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Posts Tagged ‘uni’

  1. Naive Idealist

    8 April 2015 by shartley

    I’m starting to realise I’m a naïve idealist.  I want to teach in a way that benefits every single one of my students.  I want all my students to learn and achieve as well as they possibly can.  I want all my students to enjoy learning, embrace their positive passions and have a fulfilling life.  That’s all.

    I started studying my Masters of Education just for the piece of paper at the end but fell in love with the course with the very first two subjects, Curriculum and Pedagogy.  I was lucky enough to be well versed in the language of current thinking in these areas.  However, what kept biting me was the amount of rhetoric I was inclined to use without evidence.  Now, I’m so into what I have been learning for the last year and a half I want to just keep on going.

    It felt like I started my PhD this year but technically that’s a long way off yet.  When I finish my M.Ed., I enter the second year of a Masters of Research and then commence my PhD at the end of that.  These last two subjects of my M.Ed. are proving a bit of a stumbling block though.  One, a Literature Review, is meant to help me gain some background knowledge on the area I’m going to cover in my PhD but my grand ideas of writing about some of the big concepts in education keeps being narrowed down and down to a manageable size.  Of course I want my studies to be manageable but I also want to make a big difference.  I don’t think it’s an ego thing but instead I am driven by trying to find what’s the best we, as teachers, can do to help our students.  My other subject is the one I wrote about in my last two posts, an Introduction to Educational Research (EDCN800).

    Only three of the usual crowd of twelve or so turned up for EDCN800 last night, yet I came away more confused than when I arrived and wondered if it had been worth it.  Before arriving, I had a clear idea of what I was going to do for the next task (design a qualitative research study) and had received 3/3 for my proposal (my only 3/3 for our first task) but alas, no more.  You see, I made the mistake of making it an authentic task, something I could see myself doing in real life but really, all we have to do is go through the motions.  My idealism protested somewhat.  I want my learning to be meaningful and practical during the process of doing it.  I’m not just after the marks or even learning this now for some research I might do in the future; as I learn about how to design qualitative research, I want to be actually, in reality, authentically, designing qualitative research.

    However, a piece I have to write within three weeks for a uni assignment is not reality, particularly when talking about designing qualitative research; it normally takes much longer than that.  The literature review I am writing within one semester cannot contain every single article that I need to read to produce a doctorate thesis.  I am struggling with these limitations!!!

    How much more then, are we struggling in high schools to make learning authentic?  How can we help our students think they have something to contribute to the world when we have such short times on any one task, any one topic?  Some say school isn’t real life, that it is a false, socially constructed institution and that we should just accept that it is a mere addendum on real life.  How can we make secondary school learning authentic and meaningful if we can’t make it about the real world?  Do I ask too much?

    PS

    Perhaps my next post will need to be about the benefits of learning for the accumulation of knowledge rather than for practical application because of course, I see a place for that too in our curriculum.  For instance, I know many teachers and students who love learning about Ancient History for the sake of mere interest.  I love novels for what they say about the human condition.

    PPS

    My literature review has morphed into the question:

    What do we know about the connection between ‘assessment for learning’ and the self-regulation of students in secondary social sciences?

    My qualitative research design will be probably based on the question:

    How have teachers responded to change?


  2. Unit evaluation – composing a questionnaire

    5 April 2015 by shartley

    As part of my Masters of Education at Macquarie University I am studying EDCN800 Introduction to Educational Research.  Yesterday’s blog post lamented the frustrations I was having with the statistical aspects of the course. Today I was looking at the construction of questionnaires and the exercise set was basically the writing of some questions for evaluating a unit of study.  The thinking behind these questions is a little influenced by John Hattie’s Visible Learning (2009) which is currently guiding a research project with which I am involved, but mainly they come from an accumulation of experience and study of a wide range of material.  The areas I’ve noted and the questions themselves are not even close to being exhaustive lists. I actually hope to later develop this into a real questionnaire to evaluate my own courses.  I’d be interested in knowing what you would include.

    Aim: Evaluating a unit of study within the Masters of Education program.

