Blog: Education HQ Australia
Blog post: Students lead new PD program for South Australian teachers
Posted on Facebook by Brenton Wilson
Blog: Scope Vlog (video blog)
Blog post (You Tube video): Magnet rubric boards
Posted on Twitter by @phys_educator
Blog: Mind Shift how we learn
Blog post: Apps that challenge kids to solve environmental issues
Posted on Twitter by @MindShiftKQED
The TfEL Review Tools Handbook asks us to view our teaching through three lenses.
This term we have self-reflected on our teaching using the TfEL Reflection document. We will continue to use this document in term 2 until we have reflected on each of Domains and Elements (2, 3, & 4).
Classroom observations provide us with the opportunity for a peer to help us focus on a specific area of our teaching. It also provides the observer the chance to experience another teacher’s classroom and see how they teach.
In week 1 of term 2 we will be reflecting on how this process is going at PBAS and discuss the positives and negatives teachers have experienced so far. The purpose of this will be to collect information so that leadership and teachers can refine and improve the process to make it as effective as possible.
From my perspective this area seems to be the one that many teachers are hesitant to engage in. This is not to say that it doesn’t occur. I am aware that some PBAS teachers have sought feedback from their students about their teaching.
This process does not need to be complicated or drawn out. In my 9/10 class I asked students to write the top 3 things teachers did to support their learning. Click here to read all 41 responses and see how I developed the following four questions based on these responses.
For questions 1, 2 and 4 students had the option to select Excellent, Good, Satisfactory, Partial and Minimal. For question 3 students could select Talks too much, Talks the right amount and Does not talk enough (needs to explain more). While these questions are limited and do not cover every aspect of teaching they do cover what PBAS Year 9/10’s believe is important with regards to teachers supporting their learning. If we are looking for student feedback why wouldn’t we start with what is important to them?
Teachers of 9/10 students at PBAS could use the four questions above knowing that this is what our students believe best supports their learning. I used the online tool Socrative which is easy to use and provides collated Excel and PDF versions of student responses. Adding this feedback to my own reflection and peer observations is helping me to understand areas in my teaching that I can work on and develop.
NB – I would like to try and find some time to run a spotlight session on how to use Socrative if there is some interest from other teachers. With MacBooks and iPads available to use in classrooms it has great potential.
Below: Keen to learn more about Socrative right now? An easy to use tool for quizzing students about subject content or to seek feedback about your teaching.
ACARA is currently developing work sample portfolios for Technologies, The Arts, Health and Physical Education, Geography (7-10), Economics & Business (7-10) and Humanities and Social Sciences (F-6/7). Technologies will be the first to be published later in 2016 while it is expected that some samples in other subject areas will also be published also in 2016.
These portfolios will be published in ACARA’s new content management system which will allow much greater flexibility when viewing work samples. The new system will offer teachers a search function, the ability to view BELOW, AT and ABOVE samples of the same task alongside each other or view similar samples from a specific learning area together. It will significantly increase the ease and ways in which teachers can interact with the work samples.
Below: View of the new Australian Curriculum work samples
ACARA has also updated and improved its scope and sequence documents. The Australian Curriculum website provides “Achievement on a page” and “Content for a year level” documents which provide useful overviews of subject content and achievement standards. You can access these documents via links on the following pages.
Click here to view the Senior Australian Curriculum overview. This page lists 15 senior subjects across English, maths, science and humanities and social sciences. Each subject has a link which provides a Unit Description, Learning Outcomes and Content Descriptors.
The above information (except for the Senior Australian Curriculum section) was taken from the ACARA Primary Matters newsletter 8 March 2016.
If you would like to subscribe to further ACARA updates click here.
You Tube is one of the greatest free sources of educational material that we have access to on a daily basis. Want to know how to program your TV, fix an issue with your computer, learn a new language, improve your maths? Then go to You Tube. The list of things you can learn is seemingly endless.
I have previously posted (see below) about how useful Twitter and Facebook can be in the classroom and for professional development and thought it would be useful to look at You Tube in more detail.
Firstly create an account for You Tube. Obviously you do not need an account to access You Tube but if you want to subscribe to other people’s channels or post your own videos it is necessary. Click here to create an account.
The image below shows my subscriptions down the left hand side.
Created playlists appear in your account – see the centre row of the image below.
Create your own channel. Do you want to create your own educational videos for students? Do you want to get your students creating their own educational videos to demonstrate their learning or to teach their peers? You can use your channel to post and share these videos. Click here to create your own channel. If you don’t want to make your videos Public there are other options when you upload a video including Unlisted and Private.
The Khan Acadamy – The Khan Academy has multiple channels. Go to their main channel and then click on the ‘channels’ link to access specific channels in a variety of subject areas.
Bearded Science Guy – Amazing science experiments.
Bill Nye The Science guy – Range of science topics.
Veritasium – Veritasium is a channel of science and engineering videos featuring experiments, expert interviews, cool demos, and discussions with the public about everything science (check out their cool slinky video).
TED-Ed – Lessons created by talented teachers and professional animators.
Crash Course – Courses on: Anatomy & Physiology; Astronomy; U.S. Government and Politics; Economics. Playlists for past courses in World History, Biology, Literature, Ecology, Chemistry, Psychology, and US History.
