Teacher Performance

Assessment (TPA)
Impact on student learning

Nakia Love
Site context
• The context in which the learning was undertaken is a small
department site with approximately 185 students.
• It is classified as a Category 2 disadvantaged school and has a high
proportion of EALD students, this is around 50% of the school’s
population.
• The year 6/7 classroom I was in has been recently refurbished and
now provides a flexible learning approach. Each student has access to
a chrome book and the classroom has a smart TV which can be used
interactively.
Classroom context
• The class I was in was a year 6/7 class consisting of 28 students, made
up of 16 girls and 12 boys.
• The class had extremely complex behaviours and there were 12 EALD
students, 3 Aboriginal students and 1 student on a NEP.
• The English curriculum is structured as collaborative group learning
rather than whole class teaching. This is to intervene where necessary
and to ensure the students are getting the appropriate support.
• There are 3 teachers who teach students in small groups during the
literacy block.
Student context
I chose 2 students who were in the same groups for the entire literacy block as some students were in
different groups for reading and writing. I did this because I didn’t teach all students and this would have
been hard to seen any results.
Student A Student B
• Usually reluctant to get involved • Not usually reluctant to get involved
• Quiet • Social
• On task • Can be off task
• Confident reader • Confident in whole class but not so much
• Sometimes struggles to understand set during group situations
work • Can be insecure
• Needs to work on comprehension • Needs to work on comprehension and
writing
Theory, practice & pedagogy
I incorporated a range of strategies into my learning sequence that assisted with creating an
engaging and meaningful learning experience.
• My main strategy was ensuring there were multiple opportunities for students to collaborate
and socialise with their peers. Vygotsky believes that social interaction shapes individuals and
allows learners to form knowledge as a group (Hoy & Margetts 2016). Socialising and
collaborating is important for an EALD learner, as EALD learners benefit from oral interaction
(Courcy, Dooley, Jackson, Miller and Robertson 2012).
• Further to this, EALD learners benefit from making connections between ‘spoken-like’ and
‘written-like’ (Courcy et al, 2012). I ensured to include a range of discussions and written
work.
• I aimed to provide verbal feedback during most lessons which was great for the students to
know that they were on the right track or to suggest where to go next if they weren’t sure. I
also provided written feedback when marking their work and discussed this with the students
as to give meaning and relevance to the feedback (Hyde, Carpenter and Dole 2017).
Theory, practice & pedagogy
• Adhering to the diversity of the students I ensured to scaffold the learning as there were students may
need extra support in the beginning. This can also facilitate collaborative learning as the students who
are at the same stage of the task can assist each other (Kaendler, Wiedmann & Rummel 2014).
• The learning in the beginning was heavily scaffolded and gradually became more independent where I
was supporting students rather than teaching the students. The gradual release of responsibility is vital
as students move into high school and work more independently whilst learning how to be self
managers (Murdoch 2015).
• I ensured students had the option to work with ICT and thankfully, all students had access to their own
chrome book. I ensured to have a balance of use of ICT and without, in case of any internet issues as the
school is a google school and everything is completed on google docs which requires internet. I also
wanted the students to develop their proficiency and fluency with technology as they transition to high
school soon where work will be predominately on ICT (Price-Dennis, Holmes and Smith 2015).
• Flexible learning was utilised in this classroom and provided further opportunities for students to
collaborate and maximise participation during lesson times (Earp 2017). I wanted students to be able to
have every opportunity to socialise and I would regularly change the seating / grouping during lessons
to ensure students worked with people they may not normally.
Curriculum
The students are assessed on their literacy throughout the year. The school uses lexile testing, PAT-R and
the EALD language and literacy levels to assess students. They are then grouped based on their needs so
the teachers can focus the intervention.

The main aspect of the English curriculum in this classroom were reading, comprehension and writing. My
lessons followed the same structure and I adapted where needed.
• Lesson 1: guided reading. Students engaged in guided reading where we would go through a text,
identify the strategies we would need to comprehend the text and read. The main strategies I explicitly
taught during guided reading were questioning, predicting, inferring, making connections and
summarising.
• Lesson 2: reading comprehension. Following guided reading, students would complete reading
comprehension work. This reading comprehension work focused on predicting, inferring, making
connections and summarising.
• Lesson 3: response writing. We moved on to response writing and summarising was a large focus within
this lesson. I decided to do this as the students were mainly re-telling the book in their review they had
written during book week rather than actually summarising it.
Curriculum links
The overall focus of this lesson sequence was to create links and connections between students learning. I wanted
students to work on their summarising and have this evident in their written response. I backwards planned and
started from the year 7 achievement standard from the Australian Curriculum. I also consulted the EALD language and
literacy levels when planning and looked at level 9 and 10 writing to plan based on where students should be.
