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Assessment Task:  VCE Business

Design, teach and evaluate a lesson in a VCE Business Studies course

Purpose of the assessment task

The purpose of this assessment task is to support students to develop and demonstrate their knowledge and skills in effectively and explicitly planning and teaching content related to Business Studies in VCE. Students will refer to and use curriculum standards and their understanding of pedagogical approaches, resources, and assessment to design and teach an engaging and challenging lesson for VCE learners about a Business Studies related key knowledge area. Using assessment methods, in addition to collegiate feedback and self-reflection, students will have an opportunity to evaluate and critique their planned lesson and teaching practice. The assessment task aims to build on students’ communication and interpersonal skills, their ability to organise and sequence classroom activities, and to gather and analyse data to inform their future teaching practice.

Description of the assessment task

Your assessment response needs to include the following:

Section 1 – The micro teaching lesson plan

Using the template below, develop a lesson plan for your VCE lesson. The lesson planned and delivered should be at least 30 minutes in length. Each section of the lesson plan is explained in detail following the template.

Lesson Plan Template

An explanation of each element of the lesson plan is given below:

• Context

Provide a brief description of your ‘students’. Provide a brief description of the prior knowledge and skills (if any) that the students might have about the topic that you will teach and the classroom setting that is required for your lesson (i.e. facilities, space, seating arrangements for the lesson).

• Curriculum Links

You will focus on one area of key knowledge from one of the following VCE subjects: VCE Accounting, VCE

Business Management, VCE Economics or VCE Legal Studies. You can choose a key knowledge area from any

outcome in Units 1, 2, 3 or 4.

Be sure to reference your chosen subject’s VCE Study Design in the Appendix.

• Student Learning Outcome(s)

The outcomes should state what you want your learners to achieve in terms of their knowledge and/or skill during the lesson. Once again, refer to your chosen subject’s VCE Study Design to support you to identify appropriate student learning outcomes.

Limit the number of outcomes to no more than two learning outcomes.

Student Success Criteria

It is important to consider how you will know whether your learners have achieved the learning outcome(s) that you want them to achieve. The student success criteria are a description of what the students will say, make, do, or write to demonstrate to you as the teacher that they have met the learning outcomes that you have set. For example, if a student learning outcome is to be able to define key subject terms used in a topic, your success criteria might be that a student accurately recalls and writes down the definitions of certain subject specific terms in their own words.

• Teacher Learning Outcome(s)

The outcomes should state what you want to achieve as a teacher in terms of your knowledge, understanding or skills during the lesson.

Some examples of learning outcomes might be to:

• check if my explanation of the topic/concept has been understood by the students
• engage the learners’ interest in the topic at the beginning of the lesson
• manage the timing of the lesson effectively
• summarise the key idea taught in the lesson conclusion

Limit the number of outcomes to no more than two learning outcomes.

Teacher Success Criteria

It is important to consider how you will know whether you have achieved the learning outcome(s) that you want to achieve. The teacher success criteria are a description of what you as the teacher will say, make, do or write to demonstrate that you have met the learning outcomes that you have set for yourself. For example, if a teacher learning outcome is to manage the timing of your lesson delivery, your success criteria might be completing the teaching of your lesson introduction, body of your lesson and lesson conclusion within a minute of the times that you have estimated in your lesson plan.

• Teaching Resources

List the resources (e.g., texts, audiovisual sources, websites, handouts, etc.) that you will use in the lesson. Be sure to reference any published resources that you are using in the Appendix.

• Teaching Methodology

Describe the activity (or activities) that you will implement during the lesson to help both the learners, and you, to achieve the stated learning outcomes. Make sure that you concentrate on describing what the teacher and students will do, say, make or write rather than describing what content you will be teaching.

The stages of the activity or activities that you choose should follow a logical sequence. For instance, before you ask students to complete questions on a case study, you might introduce the context of the case study (who it involves, how it relates to the topic, etc.) and define key vocabulary that the case study will refer to that students might not be familiar with.

