Goals for a First Year Teacher

1. Organize my time, tasks, and classroom before school begins

2. Always have a backup plan, in case an activity just does not work

3. Develop successful professional relationships with my colleagues and with the families of my students

4. Develop a meaningful relationship with each of my students

5. Plan lessons that will meet the needs of my students

6. Deliver instruction that will fully engage my students in learning

7. Assess my students’ progress accurately and fairly

8. Motivate my students to succeed

9. Help my students develop the study skills they need to become independent learners

10. Prevent discipline problems from disrupting the positive learning environment that I want to establish

11. Successfully manage discipline problems once they occur

12. Meet the needs of each child in my diverse classroom

13. Find a balance between my work (professional) life and my home life

14. Increase my content knowledge of History

15. Keep a journal to reflection on my teaching experiences

Reflections: Week 5

Wow! I can't believe it, I only have 2 more weeks left until I am completely finished!

Working on Improving:

Calling Attention. Most of the time I have no problems calling for the students attention; however, I sometimes find that it may take me a little longer to get the students attention when they are working. There could be a number of reasons why this is:

1. It is only natural that as human beings we want to finish the conversations that we are having.
2. I might need to work on my voice technique. I usually call the students attention through saying: "Class, Could I have your attention for a minute." or "Eyes up, pens down." The majority of the class will stop what they are doing and look up at me, then I go through the process of naming students who are still chatting or continuing to write. I feel that sometimes I cannot demand the students attention straight away without using a stern loud voice. I don't want to have to yell at the students all the time.
3. I demand every students attention and wait until the whole class is quite before starting my instructions. However, I have observe a very effective teacher who calls the students attention and then begins to instruct the students. If their are students who are still chatting they usually settle down and listen once they realise that the teacher is talking. I might try this technique next week.

If students are not listening or chatting during a class discussion I believe that I use effective non-verbal technique to get students back on track. I also do not hesitate to more students if they are chatting to much or disrupting other students.

What went well:

I had two very successful lessons yesterday. The first was with my Yr. 9 History class. I believe that it is important for a teacher to engage the students in the learning process through first gaining their interest and excitement of the subject. I had the students make some observations of a handout on the Viking Longships. Most of the information was historical; however, in the picture it also had a dolphin which it referred to as "quite smart." I think the stimulus engaged the students and by allowing the students to explore the picture first gave the students a sense of control over their own learning. Afterwards, as a class we made observations about the Longships and discussed how the Viking ship making technique was advantageous for their invasion of other countries and exploration. Afterwards, I had the students work in groups of three or four to play a Viking board game in which they had more back and forth places depending on the issues the Vikings incurred in their day life: "Food runs out, stop at an island to go seal hunting, miss a shot" or "Good winds, raise sails, have another shot." The students loved this game! As a class we then discussed the events Vikings experienced in their daily lives.

The other class was my Yr. 8 SOSE class in which the objective of the lesson was to reinforce the information about the Eureka Stockade, which we studied in the previous lesson. I first had the students pull a questions written on a piece of paper out of a bowl. Each student had a different question in which they had to find the answer to it and write it in their books. I then had the each student read out their question and answer. All of the questions were related to the events of the Eureka Stockade (the causes, actions and results). I then handed out an A4 sheet of paper which had one event in the timeline of the Eureka Stockade. Each students read the event and then had to draw a picture to represent the event. This worked very well the students enjoyed it. We then put the pieces of paper on the wall in order and had the class conduct a "walk through." We then discussed the information as a class.

Reflection: Week 4

Another week over and only 3 more weeks to go!!!!

What worked well:

Over these last couple of weeks I have really felt completely confident and competent in my teaching. I also feel that my supervising teachers have complete confidence in me and have given me the independence and total control with the units and classes that I am teaching.

This week I met with the teacher-librarian to discuss helping my year 11 Modern History class with their research. She was very helpful and I am sure the students will benefit a great deal from the tips she can give them on researching their individual Cold War topics.

