How Does Quality Teaching Affect Me?

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One of the many decisions I made when deciding to become a teacher was why I wanted to become one. Apart from feeling that I have a natural ability to teach, it was the fact that on reflection of my schooling my learning became highly affected by having a few in my view poor teachers. The stand out of these was Year 3, Year 5. That and a transition to a new high school half way through year 7, which is another story altogether.

When I went to school, I felt as though rote learning was the only way we did things, teachers concepts of collaboration and reflection were not really around then. Creativity was encouraged but only at specific times with specific purposes i.e. Creative writing. Assignments and assessments were a mystery in what the teacher wanted, I had never experienced a rubric or criteria before admission into university some 12+ years after finishing high school.

I have learnt many things throughout my life, I found travelling the world and having time for reflection extremely important in knowing what and how I want to achieve and grow. The main reason I wanted to become a teacher was to guide children so as their learning experiences were not as rubbish as mine, so this brings to me Quality teaching.

Quality Teaching

Quality teaching is something that is aligned with my own goals of what I want to be like as a teacher. My father influenced me heavily in my life by getting me to question that in which I don’t understand. So what exactly is Quality teaching? It is how to improve the Quality of learning for students by understanding that everybody is different with different needs and abilities.

Let’s dive into it a bit more. Quality teaching involves engaging thoughts of students by Using Intellectual Quality and Significance. Intellectual Quality is about questioning what you know, having a deep understanding of the knowledge, being able to solve problems by using “Higher order thinking” which effectively is Level 3-6 of Blooms Taxonomies. My Definition of this is being able to understand the terms used in a particular subject/schema and to be able to not only relate to the information, but use it effectively as part of already known knowledge or schema. This inter-relates to Significance where prior background knowledge, integration into known schema, and therefore you are able to connect the dots from what is new knowledge to what is old or previously known knowledge.

This is how I learn, when I am able to put in practice the theory I have just learnt, by using the knowledge creatively and expanding and thinking on what or how I can use this further. Or analysing what the point of something is. “Higher order thinking” is key to this, by Explaining, Judge, predict, how something is related to another thought gets you to analyse and see gaps between known and new knowledge.

Quality Learning

Expanding on my own learning, A “Quality Learning Environment” I can see how explicit learning criteria, high expectations, self-regulation and expectations all rely on my engagement to the activity. If I know what is expected I can cater what I am learning to what is required. However this may come with a flaw, if I tailor my focus on just what needs to be learnt, then I may miss a point that may connect the dots between what is learnt and how I can use it practically.

There is definitely a correlation between my own goals and focus to this focus on being a Quality teacher that will hopefully make me into a better teacher.

Complimentary Crazy Cool Colorful Candy Confetti Creative Commons from Pink Sherbet Photography (Flickr)

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Social Media could be a good thing for Learning Development

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There is many bad things written about social media, and its effects. Bullying is a major factor of these problems for online media. Facebook, twitter, texts etc. The case for Facebook being bad in many schools and institutions both private and business is that it is distracting. Facebook and twitter are distracting, friends making posts, tweets about random things and is an escape or way to know what is going on in someones life without speaking to them directly about it.

The Bullying factor is a major hurdle that needs to be overcome. Bullying has always been a major thing in school, when i was in school I was bullied. I was bullied by people in my form, kids lower and higher than me, even my sister got into the act at one stage. Physical by actually hurting me sometimes or mental by names and nasty jokes but even my friends did it. Maybe its part of the Australian culture I don’t know, anyhow getting back on topic I don’t have all the answers to how we get rid of bullying. However I have an idea.

Make Facebook/Twitter a place of social learning and interaction.

Why? well whats the point of going and hanging out somewhere if learning occurs? Is there a problem if learning occurs whilst you are hanging out socially with your friends? As I have got older, and especially being in university you get stuck on things you can’t quite do for assessment or concepts etc. What do you do when you get stuck and you can’t find it on google? You can either go back to the text-book, in which you need to interpret what it says into something you can understand. Or you speak to your friend in the class and you can check your understanding of different bits and pieces together.

Wait! so you mean that Facebook is used and can be used productively to learn? SHOCK HORROR! #GASP!

You may be wondering well saying all this is all well and good, but there is nothing to support your claims that learning on Facebook/Twitter can happen. Well it’s called sociocultural learning and is one important theory on how people learn. This theory developed by Vygotsky is where you learn from cultural tools i.e. Facebook and the langauge used as well as learning from your peers. This all comes from learning in your Zone of proximal Development which interacting with your peers helps you understand and relate to the material, hence the call in recent years for collaboration in assessments and school work.

Why is twitter useful? Because twitter invites posts that must be succinct, but also can allow #hashtags for searching and therefore can be useful in tracking for assessment. I’m not going to get into whether the assessment should be formative or summative this is another kettle of fish altogether.

Basically at the end of the day, if Twitter and Facebook are used not only for social interaction but for learning as well maybe bullying could be reduced? What are your thoughts on this matter?