    Research participants: Students undertaking the unit of study

    Key areas:

    The learning environment

    • Online
      • Ease of understanding/following procedure and instruction
      • Allows for communication and interaction with instructor and peers
      • Feels inclusive of all (gender, disabilities, internal/external students, etc)
    • On campus
      • Inviting environment (temperature, lighting, seating comfort, etc)
      • Allows for communication and interaction with instructor and peers
      • Feels inclusive of all (gender, disabilities, internal/external students, etc)

     

    The curriculum

    • Knowledge, understanding and skills
      • Made clear
      • Covers a range of lower-order and higher-order thinking skills
      • Challenging but achievable
    • Relevant
      • Builds on prior knowledge
      • Practical application to workplace and/or experience
      • Includes contemporary issues
    • Assessment
      • Both the assessment and related criteria are easy to understand
      • Aligns with goals for knowledge, understanding and skills
      • Offers choice
      • Fair, equitable and achievable (task and weighting)
      • Provides opportunity for feedback during the process
    • Transparent
      • Purpose of the learning is clear
      • All elements/tasks of the course are clear and upfront
      • What lies ahead in the course is clear
      • Timing is clear (module lengths, due dates, etc)

     

    The teacher

    • Knowledgeable
      • Course content
      • Student needs
      • Teaching methods
      • Contemporary context
    • Communication
      • Approachable/personable
      • Quality feedback
      • Clear in expectations
    • Strategies
      • Variety
      • Engaging
      • Motivates
      • Relevant
      • Easy to follow/do
      • Involves collaboration (at times)
    • Flexible in approach
      • Adapts to the learning needs of students
      • Adapts to changing circumstances

     

    The impact

    • Students know and understand more and can do more as a result of the course
    • Students are engaged, interested and/or enjoy the course
    • Students increase their desire to learn
    • Students obtain a sense of achievement from completing the course

     

    Examples of research questions to be included in a questionnaire conducted at the conclusion of a unit of study.

    The learning environment

    To assess the experience of the student in using the online page I would include these questions:

    The online course page was easy to navigate.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree

     

    The online course page clearly presented the unit’s requirements.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree

     

    The online course page supported collaborative learning.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree

     

    To conclude the online environment section I would ask an overarching question such as:

    How satisfied were you with the online environment in this unit of study?

    • Very dissatisfied
    • Dissatisfied
    • Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
    • Satisfied
    • Very satisfied

     

    Knowledge, understanding and skills

    To assess the experience of the student’s learning process I would include these questions:

    The course outcomes were easy to understand.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree

     

    The course was challenging.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree

     

    The course extended my understanding of the topic.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree

     

    The course helped me to think more deeply about the topic.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree

     

    To conclude the knowledge, understanding and skills section I would ask an overarching question such as:

    How satisfied were you with what you learned in this unit of study?

    • Very dissatisfied
    • Dissatisfied
    • Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
    • Satisfied
    • Very satisfied

     

    Assessment

    To assess the student’s experience of assessment I would include these questions:

    The assessment requirements were easy to understand.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree

     

    The assessment criteria was easy to understand.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree

     

    The assessment criteria matched the assessment requirements.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree

     

    The assessment requirements were challenging.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree

     

    The assessment process extended my understanding of the topic.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree

     

    The assessment process included helpful feedback before final submission.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree
    • Don’t know

     

    The assessment process was fair for all students.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree
    • Don’t know

     

     To conclude the assessment section I would ask an overarching question (or two) such as:

    How satisfied were you with how assessment was marked in this unit of study?

    • Very dissatisfied
    • Dissatisfied
    • Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
    • Satisfied
    • Very satisfied

     

    How satisfied were you with the process of completing assessment in this unit of study?

    • Very dissatisfied
    • Dissatisfied
    • Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
    • Satisfied
    • Very satisfied

     

    Communication

    To assess the student’s experience of the communication process I would include these questions:

     The teacher was easy to understand.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree

     

     The teacher provided clear expectations.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree

     

    The teacher provided helpful feedback.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree
    • Not applicable

     

    The teacher was approachable.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree
    • Not applicable

     

    The teacher provided timely responses to questions asked.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree
    • Not applicable

     

    To conclude the communication section I would ask an overarching question such as:

    How satisfied were you with how the teacher communicated in this unit of study?

