1. Quality Teaching Rounds – Observation Sheet
Gilbert Walker – Year 8 Drama
Element Evidence Code
IntellectualQuality
1.1
Deep Knowledge
Good introduction to the lesson with students being made aware of the
content being dealt with. Teacher draws out prior knowledge by asking
students if they can remember what an ‘offer’ is in Drama. Teacher then
proceeds to identify key concepts of offer, block, accepting and
extending, which the activities will be based around. The activities
presented involved teamwork and used all the concepts on a regular
basis throughout the lesson, with students being constantly reminded of
these terms.
5
1.2
Deep
Understanding
Most students provide information, arguments or reasoning for the main
concepts presented that demonstrates deep understanding for a
substantial portion of the lesson. Students were encouraged to use real
life experience to answer the question: “what did it feel like when you
had to work in teams but you weren’t about to communicate?”
Teacher demonstrated an example of what the terms ‘blocking’ and
‘accepting’ are so that students would have something to go off in the
activities they were required to complete. Making students think about
their performances with questions such as: “what really worked about
that scene, and what didn’t work?” Students demonstrated their
understanding of the key concept of ‘offering’ through role playing a
scenario which required another student to interrupt the scene and
present a problem i.e. an offer. Students were also encouraged to
demonstrate their thinking when analysing a group performance: “how
could she have set it up so they knew what was happening…” “She
could have displayed a badge to show she was a police officer when
making her offer.”
4
1.3
Problematic
Knowledge
Students explored the key concepts of offering, blocking, accepting
and extending through various activities, with some students offering up
their perspective over why an act of ‘blocking’ they feel was more an
act of ‘extending.’
2
1.4
Higher-Order
Thinking
Most students demonstrated higher-order thinking in at least one major
activity that occupied a substantial portion of the lesson. This activity
was the small group performances where students were given a
scenario and an outsider would come in an ‘offer’ a problem which the
group then had to decide to ‘accept’, ‘block’ or ‘extend’ upon,
demonstrated their understanding of the concepts. Performance or
rehearsal is considered a HOT activity, and the majority of the activities
in this lesson was of a high practical standard.
4
1.5
Metalanguage
Drama specific language: offering, blocking, accepting and extending
were used. The majority of the lesson is discussing and putting into
practice these terms, with students constantly being asked to refer to
them. Introduction of new language ‘tableau’ and then a
demonstration of this term occurred.
5
1.6
Substantive
Communication
Substantive communication with sustained interactions occurred
throughout the lesson, with the teacher and students scaffolding the
communication. Substantive communication occurred through the
general opening of the lesson with the concepts being dealt with and
then in the proceeding activities where the concepts were constantly
being interacted with in both a group situation and at the end where
the class came together in a circle and discussed all the concepts and
what the activities had demonstrated.
4
QualityLearning
Environment
2.1
Explicit Quality
Criteria
Numerous statements of instruction are given throughout the course of
the lesson: “I want you to be noticing what group 1 is doing”, “I don’t
want you talking, or miming, you need to just improvise the scene”,
“What I’m looking for is absolute focus, as this is quite hard”, “In a
moment, I want you to get into your groups and fill in the table on the
information we’ve done today.” However, these are only statements of
quality of work, there is no evidence to support the fact that the
students are using these statements to check their work.
3
2. 2.2
Engagement
Serious engagement. All students were deeply involved in all aspects of
the lesson. Students were eager to participate in the opening
‘mushroom’ activity where they had to work as a team to retrieve the
mushroom before the ‘bear’ catches them. Students actively engaged
with all the activities and were demonstrating their knowledge of the
key concepts of the lesson through the activities.
5
2.3
High Expectations
Students were constantly taking risks by actively engaging in class
activities that required them to perform for each other. This is a great risk
in itself as getting up in front of your peers especially comes with a
mixture of emotions. Drama especially calls for risk taking as most of the
activities require students to let their inhibitions go and be silly and
embrace the activity head on. All students were engaged with all
aspects of this lesson and took part in challenging activities.
