Food for thought…
That big post?? It’ll probably be a series of smaller posts as I ease back into things. Term 4 was full on. I had more work than expected, and that thrown together with (unsuccessful so far) job hunting convinced me to unplug (literally) for a couple of weeks. However the laptop has now been plugged in again, I’ve started working on my cv and making sure the DET has all the paperwork they need to give me a job (sending positive, employment vibes out into the universe!!)
So, I thought I’d ease back in with this post – just a bit of food for thought.
The Empathetic Civilisation
(If the link doesn’t work, just check it out here. I promise it’s worth the look.)
Big post coming soon…
Uni is over. Assignments are in. I’m working at a tutoring centre 12 hours a week and have just started a 2 week casual block at one of my prac schools. I will be back soon to reflect and post resources, but as I’m sure you can imagine, I barely have time to breathe. Only logged in to read back on the reflection on my Aztecs lessons last year because I’m planning on teaching those lessons tomorrow. Yay for getting to use resources again!
Reflection: English Prac
The final assignment for our English unit was a reflection. I wasn’t sure whether to post it on here, but what is a blog for if not to reflect.
“The relationship between a learner and a teacher is dependent on their level of shared knowledge but the level of learner engagement depends on the teacher’s ability to create a world that the learner can share.”
English is a very unique discipline that allows for so much more than reading and comprehension. The inclusion of the study of multimedia and other texts has expanded English into a subject that is essential for the 21st century learner. This year I started English methodology classes with no idea of how to understand the syllabus or of the particular pedagogies that are required for English teaching. Having spent my third year in History methodology classes and completing prac in the History discipline, and having completed by own HSC over 12 years ago, English as a high school subject had become like a foreign language to me.
I was fortunate to gain a very experienced mentor from a comprehensive high school in a ‘good’ area to supervise my prac this year, and through her mentorship and willingness to share her all of her classes with me, I feel I have successfully made the leap from having absolutely no idea to effective beginning English teacher.
I was exposed to a wide variety of classes, which proved to be a blessing while being incredibly challenging. The classes I was given to ‘practice’ on were a gifted and talented year 8 class, a ‘naughty boys’ (as they were referred to in the staffroom) year 9 class, a mixed ability Standard English year 11 class and a mostly apathetic year 12 Standard English class. Having such a wide variety of students with such a difference of attitudes to the subject provided such a plethora of experiences that, at times, I couldn’t believe they were all students from the same school. This emphasised and impressed upon me the fact that all students are so completely different with different expectations, life experiences and ideas. Although students are not usually divided into classes in the way I experienced, there are always going to be the ‘naughty’ students, or the students who think English is a waste of time, and in contrast those that love English and film and literature and can’t get enough of the subject.
Knowing your students and knowing what content and strategies to use with them was made very clear to me. A film study unit on the horror genre, culminating in the boys creating their own horror stories with the year 9 boys got them engaged without them realising that they were actually ‘doing English’. Their knowledge of this particular genre was much more extensive than the mentor’s or my own, and so we were able to work collaboratively rather than in the formal teacher/student relationship to which they were accustomed and did not respond well to. Getting the gifted and talented year 8 students to create and perform a modern day adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream rather than having them sit and analyse the language had them believing they were constantly having ‘fun’ lessons, as they were working together as a group (or in smaller groups) to produce and share something that they themselves had created.
These two experiences in particular emphasised the changing role of a teacher as being a facilitator of knowledge, rather than the point of knowledge that simply regurgitates knowledge for students to listen to. Letting the students show their own knowledge and expertise, and making learning and teaching a two way process resulted in engagement and enjoyment in their learning. It showed me the importance of creating an environment where the students are comfortable sharing their ideas, trying new things and experimenting with new technologies. Further, maintaining high expectations no matter the previous achievement levels of the student was also highlighted – those considered less able were able to achieve all sorts of outcomes given the right environment, content, pedagogies and attitude.
Shakespeare & Technology
This is another assignment from my final semester English class. There were two parts to this assignment.
1) Select one of the websites about Shakespeare from the e is for English page and discuss how it could be incorporated into an ‘Introduction to Shakespeare’s World’ unit.
2) Take one scene from a given selection and create actor’s notes to assist your students performing this scene.
Introduction to Shakespeare’s World (The Newspaper Office)
Website: Federal Government of Canada’s The Internet Shakespeare
The assumption being made with selecting a site for this task is that the students did not have any exposure to Shakespeare in Stage 4, as Shakespeare is not compulsory until Stage 5. Due to the nature of the structure of the unit (outlined below), a large number of outcomes would be addressed in this unit. In fact, each of the 11 outcomes for Stage 5 is addressed to some extent during the unit.
As the outcomes to be met are very ambitious, a website that contained simply a basic overview to Shakespeare and his times would not suffice. The selected site, The Internet Shakespeare, enables students to investigate facets of Shakespeare’s life beyond the usual descriptions of the Globe Theatre and basics about his life and death.
It is envisioned that this Introduction to Shakespeare’s World would form the first 2 to 3 weeks of a larger Shakespeare unit – most likely a thematic unit focusing on Shakespeare’s Villains, Shakespeare’s Warriors or Shakespeare’s Tragic Heroes. By investigating his life and times students would be able to put the characters of Shakespeare’s plays into context, and come to understand why the characters behave, think and react the way that they do.
The specific section of the site that would be used would be the ‘Life and Times’ section under the larger heading of ‘Library’. This section covers the entirety of Shakespeare’s life, from birth and childhood through to his retirement. It is broken down into logical sub-sections that are easy to navigate, and within each subsection further categorises information into categories; facts, inference and legend. The site includes many images and some audio recordings, therefore catering to a range of learning styles.
