Miss Art of Teaching

Change is inevitable and as teachers we need to be flexible and positive about new ideas and approaches to teaching. Teaching is a challenging job where we need to know our content and find ways to make learning fun. Lately, I have been asking students about how they feel about the subject and what we can do as a faculty to make learning more accessible to them. This has led me back to my blog and I am now sitting here thinking of new ways to deliver content: 1. Make learning more relevant. This year we have been looking at Environmental Issues and Street Art with Stage 5 (Year 9/10). However, compared to previous year, this particular cohort seem to find the projects less engaging. My faculty plans to create four shorter projects for 2020. We need to provide them with topics/issues that are more RELEVANT to them. Make them interested and CURIOUS. Give opportunities for students to generate their own research questions and search for explanations. 2. Make learning clear. Student...

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...

Today a Year 7 student purchaesd the right to teach my lesson using 100 virtual rewards points. Mr Pulvirenti saved up his virtual rewards points to teach the class how to create a cartoon self portrait. The class worked beautifully. Students were on their best behaviour and some wanted to continue the activity at home.

Time is flying... I will be saying goodbye to my first Senior Year 12 class in a few months timeframe. I am now on a count down with my Year 12 students. They have 4 days until their 30% Body of Work and Visual Arts Process Diary is due for marking. This is an in school progress mark which is combined with their earlier 20% practical progress mark. The final 50% of their mark will come NESA (NSW Education Standards). It has definitely been a journey of mixed feeling. We are all exhausted both emotionally and physically. It has been difficult to get them to stay motivated. I will need to work on developing a stricter timeframe, provide more examples of Band 6 artworks and learn how to provide criticisim that does not deflate their self-esteem. Teaching my first senior class has definitely been an eye opener. Students are used to be given direction at every step from Year 7-10, with the freedom to choose their own concept and materials it can be quite stressing. Some may not be ...

During the Term 2 holidays, I started prepping for the 'Rock Colourful Pathway Project'. My Deputy Principal read up an article about an elementary school teacher at Indiana who started a project where every student painted a rock to make up a bright and colourful pathway. She kindly suggested that this might be a good Project Based Learning project. This project has gone bigger and it is now a whole school project. It is one of the Positive Behaviour for Learning initiative. Every student, teacher and staff are encouraged to paint a rock. We want to send out creative and positive vibes throughout the school and local community. At the moment I am trying to prepare for a 'Rock' stall for the school's Heritage (Multicultural) day so that I can get some parents and carers involved with the painting process. Local businesses have assisted by donating rocks! Flower Power and Bunnings are our biggest supporters. I am blessed to be working in a community where busi...

I always get excited about teaching the Cyberpunk/Steampunk program to Year 7 students. This is my third year teaching it and it gets better every year. The first year, students did not take responsibility with bringing in their own 'materials' to create a mask. This ended up with a lot of masks looking similar and lacking the detail required to create interest. Last year, all my students were motivated even the ones who had difficulties completing homework throughout the year.  I loveeeee this project as I am a hands on person. Students will be using plaster bandage, hot glue gun, spray paint and also found objects. The combination makes it fun to teach. Students have started bringing in materials. A student told me today that he would use his broken fire alarm as part of his mask. I want students to see the potential in every household material. Anything can be made into a mask. We started the project yesterday and I am so happy to see students being eager to learn. I ha...

Wow... time flies! It is already the LAST day of Term 2. Students were eager to 'paint' and help in my classroom. I had more than half the class stay back during lunch to paint my classroom. Some students did smaller jobs, like decorating the classroom fans with contact and I even had two students who made me a personal speaker! I LOVE it. The speaker is made from an empty can of Pringle and two paper cups. Check out the photos below. Now...it is time to enjoy the two weeks holidays! I will be trying to balance work with leisure time. First activity tonight is having a family dinner at a dumpling house before heading to the drive-through cinema with my partner and Shih Tzu.

For today's blog entry, I decided to share a newsletter article that I compiled with teacher and students' feedback on Vivo (virtual points reward system) prizes. The school's 'Vivo' reward system works by having accounts set up for both the teacher and student. The cost of running the 'Vivo Miles' program depends on the number of students at your school. Teachers can reward students based on how well they are meeting the school's values of being a respectful, engaged and an active learner. Students can look up their virtual points and the messages that go along with it on their computer/mobile app and trade their points in for prizes of their own choice i.e. tangible prize or a teacher service prize.  To get a bit of a background about Vivo, please read the following post on: Ways to get donations/prizes Love my classes Newsletter article: A BIG thank you to all the teachers and staff who have donated their time providing these amazing Vivo T...