    • Very dissatisfied
    • Dissatisfied
    • Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
    • Satisfied
    • Very satisfied

     

    The impact

    To assess the impact of the unit of study I would include these questions:

    I know and understand more about this topic area as a result of completing this unit of study.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree

     

     I found this unit of study interesting.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree

     

     I want to learn more about this topic area.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree

     

     I obtained a sense of achievement from completing this unit of study.

    • Strongly disagree
    • Disagree
    • Neutral
    • Agree
    • Strongly agree

     

     To conclude this section I would ask an overarching question such as:

    How satisfied were you with what you learned in this unit of study?

    • Very dissatisfied
    • Dissatisfied
    • Neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
    • Satisfied
    • Very satisfied

     

    Construction of the Questionnaire

    These questions were designed to align with what I thought was most important for assessing a unit of study.

    They were written to be easily understood (“natural and familiar language” with “clear, precise and relatively short items”, Johnson & Christensen 2014, p.193) and allow for an appropriate range of options.

    To keep the questions easy to follow I used a fully anchored scale for all questions and there were only two styles of rating scales: (1) Agreement – for students to assess the elements of the course (2) Satisfaction – for students to assess the impact of the course on themselves in a broader and more personal sense.

    On occasion an option of “Don’t know” or “Not applicable” was added to allow for students who had not experienced that particular aspect of the course.

    The number of points were kept to five to assess students’ ambivalence and avoid irritating participants by forcing a stance.

    The wording was kept consistent where possible between sections, such as asking if the course/assessment/convenor were easy to understand, to allow for direct comparisons between the elements being researched.

    I believe I have avoided leading or loaded questions although at times I was tempted to add an adjective or two which would have broken this principle.

     

     

    REFERENCES

    Hattie, J. (2009). Visible learning: A synthesis of over 800 meta-analyses relating to achievement.  London: Routledge.

    Johnson, R. and Christensen, L. (2014). Educational research: Quantitative, qualitative, and mixed approaches. (5th Edition). Thousand Oaks California: Sage.


  3. Research

    4 April 2015 by shartley

    20150404-220801.jpg

    Image source: author’s own textbook

    I’m currently studying EDCN800 Introduction to Educational Research at Macquarie University.  It is the only compulsory subject in my course but I put it off to last because it seemed so dry, and well, boring.  I have my regrets, however, since it would have been quite useful to know what I should be doing before I submitted abstracts on behalf of my team to international conferences.  When we were accepted to these conferences I had to write academic level articles on the basis of haphazard and amateurish research.  One of these articles was for a peer-reviewed journal and one of the two peers who assessed the paper slammed it for not being written in the acceptable academic format.  I had avoided the more academic format because I didn’t want to pretend that the research was formally conducted.  I have now resubmitted the piece into a more acceptable format but it still awaits final approval.

    More recently, I have been trying to support a friend who has been designing real proper research under the guidance of a university professor.  The professor’s critiquing of the attempts to write a research question and plan the research methods was a painful process but the frustration was worth it in the end because I think there is a very valuable research project currently underway.  As I do this course I can, in retrospect, see more clearly what was required and if I had completed this subject before this year it might have been a much less painful process.  Now, as I study the ethics of research I wonder how much more should be done to cover ethical considerations in my friend’s research.  It is also giving me more depth to my knowledge of research methods for when I teach Society and Culture.

    In the first semester of my Masters of Education I chose one subject (curriculum) because a friend was also doing it and another subject because I felt knowledgeable in that area (pedagogy).  I had enrolled in the course just so I could obtain the piece of paper and letters to look good on my CV but within a couple of weeks of participating in these two subjects I was enjoying myself immensely and did quite well as a result.  However, the one aspect that I was continually criticised about was the negligible evidence to support my (soapbox) statements.  I have improved a lot in this area since then.

    Now as I study EDCN800 I expect high achievement from myself but I’m not succeeding. I’m engaged in the subject because of the afore-mentioned application but despite being quite numeracy literate I struggle with the statistical concepts and analysis of data.  I only received 65% for the first of five assignments.  Today I battled with the concepts of reliability and validity with all their different coefficient measurements.  The concepts in themselves are fine but when I have to apply them to a technical academic article it becomes all muddled up and difficult to navigate.  Not only do I need to understand these concepts for EDCN800 but I am also writing a literature review for EDCN806 which requires an examination of the reliability and validity of the articles I am including in the review.  It is all driving me insane and I question my ambition to complete a PhD down the track.  As a result I’m feeling a fair bit of empathy with my students at the moment.

