruction and independent work, but some students avoided extension tasks or didn't understand the questions. The facilitator's goals were to differentiate instruction based on student ability levels, including scaffolding tasks and using literacy strategies, and to engage both lower-achieving and higher-achieving students.

1. Orewa College Classroom Observation and Practice
Analysis, May 2016
Facilitator: Cheryl Harvey
Teacher: James Appleby Class: Year 10
Assessment for Learning: Capability One – Building Learning
Focussed Relationships, Capability 2 – Clarity in the Classroom
Classroom observation:
Recap at the start of the lesson and prior knowledge.
Learning Intention: How workers are protected in the globalised
world.
Success Criteria: Identify how workers in NZ are protected by the
government.
Extension: research & summarise the issues NZ workers face.
Students are given a website link and are working independently.
Practice Analysis:
 The Learning Intention and Success criteria were a generalised
overview of the lesson. They were what the lesson was about.
It would be helpful for some of the students in the class to have
the skills that they are learning as part of the LI and SC. These
may need to be scaffolded for some students.The purpose of
the SC is to make clear to students what they have learned in
the lesson and what they still need to learn.
 From the practice analysis conversation, it is obvious that there
are several problems to solve:
o “There is a group of disruptive students in the class”. 6
(?) of them are on the list of at-risk students. These
students have no credits in social studies and the teacher
is monitoring off-task behaviour. There is generally /
sometimes a 25 minute class discussion which most of
the students enjoy and participate in. This is when the
group in question disrupt the class.The teacher is doing
whole class teaching because of the common assessment
ie there is content that everyone must know.
o Extension activities are given as an extra challenge for
students who finish the work early but they keep quiet
about it because they don’t want to do the extra work.

2. The co-constructed problem-solving discussion in the practice
analysis conversation centred around alternative ways of doing
things.
 Find out what curriculum levels these students are working at
(asTTle results) and set the lesson to these levels not just at the
expected level eg levels 4 & 5
 Scaffold the task more tightly for those at the lower than
expected levels and adapt the resources accordingly.
 If the students have low levels of literacy then they will need to
be accelerated from where they are at to the expected level
through literacy strategies and vocabulary work. See ESOL
online for strategies http://esolonline.tki.org.nz/ESOL-
Online/Teacher-needs/Pedagogy/ESOL-teaching-strategies
 Use the SOLO taxonomy for extension work with an
expectation that the student work/outcomes will match the
multistructural and extended abstract domains. The students
needing extension may not need to do the tasks set at the lower
levels of the SOLO taxonomy but go straight into an extension
type project where they can think at a higher level. The teacher
thinks that a third of the class can work independently and a
quarter of the class have high needs – these 2 groups could
come together for part of the lesson for peer teaching.
 Discussion with the whole class is rarely effective for all.
Students can discuss in groups which the teacher has set up ie
sometimes mixed grouping and sometimes ability grouping or
whatever. They can then report back through Google Docs or
whatever app you use but there should be a task which makes
it necessary for everyone to take ideas from each other
Student Voice (groups):
1. What are you learning? Globalisation and the
interconnectedness of countries.
2. Why are you learning this? I don’t see the point in school. To
know about globalisation.
3. How are you finding this task? Pretty easy – reading and
answering questions or searching the internet. The questions
range from unistructural to relational.
4. What are you learning? Globalisation and what it is but I
wasn’t paying attention.
5. Why are you learning this? Don’t really know – comparing to
other countries?

3. 6. How will you answer the questions? Google key words. I
guess the questions will be easy. I don’t know how to answer
questions and explain stuff.
7. What do you do if you don’t understand? I actually skip it.
We just work together.
Goal to focus on: Differentiate the learning to engage both the lower
achieving students and the students who should be achieving at a
higher level.