Brendan Passmore

Whilst on practicum at James Fallon High School, I had the opportunity to teach a special needs classroom on a weekly basis. Due to clashing of timetables and extracurricular activities, there was only one lesson for which John Davis, the class’ original teacher was present. For this lesson, John completed a feedback sheet.

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The lesson was structured on life skills outcomes from the NSW Mathematics Syllabus. The unit had been discussing money, with this lesson being focused on counting money. At the time I was casually employed as a supervisor at the Coffee Club in Albury. I decided to show the students the applicable skills associated with counting money. Many of the students in the class either had jobs or were eager to begin working. The basis of the lesson was teaching students to count a till. I collected props from the Coffee Club, such as bank bags, cheque slips, and photographs of the process which I compiled into an ICT presentation.

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I constructed two worksheets (below) which had students practicing their mathematically fluency, emphasising multiplication and addition, in the process of counting money.

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In discussing feedback for the lesson, John explained to me, he would be excited for me to teach his children, one of the most impactful and appreciated comments in all of my experience thus far.