Time to be bold and courageous

After a few really hard few weeks I feel I have climbed a mountain and am sitting at the top enjoying a brief moment with the wind in my hair and the crisp air filling my lungs before I trek down the mountain again. I have been so thrilled this week with the standard of work that has been handed to me and I am filled with goosebumps and butterflies for my students as they hand in their final assessments for their courses. I love this time of term when you can see such growth in their learning and I love the new confidence many of them have as a result of studying at TAFE for 6 or 12 months. For some it has been a life changing event and I am so grateful to have shared in their journey. 

Image by ABC radio

On Wednesday night I had the pleasure of attending the Central Coast Friends Association mid year dinner with guest speaker Dr Michael Davey. He was one of the best speakers I have heard in a long time and I could have listened to him for hours. He had the audience in the palm of his hand and inspired us with stories about his life and his teaching experiences. He has written a wonderful book, Journey of Hope that I purchased on the night and hope to read in the coming weeks. It is his life story that highlights his harsh and horrible life in foster homes and then living in a violent family to his incredible life journey as an adult. I came away from the night truly inspired. 

It was during the night I was able to connect with some teachers and educators that were really excited and encouraged about my plans to organise Teach Meet. I was so encouraged and realised that in order to make it happen I need to bold and courageous. I need to make connections and build networks and share my love of learning with others who are like minded. I know there are many teachers out there who also share my love of teaching and passion for learning and I seek to connect and join with them. I have been crippled by the fear of failure in the past but in order to move forward I must be bold and courageous in my attempt to make it happen. 

In the last few weeks my work opportunities have opened up and I'll let you in on them in the coming weeks. A few weeks ago I was a guest presenter on an online course with the Western Institute of TAFE and it was my great pleasure to share with them how I use technology to engage my students in learning. I really enjoy presenting in an online capacity and would really like to do more of this. 

My cup is overflowing with the wonderful blessings God has passed my way and I am very grateful for the life I have. I thank all my wonderful colleagues and friends who encourage me to write on my blog and I hope many of them will come to Teach Meet or help promote it those who can make it. 

Favorite sites for the week:

Coach's Eye- annotate live video. Cool tool

Australia's Business Women Network

5 Awesome web tools to create awesome digital newspapers for your class

What a great week. Until next week,

K

Sharing, A spirit of generosity

There are many things that I love about teaching but one of them is this great spirit of generosity that many teachers possess and they feel they can share their experience and their resources with others. I am pleased to announce the inaugural Central Coast TeachMeet  that will take place on Friday night 26th July. 

Last year I blogged about the first Teach Meet I attended in Sydney. It was the first Teach Meet in Australia and it was amazing. There were many teachers who gave of their time to share what had been happening in their classrooms and schools and encourage other teachers to use their ideas and develop them further. There was not a sniff of snotty intellectualism that sometimes pervades our professional but a shared love of learning and encouraging students to develop in their creativity, confidence and skills. There was a great representation from both the private and the public sector. No wonder it has taken off throughout the rest of the country. I really hope this will be a wonderful night of sharing and celebration of Central Coast teachers and students. 

I am looking for teachers who would like to share a 2 min or 7 min presentation on a topic of their choice.It doesn't have to be how you are using technology in your classroom, it could be how a particular technique you used helped students or how do you help students cope with the fear of failure. You might like to tell us about an event that your school hosted or participated in.

 I am hoping to advertise this event widely but will need the help of all my social media friends and colleagues. I do hope this becomes a buzz event for the Central Coast as we seek to provide quality educational opportunities for the young people of the Central Coast. 

I am very excited about this night and I hope I won't be the only one there. Central Coast Teachers have a lot to give and share and I hope it will be a wonderful night. 

Please contact me if you would like to come or share something that is happening in your Tafe, uni or school classroom:

Kathryn.mcgilvray@tafensw.edu.au

Register for Central Coast Teach Meet

Until next week,
K

When learning becomes reciprocal

I have to admit over the last few weeks I have been a little down and flat. Which is not like me at all. I don't usually let the stress of work and life get to me but I think some busy stuff just caught up with me. Since Thursday I feel a return to my usual up beat normal self with fresh glasses on it's time to reflect upon what's been going on in the last few weeks.

