Technology can be either one of two things: An extremely powerful tool that improves or enhances situations or circumstances Something completely scary that can be more of a hinderance than a help. In education, the pressure to include technology in the classroom has become so intense that many different people from all walks of industries…
Tag: Teaching
Actually, I’m a high school teacher
Person: “So, what do you do?”Me: “I’m a teacher.”Person: “Which year level?”Me: “Actually, I’m a high school teacher” … Cue comment AND facial expression that clearly shows either sympathy for my predicament, or distress for what I must have to put up with. What really gets to me, is that people seem to have this…
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…
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…
Hearts on the line everyday
Disclaimer: the following is a brief discussion about mental health for teachers. Teachers. We put our hearts on the line every day. When Jane is in your office telling you that her parents are divorcing and they don’t have time for her and she’s failed her math exam but can’t tell her parents because they’ll…
My version of flipped learning
I recently discovered Flipped Learning. I know that a lot of you are probably all over this already, but it was new to me and I fell in love with the idea of saving time in the classroom. At the moment, I teach three year 9 geography classes. I see them all twice a week…
The power of language
It’s no secret that words have power. My good friend Lynette Noni has based a whole series on not only the power of words, but the power of our intention behind the words. (First in the series is called Whisper and it is set to be released on May 1st 2018, get excited!) However, as…
Feedback: How “wearing hats” can teach us to be more helpful in our feedback.
It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about my Learning and Teaching Goals for 2017, but I found this really interesting article and thought I’d share! On Monday this week I received a weekly newsletter email from MindShift, and one of the articles was called “Developing Students’ Ability to Give and Take Effective Feedback.” At first,…
Adventures of the Lifting Librarian 