2014

I just watched the video below and thought it was a great clip to start my year off with. This 13-year-old was taken out of the traditional school system to be home schooled. He encourages schools to 'hack' education, take short cuts, opportunities and risks so that students are prepared to make a life not a living. He talks about the importance of being happy and how we can incorporate eight practices of happiness at school. His final analogy of education being like a mountain really resonated with me - he says that if a powder covered mountain was a school, everyone would take a single line to ski down it, all covering the same path. Whereas, in fact, there are millions of possibilities and people will want to go different ways depending on their skills, interests, creativity and abilities. On the back of this, I am going to try to allow my students more freedom and opportunity for expression in class, opportunities for creativity and higher order thinking which allows them to be actively engaged in more insightful ways.

Bring on 2014!

Have we got it right with the Australian Curriculum?

I found this quote in a journal article while researching the Australian Curriculum. I found it quite powerful and something I want to keep in my mind as a teacher...


"The surest sign of whether our nation has a soul is whether it cherishes all of its children… . Unless there is serious commitment to upholding very child's birthright to acquire the educational and personal foundations for a full and satisfying life, we fail the first test of any civilized community. That involves doing justice by the most vulnerable among us, our children, and especially socially disadvantaged children."


Found in Vinson, T. 2010. “The social context of literacy acquisition”. In Literacy and social responsibility, Edited by: Christie, F. and Simpson, A. New York: Equinox.

LAMS

Lams

I really like that LAMs take on a lot of the principles of constructivist theory by not being solely teacher directed but providing opportunities for student choice in learning as well as collaboration, this is achieved as it is an open-source platform for designing online learning sequences (LAMS International, 2009). LAMS provide a great tool for teachers to design learning activities which follow pedagogically sound sequences which are easy for students to navigate as they are visually structured and organised. I think Dalziel (2003) puts it well when he says that LAMS have the potential to ‘revolutionise e-learning by capturing the process of education, rather than simply content.’ (p.1). We want learners to interact with each other and with us as teachers rather than just with content alone. This supports what Gilbert and Moore (1998) state in that online learning should provide opportunities for interaction between learners and teachers, learners and content and learners and their peers – LAMS achieve all of these interactions in an accessible, structured learning environment. One way that LAMS is able to provide this is that it offers a platform for both single learner content (e.g. learning objects) and more collaborative tools such as discussion forums and chat.

Planning a learning sequence through LAMS does seem a little bit overwhelming which is why I think the UBD template could be quite a helpful way of working out the organisation of the lesson. Taking into account the ‘big idea’ and keeping this in mind throughout the creation of a LAMS would be very helpful in ensuring that the prescribed learning activities align with the focus of the lesson and the lesson’s aims.  The ability to link to websites also provides students with an effective structure to navigate their lessons where they do not have to waste time looking for links or content but are able to directly access the resources they need. This also promotes web safety as students do not accidentally stumble across inappropriate content in their search.

I think the LAMS tools for chat, Q and A would be really helpful for students in persuasive writing as they can gather ideas from others for their particular point of view and use this to enhance their arguments. I think students in Stage 2 or younger would have some difficulties with the practical side of LAMS as many of them would not have the typing skills to make the technology as beneficial as it would be with older grades. However, I think this is where tools such as voting and multiple choice tests could be helpful for students as they could still work through learning activities and gauge the opinions of their peers. The additional resource of the LAMS community is a great benefit as it provides teachers with opportunities to collaborate and ask questions regarding the LAMS as well as share their resources and ideas.

References:

·         Dalziel, J. (2003). Implementing Learning Design: The Learning Activitiy Management System (LAMS). Retrieved from http://www.lamsinternational.com/documents/ASCILITE2003.Dalziel.Final.pdf

·         Gilbert, L., & Moore, D.R. (1998). Building interactivity into Web courses: Tools for social and instructional interaction. Educational Technology, 38(3), 29-35.

Master of Education

I haven't posted on here for a while as I have been swept up in my new study. This year I am taking a year off full-time teaching to study full-time and I am very excited about it!

Although I feel a bit out of my depth (tutorials with principals!) I am already loving what I am learning and can't wait to see how it affects my teaching practice when I'm back in the classroom. There is so much to reflect on and weigh that it is really nice to have the space and time to think critically about how I teach and how I can improve.

I will be posting some of my reflections along the way as well as any new teaching lessons/ideas I am introduced to.

Australia's Education System

I recently read this article in the Sydney Morning Herald - "Australia's disaster in education" which discusses a recent study undertaken to monitor the success of countries in reading, mathematics and science in Year 4 and Year 8 students.

Australia did not perform well. We did not rank highly in any category and were outperformed by countries who do not have nearly as much disposable capital as we have. This is disappointing but in some ways I cannot say that I am surprised. Australia makes it easy for people to become teachers and makes it easy for people to stay in the field regardless of ability, passion, work ethic, time or professional development (as long as they have a permanent job). I have seen many schools who 'do what they've always done' and are not interested in new technologies or methods of education. I have also seen schools who never do what they've done before, leaving children (and teachers!) confused and overwhelmed by the amount of change and unsettled learning without reflection. I think we need to establish our education system without swinging to either side of this pendulum. We have to be willing to try new, thought out ideas which have been effective elsewhere in order to enable our education system to perform on the world stage. However, I think we also need to be reflective and constructive in the way we assess these ideas, working out whether they have achieved the outcomes we desired and thinking about how we can further improve our practices.