I was so excited for my students last term when sat their major exam and they received some fantastic marks. I felt so pleased for them and considering this was the first time that I had taught on the course I was stoked that they did so well. Often when the students are stressed it is easy to to feel stressed to. It's sad that many students don't return after the Term 1 holidays and you feel a sense of failure but I have come to realise that people for many reasons can't cope with study and the stress of it or there are things that change in their lives  or have gained employment and may come back at another time. I can't let these things get me down for too long. It's the nature of the students at Tafe and adult learners. Sometimes life throws you a curve ball and your path is no longer straight and you have to get there another way.

Last term was a steep learning curve as I was course coordinator for the first time, teaching on three courses I had not taught on before and training and maintaining the Moodle site I built for the section. It was rich in experience and I am learning more about people and how to encourage and support adult learners from vast and varied backgrounds and ages. Each day is so different and I am often inspired by my students. Our students are not empty vessels and one student in my Cert IV course gave a me a great tip she came up with herself when writing a paragraph in an essay. She remembers:

Some students like concrete rules to help remember how to write different texts and I wanted to share this great idea in case you also might have students who like structure and rules. 

One of the great things about teaching for me is the generosity in sharing. I love it when I can learn something from my students and that in turn will help others. So many times they surprise us and I look to the wins when I feel down. 

A couple of week ago on #ozengchat on Twitter we had a fantastic chat with Jen Curwood-Scott about YA fiction. This genre is changing and challenging and I love the vibrancy that young people give to YA fiction and drive the genre because of their love of reading.

I am moving ahead with my plans for the first ever Central Coast TeachMeet and I think I have a venue. They are offering the centre free but will keep you posted until next week. Waiting on confirmation. Have also applied to do an Adobe Premier Elements course and am waiting to hear if I got in. Seems like a great elearning tool. My wonderful hubbie and kids gave my a Wacom Bamboo tablet for Mother's Day and I am having a lot of fun playing around with that. Have my L plates on and not ready to take it to the class room just yet. Another week or two and I'll give it a try. 

Another busy we ahead but one full of new and rich experiences. 

Until next week,

K

   

Money, money, money.. = success?

There has been a lot of hype, twitter chatter and many bloggers writing about the Gonski reforms and the impact they will have on students. There has been an explosion of commentating on the fact that universities are facing a $2 billion funding cut. There seems to be very little evidence on exactly what this money will practically look like. So how can we measure improvement apart from Naplan? If we throw bucket loads of money at childhood education will that mean they will be creating smarter and more capable adults that are able to contribute to society in a meaningful way? I'm not sure that the success of students now can be measured as they become adults and contributing members of society or should I say contributing future tax payers. It seems to me that highly skilled teachers will go a long way to helping students success and that cutting funding to higher education seems to be a kick in the knees in solve the problem.

Dan Haesler suggests,

"How do you suppose we train these better  teachers if we starve the universities of cash?

Maybe we could just put an instructional video up on YouTube. That should do it. That’s 21st Century teaching after all isn’t it?

We want better teachers! Pfft.

We need better politicians!"

Education should be viewed in a holistic way. There still needs to be affordable adult education for those students who fall through the cracks at school. Cutting Tafe funding was already going to make it difficult for the adult education industry but cutting university funding is also just as problematic. University fees also can't be so high that students will struggle to pay them back or be so high they can't afford to complete the degree they require to be part of the skilled workforce that we all aspire to.  This system seems so broken it's a wonder it can ever be fixed. With all the money that is being thrown around I really wonder if at a grass roots level that it will make a difference? Only time will tell. 

Blogs and conversations are important in the debate and silence on the issue doesn't help robust debate. If politicians want to hear what teachers think then we need to get out in social media and in the face of people who are making these decisions. There are many people in society who do support the work of teachers and it is important that we advocate for our students and our profession. 

