Miss Art of Teaching

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...

The suggested methods can be adapted into any classroom or year groups: This morning I took out several suits from an old deck of playing cards. I proceeded to cut them in half.  I passed out one-half to every  Year 11 student who walked through the door.  They were then instructed to find the other half.  This method allows them to break away from their friendship groups or from attempting the paper alone. You can carefully pair students up if you want by making sure you separate the same suit from 'close' friends. You could also pair a stronger student up with a student who may need the extra help. A good memory is important so you can distribute the cards carefully without it being obvious. For me, 'destiny' works out fine!  Once they were in their pairs, I gave them a copy of either Question 1, 2 or 3 of section 1 of a preliminary exam paper. I ended up having 3-4 groups per question.  They were then instructed to: 1. Find the ke...

I've been thinking of ways to make theory more fun AND to encourage class participation when it comes to discussion time. I don't want the same students to be giving me the answers. I want the whole class to contribute. What works: I downloaded the free PDF file from 'Expressive Monkey' on Teachers Pay Teachers. The resource is called 'Ping Pong Art Critique'. It provides a list of 32 questions to help facilitate class discussions on ANY piece of artwork. For example: -What title would you give this art? -What feeling or emotion did the artist create? -Where did the artist create contrast? -Does this art tell a story? -What would you change about this art? -Would you display this art in your house? Why? Why not? You can either purchase real ping pong balls and write the questions on top or simply print and laminate the resources. I decided to save money and go with the second option. I passed out one ping pong ball per st...

Drum rolls...  Welcome to TERM 2! I wanted to look a bit professional today so I went for 'navy' colours. The outfit might give you an illusion that I am wearing a dress but I am wearing a $15 Tommy Hilfiger sleeveless blouse top and a $50 high waisted pair of pants. I have been avoiding the pants for a while as it gives me a fuller figure and it is uncomfortably tight on the top. Probably not the ideal outfit to wear when I need to sit through more than 5 hours of teacher development information sessions. Above: Outfit of the day and photos of my Shih Tzu. It was so hard to walk out the door today! For our morning session, we had a guest speaker (Paul Hewitt) come in from the NSW Education Standards Association (NESA) to talk about 'Stronger HSC Standards' (a credential awarded to secondary students who successfully complete senior high school level studies). He went through 7 new focuses. I was interested on the minimum literacy and numeracy sta...

I love board games and I have a growing collection. I purchased a board game called 'Dixit' but never ended up playing it. Instead, I took out all the beautiful graphics cards from the box and used it to develop my own  Art theory lessons . These cards are drawn with dreamlike features. The following ideas can be adapted with real artworks. I prefer using Dixit cards with my junior classes as it is easier for them to hold and it is visually appealing to them.  Above: Some of the cards from the Dixit box. Dixit  is a card game created by Jean-Louis Roubira, and published by Libellud. Using a deck of cards illustrated with dreamlike images, players select cards that match a title suggested by the "storyteller", and attempt to guess which card the "storyteller" selected. Teaching students how to describe, analyse, interpret and make a judgement can be difficult.  However, these are valuable skills that students need t...