Almost at the end

I can’t believe that this is the final week of the semester for me. Somehow I managed to juggle lesson prep and assignment work during my time on placement. With a week to go I have completed most of assignment 3 for this course, with only half of my essay for Part D to go!

Like Emily , I found this course very time consuming. It has definitely been the unit that I have spent the most time on. In saying that, it would have to be one of the most rewarding for me. Prior to this course I was not a confident user of ICT, but as we draw to the end of the unit I can look back at my learning and ‘light bulb moments’ and be proud. I never thought that I would be able to discover and implement the range of ICT resources that I did on placement, let alone create my own blog site on wordpress.

I wish every student in my course the very best as they spend the next couple of weeks completing assignments and sitting exams. We are almost there! I hope you are all able to enjoy a well deserved break and receive the marks you have been hoping for.

xx

 

 

Post placement blues

I have to admit, it feels strange going back to normal life and routine after placement. I had gotten used to the routine of getting up early, going to school and planning lessons. I got to quickly  build a rapport with the students in my classroom and connect with my mentor and other staff on a daily basis. Like Jacinta, I feel a bit sad that I had to say goodbye to the students I had gotten to know quite well. Its amazing that in a period of 3 weeks I was able to identity each students’ strengths, weaknesses and personalities.

I was touched by the generosity  of the staff and students, especially on my final day where they presented me with a card they had all signed as well as a special engraved pen. I have to admit that I got a bit teary! My experience has only validated my choice to become a teacher. If these kids could have this much of an affect on me in the space of three weeks, just imagine what a year would do!

Well being strategy I admired on placement

I absolutely loved the emphasis my placement school placed on well being and how students should feel and be treated in the school environment. Every morning after roll call the students’ would recite the ‘classroom charter’. This charter was implemented across all year levels in the school and speaks about how they should feel safe and supported in the school environment as well as their expectations on demonstrating kindness and respect to others.

Moreover, the school has implemented the ‘mood meter’, a chart that is visually presented in every classroom. This emotional intelligence strategy can be viewed here  .In short, this tool is used so that students can identify their feelings and energy levels and identify strategies on how they can make a shift of these emotions throughout the day and explore how these emotions impacts their thoughts and behaviors in the classroom and towards their attitude towards learning.

I was impressed by this strategy as students were able to place their names on the corresponding mood category on the Mood Meter and make judgments on what actions need to take place to adjust their mood, or maintain it.

ICT Applications I used on placement

The school I was at used Study laddar  quite regularly for various literacy and numeracy tasks. I enjoyed implementing this application into some of my numeracy rotation activities where I was able to set specific activities for the children, relevant to the topic they were focusing on. Student’s were able to engage in highly visual demonstrations, tutorials and games that transformed their learning.

Fact monster  was another application I used for my math lessons in particular. Although this was an american program, most of the content aligned with the Australian curriculum. This site provides games, tests, quizzes, templates and homework activities across a range of key learning areas such as numeracy, literacy, science, humanities and language art.

And that’s a wrap!

I cant believe that my time on placement has come and gone already! Such a long build up and then in a click of the fingers, it’s over!

I had a really positive experience on my time at placement. I went back to my home town so it was nice to be looked after by my parents all over again! The school I was at was a prestigious grammar school, from prep to year twelve. As  was placed in a grade two classroom I was located at the junior campus in town.

I loved how organised the curriculum was! The school had week to week curriculum which made it a lot easier when it came to unit planning! Although there were teacher resources available, I challenged myself to go out and find my own.. for each and every lesson! Although this was time consuming, I found it rewarding and gave me a huge confidence boost in my abilities to be a independent thinker and to take initiative! Like Emily, I used the app Spelling city  which I found was a hit in the classroom! This app provided a fun and engaging platform for students to explore their spelling words.

 

Week 11: Ways to use the IWB on prac

As we approach placement ( I can’t believe it’s only a week away!) we need to start thinking about how we can incorporate technology into our lesson plans. As I am personally not very confident with using an interactive whiteboard, I found this site on Creative ways to use your interactive whiteboard very useful.

Here it discussed activities that you can do  depending on your competency and skill set under the sub headings ‘ beginner’, ‘intermediate’ and ‘advanced’ activities.  This site was easy to read and made me feel like I can do this! Activities includes group note taking, online student centered interactive,vendor lesson sharing community and screen recording tools.

Take a moment to check it out 🙂

Week 11: The classroom of the future

So for many of us we will be graduating next year and will be embarking on a career as a teacher for (hopefully!) many years. Have you ever stopped to ponder on the thought of what the future classroom will look like?

Education 2025 was an interesting read where I was able to learn about the the potential learning space and pedagogical place of the future classroom. I found it fascinating to gain an insight that the future classroom is believed to be paper free with laptops used for tests an exams.  Perhaps students will carry laptops and ipads, eliminating text books which can assist in creating a cleaner and neater classroom. Smart boards or a tablet could even be used for parent/teacher interviews to communicate student’s progress using the portfolio.

I guess time will tell! I’m

 

Week 11: Digital citzenship

Like Tara, I completed the Cyber Smart Kids quiz and scored a 19. It was interesting to see some of the answers differ from my understanding such as online bullying not being the main form of bullying. This took me by surprise to learn that face to face verbal bullying is the most common form of bullying as I thought  cyber bullying would be the most common form in today’s modern society.

Stop cyber bullying  is another online quiz that children can complete where they can be more aware if they display bullying behaviour towards others by rating them selves on a point scale with 5 being the highest number.

Week 11: Why are we hesitant to apply ICT in the classroom?

A confronting concept that many teachers may face may include not why teachers should include ICT into their lesson plans, but rather why teachers can be hesitant to do so.  I found Justin’s blog interesting where he mentions an article that states that teachers from the older generation may lack confidence in this area as technology is always evolving year some teachers are not updating their skills with ICT therefore cannot keep up. As children these days are becoming more tech-savy more than ever, their knowledge on using certain ICT  platforms and applications may be greater than those of the teacher!

An interesting site by John Spencer on 11 reasons why teachers aren’t using technology helped broaden  understanding on this concept. Take a look!

Week 11: Professional experience is drawing near!

On Friday I emailed my mentor teacher and confirmed my time with her on professional experience. I was pleased to hear that she had received the USQ professional handbook already! As this school is located in country victoria and I am based in Melbourne, I haven’t won’t have the opportunity to meet with her in person prior to commencing, unlike Ellen.She does however sound to be very down to earth from what I could tell by the language used in her email so that has put me at ease a little bit. She has also informed me that on the second day her class is going on an excursion so I am pretty happy about that! I think this will create an opportunity to get to know the students a little bit freer outside a classroom context.

In the mean time I have printed literally about 40 lesson plans ready to embark on this crazy teaching  workload we have to do, as well as printing out all the other documents we will need including the ICT statement. Feeling organised 🙂