Busy bee

Since last night, I have been working, working and working. There is so much I want to do but physically I can only do so much in one go. I got up early this morning to finish off what I wanted to do. I think I must have a love and hate relationship with working in my own spare time. I find what I do interesting but at the same time, I whine to myself.

 I spent almost two hours last night uploading new prizes onto the Vivo online school shop, making facebook posts and sending emails in regards to the school's Vivo rewards program. Vivos is a rewards program we used to reward students using virtual points. Students can exchange the virtual points for a prize of their own liking. 

 I have been actively seeking for more donations from the school and local community. Parramatta Riverbank has kindly offered a double pass to see Dracula. Here is my post on the school's facebook:


Above: DRACULA double passes.

I started making a PowerPoint for the 'Meet the Teachers' evening event since I am the Year 7 Adviser. I think parents will appreciate seeing photos of their child working hard and having fun. There are a number of slides of students working in classrooms, in the playground and photos inside my art classroom. I love this particular screenshot from my PowerPoint. I feel like I am the mummy dog! Again, I have placed eye stickers over the students to protect their identity.



Above: Snapchat filters used on students for their 'Selfies' portrait drawing unit. Also, using the same photos for the 'Meet the Teacher' evening.


Today has been a day of organising. I have been writing down a list of jobs I need to do in my free embossed Mimco notebook (free with a selected amount of purchases). The best part about writing down what to do is, looking forward to the day of crossing out the completed tasks!


Above: Mimco notebook

I also sat down and completed my teaching objectives for this year. My main focuses will be:

1) Review and improve teaching practice.
I will be using this blog to reflect on my own teaching practice and share ideas while taking feedback from other teachers on reputable teaching social media platforms. I enjoy making posts and getting feedback. I also really appreciate ideas being shared by others.

I love sharing my ideas on the 'Relief Teaching Ideas Community' Facebook group as I get to interact with a number of different teachers. There are around 32,000 teachers on this page and the support/advice has been awesome.


Above: My post on Relief Teaching Ideas Community


Above: Another teacher gave me the idea of purchasing the 'good' witch as I currently have the 'evil' witch from Wizard of Oz. I think I can give the good witch a speech bubble and she will be all about rewarding students and providing motivational inspirational quotes. 


2) Take opportunities to lead and present to staff.
I want to improve my presentation skills and lead staff by presenting and providing them with information on Postive Behaviour Learning.

3) Commit to celebrating students' achievements.
I love taking photos of students and giving the recognition across a number of platforms such as the School Facebook page and the monthly newsletter articles. I am constantly trying to find more donations for the School Vivo Store to make students more interested. This includes negotiating with local businesses to donate prizes and liaising with teachers to provide teacher service prizes.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hamburger analogy

Image
My head teacher came into my Year 11 Senior class today to do an observation lesson. I also asked my co-worker who wanted to do a peer observation to come in at the same time. The purpose of the observations is to allow them to give me feedback on my teaching practice and for them to see the level of engagement in the classroom. At my school, every teacher must do an observation and also have someone seated in their class to provide feedback. I spent a quarter of the lesson going through the hamburger analogy. I adapted this from a shared resource on the 'Relief Teaching Ideas Community' Facebook group. I improved on this resource by using words from my own marking criteria and by picking out desirable and non-desirable behaviours exhibited from my students during the first 9 weeks of the term. After the hamburger analogy, I went through the requirements of HSC Visual Arts. I wanted students to understand why the preliminary program and assessment tasks were designed in a...
Read more

Speed Dating Art Critique

Image
A few years ago, during Valentine's day, I made a 'speed dating' activity for my Year 11 Community and Family Studies class (I was on a contract block). I left a trail of cut out hearts from the classroom door to the long tables in the classroom (I am the corny teacher!). I instructed students to seat on either side. At that time, I was teaching them about wellbeing factors. Each student received a character card and they were required to role play. A list of questions was given and it helped assist students with the conversations.  Students enjoyed the activities and there were A LOT of giggles.   Photo from 2014 'Speed Dating' activity: I decided to revisit the concept of speed dating. The idea of speed dating is to meet as many potential partners in a short frame of time. Using this concept, I built a lesson for my Year 11 Visual Arts class. I will be asking students to critique each other's artwork(s) in 5 minute increments. They must follow ...
Read more

Maintenance of Accreditation

Image
Being a NSW teacher requires one to pay their Teacher Accreditation fee (aka teaching license). My first teaching gig was given to me because another temporary teacher forgot to pay her accreditation fee. This jeopardise her capacity to teach in any school or service in NSW under the Education Standards Authority. Tonight I decided to pay my $100 (tax deductible) Teacher Accreditation Fee before being penalised for forgetting. I also tick a few things off my To-Do list. This included evaluating all my tasks on the NESA eTAMS dashboard (a website built for teachers to record all professional learning). I decided to look into the final processes of my maintenance of accreditation since it is due on Feb 2019. The process has been simplified and one only needs to have a total of 100 hrs (50 NESA Registered and 50 TIPD), all courses evaluated, confirm employment details and press the submit maintenance button. On the NESA e-TAMS website, it is op...
Read more