In terms of actually teaching this unit, the year 9 English classroom would become a newspaper office for the duration of the 8 week unit. Students would assume the roles of Editors, Subeditors, Writers, Researchers and Designers, and all be responsible for different sections of research, planning and publishing the newspaper. The first lesson would start with an overview of the website, and an ‘employment session’ where students ‘applied’ for the positions they would most like to hold, and the area that interests them the most. The teacher is the employer, and is thus able to differentiate the activity by assigning the more easily achievable articles and sections of the newspaper to the less able students. The idea is to run the classroom exactly as a newspaper would run – some lessons would be dedicated to meetings, there would be ‘professional development’ lessons where the whole class would have ‘workshops’ and listen to presentations about information they are all required to know. For example, in a Shakespeare’s Villains unit, these workshops would focus on characters such as Lady Macbeth and Iago. Other professional development lessons would be opportunities for the teacher to model and scaffold more difficult tasks associated with the newspaper.
There would be lessons where ‘breaking news stories’ would guide students who are nearing the end of their current tasks, and deadlines throughout to ensure the stories don’t all reach the editing, design and publishing phase at the same time. Students would be ‘promoted’ and moved into new positions throughout the unit to ensure an equal distribution of work and learning. The newspaper would then be ‘published’ and made available to all the students in the class. This would also enable reinforcement of previous units on newspapers and article writing.
By splitting the work into categories and having students take responsibility for their learning and publication of their newspaper, the task would appear to be fun and not as daunting or onerous as asking students to produce a presentation on their own would be. Further, the novelty of running the class like a newspaper or magazine office would inspire and motivate students who may otherwise claim to find the idea of a Shakespeare unit boring or irrelevant.
Macbeth Performance Guide & Notes
This can be downloaded in full: Macbeth Performance Guide & Notes. Please ensure you have the font ‘Conrad Veidt’ for the best results. These were printed and glued together into an A5 booklet format.
English: Poetry & Technology
The Task:
Compile a Poetry Anthology of 10-12 poems for a year 11 class.
- at least 4 must be pre-20th century, and NONE can be from any of the poets in the HSC 2009-2012 prescriptions.
- a maximum of 1 set of lyrics or prose poem is allowed.
- cannot be the work of only one poet.
A clear focus (concept, theme, poetic style, period) needed to be developed. The anthology along with an introduction / rationale needed to be presented in a wiki. Further, a resource utilising technology teaching students about poetic techniques and their effects in two of the poems had to be included.
My wiki can be found here: Emo Poetry
My rationale for selecting this particular theme, my poem choices and also a ‘unit introduction’ are all available on the Wiki.
Overall, I wanted to steer away from the popular topics (Australian and War) while still exposing students to a wide range of poetry. I wanted to ease students in with ‘easy’ poems, and slowly dig further through history.
The resource:
I received a Distinction for this assignment.
History Extension
This assessment focused on the History Extension course. I was required to select one of the case studies and
a) Prepare a presentation to introduce the areas of debate associated to this case study to a HSC class (and present it to my tutorial group). This presentation had to
- provide an overview of the areas of historical debate associated with the case study
- analyse the key features of one of these areas of debate
b) Create a sequence of 3 learning activities related to the case study to address outcome E1.1. They had to focus on a different area analysed in part A and had to include:
- at least one based on sources
- at least one requiring informed student discussion based on prior reading and reflection
- at least one requiring a written response related to a historiographical issue
c) Consider the rationale and philosophy behind the extension course and explain how my teaching will cater for it. (500 words)
I decided to use this opportunity to incorporate some Web 2.0 tools – namely Blogger and SlideShare. The entire assignment was submitted in blog form – History Extension: Early History of Israel.
This assignment received a HD.
Death by PowerPoint
I came across this fantastic presentation full of design tips for educators. This presentation is one of the best looking PowerPoints I’ve ever come across, and I’ll definitely be taking its advice.
War poetry
I have a couple of assignments in the works at the moment. Whilst working on my WW1 History assignment, I came across something that almost made me change my topic for my English Poetry assignment.
The BBC UK website has two great animations to help students visualise war poetry – In Flanders Fields by John McCrae and Zeppelins by Nancy Cunard.
These can be used for both History and English – Zeppelins can be used as a source for women on the British homefront, and they can both be used in various poetry units for English.
World Religions – Rites of Passage: Funerary Practices
Following is a unit of work I submitted as part of the Teaching Religions of the World course. It was designed to follow on from other units of work in an overarching ‘World Religions Rites of Passage’ theme. This would be suitable for a year 9 or 10 class.
PPT Presentation: Christian Beliefs about Death and the Afterlife (compilation of resources) for the lesson plan above.
This assignment received a High Distinction.
Philosophy of Religion
This unit was tough. It really made me consider what exactly my thoughts were about religion and God, and as soon as I thought I had my thoughts straight, a new reading would be thrown at us that would spin my mind back into a whirlpool.
There were three assessable components – a journal which had to be updated weekly, a teaching unit and an essay selected from a range of topics.
The journal is 17 pages long and a lot of it quite personal, so I won’t be posting it here. The essay too, while it received a decent mark, upon a re-read seems very garbled and I don’t think I want to share that either.
What I am happy to share however is my teaching unit.
Who is God, and do I believe he exists?
It is an introduction to philosophy of religion for a year 11 class. The unit requires students to examine both sides of this argument, and the unit culminates in a lesson where students show a short film that they have created in groups answering this question. The unit aims to be as objective as possible, presenting both sides in an equal manner so as to allow students to really think about the ideas.
Download the unit: Who is God, and do I believe He exists? Unit includes overview of 10 lessons, a full lesson plan for lesson 3 ‘What is God?’, an assessment task and marking rubric, and comprehensive bibliography.