    Anyway, that’s enough complaining, I need to attack a question about evaluations using numerical ratings and then write some of my own questionnaire items to assess student experience in studying the Masters of Education.  It is so much easier to help my students design their research for their Personal Interest Projects (PIPs) in HSC Society and Culture than to do it myself at a university level.  But here I go…

    Stay tuned.


  4. A reflection about reflections

    1 September 2013 by shartley

    reflection

    My number one goal of today was to begin a critical analysis of a journal article for my Advanced Pedagogy course which is part of my Masters of Education at Macquarie University. I have been enjoying this subject very much because it is closely related to my role on the Innovative Learning Team at Oakhill College. In fact, in my professional life these are the two aspects that have me fired up, excited about what I do as a teacher. The university readings have helped give academic evidence to what the ILT is suggesting and preparing for the future direction of the school in terms of technology and teaching practices. My real life experiences as a classroom practitioner and the discussions and research in which I’ve been participating with the ILT have been feeding the online exchanges I have with fellow students and the course convenor. Further to this, the ILT has been accepted to present a paper at the Twenty-First International Conference of Learning in New York, July 2014, so I’m looking to use research I do as part of the Advanced Pedagogy course to contribute to the preparation for the New York Conference.

    But now, let’s look at the article I chose for the critical review and the impact it had on me. One of the many recommendations the ILT is making for the school is that all teachers create and regularly contribute to online reflective journals about their teaching and learning experiences to develop their meta-cognitive processes and therefore improve their teaching. The paper we’re presenting in New York is called Pulling No Punches: The Metamorphic Process of Turning Teachers into Professionals with Pedagogical Practices of the Modern Era so obviously we envisage reflective journals to be part of this process. The article I found, on a list supplied by the Advanced Pedagogy convenor, is called Promoting teacher reflection: what is said to be done (Marcos, Sanchez, Tillema 2011). The article scares me. To explain, I’ll start with an anecdote.

    A science teacher friend and I were chatting about our approaches to studying our different Masters of Education and found we had almost opposing attitudes to reading journal articles. I generally skip over the scientific research components where the method and statistical analysis were conducted and go straight to the findings and conclusion. I like to know what the research found but am rarely interested in how it is found out. My friend says that’s the part he likes, checking the research for scientific and statistical authenticity. We both agreed though that case studies of just a few teachers, often in the same school, were just hopeless as proper research. However, since I had to conduct a critical analysis on this article about teacher reflection, in this case I did read the bits I would normally skip.

    The abstract of the article intrigued me when it mentioned investigating “possible differences between what is evidenced in research and what is promoted in practice” (Marcos, Sanchez, Tillema 2011, p.21). When I promote a course of action in my school I want to have it right and implement it effectively. This was the article for me.

    The introduction listed the ways teacher reflection had been promoted, including (p.21):

    • “to scaffold critical thinking”
    • for “knowledge construction”
    • to “promote self-regulation”
    • because teaching is “a process that lies open to scrutiny and deliberation”
    • as part of “professional development”
    • to improve “metacognitive ability” of teachers

    I thought this was good list and a reasonable explanation of why teachers should maintain a reflective journal. However, the introduction then went on to outline critiques of reflective journals, such as trying to meet too many aims and neglecting to acknowledge underlying assumptions about why teachers should use them (p.22). My summary of this paragraph was that reflective journals had lost their way.

    The authors then summarised quite nicely what has been said about reflection (pp.22-23):

    • it’s a cyclical and recursive process
    • includes “problem solving”, “awareness-raising” and “professional knowledge”
    • teachers need to “build on experiential knowledge” (preferably using “action research” eg “observe and analyse classrooms”), “be critical” and “work collaboratively”
    • “requires personal involvement”

    The authors appear concerned that awareness-raising is promoted more than problem solving as the primary reason for conducting a reflection process and that few “studies provide information on its applicability and implementation in the classroom” (p.23).