Pink Sunset of My Dreams Free Creative Commons Waikiki Beach, Hawaii, Flickr User: Pink Sherbet Photography

Twitter as a Classroom aid to Formative Assessment

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I had a thought the other day of using Twitter in the classroom. I think it may be a great way of checking the understanding of students whilst also being able to ask questions at the same time possibly like an online forum?

Flickr @JoshSemans

How would you use twitter?
Firstly you would need to decide on a unique hashtag. Hashtags (#hashtag) allow for tweets to be monitored by a simple search of users posts. So if it was a lesson on Australian History at a public school possibly a tag of #AUHIST7911 (Using a number at the end allows easier tracking of the tweet specifically to the subject at hand). If this is then tracked by the teacher using tweetdeck monitoring all tweets with that particular tag.

Students then can summarise what they have learnt in a particular lesson, and post questions for the teacher to answer. This is also a possible use for distance education, where the history of a discussion can also be tracked. The advantages of this is that the tweets are restricted to 140 characters so therefore the questions or comments must be succinct.

Using this as a form of assessment.
We could see a form of formative assessment for students watching the progress of their thoughts and questions on the topic. It would also be Summative as you can also see the progress as well as their overall thoughts on the subject.

limitations
The biggest limitation of this is if twitter is blocked by the particular educational institution much like Facebook is. Also technology in classrooms is continually plagued by problems and issues most teachers are fearful for using too much technology as it can break. Finally if twitter is down due to having too many tweets this could be completely useless. However most schools and educational institutions use servers normally with sharepoint on them which allow for adaptable monitorable discussions which could be used as an alternative for this.

Using twitter as a formative assessment model came to me after reading  @LearningSpy‘s Blog on Formative Assessment and @creativeedu blog on why teachers should give twitter a go.

Challenges in becoming a male teacher in this day and age

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Male teacher issues and issues with political correctness

This is a blog about possible issues and experiences i have had about becoming a teacher. As a male teacher hopefully going into the primary school system and with today’s nanny state environment I have been alerted to many issues i will face as a teacher. As i am looking after young children there will always be a view that i will have to ensure that inappropriate situations never appear. It should be said that i am a tall man, but also quite large so therefore i’ve been told that i can be quite intimidating to small children.

Being intimidating to small children has its advantages in terms of discipline, but will have downsides in being approachable and being able to acheive this balance seems difficult. I currently work in a after school centre in which I look after primary aged children. During this week, i have been told that to get attention when the kids are going crazy, i should not whistle as my intimidating stature may cause the kindies to freak out. Which means what? I have to yell or clap like every other teacher? NO i’m different so I want to be different.

Another recent issue is that I was in a room with 15 children where they were having a dance party on a cold stormy afternoon. So whilst i’m wathcing the chldren sing and dance to the music and generally tuning out staring right in front of me not watching really (just watching for wrestling and hitting of each other) I am pulled up by the supervisor of the time as it “looked” like i was watching the girls dance, and watching them dance provocatively, whilst the song “Womanizer” was on. Apparently this would not be a good look for when a parent/father walked in the room. So even though i was doing my job and watching the children, all of them people will make these judgements? How in the hell am i going to avoid these situations in the future if?

With these sorts of situations i’m already quite paranoid in not getting myself into any issues by avoiding any physical contact with children. However this is extremely difficult as I also look very cuddly and therefore children want to cuddle me. Especially the kindies! How do I avoid this? Do i really want to avoid this? At the moment i’m saying no to hugs and if they do come up and hug me I say “what do i look like your mother?” to avoid the contact. That said i still have a situation with a child that always wants a hug as her father and mother have recently divorced and this child see’s me as a father figure. I don’t know how, I am only there casually like twice a week and she is always hanging around me. So how do I avoid any issues and keep myself out of trouble?

As you can see as a future teacher I have a few questions about avoiding trouble. As for answers to all these questions i’m sure in time i will have the answers but for now. I just have to be careful in avoiding situations like this.

Another issue is political correctness in this day and age, but that is another blog post all together. I hope you enjoy my blog posts and please feel free to leave me feedback if you have any.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mr_mum1968/396208867/

Flickr user Tasumi1968

Write to Learn

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I’ve found that during my studies that by writing down and summarising what i have done that day/session it helps to re-inforce the knowledge that i have learnt that day.

The reason i have found this so helpful as it allows you to evaluate what you have covered for the day, what is it that you don’t quite know/understand about just yet. If you are studying at the moment I highly recommend using this tip, and it helps you later when you need to review your notes either at the end of the week or just before exam time.

Another concept that was introduced to me was Cornell notes. I must say my initial reaction to this form of notes was more of outright rejection rather then negativity, however looking back on how effective the notes where to study at the end of last semester I found them easier to review then the other subjects i had with either notes everywhere either on a computer or physically. Basically if you have never heard of Cornell notes, it is a different note taking system in which is divided into three sections. In the margin is a part for questions, main ideas, main points etc. The right hand side is for general notes attached to the main idea. At the bottom of the page(s) there is a summary. This is where Write to learn comes in as you are summarising and learning at the same time.