ARTEFACT - OBSERVATION
Understanding students and how they learn is a fundamental element to teaching. We simply cannot implement teaching practices without it. In this artefact, it is an observation by a child between the ages of 3-5. Dissecting this observation, the child was copying sentences from a book letter by letter, word for word. I remember taking this opportunity to just watch what he was doing until he felt comfortable enough to ask me questions about his own learning - this then turned into a spontaneous teaching moment where I corrected letter forming and writing sentences from left to right.
When I was writing this observation, I remember thinking, what is it that I am trying to learn from this child? I learned that not only is this child phonologically aware and able to identify letters and decoding, he is developing at a much faster level than other children intellectually. Socially, this child also enjoyed working independently. As an educator, this artefact genuinely reflects (1.1.2) as I am learning so much about this particular child and how he liked to learn. Formulating this assumption, I was able to differentiate my learning experiences from my other focus children, such as reading/writing words and matching words to pictures. Fleet, Honig, Robertson, Semaan and Shepherd (2011) infer that there are multiple practices to cater to different children and “no one size fits all approach” (Fleet et al, 2011, p.5). Understanding this pedagogical knowledge and transferring it into my teaching practice was beneficial for the child as it was something different and catered to him. (295 words)