Content descriptors:
• Use comprehension strategies to interpret, analyse and synthesise ideas and information, critiquing ideas and issues
from a variety of textual sources (ACELY1723)
• Reflect on ideas and opinions about characters, settings and events in literary texts, identifying areas of agreement
and difference with others and justifying a point of view (ACELT1620)
• Plan, draft and publish imaginative, informative and persuasive texts, selecting aspects of subject matter and
particular language, visual, and audio features to convey information and ideas(ACELY1725)
Achievement standard:
• By the end of Year 7, students explain issues and ideas from a variety of sources, analysing supporting evidence and
implied meaning. They select specific details from texts to develop their own response, recognising that texts reflect
different viewpoints.
• Students understand how the selection of a variety of language features can influence an audience. They
understand how to draw on personal knowledge, textual analysis and other sources to express or challenge a point
of view. Students create structured and coherent texts for a range of purposes and audiences. When creating and
editing texts they demonstrate understanding of grammar, use a variety of more specialised vocabulary and
accurate spelling and punctuation.
(Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority 2018).
Rationale
• I planned the learning this way because I felt there was too much of a
disconnect between the learning being undertaken during literacy.
• Prior to this, the students were working on 3 different texts for guided reading,
comprehension and writing. I decided to use one text for guided reading and
reading comprehension and then a different text for writing as not all students
were in the same guided reading group and writing group.
• This allowed students to make connections during guided reading and reading
comprehension and use what they have learned during this time to enhance
their writing skills.
• I also found that it was hard to observe students when they were completing
different work therefore I was not really seeing any transferring of skills across
English.
Lesson 1
Guided reading
• This lesson focused on a text about coding
systems. Students were required to
identify the strategy being used and I
asked questions (literal, inferential, etc) to
facilitate discussion.
• Students made connections between their
prior knowledge of coding systems and
technology.
Work samples / observations
Student A
• Able to read fluently.
• Making low-level connections between prior
knowledge and the text.
• Began to skim and scan the text before
reading to feel more comfortable during
discussion and when working in the
comprehension.
• My observation: Student A quality of
discussion improved from previous lessons
and she was eager to share her thoughts
whether they were right or wrong.
Student B
• Confident reading.
• Reading with expression.
• Connecting with coding systems she has
used before.
• Making connections with other technology
that may have coding systems.
• Asking questions and engaged in discussion.
• My observation: Student B engaged with
this lesson as she had prior knowledge.
Lesson 2
Reading Comprehension
• This is the session where students complete work
that builds on the strategies we identified during
guided reading and use the anticipation guide,
double entry journal and tic-tac-toe notetaking.
• During this time students work with a partner to
think:pair:share and are able to utilise the flexible
learning nature of the classroom.
• For the first 15 minutes I explicitly modelled the tic-
tac-toe notetaking sheet and we completed it some
of it as a group.
• 10 minutes before the end of the session, we
shared our work to hear other students thoughts.
Students collaborated and wrote down information
if they needed to fill in any gaps in their work.
Anticipation guide work samples
Student A Student B
- Student A has reflected on this at a deeper level and written her thinking in her own - Student B has tried to connect with the literal meanings which aren’t always the case
words. She has connected with the inferential meanings rather than trying to find with the statements. For the second statement she put false, however she either did not
literal ones. read the statement correctly or didn’t understand it.
Double entry journal work samples
Student A Student B
- Student A has reflected more in this work and written her line numbers as well so I could - Student B hasn’t put much effort into this piece of work. She has some
easily find the passage of text. She has connected deeper with the text although she did not great reflections but she could have done better.
have much prior knowledge before reading.
Tic-Tac-Toe work samples
Student A Student B
- Student A has more key words in each box and a longer - Summarising is shorter than Student B and she has taken less notes. This
summary. This may mean she is still re-telling and hasn’t quite may mean that she hasn’t overwhelmed herself with words and only
grasped the summarising yet. taken down ones she wants to use.
Evaluations from supervising teacher &
myself
Student A
• Much clearer understanding of what
the focus strategies are.
• Comprehending the text has
improved.
• More contribution.
• Willingness to participate during
discussions about work.
• Improving with her reflections in the
anticipation guide and double entry
journal.
Student B
• Improved engagement with the text.
• Still not as willing to engage in
discussions as often but she is
certainly becoming more
comfortable and confident.
• Contributes to discussion with other
people but not in whole group.
• Summarising has improved and she is
using her own words.
Lesson 3
Response writing
• The final lesson in the sequence consisted of the students writing a
response to a news article. As a class, we read the article and made a
continuum of whether we agreed, disagreed or were unsure.
