Choice of pedagogy- Gradual Release of Responsibility

The most often used pedagogy, like many other students is the Gradual Release of Responsibility; I do, you do we, do. It has also been pedagogical choice of many of my mentors and has prove to be most beneficial time and time again. Throughout previous professional experiences, I have introduced this pedagogy through dialogue at the beginning of each lesson. By doing so, students are aware of the content that they will be learning along with knowing what is expected of them throughout the lesson.

This method of explicit teaching ensures and confirms student knowledge and understanding, whilst allowing the educator to continuously monitor student progress where feedback can be provided immediately in context to the childs learning progress, where the educator can then provide assistance, allocate extra time to the particular task/learning content or move forward to the next challenge within the lesson

To find out more about this pedagogy, follow this link 

Identifying ICTs

Just to fill up a little more blog posts I’m back tracking my responses to forums.

This one was on the basis of identifying ICTs their operation and the description of outcome in context to the Hello Kitty in space project. Click here for the link to the video

ICT: Go Pro Camera

Operation: Recorded Evidence

Description of Comments:  High-definition compact camera used for extreme-action video photography – in this case, collecting point of view imagery of Hello Kitty being sent into space

ICT: Hand held camera/camcord

Operation:Record evidence

Description of Comments:The hand held camera records the main process that was undergone to create this project

ICT:Weather balloon

Operation: Records pressure, temperature, humidity

Description of Comments:Weather balloon was used to record altitude, wind-speed, and temperature in the atmosphere and tropopause

ICT: Movie maker/Itunes

Operation:Presentation

Description of Comments:Used to put together filmed data, add music and sound to support the theme of the clip

ICT: YouTube

Operation: Presentation

Description of Comments: Final presentation of project

ICT: WIFI

Operation: internet access

Description of Comments:used to upload clip to internet

ICT: GPS

Operation:tracking

Description of Comments:Used to locate Hello Kitties location

ICT: Laptop

Operation: ICT operations

Description of Comments: primary foundation to support the evidence of project

Developing lessons to suit the learning context.

What do I want the students to learn? How will I know that they have learned?
What the students will be learning are the key components within my lesson that have been directly linked to the content descriptors within the Australian Curriculum. To ensure students have developed a sound understanding, students will participate in a range of formative and summative assessments that will be based around explicit, guided and individual learning pedagogies that will have been implemented through a range of frameworks.
What are the school resources and practices around this content? Are there school-based expectations of how it should be taught? 

There are set expectations that have been held by the school. As long as students gain an insightful learning experience that can be related to real life experiences.

What are the students familiar with? What bores them? What excites them?

These students have not had a lot of interaction with the ICTs in their learning environment, other than replaced storybooks for YouTube in the IWB. Students were very engaged and eager to learn in context to learning experiences with the use of the desktops and iPads as it was something that was considered a privilege.
What do I know about the students?

The students come from varied living backgrounds, as Quilpie’s lower socio-economic families were located within the town itself, whilst the children from middle-class families often came from a property located outside of the town

What do I know about the context, the timing, the room, the other resources?

The context of my professional experience was based out in Quilpie. I had a p-2 class of 19 children. The room learning space was separated into two rooms, one being the Prep room – the other being the formal classroom for the year ones and two students. The ICT resources I had access to were 20 school iPads, and 6 classroom desktops.

What are the different components of what the students have to learn? What are some good strategies to help them learn these components?

Learning components will vary depending on the unit plan and links to the CD’s. However due to being a younger class who need consistent prompting, I found that explicit and guided learning situations often provided the students with a quality education.

How much time do I have to develop this plan? How am I feeling? What are my strengths & weaknesses? 

The opportunity was there to commence my lesson plans prior to my prac experience, however, since did not have access to the C2C documents I was unsure in regards to how I would go about planning. In saying this, I would say one of my weaknesses is not having the confidence to have a go and develop a lesson structure, though looking back, if I at least had a crack, I would have been able to visualise the relationship in regards to where I went wrong- thus allowing room for error

Digital footprint

Now, when I clicked on this module booklet, the last thing I expected to see was a bear breasted lady tweaking upside down on her bedroom wall… Nor did I expect to see a ‘lady’ of sorts photographing herself having a clambake in her car. Talk about a sight for sore eyes!

Now, I knew from around the age of 14 or 15 that what goes up on the internet, stays there… forever – or like Rebecca mentioned in her blog post; your digital footprint is the data you leave as you interact with the services online.
Simply using the Internet and other services leaves a trial behind.

Long story short, I would hate to think of some of the issues that would have arose for these two people on the basis of their photos – as this could lead to anything such as harassment in the workplace, loss of job, and possibly even criminal charges of sorts. 

Like Kathleen, who completed This point brings be back to my last post about the importance of educating the adolescent audience who are more than often at the centre of these matters. Connect.ed has published some great advise and information on their article of So you got naked online to assist the younger generations in leaving a digital footprint that won’t damage ones wellbeing.

Connect.ed

Completing the Connect.ed modules really provided detailed insight in regards to how often not only us – but society in general rely on the internet and technology in our day to day lives. However, it isn’t often that we think about the implications and effects that the use of social media can have on members in our society. The modules did a wonderful job at creating detailed insight and delivering key issues that surround the matter of ICTs. I believe this program would highly benefit, educate and provide a useful skill set to high school students in particular as this age sector is often seen at the centre of dealing with such issues such as cyber-bullying, peer pressure and developing friendships.

