Constructing & Transforming Student Knowledge

One major factor of the week 4 learning path was looking at using a specific type of curriculum to select learning objectives to implement into a unit plan (Assignment 2) that would/could be used to construct and transform students learning.

Constructing Knowledge, sometimes known as declarative knowledge, is an individual’s knowledge of concepts, facts, and procedures. Transforming knowledge sometimes referred to as procedural knowledge, is one’s ability to apply previously constructed knowledge to a specific task. With this in mind, when designing a unit plan, the teacher must consider the knowledge that students present and so must start by developing constructing knowledge before attempting to develop transforming knowledge.

Below is my attempt at putting theory into practice. The curriculum I am using is The Australian Curriculum. The learning area I have chosen is Humanities and Social Sciences, specifically focusing on Year 5 History.

Constructing Knowledge Objective/s:

History – Knowledge and Understanding 

  • The reasons people migrated to Australia and the experiences and contributions of a particular migrant group within a colony (ACHASSK109) 
  • The role that a significant individual or group played in shaping a colony (ACHASSK110)

 Transforming Objective/s:

Inquiry and Skills

Analysing

  • Examine different viewpoints on actions, events, issues and phenomena in the past and present(ACHASSI099)

Evaluating and Reflecting

  • Use criteria to make decisions and judgements and consider advantages and disadvantages of preferring one decision over others(ACHASSI103)

Communicating

  • Present ideas, findings, viewpoints and conclusions in a range of texts and modes that incorporate source materials, digital and non-digital representations and discipline-specific terms and conventions (ACHASSI105)

 

Another example of constructing and transforming student knowledge is found on Skye’s Blog, which uses the same curriculum above, but instead focuses on Geography as the learning area.

Of course, this is just the first step in constructing my unit plan for assignment 2. However, this step becomes a massive leap into developing learning objectives and constructing ideas about how these objectives will be met within lessons and assessment tasks.