Cam’s Ramblings

Seriously.

 I have that much going on at the moment. Assignments for all four subjects (three of them are due this week), planning for my rounds to try and do (which is tough when I can’t see my teachers ’till the day I start), a social calendar which is too full (a 21st to go to on Saturday night, a family birthday and footy on Sunday, and another 21st [which will be awesome] the Saturday after. Then I start rounds.

On top of that, I have to finish the planning of a short course with church to attract more people into drama, and try to organise the next PD week meeting.

 My life it, to date, quite a strssful place to be! Hopefully, come next Thursday once most of this has passed, I’ll be back to normal. Here’s hoping!

At least for the next few weeks, I know what my goals are. So that’s a good sign.

I completed my professional audit the other day, and now know the direction I’m headed in. To start off with, I’m looking at assessment and possibly reporting. I need to some experience in writing, using and marking a good assessment task, other than a standard class test. I don’t yet know which class I am going to do this for, possibly because I am yet to talk to my supervising teachers, so I will have about a week to write the task. I have, in total, three weeks to complete this task.

As to where I’m headed after this, well we’ll just want and see. My second goal has to be something I can complete while not at a school, whereas my third goal is accompanied by another lot of teaching rounds. I’m thinking that will have somehting to do with units of work or student relationships.

As for today, it’s the ’start’ of mid-semester break. I’ve been at uni for all of five days (2 days for 3 weeks minus a public holiday) and already I get a week off. Ah, the life of a student. Bad news though, is now it’s 10 weeks ’till another week off. Then exams. ANd exams suck. This semester is made all the more tricky by my maths I’m studying, as I’m not completly ‘getting’ it yet. But that’ll happen, I’m sure.

Well, it’s official. My ability to organise and plan things on a ‘professional’ level is about to come in handy again. I’ve been elected (though others would say I just said I was) the chairperson of our 4th Year PD week. This means I get the job of overseeing the entire operation. From booking speakers, to collecting fees, to cooking lunch, to thanking speakers. I get to do it all.

I must say, it is a really neat concept. In the ’study week’ before Semester 1 exams, we organise a week of PD’s for final year education students. Last year they ran about 12 different sessions, from dealing with disabilities to including your gifted students all the way to basic IT skills and effective use of smart white boards. We are looking to grow the program this year, and possibly offer it to other campus’, with a thought of other universities being offered a number of places.

It’s quite a challenge, having to manage the group. We’re only in the initial phase at the moment of finding out what people would like to see happen. But over the net week we hope to get a much clearer view of the types of sessions we’ll be able to offer.

So enough of me trying to plug my greatness. I did my professional audit over the past few days, and my gaps in professional experience and evidence are very plain see. I have to develop in terms of assessment, planning units of work (not just individual lessons) and student management issues. As I have to have a presentation on one of these ready in about 5 weeks, I’ve chosen assessment as my first area to develop in. My rounds in 2 weeks will hopefully give me ample opportunity to try some ideas out and see what works for me.

But for now, the world of Web2.0 awaits. It’s online week for one of my subjects, and I get to play with new apps on the ‘net. Well, maybe not ‘new’, but certainly not old either.

Have a safe Easter

~cam

Tomorrow (…well, today, it’s just gone midnight) I begin a key phase of my study for this year. I will be completing a self-audit of myself, as a teacher, against the standards set for teaching by the VIT.

This audit will hopefully identify a number of areas in which I can improve my teaching, or other areas of the profession (assessing, report writing…), and thus shape the remainder of my year. It will give me a clear indication of what I need to focus on while I’m in a school later this year, as well as tell me the types of PDs I should be on teh lookout for.

Now I’ll be completely honest here. I have not yet looked at the process of the audit. I have looked at the standards, and I know roughly the areas I’m not feeling too good about. So I can predict the key issues I hope it will identify.

• Behaviour Management – I have had very few classes with significant behavious issues to date. I need to be challenged in this area. I have already decided that the first time I teach any class I will spend 5 minutes discussing classroom respect.
• Challenging curriculum – lets face it, maths is a subject which is pressed for time already. While I’ve seen the benefits of a creative and challenging curriculum for students, I can’t see how I will fit it into my classes. So developing simple, short and challenging lessons is a challenge for me.
• Technology – I know, I know, I’m an IT teacher. People come to me for help with this stuff. But, the one technology I know little about is the new Smart Board which is being used in a number of schools at the moment. I’ve heard (and seen videos) of some great things these boards are doing in classes, but am yet to use one myself.

After I do the audit, I’ll post back and see how close my predicted issues are to what I have really identified. And in the meantime, enjoy the heat!

~cam

Hi.

My name is Cam, and I am a fourth year teacher education student. At the end of this year I intend to graduate, as a high school teacher of Mathematics and Information Technology.  I have aways enjoyed studying maths, and my classes at uni have only added to my enjoyment.

Originally,  I was destined to teach Biology (and not Info. Tech.), because some of the core units I needed  to become an I.T. teacher were not available. However, my desire to sleep was so incrediby overwhelming in almost all Biology lectures, thus ensuring I failed the first unit. Luckily for me though,  the units I needed for I.T. became available, so I am back on the path I originally wanted to be on.

This blog has been started so I can document my thoughts and ideas throughout this final year of study. I hope to be able to share ideas with other teacher education students, share ideas about my pending interview portfilio, and of course be inspired by the lucky few who happen to stumble across this.

I do have a goal, of course, of growing this into a series of blogs for differant classes. While I am yet to give it too much thought, in one of todays classes we were introduced to blogging as a a classroom tool. While I knew it existed, and was used to some degree, I had never considered the full and proper use a teacher may get from such a thing. So we’ll see. It may work, it also may not.

I must thank my awesome tutor, Lance, for showing us this site to allow my blogging journey to begin. Send me some email or leave a comment, I’d love to know how you found this place (and even why you decided to look for it).

Oh, and as the title may suggest, my spelling and grammar aren’t very good. There’s a reason I’m not an English teacher! 

Have fun!
~cam