So whether or not you support Gonski it remains to be seen if lots of money will fix a broken system and students really are better prepared to be contributing members of society when they reach adulthood.  

A mid week blog..

Until Saturday,

K

Does technology really save time?

Image by Jeff Werner

During the course of this week I had a really interesting conversation with one of my colleagues about how she was using Moodle to save time. Her faculty normally would have printed out reams of paper so the students would have all the handbooks, campus information and so on. Instead of printing it all out she has uploaded all this information to the course Moodle site and now the students can access it if they need it. It probably took less time to upload it than it would have waiting for the photocopier to print it all out. Sustainability in action!! At TAFE we are always looking for ways to be more efficient and I think this teacher has done just that. Technology can be our friend when it comes to sustainability but does it take more time to do so?

In my experience yes and no. Yes in that once you have created the technology to engage in a process that will help students you only have to do it the once and then you can reuse the resource over and over again. No in that it takes time to produce the resource in the first place. This term I have tried to record my lectures and post them on my class Moodle page. Teaching on 5 courses has meant a lot of recording and to be honest I haven't kept up. In fact I plan to 'catch up' in the holidays. So I guess with all my work and family commitments time got me in the end. However, the feedback from students has been overwhelmingly positive. Those who were away found it to be great and also those studying for exams. Now that I have produced them I can use them again in second semester or if I want to change them I can. Technology gives you that flexibility. 

I guess you have to weigh the pros and cons like anything and work it in to fit with what you are doing. I often say to teachers that technology is just a tool. You need to use the right learning tool to get the job done. It's important to remember that we are not 'entertaining' our students with technology. Joe Bower writes on his blog. 

 " Too many uses of technology doubles down on the assumption that the learner is a passive receptacle that knowledge must be dumped into."

There is much research that supports the use of experiential learning and students should really  have the opportunity to explore, develop and grow through a number of teaching methods and not be entertained or have information dumped on them as though they are an empty vessel or 'passive receptacle'. It's important to be time efficient and maximize the time we have in preparation so I guess I will continue to work on getting the balance right. 

Image by ginnerobots

Looking forward to these two weeks of school holidays and hope to recharge the batteries. Looking forward to catching up on some reading and attending to some of the books that have been sitting on my bedside table all term.

Favorite sites for the week,

Making mistakes

Can technology replace teachers?

Teach Amazing

Until next week,
K

Why is meta-learning so important?

Yet again I have been very slack in blogging. Teaching full time has definitely put a curb on my time but not my enthusiasm for what I do.

Image by CarbonNYC

I really love this time in first term when things begin to sink in for students. There were quite a few moments in the last week when students were making connections and were able to successfully edit their work. One of my favorite phrases is "Oh yes, now I can see..." or "That doesn't make sense, I need to...". It is at this point you can see that they aware of their own learning. Often at these times I like to refer to Building Learning Power by Guy Claxton and his concepts of learning muscles and I like to point out to the students which learning muscle they are using in order to highlight the changes they are making.

This year I introduced a blog as one of my assessments. The students used their Google accounts to set up a blogger blog and used the blog to reflect on their learning each week. Some students found this really difficult and needed some prompting to write more meaningful reflections. Many students enjoyed using the blog to convey their thoughts and found that having their own online space was really helpful to follow their learning journey so far this term.

When a skill is mastered or there is significant improvement it is important to celebrate the small wins as

Image by deflam's photostream

much as the big ones. Like a great artwork it must always start somewhere before it becomes something that is marvelous to see. I had a long conversation with one of my students last week about how far she had come in her learning journey over the last 12 months. She was able to pinpoint how she had improved and what she needed to do in order continue to improve her skills. It was joy to my ears to hear her analysing herself and really critically evaluate her learning. She will be a life long learner and for this I celebrate her success.