In many ways, walking into a primary school today will not look significantly different to walking into your own primary classroom. What other profession can claim only slight significant change over decades of advancement?

The attitude that Australia has towards education as a profession is showing.

Interactive whiteboards

I was thinking today about the amount of time I spend using my Smartboard (interactive whiteboard) and what a useful tool it is! The projector for my Smartboard needs to stop itself from overheating and will turn itself off if it is getting too hot. I've found that this is a helpful indicator for how much I use the board as the projector will turn itself off multiple times a day!

I use my interactive board for displays to guide and organise students at different times as well as as an interactive tool during lessons. Here is a photo of what the board looks like in reading groups while students are reading. Each book character is a different reading group and the image next to the character is the activity that the group is to complete once they have finished reading (today was based on phonics). This provides a great visual display for students so that you don't have 20 little people coming to you asking what to do!

I also love using the Smartboard as an introduction or consolidation to a new topic. I really like to use hands on activities however I find that the Smartboard is great for gaining an understanding of student's knowledge of the topic. If anyone uses the Maths Plus resources I've found that they have a great set of interactive white board activities which go with the text book and are excellent for getting students up to the board. Here's a photo of a Notebook file I used in introducing capacity.

Wet and Dry Environment Biscuits!

I could rattle off a whole heap of ways that this was educational (which it was!) but it was mostly just fun, and a treat for great behaviour all week!

This week we made wet and dry environment biscuits. Quite simple, I bought a couple of packets of simple round Arnotts biscuits as well as: spearmint leaves, musk sticks, jelly tots, jelly crystals, and some chocolate bullets.

Students decided on the kind of environment they wanted to create and thought about how they would do it using the materials available. They then iced their biscuits and added the lollies they wanted! The only challenge was persuading them that 'less is more' as I had to send a few back with unrecognisable environments!

Here is an example of two forest environments...

Cityscape Art

Yikes time can get away quickly! Haven't posted in a little while with reports (and sickness!) on the cards.

Just wanted to share a new artwork I did with my class last week which looks fantastic! As we've been learning about wet and dry environments we've also been thinking of the differences between natural and built environments. I used this lesson to highlight some of the features of built environments as well as think about how ultimately built environments are part of natural ones. To do this we created a city at sunset (or sunrise!)

To start with we looked at a power point I created of different sky scrapers from around the world. Pointing out the features and elements that we see in these sorts of city landscapes.

Next, students created their own city landscape using lead pencil on black paper which they then cut out, 

After that, we spoke about the sorts of colours you see in a sunset and the progression of colours in the colour wheel. Students then chose their colours (in rainbow order) and painted their background with water colour paints.

 Once dry, students stuck their cities on the backgrounds and then added some stars or clouds if they wanted to (using oil pastel). Obviously I'm a bit biased but I think they look great!

Exceeding Expectations

Just wanted to share a little story from today which was a nice way to end the week! I have a new boy in my class who speaks only a few words in English, he has only been here for a few weeks and I really feel for him not knowing the language.

This week my class have been presenting speeches on their favourite wet or dry environment. These speeches only need to go for 1-2 minutes and is their first real attempt at trying to present information with eye contact and memorisation - tricky stuff! The boy in my class gave his speech this afternoon and it was so amazing to see the class captivated by the few words he could say, they cheered for him when he finished and he smiled the biggest smile I have seen on his face since he's been here. He also drew a picture of the mountain from his home and the class were amazed at his sketching skills. A great result from a potentially scary task. 

(from travel.3yen.com)

He did a pretty good job, wouldn't you agree? Note: he didn't have the photo while he was drawing!

Saying sorry

I just wanted to tell you about the sweetest thing that happened in my class today which almost brought me to tears.

Recently, a lot of the girls in my class have been becoming quite competitive and haven't been speaking very nicely to (or about!) each other. I have been really saddened by this (they're so little still!) so I decided to try to nip it in the bud today by having a whole class discussion about how we speak to each other and how we want to be speaking words that build up others rather than bringing them down. I told the class that this was mostly for the girls (because they were the ones who I've been hearing the stories about) but it is good for us all to think about how we use our words as one of our class rules is to 'be nice to others'.

During this discussion a particular boy in my class started looking really sad, staring at the floor, downcast. As the discussion was coming to a close he put his hand up. Wondering what he could be asking (seeing as he hadn't done anything wrong as far as I knew) I motioned him to speak. He said, "Mrs Beasley, can I say sorry to everyone?" (I nodded) he then proceeded to look every student in my class in the eye naming them and apologising, almost in tears. The whole class was silent as he did this, most of them not really understanding why.

