Cam’s Ramblings

Rounds are done and dusted for another semester. I’m yet to receive my report from the school, but I have been told I will get it on Monday. Not that I’m expecting anything bad, in fact the opposite. I have been told by both my supervisors that I have done very well and am going to be well prepared when I enter the classroom in about 8 months time.

To celebrate, some friends and I got together on Friday for a Wii afternoon (or as I now call then, Wii-ternoons). Not only was it because of rounds being over, but because I have recently acquired one of the greatest games of all time for the Wii. Mario Kart. Need I say more!?!?

I bought Mario Party about a week after it came out, I was lucky enough to get Super Paper Mario and Super Mario Galaxy for Christmas, and I bought Mario Kart the day it came out. It’s so far a very good game, the ability to race around the world via the built in WiFi is certainly a big plus in my opinion. We’ll just have to wait and see how ‘big’ the use of WiFi comes for the Wii, it’s certainly got potential.

But that’s all for now. I’m going to get back to work on some PF work I need to do. Enjoy your weekend!

I’m going to miss this school.

I haven;t made as much of an attachment to any school as I have the one I am currently teaching at. While I’m still undecided about whether or not I would apply for a position there next year (should they advertise a graduate maths one, that is), I’m really starting to get along with the staff and students well.

My IT class sat their test last week, the majority of the did fail (the average mark was less than 50%), however there were some stand out performers. One student gt 85% for just writing a slab of text when I asked for a poster. It didn’t really matter, he demonstrated a level of knowledge not a single other student managed to.

My maths class is having difficulty coming to terms with the understanding. I spend an entire lesson today on some theorems which they should have learnt by now. I asked a student to write a certain theorem on the board, and got a very wrong answer. So it has pushed my agenda back, and it means the next part of the curriculum will be rushed. Which probably doesn’t matter so much, considering it’s an application of something they already know.

The staff I’ve been working with and sharing offices with are just great. They all take the time out to talk to me, and have offered some great advice. I’m arranging to do some work with one of the English classes (…but I don’t know anything about English!!), running some debating workshops. That could turn out to be quite interesting, considering I may be teaching half of the students next semester when I return to the college.

All in all, my time at this school has been enjoyable. I have taken some good ideas away, and am now looking forward even more to having my own class, and teaching them all by myself. Yay!

I’ve now completed exactly half of my required days at my placement school for this semester. The time has gone fast, and I feel I haven’t achieved very much yet.

I have an IT class which will be doing a short test for me on Thursday. The test is somewhat unconventional, in that I am not going to get them to answer straight questions. They will be making a poster based around a series of focus question I have written. The content is fairly easy, and comes straight from their textbook.

This should, in theory, lead to a fairly easy task for them. But I’m not expecting it to be completed so easily. The class has a number of VCAL students, who are sometimes difficult to motivate. While I honestly think most of them will try their best, quite a few have a tendency to not work in class. Only time will tell though.

As for my maths class, tomorrow we face a big challenge. Long division of polynomials is something a lot of Year 11 students struggle with. I have a number of exercises ready to give them, and hope that over the double lesson we can make a good start on breaking down what we are to do.

In terms of my professional goals for this set of practicum, my main goal was to set and report back on a piece of assessment. So after Thursday I should be feeling much more on the way to achieving this outcome which will make me feel a bit better about things. As for now though, I have to return to my dreaded Uni study. Thankfully, I’ve been able to break it down a bit, I’m taking a lot of the unnecessary language away and really just learning about modular arithmetic. It’s not so bad when I put it like that!

This will quite likely form the first of many reports on my experiences teaching this year. I have been at my school now for two days, have taught two classes and had the chance to see others in action. I have only seen two teachers, but will certainly endeavour to see others as the weeks go on.

So this post is more about my reactions to being in such a large school. I am at a Prep – Year 12 school, which means thirteen years of education are being catered for on the one site. It makes for a geographic nightmare, with many new staff (and students) getting lost very easily. Thankfully, this school have set themselves up into three sub schools, Junior, Middle and Later Years, each of which have their own reception and building.

Fortunately for myself, I am only teaching in the Later Years. I have an IT and a maths class, each of which will give me many challenges to face over the coming weeks. One class has particular management issues, which I am looking forward to attempting to work with.

The biggest benefit I have come across so far is that for three classes a week I get to teach with an interactive whiteboard. I am yet to use of them, so am hopeful my first class on Friday will give me ample opportunity to have a go at it. I’ve heard of some amazing things being done with them, but from what little I have seen I must admit, I am not overly impressed yet (though I must admit, it was used, quite literally, as a whiteboard. Nothing special was done with it).

It’s a good school, most of the staff are friendly and willing to lend a hand to a lost teacher in need which is always good. Hopefully I can build some positive relationships with this place over the remainder of the year.

Today marked the end of Daylight Savings in Victoria. So when I went to bed last night, I was supposed to set all my clocks back an hour. Of course I didn’t, for reasons which are completely irrelevant to the topic, but may have involved a 21st birthday party (more on that later, perhaps). Instead, I put my clocks back earlier today. I found it quite interesting a number of different ways a clock can be set. Some have dials, others buttons. Some have one two buttons, one each for advancing the hour and minute display. Some you can key in the exact time on a number pad.

But that’s starting to get away from what I think may be a good learning exercise for maths students. How do our lives change during daylight savings times? Do we go to bed earlier or later? Do we spend more time outdoors? What are the things we tend to do differently on account of more sunlight later in the day.

Year 8-9 students who are learning how to draw pie graphs could do a simple exercise, where they are required to keep a daily journal of what they do for a week during summer, then fora  week during winter. Of course, this may be impractical, so any two weeks are fine to use – as long as one is during EST, one during DEST. Students then calculate the percentage of each week they spent doing certain activities – sleep, eat, study, work, sport, socialise etc. Then the put this information onto a pie graph, first on paper, then into Excel.

I wonder how many students would fail to take into account that the width of each piece of pie was not equal to the percentage value they were trying to draw, but instead multiplied by 3.6 (as 360 degrees in a circle). Additionally, how many would try to work out each individual days percentage then add the together?

 I may have to try this type of activity on my rounds later this year. And speaking of rounds, I start on Tuesday. My final school, hopefully I get a lot of them.

Cryptography is an amazing subject. You have all the thrills of maths, programming, breaking codes… all the good things about life. Or it may have seemed, back when I chose to do this subject.

You see, I was destined to do a Project unit this semester, but Deakin have changed the structure of the Maths major, so now the Project unit is only offered in second semester. Which meant I needed a single maths unit to complete my major this semester. My choice was limited. In fact, there was no choice. I had to do cryptography.

The unit description sounded alright. I knew of the lecturer, I had been in one of her classes before. The assessment was fair, only three assignments (as opposed to the four most maths subjects have). So I went and enrolled, got the book and rocked up to the first class.

I left that class, totally confused. I have just handed in my first assignment, not totally sure I know what I’m doing. Time will tell how much success I am going to have in this unit. It’s a shame that my thought process has to be this, but I am working to just get through the unit. I’m not aiming for high marks, unlike my other subjects (which are all going awesome, I might say), which means I’m going to be very unmotivated when it comes to doing anything related to study later in the semester.

We’ll just have to see how it ends up, I’m sure my insistance to pass will outweigh everything else. I rekon I’ll even end up with a reasonoble mark.