    Now to my favourite part (not), the method. A total of 122 articles were examined from two Spanish journals, involving 168 authors (p.24). Each article was broken into paragraphs (units) and then all units were divided into 1509 “propositions” which were grouped into 117 “themes” (p.24). These themes were then further split into nine “content-specific categories” (p.25). Is it any wonder I don’t like reading this section? From all this the findings were boiled down to (p.25):

    1. What was said about reflection: What was said was what had already been said in the article too and the concern about the lack of problem solving as an aim was made more clear at this point. The authors were quite repetitive at this point.
    2. The reasons for reflection and the evidence behind these reasons for reflection: This was the scary part. The authors found that there was little real evidence backing statements made about the reasons for teachers undertaking reflection. What empirical evidence they found was based on “specific and iconic research projects…rather than specific data” (p.26). I find this scary because much of the reading I do is based on anecdotes from my Professional Learning Network (PLN) on Twitter and various teacher blogs. My convictions about pedagogy and teacher professionalism are based on these readings and personal experience, not academic or scientific research of my own, until now. A table summarising statements made and the evidence provided (or not) ran for five pages and it wasn’t pretty with numerous crosses in the evidence column.
    3. The persuasive techniques used: The authors actually worded this section as “mode of convincing” (p.32). This was another section where I felt damned. The language used was broken into three methods:
    • Implicative – involving an expression of “interesting thoughts and new ways of thinking (i.e.[sic], ‘we believe’)”
    • Descriptive – statements as facts “(e.g., ‘reflection has’)”
    • Prescriptive – “the article directs or hints at a preferable action (e.g., ‘we must’)”

    This is how I write. When I write blog posts, or even for the ILT report into the implications of ICT for the future of the school, I do so based on my convictions from experience, observations, discussion with colleagues and what I read haphazardly online. Although some of this was intentional primary research it isn’t enough.

    A few weeks ago all the contributors to the report met and went through the recommendations thoroughly. It was at this point I realised that everything we wrote in that report had to be supported by evidence or it would have no weight. Yet, reading this article today still came as a shock. I think the message is finally hitting home.

    The article concluded with a discussion about the biases they had discovered. The two most important were (1) how the literature stressed what reflective journals were about without enough attention to how to go about it and (2) how convictions rather than real research were behind promotions for reflective practice (pp.32-33). I liked how the authors said their intent wasn’t to be overly critical but to reveal “certain blind spots” (p.33) and they suggested teachers should be provided with “more evidence-based or research validated information on what works in reflective practice” and that reflections should be scaffolded for them (p.34).

    I definitely intend to provide a scaffold for the teachers at my school when we begin implementing reflections as part of our PD process next year. I’ll leave it to my colleague to back up what we do with the research since he prides himself as being the academic one on the ILT.  He’s also taken on the writing of the paper we’re going to present in New York, dissing my proposal because I’d written ‘the metamorphosis process’ instead of ‘the metamorphic process’ (note that the proposal was accepted anyway).

    This whole investigation into pedagogy at uni and school is a load of fun and I’m learning heaps about the way I act, learn and think, perhaps even more than I am learning about the way I teach.

     

    Marcos, Juanjo Mena; Sanchez, Emilio; Tillema, Harm H. “Promoting teacher reflection: What is said to be done” Journal of Education for Teaching: International Research and Pedagogy, 37:1 , 2011 , 21-36


  5. Pulled every which way

    9 April 2010 by shartley

    Twitter has inspired me as I see other teachers passionate about what’s best for students.

    It has depressed me as I realise how little I know compared to many others.

    I want to investigate every which way of teaching but I would find the process overwhelming.  I want to read the hundreds of blogs I have found through Twitter.  I want to use nearly every resource I discover.  But time, sweet time, prevents me.

    Twitter has connected me to other parts of the world.  One highlight of this is a (private) blog between my Society and Culture students and students at the UN International School in Hanoi, Vietnam.  Blogging is something I am trying in a variety of contexts in class (eg see http://saclife.edublogs.org) but also a little as a teacher and anonymously as a writer.

    The last few days I have been following #ACEC2010 (Australian Computers in Education Conference) on Twitter.  Two of my colleagues have been presenting there, Stephen Collis (@Steve_Collis) and Chris Woldhuis (@cwoldhuis) and I’ve watched via U Stream.  I have been addicted to all this, yet I have learnt nothing new since it has all been discussed before in my PLN on Twitter and through what we do at my school anyway.

