What is different about NSW curriculum that we need to discuss Teaching strategies specifically for it?
There are mainly 8 categories of subjects taught in the NSW Curriculum:
Creative Arts: Dance, drama, music and visual arts
English
Languages: Aboriginal Languages and Foreign Languages such as Arabic, Chinese, French, Greek etc.
HSIE: Human Society and Its Environment (History, Geography, People, Societies and Culture)
Mathematics
PDHPE: Personal Development, Health and Physical Education
Science
TAS: Technological and Applied Studies
The main difference from other curricula is the variety, wide range of subjects and in-depth tutoring offered to students. Additionally, the focus is on learning to learn, encouraging creativity and promoting every student’s unique talents and interests.
What are the main teaching strategies for NSW Curriculum?
Question box: This is a very useful teaching strategy in a class of students from varied backgrounds and social strata, since the student can simply write the questions they have on a piece of paper and drop it in a box, anonymously. This encourages questioning without fear of being judged and is inclusive of reticent students in the class. The questions are then read out aloud and the Teacher can discuss the answers with students.
Role play: The Role play teaching strategy involves students playing role of a person affected by an issue and study of the issue or events from the perspective of that person. The Teacher should brief the students about the issue or event and clearly describe each role at the onset. After the role play task is over the Teacher should spend some time debriefing the students to ease coming out of the role played each student.
Brainstorming: Brainstorming involves active participation of the whole class in gathering ideas, however varied they might be, with a goal to solve a problem at hand. The important thing is to not judge any idea during the brainstorming session in order to encourage creativity and originality or uniqueness of thought.
Positioning activities: This teaching strategy involves encouraging students to ‘explore’ their position on an event. The students are also encouraged to ‘justify’ an opposing position thus making each student aware of a whole range of positions and understand why people feel differently about an event.
Unfinished stories: The Teacher in this strategy will present an unfinished story usually about a child in a threatening situation and then ask leading questions to the students such as “what should this person do?” Possible actions in realistic scenarios that ensure safety or health must be discussed. This helps students understand implications of possible actions that could be taken and prepare them for real life situations.
Debriefing: This is one of the most important Teaching strategies that is always coupled with other strategies at the end. It ensures the child comes out of a role play, without lingering agitation or a disturbed mind. It also involves unwinding the students and assessing or processing the information gathered from the activities. During Debriefing the teacher helps the student answer questions such as “How did you feel after the role play” OR “What are your plans after school?”