I taught a very effective lesson to my year 11 Modern History class on how to evaluate Internet websites. I believe they found the information very relevant and useful. I started the lesson with asking the students whether or not gossip magazines or gossip blogs are reliable. I had the students look up some examples such as martinlutherking.org and research the publisher stormfront, I went through the reliability of wikipedia.org and looked at the recent issues with John Howard. I then had the students evaluate a Cold War website using an evaluation checklist handout. I believe the students were attentive and engaged. I then taught this same lesson to the year 11 Ancient History class and the students were once again engaged.

I had a few bahavioural issues with students this week. One girl was sucking on a lollipop at the start of class and I asked her to put it away, which she did and then I turned around again and she had it back in her mouth, I had another student making some strange sound with his phone, which was distracting other students, and finally a student who hit another student on the head with a textbook. I dealt with all of these students individually and after class.

Needs to improve:

I think at times I find myself having to repeat to the class three or four times "Excuse Me, pay attention to the board" or "Pens down, eyes up." Most of the time the students switch on but a few students want to continue either doing their work or talking to one of their classmates. I think I need to either work on the tone in my voice or simply name the students who are not paying attention or I could list the student who are not paying attention with their names on the board and make that their first warning, second warning is a five-minute detention.

Reflection: Week 3

** This week for my year 8 SOSE class, the students were working in pairs or groups of three to research a Convict and they had to create a "police file" poster about their convict. After researching their convict and writing a draft in their books, the students had one lesson to create their poster. Two girls that were working together decided that they did want to be friends any more, and could work together, one of the girls then went and started working with another student, whose partner was away, while the other girl said that she had done all of this work at home etc etc and the two girls were arguing. Basically a big drama. So I calming spoke to the girl who was left by her self and had her join another group and ask the group if it was OK that she use their information to create a poster. I feel that I was successful at defusing the situation by separating the girls and doing it calmly.

** I taught a really good lesson on "How to check the reliability of Internet Websites." The students were engaged and responded well to the Internet examples I gave: such as "Peerze Hilton" and "The Onion," which were examples of unreliable websites. I was also able to use the PowerPoint successfully, despite a few technical difficulties to begin with. I think in the future it i am going to use PP I will only do it if I have a class straight after lunch or morning tea so I have time to go in and set up rather than having to run around and waste 10 mins trying to put everything together.

** I feel that I have been able to build up a rapport with my Yr. 11 Modern History class, we can joke around for example: they tease me because my ALF team isn't doing very well on the ladder etc. I believe that building up a rapport with students is essential to creating a supportive learning environment.

Reflection: Week 2

Week 2 was a short week due to the Ekka public holiday on the Wednesday and then another pupil free day on the Thursday.

On the Tuesday night was the school dance and I volunteered to be a supervisor. I had a great time! It definitively made me feel old seeing all of the kids there dressed up. I think attending these type of events outside of school time it great for building up a rapport with students.

What I learnt:

** you need to be flexible to students needs during a lesson. This means to be able to stop or change the lesson plan to better suit the students. With my SOSE class this week I taught a lesson on the background History of the Gold Rush and I thought that the students would benefit by doing a timeline in their books of Australian history so they could see where the Gold Rush sat in relation to later events. I had a number of key events and the dates written down and students had to put the information in a timeline. As a class we had discussed a number of the events and I asked for students for their understanding of them. I was under the impression that all of the students had learnt Australian history before in primary school however many had gaps in their knowledge of such events. The previous unit that the students had studied was "Who discovered Australia" however the students had no knowledge of what "Terror Nullius" meant or what the Federation of Australia was. Therefore, rather than continuing on with the next activity, I made sure that students had a complete understanding of the events. I did this through questioning the students, having the students themselves ask questions. I also needed to make sure that they knew what a timeline was and how the date system worked with BC and AD.

So basically I learnt that every students, especially in year 8, have varied educational experiences and knowledge and that it is best not to assume that they would have learnt it in primary school. I also learnt that the teacher needs to be constantly checking for understanding. I do this through moving around the classroom, check students work, asking students individually questions, asking the class questions, having the students explain something or putting it in their own works and summarising.

