Woohoo! Done! Done! Done!
Assignment 3 finished and submitted! That’s a nice relief to be finished all the assessment for this course.
Although this course has been really full on, I have really enjoyed it and learned heaps. I’m looking forward to implementing what I have learned in the future when I have my own class of little cherubs to look after.
Now onto studying for my exam on Friday… 4 days left and then I’ll be free for a few weeks!!! Yay!!
Woo! Friday!
Although I know I should be working on completing my assignment over the weekend, this weekend is looking pretty full for me, without even considering uni 
My mum is coming over today…. Haven’t seen her or the rest of my family in a month because I had to move 3 1/2 hours from home to go to uni so that will be great! I am going to theatre restaurant tonight (new experience for me!). I have 2 of my cousins first birthdays and dedications tomorrow and then I am supposed to ge going golfing on Sunday…. Hmm looks like assignments will have to happen in between that or just finishing off on Monday…. Lucky I’m getting close to finishing!
Last Friday I finished professional experience and what a great experience it was!!
I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, had a fantastic mentor and a great little year 1 class. 20 students and very minimal behaviour issues. It was a big change to all my other pracs that I have been on!
My last prac was in the prep room and this on was in year 1, and I think I am in my element with this age group. I received fantastic feedback and had heaps of fun!! Loving it!!
Last Friday I finished professional experience and what a great experience it was!!
I thoroughly enjoyed the experience, had a fantastic mentor and a great little year 1 class. 20 students and very minimal behaviour issues. It was a big change to all my other pracs that I have been on!
My last prac was in the prep room and this on was in year 1, and I think I am in my element with this age group. I received fantastic feedback and had heaps of fun!! Loving it!!
I can’t believe that the weekend is nearly over already and week two of prac is nearly here. Today has been spent lesson planning and getting ready for Monday.
I have been organising activities for the literacy rotations, organising a maths lesson on data representation and interpretation, as well as organising my history lesson on past and present family life.
For my 3 weeks of prac I am running the complete history unit, as well as all the assessment for it… Scared but excited to have this responsibility in the classroom, as I have never done assessment on prac, especially for a whole unit.
I am looking forward to this next week or prac and I need to make sure that I am super organised to be able to keep up with my workload of lesson planning and planning activities to run in the classroom. Bring it it on!
Well week 1 of prac is finished!
What a great week getting to know my year 1’s and teaching maths and history! I have a gorgeous class of 20 little year ones and they are a near perfect class!! What a nice change from my previous pracs! 🙂
Friday’s are not a great day for teaching and learning in year 1, as the children are tired, and there seems to be lots and lots of interruptions throughout the day. I was relieved to see that I was not the only person who found this to be a disruptive day, when I read Sarah’s blog.
Overall I am really enjoying prac and am looking forward to next week!
Well I have just completed the Connect.ed Modules and WOW! It is interesting to see how much technological change there has been even since I was in high school (grade 8 was only 10 years ago WOW haha).
When I started the modules I was thinking about my experience with technology in grades 8, 9 and 10, before I went away to boarding school, compared to the technological lives of my younger sisters now… I lived on a property and had dial-up internet so if I wanted to use the internet I had to make sure no one was on the phone, then if Mum or Dad wanted to use the phone I had to disconnect and wait for them to finish before I could go back on… I wasn’t allowed to use it much because it costed SO much! When I was doing assignments, Mum would always tell me to go and get the encyclopedias from the cupboard to find information, I would rarely use Google!! I was a bit naughty and sometimes would tell Mum that I needed to use the internet to do my assignments, when really I wanted to talk to my friends on MSN… Shh don’t tell her!! 🙂
Now, I go home and my younger sisters are on mum’s iPad, on the computer, on their phones chatting to their friends on Facebook, updating statuses, uploading photos to Instagram, sending snaps on Snapchat and I know for a fact that my parents wouldn’t know half of what was going on or being said in those online conversations. This is how easy cyberbullying can happen, simply because parents, teachers and other adults simply do not know what is going on.
I loved the Safety Tips for Students – Lower Primary that were outlined in Mrs Brown’s blog post and I think that some of these can be incorporated across all age groups, not only lower primary.
It is through these measures, and further investigation and education of students and parents that we as teachers can help to prevent the horrible cases of bullying that are happening over the internet. No one should feel horrible because of a comment made by someone else. Cybersafety programs need to be implemented into all schools and the schools should have collaboration with parents to help stop this. Cybersafety needs to start from when the students are young, so they have a good understanding of what it all means and how it can affect themselves and others.
You can find a copy of my Connect.ed Certificate here
Bullying is not something new. It has been around for a long time and unfortunately will be around for a long time to come. But the scary thing is, it is becoming easier to do and harder to detect through the internet and social networking sites. Bullying used to happen in the school ground or on the way to and from school, and teachers and adults could often see when there was tension rising between their students, as stated in the Expert Interviews of the second Connect.ed Modules. But as Leesa said in her blog post Connect.ed, bullying often happens in a child’s seclusive area, for example their bedroom and is harder to pick up the early signs of these negative interactions.
My sister has a peer who committed suicide because of bullying… This boy was in grade 12… That is just not right!
How can we as teachers detect these negative interactions early? How can we teach our students that bullying is not OK? How can we teach our students what to do if they come across interactions that they think could be classed as bullying?
I would love to hear other peoples thoughts, because bullying is NOT OK!!
As I work through the Connect.ed modules, I am thinking about the affect that social media can have on communication and face-to-face friendships.
It just reminded me of something that my Mum often says when having a conversation with someone on let’s say facebook or through text.
“Would you say the same thing to the person if you were having the conversation with them face-to-face?”
It’s something worth thinking about, because I think it is so easy to hide behind the computer screen or behind the phone as you send a text message because you can’t physically see the person and the affect it has on them… But this doesn’t mean that it does not have the same affect.
Today I found out my placement for professional experience and I am nervous and excited all at the same time, because it is in a very different context to what my previous professional experiences have been. But I am looking forward to new challenges and new learning experiences.
I have started a list of things that I need to do to get ready for professional experience. I know the list isn’t yet complete but it’s a start… I can always add more 🙂
Class – How many students, on-going teaching themes, any pre-planning information that could be of benefit
Dress, parking, what time to arrive, planning and teaching
Megan Vicary 