Wk 8 - class free period

No classes this week - however, I am currently doing professional experience every Wednesday at Telopea Park School.

These rolling days are giving me an opportunity to try our many of the activities and strategies discussed in the tutorial sessions. I have had fun experimenting with different behaviour management techniques in this low pressure setting. It is fascinating to see how students respond to different techniques (both verbal and non-verbal) and I am starting to develop a nice little bag of tricks as a consequence!

Wk 7 - missing in action!

Unfortunately I was unable to attend classes this week due to an operation on my big toe! It would have been nice to have listened to the expert speakers and I look forward to checking out what they had to say (lecture was not available at time of writing).

My incapacitation has made me ponder the impact that my physical health will have on my teaching. My physical condition has the potential to greatly impact on my ability to model skills for my students and to interact in games for understanding. I wonder how I can modify lessons in order to reduce the impact that any injuries may have on my teaching?

Wk 6 - Teaching Standards: What am I missing?

This week's lecture made me think about the above question… My first thought was 'whole unit planning'. I have covered lessons plans a number of times now but I have not really been shown how to produce plans for large scale sequences of lessons. How do I successfully draw together the myriad elements that need to be addressed when creating whole units of work?

Tutorials introduced more activities that will prove useful tools in creating engaging health lessons. I am happy that this unit is giving me a nice collection of resources for use in the health classroom. Where previous units have loaded up my bag of PE (games based) tricks, this unit is covering the in class side of my future profession.

Wk 5 - The National Curriculum and Behaviour managment

The Australian National Curriculum is currently being implemented for the 'core' KLAs of English, Mathematics, Science and History. While I obviously understand and appreciate the fundamental importance of English and Mathematics for literacy and numeracy skills I find it suprising that Health and PE has not been included in this first roll out, instead relegated to the very last phase of implementation. As a future HPE teacher I feel that my teaching area is of paramount importance. Though the Australian Curriculum site looks great, I am frustrated that HPE is not regarded in the same league as traditionally 'more important' subjects.

Our tutorials this week focused on behaviour management techniques. I found that many of these techniques are things I already use. It was great, however, to tease them out a little more and really analyse the strengths and weaknesses of each technique.

Wk4 - Great games for the bank

Yesterday our tutorial basically took us through a typical health lesson. Our tutor asked us to both participate in the lesson and also observe his teaching (within the Quality Teaching Framework). The tutorial provided a number of useful activities that can be incorporated into the classroom. This, for me, was the most valuable part of this week’s STS1 learning material. These activities are fantastic for interpersonal, verbal/ aural, and kinesthetic learners and will therefore appeal to a range of students. Unfortunately we ran out of time to discuss our tutor’s teaching, something he may have been (secretly) grateful for!