Miss Art of Teaching

I LOVE MY CLASSES. This year I have been blessed with really good classes. I still get my dose of challenging students but overall the students are settled and I get to be myself in front of them. I can be silly, make jokes and do some horrible dabbing.  Teaching is about knowing your students and working on building good relationships with them. At the same time NOT letting them get away with things like coming late to class, incomplete assessments tasks and being rude. It is important to have consistent instructions and consequences. Students do three things when they walk into my classroom: 1. Bags off (and placed at the back of the room). 2. Sit down. 3. Zip it. This is to get the class settled quickly without interruptions. Once the introduction is done (for practical lessons), students can start on their own project. If it is a theory lesson, students need to remain quiet unless there is a class discussion. I am generally more flexible with senior s...

My high school has partnered with the University of Western Sydney (WSU). We are currently in our early stages of our Professional Learning Project. The project involves professional development using an action research model with topics identified by the teachers. Action research is a process involving enquiry into an important question relating to classroom and school practice. The first step to this project was to complete a survey so that all the 72 teachers including the executives of this school could be separated into groups of similar interest. Teachers were joined by others who have similar wonderings/interest to form project groups. The project groups links to one of the 6 WSU academics with expertise in the group's chosen focus area.  The WSU academic partners will then provide up to 10 hours of support to each group. This includes advice on readings, resources and so forth. I was placed into a group with three other teachers who were interested in Positive Be...