Middle Phase Learning

The Middle Years of Schooling (Year 4-9) is characterised by:
Learning activities that are relevant and engaging
Content that is purposeful ,challenging however achievable
Supporting the development of essential literacy and numeracy skills
Providing all students with opportunities to achieve success
Supporting student transition from year to year and from primary to secondary education
Future career planning (Education Queensland, 2010).
Thanks
Jim
Education Queensland. (2010). Middle phase of learning. Retrieved July 26, 2010, from http://education.qld.gov.au/curriculum/middle/index.html

The Concept of Teaching

Hi all,
Teaching to me is not so much a job, however an art of passing on ones own skills, knowledge and subject passion.
Learners respect and admire teachers who express enthusiasm for their subject (Pratt, n.d).
Thanks for listening
Jim

Pratt, D. (n.d).Good teaching: One size fits all? Retrieved July 21, 2010, from http://www.teachingperspectives.com/PDF/goodteaching.pdf

Royalty free music

Hi all,
If your students require music to enhance their edited videos or slides, try this site. partnersinrhyme
Thanks
Jim

Kitchen safety quiz

Kitchen Safety Quiz

View more presentations from jimdarrenprice.

Student Blog

Hi all,
Due to factors out of my hand (timetable restraints) I was unable to arrange for my students to establish their own blogs in the time available. However, to overcome this problem I have established a blog (on behalf of my students). Even though I posted this blog, it was the students who were ultimately responsible for working together to create it.

This was achieved by the whole class contributing to:
· The design and layout
· The contents of the blog (images and recipes)
· Establishing appropriate self-netiquette guidelines/rules and allocating responsibility evenly

 

The blog site I have chosen to use is called Edublogs. This is a safe blog posting site which was created for educational purposes. In establishing a blog on behalf of my students I believe that I have not only met the requirements of this task, but I have achieved other valuable learning outcomes such as:
· Students learning to take responsibility for their own learning
· Students collaborating as a group
· Creating a sense of belonging
· Giving students the ability to share their own learning journey with friends & family

(community)

 

Enabling important group skills to be acquired (e.g., Listening, cooperation, accepting responsibility, constructive peer feedback and the gaining of diverse knowledge) (Ashman & Elkins, 2008).

The importance of feeling a sense of belonging is also consistent with Maslow's hierarchy of needs (1968, 1970, 1976, as cited in McInerney & McInerney, 2006); students need to feel they belong for learning to continue.

I am currently posting feedback, student recipes, relevant links and images taken by students to their class blog page. In turn, students can leave comments, add relevant information or share their experiences with friends and family.

I believe posting blogs and interacting as a group will engage and motivate the students to learn. When students collaborate they become engaged and motivated to learn (Kearsley & Shneiderman, 1999).
The class blog page is : http://jdpricey.edublogs.org/

Thanks for listening
Jim Price

 

 

Ashman, A., & Elkins, J. (2008). Education for Inclusion and Diversity. Frenchs Forest: Pearson Education Australia.

 

Kearsley, G. & Shneiderman, B. (1999). Engagement theory: A framework for technology based teaching and learning. Retrieved August 13, 2009, from http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm

 

Mclnerney, D. M, & Mclnerney, V. (2006). Educational psychology constructing learning. Frenchs Forest, NSW, Australia: Pearsons Education Australia.

Cultural diversity, the digital story...

The educational benefits of this digital tool became clearer to me after reading the supporting literature and following the recommended links on digital storytelling.
The educational benefits of this tool include:
· The ability to cover multiple intelligences
· Opportunity to motivate and engage students with tasks
· Promotes creativity amongst students

Educators could use this tool to engage groups of students and assist them create a meaningful story of their learning journey to share with others. This would tie in with Kearsley and Shneiderman’s (1999) engagement theory of Relate, Create and Donate.

This style of storytelling also caters to students who benefit in the leaning process from the use of visual material. Gardner (1983, 1993, as cited in McMillan & Weyers, 2006) illustrates in his multiple intelligences table that one of the nine ways people best process information is through the use of visual imagery.

Other benefits available to students through the use and creation of digital stories include:

· The opportunity to develop ICT skills
· Improvement in creative writing skills
· Improvement in narrative and visual skills

A few of the classes I teach consist of a number of culturally diverse students. For the students in these classes to gain a better understanding of each other’s backgrounds and beliefs, they could creating a digital story to document their own life journey up this point in time. This could help with students’ acceptance of each other’s differences and thus create a more effective and enjoyable environment for learning. Sharing cultural experiences leads to positive group interaction, promotes inclusion and helps encourage justice (Ashman & Elkins, 2008).

Culturally diverse groups could also create a digital story to enlighten and inform other groups of students about the similarities between cultures. Dovidio et al (2005, as cited in Ashman & Elkins, 2008) is of the view that positive inter-group attitudes are achieved when people focus on similarities in other peoples’ attributes.

Thanks for listening
Jim Price



Ashman, A., & Elkins, J. (2008). Education for Inclusion and Diversity. Frenchs Forest: Pearson Education Australia.

Kearsley, G. & Shneiderman, B. (1999). Engagement theory: A framework for technology based teaching and learning. Retrieved August 13, 2009, from http://home.sprynet.com/~gkearsley/engage.htm

McMillan, K., & Weyers, J. (2006). The smarter student: study skills & strategies for success at university. Harlow, Essex, England: Pearson Education Limited.

Photo: Retrieved August 25, 2009, from http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/

Kitchen saftey PowerPoint quiz

Hi all,

For this task I decided to involve my students from two separate classes. The one class would help me write the safety quiz questions and the other class would take the test.

After explaining the tasks to the students, I had them breakup into groups of 3 and write two questions per group with (4) possible answers relating to kitchen health & safety.
Once the students completed this task we discussed these questions and as a class made a decision to which question we would present to the second class to answer.


In doing this I felt I contributed to student-centred learning by:
· encouraging the students to take responsibility for their (and their peers) own learning
· giving students a choice
· making the task meaningful
Dimensions of Learning (Marzano & Pickering, 2006)

I took these question and turned them into a PowerPoint presentation for my second class to take. The process of putting this quiz together was enjoyable and straightforward due to having recently worked with PowerPoint and by following simple instructions (within PowerPoint). If time was not a factor in this activity I would have also liked the students to put together the PowerPoint presentation.

Salomon and Perkins (1998, as cited in McInerney & McInerney, 2006) stated that a tool is used to extend the learners capability to achieve a desired result and to act as a cognitive scaffold.


See how you go with this quiz: http://www.mediafire.com/file/ttdce3k2vdo/Safety

I will keep you up to date with how the second class went with the quiz.


Thanks

Jim

Marzano, R, J., & Pickering, D, J. (2006). Dimensions of learning: Teacher’s manual. Heatherton, Vic, Australia: Hawker Brownlow Education.



Mclnerney, D. M, & Mclnerney, V. (2006). Educational psychology constructing learning. Frenchs Forest, NSW, Australia: Pearsons Education Australia.




Photo: Retrieved August 23, 2009, from www.freedigitalphotos.net