It was such a special, thoughtful moment that it caused tears to well up in my eyes! One of the students asked afterwards, "Why did he say sorry? He hasn't done anything wrong?" the boy replied that he could remember times where he had hurt each person and he wanted to apologise. So so beautiful!

I hope you are as touched by this sweet boy as I was.

Mountains Artwork

As we are learning about Wet and Dry environments in HSIE I have been trying to link in a lot of the other Key Learning Areas to what we are doing.

Yesterday we learnt about what a 'mountain range' is and thought about the features of alpine environments. As a mountain range is a series of mountains it was a really good base to create a class artwork displaying what we know!

Here are the steps to creating a fabulous mountain range!

First, I got students to draw a dot for the tip of the mountain in the middle of the top edge of their page.

Then student drew a grid on their mountain (you could use this as a start to a discussion about how humans have impacted the environment)

Next, have students fill in their grid using oil pastels (they are nice and bright but can be used for smaller areas!)

Once students have filled in their grid they can use a black oil pastel to draw over the lines and snow and then cut out!

Makes an awesome mountain range! 

Literacy Groups

Literacy groups are one of my favourite activities to do with my class. I test children regularly on their reading using running records (which test both word recognition and comprehension) and then put them into like ability groups.

We have literacy groups 3 times a week and students read a book together and then finish with an activity. I thought I would post about the activity one group completed today as it was a bit of an 'a-ha' moment for a girl in my class. She is Korean and is only just learning how to speak English, she really enjoyed the activity below though as she could use prompts from her book but produce work at a similar level as the other students. Basically they have to use the lego letters to make words from their books setting them out like they are an on an imaginary crossword.

Here is a snapshot of her 'imaginary crossword' word work!

Marble Jars - Behaviour management

There are some things that I have tried this year with my class in terms of positive behaviour management routines which have worked really well so I thought it was about time to share them!

I have my tables organised into table groups with each table group linked to the topic we are studying in HSIE (Humans Society in it's Environment). Because we are learning about Wet and Dry environments this term my tables are: Alpine, Desert, Bushland and Ocean. Each table group has a jar with a picture of their environment on it. I give tables marbles to put in their jar as a reward for a variety of behaviours - improvement, listening. tidiness, working well, sharing, being helpful etc. At the end of each week we count up the marbles for each table and the table with the most gets a prize from me!

The kids really love it, and get SO excited every Friday when it's time to count the marbles. It's also really good for them to learn how their behaviour impacts those around them and how to work as a team. Not very expensive either! I just got some plastic jars from the $2 shop and a packet of about 100 marbles from there as well.

Bushland table's marble jar!

2011 WISE Summit

I was really inspired by this presentation given by Mrs. Kelly Wood (née Steeples). She was the 2010 national winner of the SSAT award for Outstanding New Teacher of the Year in the UK and has some really valuable, practical advice for teachers.

The things that particularly struck me are below:

• Ownership – giving it over to the children exceed expectations
• Understanding your pupils – building relationships, sparking their interests
• Innovation – teaching innovatively and allowing the children to be innovative
• Time management – work/life balance, time in opportunities, balance of being collaborative
• Sense of humour – laughing along, experiences
• Finding teachers who choose to be great
• Target setting – ensure targets maximise the learning, how to set good targets
• Teacher toolbox with alternative approaches
• Awe and wonder – inspiring children and allowing them to have wow moments
• Using media – enhances the learning and the teaching
• High expectations – steel hand in a velvet glove
• Be dynamic and inspirational – finding activities to allow the children to do something different
• Parental involvement – inspire mornings
• Fostering talents

Take a look!!

Dobbing vs Telling

For a lot of this year I have been trying to teach my class things that are really important to tell me and things that are not. For a while my class became King and Queen dobbers with so little as a 'wrong look' deserving my attention... until now!

This term I have introduced the poster below to try to teach my kids the difference between dobbing (tattling) and telling. Basically what is important to tell me and what isn't. So far this has worked a treat! Kids are really getting on board and even thinking about what they are about to tell me before they do (ahhhhmazzzing!)

Definitely recommend something similar if you have issues with dobbers!

Underwater Sihouettes

This term we are learning about wet and dry environments in HSIE. After being inspired by the Bees Knees cousin we created the artworks below.

We learnt what a silhouette is and I gave students free range to create their own silhouette of an underwater animal in a wet environment. Needless to say, I was totally amazed by their creativity! We had sharks, hammerhead sharks, jellyfish, sea turtles, starfish, sea horses and more!

This was also a great lesson for learning about perspective as the artwork is looking up into the sun from underneath the sea creatures.

Have a look at the Bees Knees Cousin for a full description of the artwork!

Changing Education Paradigms

Just watched this great video about the global education system. Not sure if I agree with everything in there but definitely worth a watch. There are so many possibilities and opportunites that we can be using to engage young people in learning and collaboration and break out from the industrial revolution version of school that still exists across the world.

Welcome to my new blog!

I am currently teaching Year 1 and I love what I do.

Here I will be giving you a glimpse of some of the exciting things we do in the classroom as well as links to any great resources I find.

Enjoy!

Cassie