Professional Knowledge
Standard 1: Know students and how they learn

This is an extension work sample by a foundation-year student in a mixed ability group who participated in a paper-clock making activity in a unit on ‘Time’ focusing on the outcome of ‘telling time to the hour’.

​

According to the constructivist school of teaching, which considers learners to be the creators of their own knowledge, the importance of providing intellectually aligned opportunities for relational understanding (what to do and why) to mixed ability learners cannot be overstated (Van de Walle, Karp & Bay-Williams 2019, p.69). For some students, I intentionally extended the content and the product, two of the three critical elements of differentiation highlighted by Van de Walle, Karp, and Bay-Williams (2019, p.69). I observed that some of the students had acquired procedural fluency in reading time from analog clocks accurately. Therefore, to sustain their engagement, they were extended to relating important events of their day with appropriate times to the hour on their paper-clocks. This extension activity provided the opportunity to develop more connections by applying procedural fluency to authentic real situations, as shown by the work sample. I also differentiated by allowing students flexibility in expressing their thinking (product) either in drawing or writing, as the focus was on transference of skills and representation of thinking.