This week one of my classes faces a major exam as part of their course. Today there is stress, tension and focus in the air as they work on a practice paper. Some really hate exams and are very nervous. Some feel anxiety as to what the exam will bring. This is an external exam not set by me and so they are trying to absorb all they have learnt in the last 8 months and put into practice all their skills. I am anxious for them also and will be relieved after Thursday.

So today I celebrate meta-learning. Being aware of your own learning. This skill will change and develop over time and it can be the thing that drives us to improve and take on board change and new challenges.

Favorite sites for the week:

Asian focus in New Aus curriculum

Google Keep

Until next time,
Kathryn

Building confidence, building resilience

Today I feel so excited to have made time to blog again. It has been far to long between blog posts.  The weeks are flying by and I haven't had a chance to blog which is very sad.

I have had a wonderful start to the term. My new role as coordinator has been really interesting and it has been great to get to know the students on a different level. I have found I have really enjoyed the mentoring part of this role as I encourage our students in their learning and keep them focused on the big goal they have set for themselves. Achieving the little goals can be so beneficial in order to reach the big goal.

Image by Presenter Media.com

This week one of my classes attempted to write an essay. For some they had either never written one or in the past they had failed badly. There were some real misgivings by some to even start. After some help and persuasion all students had a go at it with varying levels of success. The topic they were responding to was, what is a home? They had three texts they were using as a reference point. One was a text about what sort of places people associated with home (cities, suburbs, buildings, rooms in a house), the second was a visual text with a little boy just relaxing in a large box and the third was a poem by Bruce Dawe, Homo Suburbanesis. Over the last few weeks we have been writing responses to a variety of texts using full sentences and paragraphs and it was wonderful to see the students transferring those skills to essay writing and some of them are doing it really well. It was great to see them develop and build confidence on what they had already learnt. Many went home and worked on them, some shared them with me through Google docs. A rich and rewarding teaching experience when it all comes together.

For some students the fear of failure sometimes driven by perfection can be a real stumbling block and it is resilience to these failures that is so important in building. Some students are so crippled by the fact that it has to be perfect each time that the learning is missed and stifled by this lack of resilience. Try and try again might be a motto we learn in childhood but this is associated with disappointment and failure. Rebuilding the ability to try in a safe environment without fear is a battle for some students and one I hope to help them this term.

Image by Presenter Media.com

I have been really enjoying the challenge of teaching a Certificate IV course this term and have found the students yet again rising to the challenge. What must be said about Generation Y is that theydo show resilience and I have seen them develop perseverance in their writing. I love it when I see them asking the questions of themselves and analysing themselves without my prompting. They have come such a long way from their Cert III course last year.






I built a Moodle site for our section last year and this year we are trying to implement it. I have been recording my lectures after the lesson using Adobe Presenter in Power point and then uploading them at the end of the week to our class site. The students can watch the slides and hear my voice as I explain key aspects of the lesson. The feedback from students has been great. Some students may have been away for that lesson and they can listen and watch what they have missed and have access to the worksheets and class notes. Other students have been using it to consolidate what they have been learning in class when they were thinking about things later in the week. Whilst it does take time to create and upload everything I have found it very worthwhile and accessible for the students outside of class time. I don't have to chase up students who miss classes. They do. I don't have time to give each student a private lesson of what they have missed so I have found it has given me some time back during my day.

Image by Presenter Media.com

All in all a very positive start to the term. I have been working super hard and my students told me this week I need to get a life. Have been doing a lot of over time but I find that working extra in the early weeks and setting in place new wheels in motion pays off in the end. I took time to do the mowing and gardening this week and I really enjoyed being outdoors after so much rain. I went for a few swims at the pool this week too and have found that regular exercise has been a good way to manage stress and gives me time to absorb everything that is going on.

Hoping this blog will set in motion my regular desire to blog each week. I guess we'll wait and see. Have not been as active this year in social media and I miss my regular contact with my Twitter friends in particular. There are just so many hours in the day and I hope to make more time to build on my PLN this year.

Hope everyone has had a great week.

My favorite site for the week:

Story telling in elearning

Everloop- safe social media option for children

Trello- organisational app for projects


Until next week,
K