Teaching aboriginal perspectives

找到这本书有种相逢太晚的感觉

This book has a chapter it how to present aboriginal Australia to your students. Might be useful for future prac 

Activities to pass time / kill time

There are times in school when the lessons finish earlier and you need to find something to do

1. chat with children about the next day's program

2. count down together the seconds (counting back)



There are times when you want to make routines a little bit fun

1. i'll sing the ABC song and let's see whether can all the students keep their things and sit on the carpet


Cool down

1. close your eyes and raise up your hand when you think it is one minute.

Numeracy activities

In this prac, I had the chance to teach about time. I really admire how my host teacher designs an activity like "Simon Says" whereby when she says "o clock", students have to point hand up. When she says "half past", students have to point hands down.

If they did it wrong, then they have to sit down.
This simple game was just so fun I have to admit! Sometimes simple thing can be fun right! I think I always end up making things too complicated!

To make the game harder, the host teacher says o clock but pointed down to confuse children.

vocabulary development

Today I joined the professional development session of my placement.
The presenter was talking about how to teach vocabulary well and introduced us to the STRIVE resources. I couldnt locate it online, I think it is only available in the Learning Place government webpage.

http://prezi.com/undlifxnlnob/strive/
found this from google! STRIVE is Structured Tier Two Robust Instruction of Vocabulary Experiences. It is developed by C2C.

The presenter also shared a website that has lists of books for different year levels.
Pegi Williams Book Shop

Indigenous Education

These Indigenous Education Consultative Sources are given by my lecturer in culture studies

Victorian Aboriginal Education Association Inc

Queensland Indigenous Education Consultative Committee

Western Australian Aboriginal Education and Training Council

About teaching

Teaching is a magical, people, amazing profession.

I find quotes about teaching very inspirational and motivating whenever I come across one.

As a teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous.

Grace, my culture studies lecturer is really amazing. She is very kind and helpful and I learnt a lot from her sharing. She used to teach in a community that is a reserve mission. She said "I cant control what happens outside my classroom, but I can control what happens in my classroom" She has prepared breakfast at a corner, so students can eat their breakfast before starting the lessons.

Activities for group

In my culture studies unit this semester, my tutor has used some various activities in tutorials for us to engage with the unit. I think these activities can be used for other content too.

1. Jelly Bean Activity 

• Purpose: to experience patterns of behaviours and communication through different cultural lenses. 
• each person is given a role. The tipsheet explains clearly that role's cultural value. 
• Each person is given a jelly bean (different colour)
• Each colour represents a position. 
• Position 1: In my shoes / I statement (I believe / I think / I feel) / a group of P1 people, they can never collaborate, just endless debate
• Position 2: In your shoes
• Position 3: Anchored helicopter / participant observer 

2. Hot Potato

• Distribute students into a few groups. Have a few questions to brainstorm. Each group has a mahjong paper to write down the answers. Each mahjong paper is for one question.
• Time and rotate the paper around among groups for others to write down their ideas too. When the first paper each group started with rotates back, each group will present the ideas to the whole class. 

3. The Four Temperaments (Stronger Smarter)

• Teaching about one topic catering to four different personalities. 
• Wombat - writing
• Dolphin - character feelings
• Eagle - diagnostic test
• Kangaroo - outdoor lessons based on same topic
• if children feel honoured to do what they want and interested in, they help each other learn. For example, during wombat lessons, kangaroo might not sit still but wombat say, "kangaroo you are going to get your chance soon...can you focus first" ; kangaroo learns to respect, wombat teachers kangaroo their strength too.

4. Seeking Love Over Fear

• Love Abundance
• Bullying is because of fear
• TO overcome bullying, principal wants children to come in and say how much they love the school, friends or teachers, but not coming in and say how they were bullied...

Storydrama

The way I see drama in early childhood is acting out a story. This is called story enactment or dramatisation, which implies a literal re-enactment of narrative and its character.

My tutor Johanna has brought me on a wonderful introductory journey to storydrama with "Sarah'
s Heavy Heart" by Peter Carnavas. Storydrama uses the issues, themes, characters, mood, conflict or spirit of a known story as a frame for improvisatory exploration. In this form of drama, the focus is on an uncertainty, a fascinating idea, or an event or details that is not fully explored within the original story.

After this tutorial, Johanna asked us to look for books that can be further explored with storydrama. I found a book called "My Two Blankets".

In another tutorial by Adrianna, she taught us two ways to approach storydrama (example from "Lost and Found":

1. Think of a key question from the book. e.g. friendship? lost and found process?

2. Choose your favourite page and brainstorm how to extend from there. e.g. the page of rowing the boat, so we might can bring in cardboard made boats as a storytelling space; the page of saying goodbye, and extend by talking about feelings seeing mum or dad dropping them off at school...