** I have learnt that as a teacher you must work into the classroom with the confidence on knowing what you are going to teach and how you are going to teach it. This week I taught a lesson on Beowulf to by year 9s. I little knowledge of it before hand, however the weekend before, I study up on the poem and learnt how to pronounce the names. I think that it was important to be able to work into the classroom with confidence.

What went well:

** I was teaching a lesson on the reliability of historical sources and the students were about to study the story of King Arthur. The students had the task of researching the reliability of the story. I first showed the students images of gossip magazines and I asked the students "how do we know that this is reliable?" "what evidence would we need?" I then asked them about Santa "Is the story of Santa based on truth?" "What evidence do we have?" The basis of this was for students to understand that often legends or stories are based on some historical truth however it is the details around the story that change over time. I then showed a short clip from the movie Excalibur where Arthur pulled the sword from the stone and asked the students "what evidence do we have of this?" I think this worked really well as a way to get the students interested in the topic and to connect to the knowledge that they already have.

**My year 11 class had their exam this week so I have marking to do this weekend!

Week 1: Reflections

What I learnt:

* In every lesson try to have a skill or learning technique which you teach to the students rather than simply teaching the content. For example, teaching techniques such as the Inquiry Process and SQ3R. Also it is important to explicitly make the students aware of the technique they are learning.

* Year 8 students take a lot longer to get through activities and set tasks compared to year 9 and 10s. They tend to get over excited and often take longer to settle down.

What went well:

* Students respond well to visual information and activities. For example, I taught a year 8 SOSE class in which I was introducing the concepts of "heroes" and villains." I had students study images of 9 famous characters such as: Harry Potter, Lord Voldemort, Batman, Cruella De Vil etc. In pairs they had to discuss and identify whether or not the character was a hero or villain and what characteristics make that person a hero or villain.

* Scaffolding and modeling. Students need examples and guidance when completing an activity or task they are unfamiliar with such as essay writing.

I will write more later... I have to get back to writing lesson plans and resources : )

Yr. 9 SOSE Reflection

Strengths and Needs to improve:

* Connectedness -- creating interesting activities. Using interesting techniques to motivate and get students interested in the topic.

* Highly organised and prepared -- I created lesson plans which were flexible to the needs of the students in the classroom. I also worked well with other teachers teaching the same unit -- to share my resources, discuss any difficulties the students encountered, discuss the time management of the unit, I created a student assignment checklist and explanation on how to prepare and present an oral presentation, which all of the teachers used etc.

* Relate to students -- I feel that I have worked well with the students to understand their individual needs and abilities. I have helped those students with learning difficulties by pairing them up with students of a higher ability during group activities. I also did this with those students who have the tendency to misbehave -- I paired them up with students who are going to concentrate to complete the work.

* Behaviour Management -- to begin with this class was very challenging. My supervising teacher informed me that even an experienced teacher would find this class difficult to manage. I think that I was better able to control the class when my confidence increased as a teacher and I implemented better behaviour management strategies, such as writing their name on the board as a first warning and a x next to it would be a detention. Students need teachers to be fair and consistent with discipline. From this class I learnt that I only takes one or two students who can influence and distract a number of students around them. I think in the future that I will be more proactive in moving those students at the beginning of the lessons before they distract other students.

I would like to say that with this class I could use "positive reinforcement" to create better behaviour however, with this particular class I feel that it would only work to a certain extent and not well enough to control and teach the class. I do however use positive reinforcement with the class when dealing with the academic side however I do also need to recognise good behaviour, which is something I will endeavour to do in the future.

* I feel that I need to improve my ability to cater for different learning abilities, particularly those with literacy learning difficulties.