5
2.4
Social Support
The teachers social support of students was very strong. Supportive
behaviours from both teacher and students were evident in the class
activities. Some examples include: “I really loved the way you block my
view from the mushroom and how you all pretended to have it”, “I
loved the way you adjusted yourself then, it made the scene more
dynamic”, “Keep going, that’s a great idea!”
5
2.5
Students’ Self-
Regulation
Most students were able to regulate their behaviour and stay on task,
however there were a select few who did talk while instructions were
being given as well as some background talking during activities.
4
2.6
Student Direction
Students had some direction over the timing of the activities, particularly
when acting out a scene, students got to choose what they did and
how to accept the offer being presented to them by the outsider.
3
Significance
3.1
Background
Knowledge
Background knowledge was elicited to however it is trivial and didn’t
really have any connection to the overall substance of the lesson. E.g.
“have you heard of the term offer?”
2
3.2
Cultural
Knowledge
No cultural knowledge was referred to in this lesson.
1
3.3
Knowledge
Integration
No knowledge integration occurred in this lesson.
1
3.4
Inclusivity
All students participated in all aspects of the lesson. Students were
encouraged to engage in the activities and no student was left on their
own or refusing to participate.
5
3.5
Connectedness
No connection beyond the classroom was demonstrated.
1
3.6
Narrative
Narrative is used consistently throughout the lesson to enhance the
concepts being focused on. The students are actively engaged in the
content of the lesson as well as the process.
5
AUSTRALIAN PROFESSIONAL STANDARDS OF TEACHING/EVIDENCE POINTS
APST 6.1 Identify and plan professional learning needs
6.2 Engage in professional learning and improve practice
6.3 Engage with colleagues and improve practice
6.4 Apply professional learning and improve student learning
7.4 Engage with professional teaching networks and broader communities
EVIDENCE POINTS Professional Development and Reflection
• Engaging in Quality Teaching Rounds (QTR) with my fellow practitioners:
PLC group
• Lengthy discussion in regards to the coding of each element
• Reflection of the lesson we observed using: ‘I think, I wonder, next time’
3. REFLECTION OF QUALITY TEACHING ROUNDS
Overall, the QT Rounds have been a very rewarding experience. I have found I’ve definitely grown as a
pre-service teacher and have felt that the rounds offer the PLC a great environment in which to discuss
openly, honestly and without fear of judgment, the lessons we have taught and observed.
The following elements caused some deep and at times some heated discussion, however we were able
to usually come to a unanimous agreement after seeing all sides of the argument.
• Higher-Order Thinking
o Our discussion centered around whether there was such as thing as low-level creativity. As
creation is quite high in Blooms Taxonomy, we all came to the conclusion that acting,
performing and engaging in activities such as role-play, are all aspects of Higher-Order
Thinking.
• Substantive Communication
o Our PLC had a deep discussion regarding if the information being presented in the lesson
was being communicated effectively and on a sustained basis between teacher and
students. Some argued that because they weren’t engaging in writing activities and that
the whole interaction was a combination of smaller interactive activities that this in fact
wasn’t an example of substantive communication. However, after much debate our PLC
arrived at the notion that because all the activities and the communication occurring
during these activities was heavily related to the substance of the lesson, it moved into the
realms of students actively engaging with the content and not merely recounting their
experience or knowledge of the content.
• Student Direction
o Again our PLC had some issues determining the language of the element. The element
states: “to what extent do students exercise some direction over the selection of activities
related to their learning and the means and manner by which these activities will be done?”
Some members of my PLC felt that students did not get any choice of the activities as they
had already been planned prior by the teacher. Others felt that because the students were
choosing the roles they would play in their performance activity, and how they would react
to each new ‘problem’, that they did indeed have some manipulation over the direction of
the lesson. Taking all of these into consideration, our PLC eventually came to an agreed
decision and were happy with the code we gave this particular element.