MyPEexam – Senior PE concepts explained
PhysEd Games – Simple PE games
ThePhysicalEducator – ThePhysicalEducator.com is an online professional development resource for physical educators.
AITSL – The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) provides national leadership for the Commonwealth, State and Territory Governments in promoting excellence in the profession of teaching and school leadership.
Edutopia – Edutopia creates videos about what’s working in K – 12 education.
Teaching and Learning in South Australia – This channel features videos related to teaching and learning.
BBC Earth – You’ll find 50 years worth of astounding, entertaining, thought-provoking and educational natural history content on here (short clips from TV shows like Deadly 60 and David Attenborough documentaries).
National Geographic – Inspiring people to care about the planet.
Bio – Short biographies on famous people. American centric.
Smithsonian – Smithsonian Channel explores the history of our planet, life and culture.
ThinkEdAust – Resilience, Optimism & Confidence for Kids through Education.
Babble Dabble Do – Combining science, technology, engineering, art and math. More projects can be found on http://babbledabbledo.com/
Tinker Lab – Hands-on activities for kids that encourage creative and critical thinking skills. The projects lie at the intersection of science, art, and technology, and are fun, simple, and use basic materials.
Watch the short video showing Chicago teachers in a PD session. The way the consultant is presenting could be taken in one of two ways:
You Tube description of video content: “This presenter was one of several consultants flown in from California and the United Kingdom for the Chicago Public Schools’ Office of Strategic School Support Services’ special network. This is a professional development for teachers of Saturday ISAT preparation classes.”
Source: Washinton Post
Blog: NA
Blog post: Game assessment in PE
Posted on Twitter by @pilly66
Blog: Dan Haesler
Blog post: What kids *really* want from us when they ask for help … – Do we really help bullied students when they approach us for help?
Posted on Twitter by @danhaesler
Title: Emily Tout Growth Mindset Speech – A student talks about how she applied a growth mindset.
Posted on Twitter by @davidfawcett27
Social media is great for professional development. For me you can’t go past Twitter but my other two favourites are You Tube and more recently Facebook. With some time and effort, you can create a large network of educational professionals from around the world that constantly feed you information that can inspire you to try new things or challenge/reinforce your beliefs about teaching.
Social media is 24/7 so if you already use or are planning to use it then try not to read everything that comes your way, mainly because you can’t! View your professional social media stream when it suits you. If you find something you like and don’t have time to read or view it then favourite or like it so you can come back to it at another time.
Most recently I have discovered Facebook as a way to access information about teaching and learning. I have a Facebook account for school and follow a number of Groups and Pages:
The TfEL Teachers Companion Group has been set up by the Learning to Learn team from DECD to support those who are using the TfEL Companion Diary. The diary sets a focus linked to TfEL each fortnight and the Facebook Group supports this by posting relevant information linked to the focus. It also promotes PD opportunities as well as providing the opportunity to pose questions around teaching and learning. The Group provides great information regardless of whether you have the diary or not.
So if you have a Facebook account why not add some of these Groups or Pages to your feed?
The Centre for Education Statistics Evaluation has released a report on Re-assessing Assessment.
What gives assessment a bad name? What is effective assessment? And what innovative tools are making assessment more effective? This paper examines developments in assessment around the world, and highlights cases of innovation and best practice.
Image source: Virtual team builders
I recently read a blog post by Chris Wejr, called 8 Strategies to Bring Out The Best in Your Staff, shared on Twitter by @rhonimcfarlane.
The article gave me cause to reflect on my practice as a leader and how I support other staff. It also made me think specifically of the staff that I line manage and the effectiveness of my leadership in this area. This was something already in the forefront of my mind as I am currently meeting with and helping the staff I line manage to write their professional development review for 2015.
Chris’ article is based on the research of the Corporate Leadership Council who surveyed over 19000 employees in 34 large companies in 27 countries to determine key strategies to increase performance in the workplace. Chris has made links between what was found by the survey and how it relates to a school environment.
I have asked myself some questions and reflected on my leadership based on some of the points from Chris’ post. I have considered these questions from two points of view:
1. As a line manager – directly in relation to those I line manage.
2. As Teaching and Learning Coordinator and my relationship with all staff at PBAS.
1. Helping find solutions to problems at work resulted in an increase of 23.7% in individual employee performance.
2. Helping employees to attain needed information, resources, and technology resulted in an increase of 19.2% in performance.
3. Emphasis on performance strengths (in formal reviews) resulted in an increase of 36.4% in individual performance while the emphasis on performance weaknesses resulted in a decrease of 26.8% in performance.
4. Providing fair and accurate informal feedback resulted in an increase of 39.1% in individual performance. Manager knowledge about employee performance resulted in an increase of 30.3%.
5. Being provided with the opportunity to work on things you do best resulted in an increase of 28.8% in individual performance.
What do you believe makes a good line manager? How do you want to be supported with your professional development? Would appreciate any comments.
Blog: Teacher Solutions
Blog post: What’s teacher resistance all about?
Posted on Facebook (TfEL Teachers Companion group) by Karen Cornelius
Blog: Practical theory: A view from the school house
Blog post: Professional development a collective wisdom
Posted on Twitter by @chrislehmann
Blog: Edutopia
Blog post: Student-Led Conferences: Empowerment and Ownership
Posted on Twitter by @gregwhitby