Yr. 10 History Reflection

Strengths:

• Connectedness with students -- use of The Simpsons episode to get students thinking about the Cold War, particularly definitions capitalism and communism.
• Interesting, insightful and motivating resources -- half the class watched the real education video “Duck and Cover”, which was played in American schools from the 1950s to the 1980s, while the other half looked at brochures informing people about what to do if a nuclear bomb occurred. We then had a class discussion regarding: What was the intended purpose of "Duck and Cover" and the brochures when they were first made? What was your reaction to the film or brochure? Compare and contrast the intended purpose with your reaction to it. The students were genuinely interested, as they were able to imagine themselves in the same situation as people living during the Cold War. This in turn enabled them to better understand how and why people felt threatened by the possibility of a nuclear strike.
• Behaviour Management Strategies -- set out the rules of my classroom and made it clear that students are to follow these. I feel that I have been in control of the class and the students have respected me in this role. Despite the fact that I had developed relationships with the students before hand, I feel the students have respected me as a teacher and a person in authority. Both of which I feel is a result of my behaviour management strategies.

Areas I need to improve:

• Content knowledge -- as I was not completely familiar with the Cold War before I began preparing for this unit, I now realize that as a history teacher I must continually be reading and improving my own knowledge of history.

Week 6 & 7: Reflection

In the finally weeks of my prac I was heavily involved in designing, setting and marking exams for all of my classes.

In week 6:

I marked Yr. 9 SOSE oral presentations

Marked Yr. 11 Modern History essays and taught a lesson introducing the new topic of the Cold War.

Marked Yr. 10 Modern History response to stimulus papers.

Marked Yr. 8 English oral presentations.

In week 7:

I taught two Yr. 8 English classes. I taught a short unit on "pirates", which I created and designed. I had them vote for a captain, analyze the symbolism in pirate flags and deign their own flags. We read a few articles about modern day pirates and then had them compare "Hollywood pirates" and "modern day pirates." There were also a number of other activities related to this unit. I felt that the students really enjoyed the activities and topic. I also think that this shot unit has the potential to be extended to a full history unit where students could research historical pirates or an English unit in which students would study "Treasure Island."

As far a teaching this class: I found the students a delight to teach. I feel that the behaviour management strategies, which I developed earlier in my prac better enabled me to teach the class.

In the final week I also taught a Yr. 9 SOSE class. I taught a short unit on food. I had students compare two pictures of a typical American family food consumption to a Mexican family. I had them look at the geography and economic issues. We then focused on advertising strategies and techniques used to advertise food items. I had them analyze food advertisements and then create their own ad. We then looked at techniques used to photograph food. To conclude the short unit we looked at poverty and compared assess to food in first world verses third world.

I think the students really enjoyed this unit practically the sections in which we looked at brand names, brand recognition and advertising strategies. I really think one of the keys to teaching is to make sure you connect with the students -- Connectedness!

Week 4: Reflection

Positives and Needs to improve:

** I felt much more confident this week.

** Behaviour Management: I felt I had much more control over the class. It seems like my new rules (name on the board) is working with the students. Although the students did they to test me on them. I stood my ground.

** Instructions: I really tried to work on my instructions to make them as clear and concise as possible. For example, during one of my SOSE classes I had the class work in groups to design a poster representing a lobby group. This required a number of instructions so I wrote them on the blackboard so students could follow them more easily. This worked well. However, another problem arose with this activity. Because it was a group work activity students worked at different paces. I really needed to give the students time limits for the different stages of the project.

** With my year 11 Modern History class I think that I have gotten to the stage of being able to create a much more relaxed atmosphere. I think I personally was much more relaxed and confident which in turn created a better learning environment.

** I had been constantly implementing the Productive Pedagogy of "connectedness." I feel that I was really able to do this successfully in my Year 11 Modern History class. We are studying the concept of "Totalitarianism" and the characteristics of totalitarian states using Nazi Germany as a case study. While we were studying the characteristic of propaganda I explained that this type of indoctrination can still be seen in todays society - I showed them a video of the "Islamic Mickey Mouse." The students really seemed interested and this in turn sparked some great class discussion. After this I then showed them a current example of a totalitarian state - North Korea - I explained that all of these characteristics that we have studied in relation to Nazi Germany are not just part of history. I played a short 5 minute documentary of North Korea and had students identify aspects of totalitarianism that they could see.

I also worked on Connectedness when I begun the unit on totalitarianism. I played the opening 15 minutes of the movie "V for Vandetta" and had students identify aspects of totalitarianism.

