On Friday 26 October I hosted a sleepover in the iCentre and called it STEM-A-Con. The event was modelled off the Geek-A-Thon event I hosted last year, but with a slight difference. Students were invited if they had shown an interested in STEM classes and activities throughout the year. The girls arrived straight after school and…
Category: Education
Augmented Reality in year 9 geography
Every year that I’ve taught year 9 geography, the Interconnections unit has always been assessed with a multimodal presentation, which more often than not, has lead to PowerPoint presentations. This year, I’m changing it up and using Augmented Reality! How?! You might ask… well, we’re using posters as the “triggers” and then using HP Reveal…
Drafting Checklists
I’ve always struggled with marking drafts. The fact that the feedback needs to happen quickly, be easily understood, and help students to know whether they’re on the right track makes it all a bit hard when you’ve got 80 + drafts to do in a week. I’ve tried: Hand written comments Verbal feedback = both…
Embedding Thinking Skills
I was recently assigned to teach a year 8 class called “Project of Innovation” (8PI). It’s a semester long subject designed to get students to develop their thinking skills, and then use those skills to design and build a toy for prep students. It’s a fantastic program, and I’m so excited to be on the…
Mount A: Book in a Day
Today I hosted a version of the The Kids Cancer Project Write a Book in a Day for some year 9 and 10 students of Mount Alvernia College. I asked the English teachers of year 9 and 10 to supply the names of students they thought might be interested in participating in the event. 40…
Sometimes it just doesn’t work
I recently experienced failure at work for the first time ever. I had coordinated with a couple of my colleagues to run a Smashing Stereotypes event for the students at my school. Smashing Stereotypes events are what we run for our female members at VALHALLA Strength – South Brisbane. They are designed to educate and…
Feeling pretty chuffed!
I recently inherited the job of setting up and maintaining the website for VALHALLA Strength – South Brisbane and right now, I’m feeling quite proud of myself! We inherited the site earlier in the year. It was essentially a straight copy of the website for our sister gym on the north side of Brisbane: VALHALLA…
The truth about our “why”
Have you ever told yourself that your goal was simply to “have fun?” Well, over the weekend we hosted a Smashing Stereotypes event at the gym and the presenter said something that really struck me. The presenter was Raeanne Pemberton, and she is a Strongwoman Competitor in the USA. She has a lot to say…
Templates on Instagram – Innocent or something more?
I came across a great teachable moment last night on Instagram, but this moment I woke up and felt that I needed to share it a little more widely… Templates on Instagram – are the innocent, or something more? Firstly, here’s the post: krystalgagen Can we talk about these templates for a minute? I’ve been noticing…
Self-reflection is a powerful tool
All throughout university I found myself having to do reflective writing as part of my assessment. When doing my Bachelor of Music Studies at the Queensland Conservatorium I was expected to reflect on my voice lessons and progress. When doing my Post Graduate Diploma in Education at Griffith University, I had to reflect on group…
Adventures of the Lifting Librarian 