sandcastle

 I guess it’s time I put fingertips to keyboard in this blog! It seems I’ve been negligent in the blogging department… but not so… in fact I’ve been pretty busy with it, just not with the post pages. I spend quite a bit of time each week drawing, dabbling about with water color paint, then uploading the finished items of artwork to the Illustration Friday pages of this blog. In recent days I’ve put together a new blog - one that is dedicated exclusively to my artwork. The new blog is connected to this one and can be found at illustration@sandcastle. The artwork is moving along quite well, but the new blog is definitely a work in progress! For my birthday recently, I recieved a couple of long sought after volumes about faeries & dragons, to provide a little inspiration on the drawing front.

Of course, I continue to be busy with my students, who are always a source of inspiration, and together I think we often come up with some fun ways of approaching the curriculum. And that’s the bottom line… it has to be fun… stimulating… relevant… inspiring… for both students and teacher… so that we are both engaged and extended. But more of that later. For now, back to the drawing board!

So Jo has asked me to deliver a brief presentation about my induction to blogging and the blogosphere to a gathering of the MYP development team at our school. Hmmmm… what to say… I think I will focus on the evolution of my blog, which began not so long ago, in August 2007 after attending a Web 2.0 PD. To help me through this ordeal, I will need some directional notes. Here they are in the form of a little mock tag_cloud!

The bottom line for me with this blogging caper, apart from the opportunity to mount my art, is that the activity of reflective practice, which blogging affords me, allows my thoughts about my teaching and my students’ learning, to become crystallised with a much greater clarity than if I do not write them down. E.M. Forster wrapped this up succinctly with his words, how can I know what I think ’til I see what I say… this holds very true for me… and I’d recommend it to my peers and my students.

Next will be the challenge of setting up classroom blogs that my students can use for their own reflection, communication, networking and exploration. But Jo, I need your help to do this!

I invited the students to share in this exercise with me by walking part of the journey in my shoes.

We completed the 3rd voice process by videotaping one of the lessons and then watching and evaluating from the perspective of this third eye present at the back of the classroom. I chose to tape a class during which I was teaching the class, rather than the students delivering their lessons, to facilitate observation of my own teaching. The lesson was partly instructional and partly practical, with students completing a heart dissection during the greater part of the lesson time. We learned several interesting things about ourselves. I learned that I speak with my hands… a lot! I was satisfied with the lesson - it was broken up quite well, and the students were able to begin the dissection equipped with various bits of information needed to complete the task. The students were quite critical of themselves when they could take a peek from the outside, especially about their appearance and the sound of their own voices. But they were also able to comment on aspects of their own behaviour and level of focus, which was really interesting. But they were observing themselves from behind, as the camera was mounted at the back of our laboratory. They have asked to do a second taping, this time with the camera set up at the front of the class, so that they can observe themselves more clearly. I think this is a great idea, and we will do this sooner than later. Also, I only taped one of my two classes, which in itself caused a stir. The second class clearly felt somewhat short-changed by this, and have asked to be allowed to be taped for the purposes of self-evaluation as well. Of course I will be obliging them in this request!

Attended a PD this week called Koorie Conversations, hosted by Dare to Lead. Wonderful. Enlightening. We were served with a smorgasbord of highlights that included

• Koorie speakers sharing personal stories
• Indigenous heritage & struggles
• Education & the future
• Resources for schools & communities

The audience of educators was challenged in relation to

• What we are doing in our schools & communities
• The legacy our schools will leave to the children in our care, both indigenous & non-indigenous

The day was outstanding - informative & inspiring. A small group of schools was also represented that spoke about their own innovative programs. These were fantastic - acknowledging, considering and celebrating our indigenous heritage and the riches it has to offer the holistic education of all young people in our schools. We left at the end of a full and enriching day challenged and inspired. The next step for many of us will be to find ways for so much of our rhetoric to be matched by actions!

So my Year 8 students came with many interesting and creative questions that could be carried out by Amy Rogers as she takes up the challenge of her Antarctic adventure in November. We vetted our list and finally came up with four questions to explore. We sent off three detailed experiments that Amy might choose to do while there. The nature of the fourth question meant it couldn’t practically be undertaken, but it was a great question, I couldn’t just leave it out altogether. So I’ve turned it into a new form of homework for the whole family, called Dinner Table Science! I told my students that they could share the pain of homework with their entire family at the dinner table, and that they should work as a team to explore ways of finding an answer to the question. The question is:

Would lava erupting from Mt. Erebus in Antarctica melt the surrounding ice or would the ice freeze the lava?

So I’ll see next week what creative problem-solving they’ve managed.

The last couple of weeks have seen my two Year 8 Science classes exploring Amy Rogers’ Teachers on Ice webpage as they consider many of the themes in Ecology. We began by looking at the Antarctic continent and taking up the challenge put out by Amy to ask questions and design experiments that she could carry out while she’s there on her big adventure. We’ve spent a little time during our most recent lessons brainstorming questions we have about Antarctica we’d like answered, and then working in groups to plan experiments that could investigate those questions. Students came up with many questions, and some very interesting and creative. One intriguing question they asked is When Mt. Erebus erupts does the lava melt the ice, or does the ice freeze the lava? Great question! Unfortunately this one is a bit impractical in terms actually carrying out (lava between 700°C - 1600°C), but the class will be exploring the answer to this one in some other way! In the meantime, we wish Amy and her crew every best wish for a fantastic adventure in Antarctica!