I definiately think that "connectedness" is a key to improving students motivation and ability to learn.

Week 3: Reflection

This is a little late but here are some of my notes from week 3:


* Watching Videos: I played a documentary for my year 9 SOSE class although it was really interesting and fit the topic perfectly. It was way too long for their attention span (it was 40 minutes). I realise now that I should have stop and discussed sections of the video rather than watching it straight through to the end.

* I realise that displaying data is interesting and different ways is great for improving students understanding of a topic. For example, in my SOSE class I created a concept map "Threats to the Great Barrier Reef" and then displayed the data again using a cause and effect table.

* During week 3 I really worked on repeating what the students said in response to my questioning as to state the correct answer and so the rest of the class understands what the correct answer was.

* I really need to work on my instructions and directions to make them as clear and concise as possible.

* I also need to work on my behaviour management with my year 9 class. During week 4 I will implement two new classroom rule (6 & 7):

1. Always be prepared for class.

2. Be on time.

3. Respect one another and everyone’s personal belongings.

4. Raise your hand if you have a question or want to share something.

5. Listen to the designated speaker.

6. No walking around the classroom without permission

7. If you break any of these rules or misbehave in class your name will go on the board (this is your warning).

** If you continue to misbehave you will get a cross next to your name. Each cross is a 5 minute detention.
**You can get your name off the board through good behaviour.
**Five crosses next to your name and you will be sent to the HOD

* I sat in on one the HOD's classes and got some great behaviour management ideas. Simple things such as: "Eyes up pens down" "Stop what you are doing, pens down, look at me" and the names on the blackboard.

Week 2: Reflection

Here are some of the problems / positive / points I need to work one:

Problems:
* Misjudged timing for different activities.
In my first lesson the students went through the activities faster than I originally thought. I did however get them to begin working on their homework for the last 5 minutes of the lesson. I think I underestimated their ability and the moved through the material rather fast. (yr.11 Modern History).
* Questioning
I think that I need to work on my questioning technique.

Positives:
* I have been successful at making the material and content interesting (Productive Pedagogies: Connectedness). I really believe one of the keys to teaching is to make the material and topic relevant.
* I have learnt most of the students names and have used them successfully. I think this is key to connecting with students. It also works a charm when dealing with behaviour management issues.
* Be organised
I have written unit plans for: yr.11 Modern History, Yr. 10 Modern History and Yr. 9 SOSE (studies of society and environment).
I have written lesson plans at least 4 days before they need to be taught.
I think the key is to stay on top of things and not to fall behind.
* I have created good relationships with students
* This is a really small thing but I think my blackboard writing is rather good -- I thought it would be worse.

Need to work on:
* class questioning/discussion
I think that I am a little scared of the unknown.
* I need to give students time barriers for activities.

What I have learnt:
* If students do not completely understand something teach it in a different manner or more intensely.
Last week I was teaching about the government decision making process and the students did not completely understand what lobby groups do. So I reshuffled my unit plan and taught a double lesson on the role of lobby groups. I explained their role and then had the students work in groups of 3-4 to design brochures as if they were a lobby group. I had half the class look at anti-uranium mining and other half pro-uranium mining (Yr.9 SOSE). It worked really well and the students gained an understanding of how lobby groups work and use persuasive language. I think the students also really liked designing their brochures too : )

Week 1: Reflection

Here are a couple of the major points I have learnt thus far:

** Never overestimate the power of positive reinforcement
-- I need to work on this. Often I am so focused on the flow of the lesson and what I need to do next that I forget to praise students.

** Establish good behaviour management strategies with each class.
-- This strategy is different depending on the students and year level.

** With younger students (yr8 &yr9) you really need to be explicit.
-- For example, when asking students to analyse a picture, tell them to "go for detail. Try to make your list as long as possible. Write like a shopping list - dot points not full sentences." or "You can talk to the person sitting next to you on two conditions (1) that you are discussing the work (2) that you are not disrupting other students."

** When asking students questions as a group, restate what the student has said, so that the whole class understands what the correct answer is.
-- This is another thing I need to work on -- interaction with students during classroom discussion.