You can view my Connect.ed certificate through clicking on this link 

P…Pr. Procat.. hang on no, pro..cras…….. tin… at…..io…….

Most challenging aspect of prac: NO INTERNET – well, for personal use that is.

So after being away from home for a month, I’m finally back into the world of civilisation, the world where I don’t get the choice to ignore uni simply because I don’t have access to it… Looking back, I should have at least gave it a shot, even if it meant getting $180 telsta bills simply for taking my hot spot on a joy ride… and now here I am, I’ve been nipped on the butt, and am stuck playing catch up.

…And my goodness, this assignment… It is HUGE!  But hey… maybe I’m just one of those people who work better under pressure-  But I do have to say, after procrastinating and spending my time reading about why procrastinators procrastinate it really all does makse sense… I subconsciously am the irresponsible owner of my very own gratification monkey.

Fear: The likelihood of something unwelcome happening

It seems to happen all too often when facing that prac time of year… Fortunately I wasn’t in Jess’s position, don’t think I could handle that on top of being so far from home! In saying that, I thought to share by biggest far/concern in regards to completing professional experiences.

The top 2 challenges/problems/mistakes you have faced or made on prior Professional Experiences:

1: On of my past mistakes when being on prac was that I had a lesson that I had not entered my prac experience knowing the context of the classroom I was teaching in. Such as being unaware of learning needs, behavioural issues, and my mentors expectations – oops.

2: Not effectively organising myself the night before and multi-tasking with assessment. This would more so leave me in a mad rush the following morning to print off lessons and source out activities.

The top 2 fears/challenges you have about your EDC3100 Professional Experience.

1: My first concern is having no support network where I am heading (10 hours away from home) in central QLD (Quilpe)

2: This has proven to be a HUGE struggle – I can not emphasise it enough, but keeping my head above water in regards to professional standards as a preservice educator, and doing my best to manage my time effectively with assessment.

Your email is about to be spammed, don’t say I didn’t warn you!

I’m back from spending the past month out in Quilpie and I can safely say that this experience was hands down the best one I’ve had yet, why? Well the ladies at the pub know my choice of drink as soon as I walk through the door, my mentor created my social life- I did something every weekend and caught up with my new found friends at least twice to three times during the week (Why doesn’t this happen in Toowoomba?!) and finally, although everyone knowing everyone may have its ups and downs in rural communities, I found the towns people and school community to be so welcoming, enthusiastic, and supportive of my decision to ‘give it a go’!- especially when a stranger would come up to me on the street and introduce themselves to me because they heard I was the ‘new Catholic school teacher’ – little did they know, it was only temporary!

Though I suppose while I’m talking about all these brilliant and marvellous aspects of my prac,  I should spill the news on those aspects that weren’t so crash hot. Theres one issue in particular that really stands out… I had no/limited access to internet other than 3pm-5pm Monday to Friday. Long story short, Telstra is probably planning who’s turn it is first to start rolling in the money that I payed towards my phone bill this month.

So believe it or not, here I am, with a list of written entries beside me ready to be blogged now that I have access to my dear old friend, the internet…. It really is funny to see how we take such privileges for granted.

Backwards Design Model

So, another assignment done and dusted… Well almost! I must say though, this has to be one of the most challenging subject/series of assignments I’ve done to date – between the amount of time that I’ve spent flicking through my prior practical experience resources, changing the presentation of my unit plan, and  researching  the use of particular teaching resources – it’s fair to say it was extremely time consuming and exhausting!

However, I believe that unlike a lot of assignments – this one actually provided a practical purpose as it allowed me to engage and explore a variety of teaching processes such as the Backwards Design Model – which isn’t nearly as difficult as what the picture depicts!

I was enabled to explore what it was that I wanted to achieve – and from there working out the process that had to be undertaken to make this objective achievable. – With mine being for students to  utilise a range of technologies and organisational methods to successfully plan, draft and publish a narrative text through utilising a range of appropriate literature features such as vocabulary, grammar, and dialogue in context to the original text through your ones own perspective.

By beginning with the end, I was enabled to clearly identify the level of student input that would be required to achieve the ultimate objective as this method of planning engages the teacher through an inquiry process of why am I teaching this along with how is this objective achievable? Through these two inquiry questions alone, teachers are promoted to explore and identify  student capabilities and plan experiences that are challenging, yet achievable in context to the variety of learners and their abilities.

Practical experience, yay or nay?!

So, I hear many of you are still awaiting to find out where you’ve been placed for your practical assessment. I on the other hand, can’t exactly tell whether I should be excited or hiding under my duvet. It’s a pretty big deal. See I had a range of preferences to be placed outside of Toowoomba such as; Cairns, Moree, St. George, Emerald and Springsure… Little did I know I’m off to Quilpie! Yeeha!
I kind of always said I’d be happy to go out there, but looking back now, I think it was all talk, especially with only 2 weeks to go. Nonetheless, I think it’ll be a wonderful experience and a possible career aspect. But cutting to the chase here – I thought I’d share with you some little facts in regards to what my home for the next 3 months will be like.

• Population: 574 people approximately
• Location: Located in the Channel country of South West Queensland
• Distance from Brisbane: 12 hours drive
• School population: 3 teachers, 33 students
• It is also home to the largest dinosaur found in Australia…

What can I say, there’s no place like home!?