Warm up activities

In this semester, I took a unit called "Early Childhood Performing Arts"
I enjoyed every single tutorial as I experienced music, dance and drama in a lot of new ways
It made me miss lessons with Mr. Victor so much too ( I should have started documenting his lessons too, hopefully when I get back home this summer break, I can do some ^^)

Anyway, these warm up activities are worth to be kept:

1. Points of connection

• students are placed in groups and explained that they will be working together and counting. The teacher says a number e.g. four and explains that as a group you can only connect witht he floor at four points. So in a group of four, everyone may lift one foot so there are only four connections with floor. Give the class a variety of numbers and suggest different ways they can balance to achieve the correct number. Any part of their body can connect with the floor.

2. Elbow to elbow

• students in pairs, connect different body parts on instruction.
• e.g. elbow to elbow, toe to knee, foot to foot etc.
• these activities help to prepare students for group work and working physically together. 

3. one people, two people make the shelter 小鸟换家 

4. Change the motion

• students in a circle follow movements started by a teacher. After the pattern is established select a student to lead the movements. Explain that one student will go outside and the leader of the movement will change. When the student re-enters their job is to work out who is leading the movements that the whole group are doing. The task of the students in the circle is to work so closely together that it is difficult to work out who is leading. Highlight the value of working together, being observant and watching other people closely. 

5, Walk around the room filling in all the gaps exploring space but do not bump into each other. Experiment different pace (fast/slow); different dynamics (heavy / light movements)

6. In a circle, as you say your name do a movement (clap/ non-locomotive movement)

7. Ha game

• Students in a circle are to follow closely the teacher and do exactly the same thing as her/him at the same time. Teacher says "ha" and at the same time bends his kness and draws his hands up, palms facing outwards. The aim is to do it all the same time, allow time to let other students lead. Guide student to prepare by being focused, alert and quiet. 

Top 10 Tips for Prac

I think the privilege of me being in QUT is they send us out for prac EVERY semester.
Even though it is not my dream country (my dream country is UK), but IT'S OKAY! =)
Field experience is very important to me.
I remembered once I discussed with my mum whether to choose Australia or UK, she said, "You are going to spend most of your time studying not travelling, so choose where that makes your studies fruitful and happier"

Okay, back on topic.
I had my prac in a child care centre last semester working in a toddlers room. This semester, in two weeks time, I am going to a state school (OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) teaching Year 1 (ARGHHHHH!!!!) everything is so new so challenging but ya, challenge accepted! =)

Today, my lovely partnership lecturer shared with us these tips she came out together with an experienced mentor so I thought I should put it down so that everytime before my prac, I should have a look at it:

1) Keep your end of the deal!

• Don't go in and say "Im going to do this, do this..." but ended up you didnt do it
• Say , "Can I do this?" and MAKE SURE you do it
• Keep your promises =)
• 讲到就要做到！做不到就不要讲！

 2) Dance the Tango!

• The children already have a way of of doing things since the start of the term. I have to be observant of their moves and join in the dance. 
• Being there for a short period is not about having the concept of teaching them waltz and changing everything. Changes are good but if I want to teach something new, make sure it is slow and smooth....

3) Seek clarity, ask questions, think out loud and look interested

•  Asking questions require courage, I know how much courage I took on my first prac because of the different language background and sometimes I couldnt understand their accent well that's why sometime I hold myself back...but im improving and breaking that barrier =)
• Seek clarity is really important if I keep questions and doubts to myself, host teacher might think I dont take the initiative. And I am going to be very negative and unsure and unclear of what to do. 
• I recalled last prac I poured my heart out to my host teacher that Im not sure how to plan lessons for such little ones, as I am more used to three to six. And it turned out really an empowering session. 

4) Talk to kids and get involved

• my strength! haha I love talking to kids and I can really talk for really long
• But I would like to quote my lecturer for her sharing, it is just too beautiful

Everyone is different, make those little moments matter. Personalize conversations. After all, there is no more September 2014 happening again...

5) Essential Skills for Classroom Management

• my weakness, so I have to work hard on this, reading more on this and she shared this document from Queensland Government with us "ECSM: Core learning component

6) Set SMART goals, seek support and ask for written feedback

•  Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

7) Have a lesson recorded and get feedbacl

• I remembered this during my prac in diploma, that is so weird looking back to yourself but my lecturer told us the importance to reflect and think about the teaching sequence.

8) Relationships, relationships, relationships

You're here to be friendly not their friends! (couldnt agree more with this...)

9) Transitions, transitions, transitions

• think them through, make them meaningful
• they are gold teaching opportunities **

10) Mindset

• have a growth mindset not a rigid mindset
• I have to learn this
• If I have a rigid mindset, when my teacher criticise me, I will take it badly and overwhelm myself ( I experienced this before but from a child ><)
• If I have a growth mindset, I will reframe the criticism in a positive way to help me grow..

Equity

Equity does not mean treating every student fairly and equally

Equity means that all students receive education that "is responsive to their prior knowledge, intellectual strengths, and personal interests" (NCTM, 2000)

One of the significant knowledge I've learnt in my course.

It's very hard to do it but I will try my best to do it in this upcoming field experience.
**