Paul's Place of Musings and Insights

the reflections of a techno-meddling teacher

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#ozprimschchat 13/2/14 AITSL Standard 1

Tonight’s #ozprimschchat was the first for 2014 and focussed on AITSL Standard 1 ‘Know Students and How They Learn’. The great appeal in tonight’s experience is not in my return to organised chats for 2014, but the subject matter involved. Most topics covered related directly to my teaching but tonight was extremely topical as we as a staff are undergoing professional reflections that align conveniently with the AITSL Standards that we need to meet for accreditation. I have spent the last few week pondering my place on the seven rubrics and have come to the conclusion that the language can be ambiguous and vague and really serves to make me doubt my abilities. Not to say that I am not confident as a teacher – far from it. I am talking about whether that means I am proficient, highly accomplished, lead or just at a graduate level.

Tonight’s chat put a lot of things in perspective. As always, it served to validate my thoughts about a topic. My interpretation of Standard 1 is shared by many around Australia, and this gives me a boost. I feel affirmed in my approach to not only mapping myself against Standard 1, but all of them. It also got me thinking (again) about classroom practices. One of the beautiful thing about topic chats are the tangent discussions that one finds themselves in from time to time. One of these was on the ability of the learning environment to transform and invigorate learning. Again, my views are mirrored by others and this helps. (At the end of the day though, I am influenced primarily by my students in these areas). Thirdly, I have championed the Genius Hour concept at my school and along with Jade and Andy (my Year 6 buddies) we have made it a highlight of our weekly timetable. Again, the benefits we see from our students are the primary motivator but its also nice to hear other on tonight’s chat advocating its awesomeness as well.

Click the Play button in the lower left of the object to play through the tweets or click here to peruse as a list.

 

 

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Learning Spaces

#ozprimschchat last night discussed Learning Spaces. I am looking into this a lot at the moment. I have gradually this year been getting rid of tables and chairs and bringing couches, cushions and benches into my classroom. I have noticed a marked improvement in both engagement and motivation amongst my students, which coupled with a 1:1 tablet program next year is motivating me to do more in this area.

This is my current Learning Space


This is a storify of the twitter chat.

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Twitter Chats

I’ve always been a big fan of twitter chats. Since discovering the benefits of twitter in education during my second year of teaching, I have found the scheduled chat to be the most rewarding aspect of the medium. It’s a chance to share ideas, get ideas and have your ideas affirmed. Most importantly, for me, is that they expose you to an extended learning network. You are able to engage with other professionals that are outside your own staff room. You get the benefit of collected experiences and contexts.

There are a plethora of scheduled chats on all sorts of topics. See here for a collection made by Jeannette James (@7mrsjames).  One that I keep going back to is #ozprimschchat. It is for Australian Primary School teachers – check, thats me.

I have been using this blog to not only document my professional learning journey as a teacher, but more recently to also map these against the AITSL Standards. Since twitter chats are considered professional development, I thought I would start documenting the chats I participate in here. These will also serve as a resource for the specific topics that are discussed. Tonight’s chat was on the Australian Curriculum – What needs to change?

 

 

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