Christmas Holidays

Christmas Holiday Break

17th December, 2015

Well it has been an amazing couple of months since our blog for pre-service teachers went live at the start of October! We've received some extremely positive feedback from people and have had more than 2200 views. A big thank you to our dedicated team who managed to find time to post while studying and working. And a massive thank you to all our regular readers - you're amazing! The team will be taking a break over Christmas to relax and unwind, but we will be back at the start of January 2016! We hope you have a wonderful Christmas with your loved ones and an incredible start to the New Year - all the best!

- PST blog team

Seeing the world for what it truly is

 Seeing the World for What it Truly is

15th December, 2015

Claire, a guest blogger and pre-service teacher, talks about her experience teaching in Thailand and how it has influenced her views on the world

Many people all over the world experience an enormous amount of difference in terms of life-style, culture, schooling, relationships, family life, employment and religion. These differences can shape one’s life outcomes, how they view the world and reflections on life. I have been brought up in the same house, suburb, and city for my entire life and it has only been recently that I have had the pleasure of experiencing the diversity around my city and around the world.

I have currently just finished my 2nd year of a Bachelor of Education (Primary) and just in these two years I have learned so much about other people’s lives, their children’s lives and how much of an impact this and the schooling teacher can have on children. At the start of the year I traveled to Thailand to volunteer my teaching skills to a local school an hour outside of the Chiang Mai. I was only there for 3 weeks in total, however as a person and as a teacher I developed drastically. I loved it so much that I have booked a trip to Cambodia to volunteer my teaching passion for 4 weeks in 2016. Upon returning I was selected to work for my university in the Community Engagement section where little did I know I would be exposed to and confronted with a wide range of social issues.

In my job there are programs where I dealt with adults who had/were suffering from many different mental health issues, forms of addiction and abuse. I was heavily involved in running and facilitating another program with the local school called a Homework Support Program. This school was situated below the commission building houses where low socioeconomic status families live. These families are subjected to many of the same issues of mental health problems, addiction, abuse and poverty. Within these buildings a large percentage of people are refugees from Sudan and Vietnam. I had never experienced working with children from this background and it was definitely an eye opener.

All of these different programs and experiences have opened my eyes to the wider community and the world around me. From seeing blind, deaf, amputees begging on the streets of Thailand to having drunken, bashed up fathers barging into our homework club in order to take his son away, to dealing with mentally unstable adults dumping all of their emotions and state of events on to you. It has definitely influenced my outlook on life and my outlook on the teacher I want to be.

I do think all of my events and experiences have had a positive influence to me as a person and as a forthcoming teacher. They have taught me important lessons such as, don’t judge someone by how they look without understanding their background (yes, the classic saying of ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’), go with the flow in terms of learning how to live in someone else’s culture, and always have an open heart, mind and an ear to listen with for when it comes to people that both look like they need help, and for those who smile it away.

I believe all of these insights are very relevant for me as a future teacher. If I was to say one thing to fellow pre-service teachers it would be to experience as much as you can and learn from these experiences, even if it may look like it negatively impacted you, think of the positive outcomes.

I don’t believe I have seen the entire world for what it truly is, however I am definitely making my tracks through it.

- Claire Todeschini

Claire just completed her 2nd year as a pre-service teacher and also works as a Community Engagement Assistant for her University. Part of this role involves managing a homework support program for a local school.

End of Placement

End of Placement

13th December, 2015

Alex talks about his placement experiences at a rural school

After four wonderful weeks my placement has now come to an end – and what an experience it has been! I thought this would be a good chance to talk about some of the different challenges I faced, and the strategies I found worked well.

I had never worked with a composite class before, but now after having year 3/4/5 and 6 I’ve got a pretty good feel for how they run. Differentiating work is the main challenge, I found the best way to do this was to give each student the same task, but have different levels of difficulty within that task. This provides accessibility to the developing students and layers of complexity for the higher achieving students. While this may not work for all subjects, I think it’s a strategy I’ll use with my own class; within any year level there is likely to be a three-year span of capability, so it makes sense to provide a lesson where students can challenge themselves independently. It also linked in with the self-regulation learning behaviour my associate teacher was maintaining. Another good way to facilitate independent learning is through (and I never thought I would say this) rubrics. They work best in a senior classroom, but are great at essentially providing written success criteria and extensions for students. They put students in charge of their learning and achievement, which is great.

After spending four weeks in a truly positive classroom environment, I can’t stress enough the importance of strong learning behaviours. My associate teacher really strives to imbue each student with these and it shows in the way students behave; they act independently, challenge themselves, regulate their behaviour, and take ownership of their learning. Some examples of positive learning behaviours are:

•  Attention to detail
•  Focus and concentration
•  Resilience and independence
•  Allowing others to learn
•  Thinking ahead
•  Organisation
•   Being accountable for my learning

It’s great to focus students in on these behaviours before each lesson just by talking about them, or give individual students certain learning behaviours to work on. Explicitly teaching positive learning behaviours and explaining, or modelling, how they are displayed will help establish an amazing classroom environment and give students a great mindset to learn with.

The most challenging aspect of the four weeks was trying to be organised and flexible at the same time! There is a lot going on at any one moment in the school year, especially at the end of term 4, so it’s vital that you always have a backup plan and are ready to quickly modify a lesson. I had a number of students absent with sickness over the first two weeks of teaching, which meant lots of groups progressing at different rates. I found that thinking a few lessons ahead of what you’re doing actually helps when students are ready to move on – you know the next step and can quickly whip up an activity for them to do. Ultimately there are some times where you won’t get everything completed, simply due to unexpected events popping up, and that’s ok – keep the big picture in mind!

I had such an amazing time on my placement; I truly fell in love with the school, kids and community! I’m missing them already and can’t believe I have to wait another six months before I can get back into it. I would definitely recommend completing a rural placement, there is really nothing quite like it. I know my school would love to have more PSTs and I wish there was more support for getting teachers out there! I hope everyone had a fantastic placement and learned a lot, a merry Christmas and happy new year to you all!

-Alex