AITSL Standard 4

Standard 4.1 Support student participation (Identify strategies to support inclusive student
participation and engagement in classroom activities.)
Student participation and engagement in all classroom activities is critical to effective teaching and
student development. It is important that all students are engaged through varied tasks that appeal to
every type of learner. Whether a student learns visually, works better within groups, individually or
supported with ICT, the teacher must cater learning structure to include these variables.
One very useful tool to enhance student participation through the use of ICT are discussion boards, on
mediums such as Edmodo. Discussion boards can enhance student learning and engagement as it may
include students that are normally not likely to speak up and share ideas in class, but can express and
share ideas through a public forum such as a discussion board. All ideas shared are then also recorded
for the students and readily accessible for future use.
For example, in senior history, discussion boards or threads could be created for each significant topic
covered over the year. Students could be made to contribute at least 5 posts and 5 replies to each topic,
and this could form part of assessment.

Standard 4.2 Manage classroom activities(Demonstrate the capacity to organise classroom activities
and provide clear directions.)
Classroom management of ICT devices is critical to effective teaching. Teachers must be able to
demonstrate the capacity to manage student access to ICT to support student engagement and
learning.
Discussion boards, smart boards, and the use of an iPad or laptop to digitally convey documents to
students or collate ideas is an effective way to support student engagement and learning. For example,
students could undertake a personality test as a getting to know you exercise at the beginning of the
year. There are many psychology tests that students could take online, such as the Myers Briggs
personality test or another by Carl Jung.
Teachers can track how well their students are progressing by their contribution to discussion board, and
the depth of knowledge and written expression through their posts to topic threads. This would be
particularly important in my area of senior history, where there is a lot of information that needs to be
conveyed to students, to monitor whether they are understanding the material or not by summarising
the information into posts.

Standard 4.3 Manage challenging behaviour (Demonstrate knowledge of practical approaches to

manage challenging behaviour.)
Managing behaviour of all students in the classroom is vital to keeping students engaged in a safe
learning environment. In order to expect the most out of all of your students, it is critical for a teacher
to monitor the behaviour of students that may be disrupting other students.
It is important to teach your students the expected values of respecting one another, especially on social
ICT mediums such as Edmodo or discussion boards. It is too easy for students to be able to post
negative comments when reviewing one another's work. Therefore, it is essential that the students are
provided with clear guidelines as to how to contribute appropriately to one another.
For example, I would construct a document that outlined what behaviour is expected of the students
when engaging in online discussion boards or for collaboration with other students generally, and send
this to them as a word document to be kept on hand always. Also, it is vital that the teachers are
constantly monitoring what information and behaviour is occurring on discussion boards and so on.

Standard 4.4 Maintain student safety (Describe strategies that support students well- being and
safety working within school and/or system, curriculum and legislative requirements)

ALANA THOMPSON

Maintaining student well- being and safety is of most importance within the classroom, especially when
dealing with digital resources and tools. There are a number of practices and tools available to teachers
to mitigate these risks.
Through sites such as Edmodo, a class page could be created and there could be a document that
outlines what behaviour is expected in the class, and 'class rules' could be set up for everyone in the
class to access. It would be a good idea to ask students to contribute ideas to the content of the class
rules to encourage participation: what is their understanding of health and well -being in the classroom?
Specifically, students could be asked to research cyber bullying and create a podcast on the dangers of
bullying online and how it is not acceptable within the classroom. There is a lot of information going
around at the moment on zero tolerance for bullying online. Students could be asked to write a reflective
response to what they believe online bullying consists of, and how they believe it can be prevented. But
overall the teacher must be vigilant in monitoring any ICT medium that is used in the classroom.

Standard 4.5 Use ICT safely, responsibly and ethically (Demonstrate an understanding of the
relevant issues and the strategies available to support the safe, responsible and ethical use of ICT in
learning and teaching.)
It is the role of the teacher to ensure that students are using ICT tools in the correct and appropriate
way. This includes understanding how to use ICT ethically, legally and responsibly. If students are made
to understand how to do this, this ensures that a safe learning environment is created, and students are
being taught to be ethical individuals.
A way that teachers can demonstrate how to use ICT safely, responsibly and ethically is getting students
to use www.turnitin.com.au, that tests for the use of plagiarism in their work. Providing students with
online resources relating to correct referencing will also assist in the prevention of plagiarism. Students
can also be directed to and shown sites about cyber bullying, and how this is not acceptable in today's
society.
Teachers can get students to create their own Edmodo website, and get each student to post what they
think are the ethical components of using an ICT website, and what they believe constitutes effective
cyber safety practices referring to resources and referencing these.

ALANA THOMPSON