    I had allocated today to completing a university assignment for my Editing subject as part of my Master of Arts (Writing and Literature) through Deakin University.  I’m just over half way through this course and I’m really enjoying it.

    My other subject this semester is Script Writing.  I spent Easter writing a monologue for it.  You see, I want to be a writer, probably a fiction writer.

    I am already published as an educational writer but that is just to gain a name for writing before I hit the real deal.  I must admit I enjoy the exercise though.  At the end of each year EdAssist send me a list of topics I could write on for BusiDate and generally I choose something that would interest me, or is most relevant to what I’m teaching, or most recently, what I know a lot about and can write with minimal research.  I then write the article during the summer holidays.

    My educational writing started when Grant Kleeman came to my practicum class during my Dip.Ed. at Macquarie University and asked who had a finance background.  I’m actually a degree qualified accountant who used to work in funds management.  For example, for three years I was the Accountant for the Cash Management Trust at Macquarie Bank.  Through Grant I ended up writing three chapters of Commerce.Dot.Com.  Grant then passed my name onto EdAssist.  EdAssist also invited me to deliver lectures on Business Studies to students in holiday workshops, which I did for two years.  I have also lectured for Economics and Business Educators (EBE) as a result of an article on WorkChoices I wrote for EdAssist.  I enjoy doing all this.  But the time!

    For the last six and a bit years I have been teaching at Northern Beaches Christian School.  It is quite a ride.  Once I muddled my way through first year blues I now find the classroom quite an enjoyable and exciting place.  I’m not great at differentiation but I do see students as individuals and treat them as such in my relationship with them, just less so in the teaching process.  I think my passion for teaching and most of the subject matter is contagious and my students generally like class as much as I do.  They also love going on journeys with me learning new ways of learning.

    I also do a lot of online teaching.  I think it is very suitable for Commerce and Business Studies but HSC Economics I still wonder about.  This year I have some very enthusiastic Economics students but personal interaction is necessary so I have Skyped with one and driven to Scone for another.  Workshops are too far apart and not always convenient for the students.  My school is very gung-ho with technology and mostly I am on board.  We have an institution as part of our school called Sydney Centre for Innovation in Learning (SCIL) which is constantly looking for new ways to educate better.  I don’t always agree with some of the decisions our Principal makes, such as our focus on Matrix learning in the middle years and teaching students en masse, a lot of the time with several classes in the one large space.  I’m not fond of that level of clashing noise.

    What I’m currently keen on to do through SCIL is collaborating with other schools in my area, sharing ideas and producing quality resources, preferably online.  For instance, I’d like to develop a focus study on social networks for the Popular Culture topic in Society and Culture.  I think it would benefit from lots of input from a variety of people, not just teachers.  The problem is, I’m having trouble finding Society and Culture teachers on Twitter.  My next step will be to talk with people in the Society and Culture Association, via email or, heaven forbid, phone (so old-school).

    I love to read, both for pleasure and to keep up with current events.  I have about 40 unopened Sydney Morning Heralds in my lounge room and 100 unread emails from the New York Times, Crikey and The Punch in my inbox.  In my bedroom I have dozens of books waiting for me to read them, goodness knows when.

    I also have two gorgeous children, a supportive husband and a dog.  I am trying to lose weight and become fit through Fernwood and a personal trainer there.  I attend Turramurra Uniting Church and meet with friends from there a lot less frequently than I would like.  I used to volunteer as a Youth Group leader but as a teacher by Friday night I am simply too sapped of energy.  I still haven’t completed my tax return from last year, embarrassing as an ex-accountant.  I have a small group of friends who I neglect too much.  Some of them I stay in touch with via Facebook.  I enjoy tennis, wine, restaurants, movies, classical music, opera and theatre but don’t have enough time or money for all that I want.

    I dream of living on a bit of land in the Southern Highlands with high ceilings and an open fire place with cups of tea and just writing the days away.  But I also know I will continue to be tugged by all my interests.  And I’d miss the classroom.   I plan to teach for another 6-8 years, which is when my children are due to complete their schooling, and then reassess.  However, I don’t think I can keep up the current pace for that long.

    I need to give some of my interests away.  But what?


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