Students then collaborated and shared their thoughts with the
person closest then reported back to the whole class.
• Students were then given the option to move based on what other
people were saying and if that changed their thinking. As a class, we
discussed what type of language we were using when responding to
something and how this differs to a review.
• Students then used their chrome book to individually write their first
thinking and how they felt after reading the text and discussing with
the class.
• As a class, we then went over the structure of a response and I
connected back to the structure of a review to activate their prior
knowledge.
• I then displayed the expectations and what they need to meet for the
response and let students work independently or with a partner if
they needed to discuss their thinking more. Students utilised the
flexible learning space as they wished.
 Student A work sample
• Student A has included all elements of the
response structure and her summarising
has improved.
• I can see a link between the size of her
summary and the size of the summary she
completed in the reading comprehension
lesson.
• Her sentence structure still needs to be
improved.
Student B work sample
• Student B has put her summary
into her own words whilst using
the actual information from the
news article.
• Although her writing is not as in
depth as student A, she still
covered the structure of the
response.
• She also included a decent
amount of evaluative language
which gave impact to her
writing.
Evaluations from supervising teacher &
myself
Student A
• Was getting off task with friends as
this was a whole class situation.
• Reading with expression.
• Connecting with text.
• Asking more questions to consolidate
thinking.
• Valued the feedback and took this on
board when writing her response.
Student B
• Confident sharing her thoughts in
whole class situations.
• Transferring knowledge of
summarising to writing and different
texts.
• Felt confident as the lesson was
scaffolded.
• Verbally discussing students’
thoughts helped her to produce
quality work.
Assessment
• The assessments throughout this sequence of lessons were mainly observation
and anecdotal notes in both my self-evaluation and my supervising teachers
evaluation. This allowed me to ensure both students were understanding the
work.
• I used the reading comprehension work as a formative assessment to ensure
that students were connecting with the text and understanding the reading
comprehension strategy we worked on during guided reading.
• As a summative assessment, I used the students written responses. This was to
see whether there was any correlation between the reading comprehension
strategy and their writing. I expected the summarising work during reading
comprehension to assist students to write succinct summaries in their
response.
Overall impact on focus students
• Overall, I believe my teaching has positively impacted both student A and B. Both girls
have shown growth in different areas.
• Student A has shown growth through her writing and summarising ability. Through the
observations/anecdotal notes between myself and my supervising teacher, we
concluded that she was engaging with the work set and that the quality of work
produced had improved. Student A really valued the verbal discussions and verbal
feedback, she was able to turn the ‘spoken-like’ to ‘written-like’ and began using
complex words in her writing.
• Student B had began engaging in group settings more often. I knew student B would
be able to successfully complete the work, although it may have challenged her
sometimes. However, her engagement with partners, group discussions and whole
class discussions improved significantly. Her tic-tac-toe summarising work had
significantly improved and this was then shown in her summary of the news article in
the written response. It was also great to see that she began using her own words
rather than copying directly from the text.
References
• Australian Curriculum Assessment and Reporting Authority 2018, Australian Curriculum: English,
ACARA, viewed 23 September 2018, <https://www.australiancurriculum.edu.au/f-10-
curriculum/english/>
• Courcy, M, Dooley, K, Jackson, R, Miller, J & Rushton, K 2012, Teaching EAL/D learners in Australian
classrooms, PETAA, PDF, accessed 22 September 2018,
<http://www.petaa.edu.au/imis_prod/w/Teaching_Resources/PPs/PETAA_PAPER_183.aspx>.
• Earp, J 2017, Classroom layout – what does the research say?, Teacher Magazine, accessed 22
September 2018, <https://www.teachermagazine.com.au/articles/classroom-layout-what-does-the-
research-say>.
• Hoy, AW & Margetts, K 2016, Educational psychology, 4th edn, Pearson Australia, Melbourne, VIC.
• Hyde, M, Carpenter, L & Dole, S 2017, Diversity, inclusion and engagement, 3rd edn, Oxford University
Press, South Melbourne, Victoria, Australia ; New Zealand.
• Kaendler, C, Wiedmann, M, Rummel, N & Spada, H 2015, 'Teacher Competencies for the
Implementation of Collaborative Learning in the Classroom: A Framework and Research
Review', Educational Psychology Review, vol. 27, no. 3, pp. 505-536.
• Murdoch, K 2015, The Power of Inquiry, Seastar Education, Melbourne.
• Price‐Dennis, D, Holmes, KA & Smith, E 2015, 'Exploring Digital Literacy Practices in an Inclusive
Classroom', Reading Teacher, vol. 69, no. 2, pp. 195-205.