• Assessment for Teaching

It is important to check whether learning outcomes are being met so that instruction can be modified to cater for the diverse needs and capabilities of your learners. List the evidence that you will collect to check if students (and you) have met the stated learning outcomes. This will act as a prompt to remind you to collect this evidence when you complete the evaluation section of this assessment task.

Examples of assessment evidence that teacher use might include:

• Written responses by individual, or groups of, students (e.g., completed handout).
• Spoken responses by individual students (e.g., to questions posed by the teacher).
• Diagrams drawn by students in response to what you have taught (e.g., mind map, flowchart).
• An item created by students (e.g., a product).
• Observation of student behaviour (e.g., asking questions about the topic, participating in group discussion, listening actively to others, completing set tasks).

Section 2 – Rationale

Justify the choices that you have made in your lesson plan with respect to:

The teaching resources that you have chosen. Questions that might help prompt your thinking include:

• Why did you decide to use the particular resource(s) that you did for the learners that you are teaching, i.e., the year level that you are teaching or the topic/concept that you are teaching?
• Is the resource that you have chosen suitable for this certain stage of learner development (i.e., upper secondary)? Why?
• Is the resource that you have chosen better able to support students with certain literacy needs? In what way?

The teaching methodology that you have chosen. Questions that might help prompt your thinking include:

• Why did you sequence the stages of a particular learning activity in the way that you did?
• Does the methodology that you have chosen cater for specific learner requirements or needs? If so, how?
• Does the approach that you have chosen suit this particular classroom environment more than another approach that you might have taken?

The assessment that you have chosen. Questions that might help prompt your thinking include:

• How does the assessment chosen help you to evaluate what students have learned?
• Why did you choose a particular type of assessment (e.g., quiz, handout, oral responses, etc.) as evidence of what students have learned rather than another type of assessment? You might consider available time, resources required, what topic you are teaching, the students that you are teaching, etc.

Refer to appropriate literature and/or course materials in your rationale.

Section 3 – Implementing the lesson

You should teach the class using the lesson plan that you have developed during your professional placement.

You will need to collect evidence of the effectiveness of your lesson. The following needs to be collected:

• Mentor teacher feedback on your micro-teaching lesson. This feedback should address aspects noted in the criteria description for Section 3.
• Feedback from students that you have taught. This might involve a formative assessment of the lesson, i.e., completion of reflection questions by students on the lesson, for instance.
• Your own personal reflection on the lesson. Once again, this reflection should address aspects noted in the criteria description for Section 3

Section 4 – Evaluation

Using the assessment evidence that you have identified and collected; mentor teacher feedback and your own self- reflection, evaluate the:

• Cohesiveness of your micro teaching lesson plan – Discuss whether your chosen teaching resources and methodology enabled you to achieve the student and teacher learning outcomes in your lesson plan. If so, why? If not, how could your lesson plan have been improved?

AND

• Effectiveness of your teaching – Discuss how effectively you engaged, communicated, and interacted with the ‘students’. You might wish to consider aspects such as your use of verbal (e.g., written instructions; spoken explanations); use of non-verbal communication (e.g., body language) and use of resources (e.g., reference to written materials). Based on the evidence and feedback, discuss how you would improve your teaching practice to better address the learning outcomes that you set for your students and yourself in this lesson.

AND

• Teaching in general – What are you learning about lesson planning? What did you learn from the process of receiving feedback from your mentor teacher and the students that you taught? What are you learning about assessment and data analysis? What impact will this experience have on your future teaching and lesson planning?

Provide specific examples of evidence from the lesson (i.e., direct quotes from comments made by your mentor teacher in relation to your teaching or something that a student might have written on a handout for your lesson, for instance) and appropriate literature and/or course materials to support your evaluation.

Section 5 – Appendix

APA referencing should be used for all sources used in your assessment response. Peer evaluations and tutor feedback need to be included in the appendix