Work Sample Analysis
The selected student’s sample work, “Human interaction with Antarctica”, is the end of stage three (end of year six). Its key goal is to encourage students to apply and practice their literacy and numeracy skills in geography by creating a timeline of human interactions in Antarctica since 1900.
It is expected that students will identify the names of explorers along with environmental changes. After that, the assignment requires providing practices and beliefs that caused the mentioned interactions, while also identifying the key stakeholders, including ecological researchers, whalers, mineral explorers and so on. Students’ prior learning is to be sufficient to successfully complete this assignment since the required materials have been studied.
In the given sample, the student, Pat, demonstrates the basic understanding of the topic, and her skills seem to be poor. Namely, there is limited understanding of human interactions in Antarctica within the last 100 years: even though some years and investigators are noted, the student fails to clarify their contribution and roles. However, Pat has good visual knowledge in constructing timelines and locating the necessary information.
In terms of literacy skills, there is a lack the completeness of the answer – the environmental changes are not identified. The student tries to list practices and beliefs, but repeats similar thoughts and fails to ensure the clarity of opinion. It is not possible to understand what exactly led to particular interactions since the answer is excessively generalised. The presentation of numerical data can be evaluated as appropriate, yet it provides insufficient interpretation and justifications.
Student Feedback
Your construction of the timeline for demonstrating the human interactions with the Antarctica has both strong and weak points. You have demonstrated good understanding and application of visual knowledge in terms of geography as the timeline is designed properly. Your literacy skills need to be improved since you did not cover all the instructions. While identifying the main stakeholders, it was also important to clarify their roles in the interactions.
The poor use of terminology is another area you can improve in: you should use terms more frequently to justify your arguments. The sentence and text structure require more attention: you should avoid repetitions and focus on proper word selection. It is important that you make strong conclusions instead of generalised statements, which should be based on critical thinking development. Your numeracy skills were applied appropriately in this assignment, but you can also work on noting more valuable timeline points.
Content Descriptions
The topic for a four-lesson sequence is “A Diverse and Connected World”, and it aims to students at stage three. The first content description refers to investigating the diversity of geographical characteristics of Asia, including population, lifestyles and so on (ACHGK031) (“A diverse and connected world,” n.d.).
The second content focuses on the world’s cultural diversity, namely, the one of indigenous people and their beliefs and customs (ACHGK033). The investigation of the interactions between Australia and other countries is the third content direction (ACHGK034). The exploration and reflection on the mentioned contents would equip students with diversity awareness and improve their critical thinking skills.
The duration of the lessons will be 40-50 minutes, which is sufficient to read and discuss the materials, while keeping students attentive and concentrated. The lessons will target students’ numeracy and literacy skills’ improvements in the subject of geography. Namely, the sequence includes reading short texts and completing assignments, both in pairs and individually. In addition, the group discussion will be conducted to analyse the global interactions of different cultures. By writing geographical texts, students will master their construction understanding and promote the application of the skills that were learned throughout the sequence.
Sequence of Four Lessons
Addressing Learning and Teaching Sequence
The presented sequence of lessons is designed to improve students’ numeracy and literacy skills in geography subject. Namely, there are three different topics and a range of activities that would help students to improve their understanding and the ability to and these skills in practice. The gradual complication of assignments is expected to allow students to start with the basics of reading and deconstructing the texts and ending the sequence with the design of their individual story.
Such an approach ensures that both geographical information and literacy / numeracy skills would be mastered. As for the sample paper that was analysed in the first task, one may suggest that this student would benefit from learning how to reveal the key ideas and arguments and use them in discussion.
The investigation of Australia’s global connections and culture of indigenous peoples would lead to the fact that the students better understand such factors as demographics, trade, lifestyles, et cetera. Furthermore, joint construction, feedback, functional language analysis and the method of playing will be used by the teacher to promote students literacy and numeracy skills and address possible challenges. In this connection, the teacher’s responsibility is to support the joint construction and promote greater involvement of students.
The learning outcomes are to be assessed upon the completion of all the lessons in terms of the descriptive analysis, the results of which should be shared with students in the form of feedback. At the same time, students will be encouraged to reflect on their learning, identifying strengths and weaknesses, as well as the activities they would like to perform in the future.
References
Butler, J. (2013). The literacy of geography. Web.
Derewianka, B., & Jones, P. (2016). Teaching language in context. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
A diverse and connected world. (n.d.). Web.
Fang, Z., & Schleppegrell, M. J. (2010). Disciplinary literacies across content areas: Supporting secondary reading through functional language analysis. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(7), 587-597.
Geiger, V., Goos, M., & Forgasz, H. (2015). A rich interpretation of numeracy for the 21st century: A survey of the state of the field. ZDM, 47(4), 531-548.
Hutton, P. (n.d.). Writing persuasive texts. Web.
Rossbridge, J., & Rushton, K. (2014). The critical conversation about text: Joint construction. Web.
Appendix A