This edublogging caper is fantastic! I was introduced to the blogosphere serendipitously at the confluence of a set of otherwise mutually exclusive factors. These included the need to set up a web page to mount artwork for posting at Illustration Friday, the commencement of an alternative and rather innovative annual professional appraisal for our teaching staff, and the beginning of a new topic in Year 8 Science. I attended a teacher PD offered by one of our own staff, Jo McLeay at just the right moment in time. At the end of the PD I was equipped to do all three. But it didn’t end there. I keep finding new and creative ideas offered by innovative, enlightened and passionate teachers who are happy and keen to share their experiences and excitement.

So now we’re starting Ecology. I had already planned how to run this, using our own school grounds as a resource and focal point for examining a local ecosystem, considering biotic and abiotic factors and tracking change. Then I found Amy Rogers while browsing through Edublogs.

Everything changed!

Amy Rogers is a teacher working in the United Kingdom, who is planning a research trip to Antarctica. Her blog is full of discovery and fun for students and teachers alike. Not only is she going to Antarctica, but she has had the foresight and generosity to invite students around the globe to take the journey with her, albeit in virtual mode! And she has challenged students to come up with questions and experiments that she can undertake while there. What a great way to engage us all! So that’s what we’ve been doing! We started this unit on Ecology by considering the Antarctic environment first - we began by building a profile of what we imagine Antarctica to be like… just  impressions at first… cold, icy, very cold, desolate, penguins… that was about it at first! Then we took a virtual tour to the continent, taking in photographic galleries of bird species, penguin species, whales, seals, ice and volcanoes. This generated a plethora of questions… some brilliant!

And that’s where we’re up to.

Next we’ll sort and prioritise our questions before selecting one to translate into a formal investigation. Then we’ll send it off to Amy Rogers… and maybe we’ll be seeing our experiment actually happening in Antarctica!                                                                                    

How to start a new topic? I asked my Year 8 Science students the question, Who remembers the information best when I teach a lesson? They were unanimous: “You do, Miss!” Having agreed on this point a discussion ensued about why this is so. This was our launchpad for the next topic, Body Systems. The students would take the lead. Instead of delivering a short class presentation on an aspect of a body system, the students became excited at the prospect of being allowed some responsibility to plan and deliver a whole lesson. Of course, there were clear guidelines and parameters within which they were to work.  Each group’s task would be to deliver the key ideas of a particular body system within a single lesson. But they had to:

• cover key ideas listed for their topic
• present the information in an interesting way to keep the class focussed - mostly this was achieved by breaking the time into 4 x 15 minute  blocks that included different activities
• be guided by the relevant section of their textbook and plan to cover the material in such a way as to have the class prepared for a test question on the theme.

I pondered the merits of this approach, wondering whether or not they were up to the challenge of actually teaching the class. The answer was crystal clear. Our students are experts at what makes a good teacher. Why wouldn’t they be? They’ve been sitting in our classrooms day in and day out for years observing their teachers and their different styles. In terms of some of the technologies we use, they are obviously more adept than many of us. They know what makes a lesson interesting or boring. So the question became Why not? instead of Why? They had two lessons dedicated to preparation. They didn’t need to look beyond their textbook to find the information they needed. So we started.

I was blown away by their work. Each group was able to fill an entire lesson. The lessons were interesting and included a range of activities and approaches, including:

• PowerPoint presentations of notes and graphics to cover key points, structure, functioning & problems
• practical activities such as taste tests, kidney dissection, enzyme action
• reading & discussion from the textbook
• note-taking (and very succinct-to-the-point-summary notes they were too)
• worksheets 
• quizzes
• crossword puzzles & wordsearches that the students generated themselves, using dedicated software 
• glossary terms

Students planned the work well and kept me posted about anything they needed for practical work, photocopying needs, data projector, models, etc.

They owned the work and so they were engaged in it. They were fantastic! I learned a great deal from them.

• Not to underestimate them.
• Always engage them.
• Include them in planning.

I was inspired by them. One group even taught the class about urinary system problems & conditions, not by discussing them or writing notes, but by presenting a rolling slide show of some very vivid, informative and icky graphics put to just the right lyrics. The room was silent, the class focussed. It was a great moment, a wonderful exhibition of student creativity and engagement, as well as an inspiration informing my own teaching.

The next step is to evaluate the process. I’m curious about what their responses to this opportunity will be. The bottom line is clear…I teach - I learn!

Discovered Yann Arthus-Bertrand during a recent trip to Sydney where a wander through the Darling Harbour parkland leads you through a cascade of brilliantly colored billboards depicting sites, simple & complex, from around the world. Fantastic graphics of the Earth from Above. Colors & cultures, plants & animals - aimed at inspiring a world towards sustainable development. Visit the website. Worth the trip!

This is my first blog! Today I attended a teacher PD provided by Jo McLeay instructing staff about the blogosphere. Watched a short clip entitled Are you paying attention? Decided to take the last piece of advice, ‘If you can’t beat ‘em, join’em’. Glad I did!