Annotated bibliography
An annotated bibliography is a list of references you have consulted to assist you in your professional development. The references can be to books, journal articles, information from the Internet, information kits and teaching resource material such as unit plans, games, activity sets (from the CR Library, for example). Each of these should be referenced correctly (according to the UNE Referencing Guide), and beneath each reference you should include a short paragraph which describes and evaluates the content of this resource. Here is an example using texts from several courses.
Annotated Bibliography
Adkins, J. 1992, Strategies for Teaching Science in the Primary Curriculum, Angus & Robertson, Sydney.
Adkins presents an excellent overview of the major theoretical approaches to teaching science in the primary classroom; he includes a wide range of unit and lesson plans which is invaluable to the beginning teacher. The book focusses on Years 5 and 6, however, very little is said about teaching basic scientific concepts at the infants level.
Holt, J. 1969, How Students Fail, Penguin, Harmondsworth.
An extended critical reflection, developed from a journal, on the author’s teaching practice over a number of years. Holt makes many trenchant criticisms of the ways in which the education system ‘fails’ children. He is particularly concerned with the emotional damage that this system inflicts and with how it sets up some children for failure from their earliest years. Although written in 1969, the insights in this book still apply to current schooling.
Knight, E. 1998, ‘Teaching principles of seed germination: An example of a radical approach to botany in the upper primary school’, Primary Science, vol. 5, no. 3, pp. 23-55.
Knight discusses the very positive results he has achieved in inspiring children in late primary school with an enthusiasm for botany. He provides several detailed examples of lesson plans, and shows how these provide scaffolds to the Year 7 Secondary Science Curriculum.
Rees Paterson, D. 1988, Language and Learning: A Handbook of Skills, Southwood Press, Marrickville, NSW.
This presents a comprehensive guide to academic skills written for first year tertiary students. It is useful to both students and teachers, and each chapter is summarised in a series of OH formats for classroom use. The section on sentence structure and paragraphs is particularly clear; however, the sections on reading and notemaking are perhaps too brief to be of much benefit to students. Nevertheless, this is an extremely clear and concise introduction to the subject.
