Comfort Zones are for sissies.

In 2018, I will be pushed waaaaaaay out of my comfort zone. Why?

I was asked by my Principal a few months ago if I’d be interested in running a STEM class. While I’m not 100% behind the concept of running STEM as a separate class because I feel that it should be fully integrated, due to needing an additional elective for Year 7/8 and a few other staffing conditions, I said yes!

This means that I’ll be teaching a STEM elective for a composite Year 7/8 class. There are 3 different 7/8 classes meaning that I’ll teach the same content for Term 1, 2 and 3 to the groups as they rotate through and then Term 4 will be different, as students opt-in to the elective of their choice in the final Term.

For the Year 9/10 class however, student opt-in to it from the beginning, so I have them all year. This is where it gets a bit scary. Year 7/8 content I feel like I can handle for the most part…but Year 9/10? My High School Science skills are fairly limited and rusty beyond all belief and regarding High School Maths…well, I can add numbers and work out angles and percentages…that’s all I need right? I’m not so stressed about the Technology & Engineering aspects, so that’s my little comfort factor.

To fully push me out of my comfort zone beyond all belief, I’m teaching French. FRENCH.  From Year 2-Year 8. To be honest, I accepted the request to teach it (I had the option to say no…) and I am excited about it, but it’s going to be a steeeeeep learning curve. I know a few French words, like crêpe, baguette, croissant…but they are all foods, which surely can’t take up the entire curriculum? French podcasts, here I come! Plus apps, puppet shows, comic strips…eeeek!

 

Teaching something out of your comfort zone next year? Let me know!

And good on you – the world is a better place for taking on a good challenge!

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It’s flipping contagious!

Following on from my first attempt at Flipped Learning, a few other colleagues have expressed interest in seeing how it can be used as a valuable tool. So, I set up a few announcements for them in our staff Google Classroom, to introduce them to the concept and to give them some resources and ideas. I’ve copied the announcements that I gave to my colleagues (which also could’ve been sent via email) for you below.

ANNOUNCEMENT 1:
Flipped Learning: giving your students meaningful teacher time while being able to work with others, usually done through the use of videos. Teachers who are not confident at creating their own videos can use videos created by other teachers!

These are the videos I made for the Year 1 class so they could research their own country. As each group watched and listened to their video, they were writing down the facts on their paper proforma. 
What was I doing for the lesson? Roaming the room, showing students how to pause, rewind, replay and helping them find the correct box for each piece of information.
How long did the videos take me to make? None of them are longer than a minute. By the time I added a pretty filter and edited the captions, and saved to my Google Drive, each video took me about 5 minutes in total. 
What did I use to make the videos? My iPhone! I used the Apple Clips app, which allows you to select captions, so that as you talk the text appears on the screen (as mentioned above, you can edit the captions if your enunciation isn’t clear enough for dear old Siri to translate!!)

ANNOUNCEMENT 2:
A short video and quiz to explore Flipped Learning! Click the Google Form below to check it out!
https://goo.gl/forms/YT9rT192xbyNaPRV2

After speaking to my Principal, we also ordered the Flipped Learning book bundle, and as soon as they arrived, I covered them and handed the out the Flipped Learning for Science and Flipped Learning for English to the relevant teachers.

What has happened so far?
Our primary school Art teacher, who also teaches high school Design, Creativity & Technology thought that Flipped Learning would be a great idea to implement in her sewing units. Instead of her explaining (and repeating, and repeating, and repeating herself) how to sew on a button, or use a slip-stitch, she searched Youtube for 2 videos explaining each of these concepts. Her thinking is that she can introduce it, but while viewing the video, students can pause, follow the instructions and then keep going to finished the process. Her question then was, “How do I get these videos to the kids to watch?”
My answer: Google Classroom. The Primary Art classes already had a Google Classroom set up, so I showed her how to:

• create a new announcement
• insert the selected Youtube video
• type a brief description
• select the students who she wanted to share it with (only the Year 3/4 class needed to see it, not the whole Primary school)
• send the announcement

(If you don’t have Google Classroom, my suggestion would to be create a QR code linked to the video, so students can access it. Other options would to be placing the video link on a class blog, or common server, Edmodo class, or email it to each student. It really depends on your technology arrangements.)

I’m so excited to see Flipped Learning being used so quickly after introducing it to staff. I have some time off when she is teaching this class tomorrow, so I can’t wait to pop in and see how it all goes!

 

 

My start to relief teaching in 2016.

This year my weeks are planned as relief teaching on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and teaching all grades at a school from P-6 over Thursday and Friday as I provide release for school leaders and graduate teachers.

I’ve had 3 days of relief work at my part-time school so far, but went and visited 5 other schools to offer my relief teaching services. The results were all positive, but one school stood out. See if you can see why.

All of my conversations began at the school’s front reception, and went exactly like this: *smile* ‘Hi, my name is Fiona and I was wondering if there was anybody here I could speak to about relief teaching?’

School 1:

‘Tom’ is out at the moment, but I’ll pass your resume on. Thanks.

School 2:

Sure, come through and see ‘Tom’ in his office.

Tom: Lovely to meet you Fiona. I’ll pop your details in our file. Do you have your VIT card here with you so we can photocopy it? Speak to you soon.

School 3:

Oh wonderful, I’ll call ‘Tom’ over the speaker immediately.

Tom: Great to meet you, we’re looking for some reliable CRT’s this year. The days your available suit us perfectly. That’s excellent. Thanks.

School 4:

‘Tom’ is teaching right now, but I’ll give him your details. Thanks.

School 5:

Certainly, I’ll grab ‘Tom’ from the staffroom.

Tom: Lovely to meet you Fiona. Thank you so much for bringing your details in. Do you have your VIT card to photocopy? Actually, would you like to have a tour of the school? Here is the staffroom, tea and coffee available for all, plus there’s some lockers here to pop your handbag in when you come in. All of our student medical information can be found here, as well as in the staff toilets, which are here. There are 3 senior classes, so there’ll always be another teacher to ask if you have any questions or problems; the same in the 3/4 unit. We eat our recess after play and the same system for lunch, which we find works well. This is our principal, Mr X *shakes hand and smiles*.
So, that’s our whole school, plus the 4 different yard duty areas, which are A – here, B – out this window, C – the basketball courts, and D – down the end near the toilets, plus an inside first aid duty.
Now before anybody starts working here we have to do a 5 minute OHS induction – we can do that when you bring your paperwork back, like your bank details…or, do you have time to do it now? Excellent. Do you have any questions for me at all?

 

Now, School 5 might seem overwhelming to some people, but I had never felt so comfortable and at ease upon walking into a school for the first time.

First impressions – invaluable.