Archive for the ‘Teaching’ Category

High Expectations for all students.

Monday, August 30th, 2010

High expectations for all - now that's a trick. Marzano talks about how we stay with students [who get it quickly - brighter? - well in this discipline at least] longer with more demanding questions. One of the tricks is to know your students and have possible prompts [scaffolding questions] ...

Social Networking

Monday, August 9th, 2010

Most of us at some point have attended a party, work function or been somewhere where you look at a person and say I know you from somewhere. Well that happened to me last week  whilst attending a special session on Instructional Rounds with Professor Richard Elmore. The session, which was absolutely brilliant, had ...

Why the fuss about flexible learning spaces: building the case for relational trust and personal learning skills.

Sunday, July 18th, 2010

This is the second post on working in flexible learning spaces [refer categories to access the first on challenges]. Common Context: We have two flexible learning centres at the school currently occupied year 1's and year 5/6's. Both the year 1's and 5/6 teachers work as a team to plan and evaluate a ...

Differentiated instruction the Holy Grail or something that can be done?

Sunday, July 11th, 2010

Last term our district instructional rounds team visited a school where the leadership team identified differentiation in instruction as the problem of practice. Nina and Jenni posted this clip on the Ning and I have copied it to my blog as I think its a great 20 minute clip and ...

Data Teams: the ongoing quest to improve teaching and learning and not just the latest fad!

Saturday, July 10th, 2010

As our second semester begins we at Elsternwick have planned a series of 8 professional learning team meetings [PLT's] on Monday nights to focus on the use of data to improve student learning. This carries on from the 6 PLT's in semester 1. On a slightly separate topic one of the ...

Using IWB’s in Classrooms not the silver bullet

Wednesday, July 7th, 2010

Just replied to Chris Betchers post on using IWB's in classrooms. Worth a look

Personalising Learning and Assessment in the 21 Century

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

  This little clip talks about using technology to personalise learning and record individualised assessments online. Its a timely reminded as we move forward with the Ultranet here in Victoria and the power of technology to personalise learning for students. Stop Press  - talking about 21st century assessment what about teachers getting feedback ...

What are the challenges of working in flexible spaces?

Tuesday, June 29th, 2010

New flexible learning environments are being built in schools as rate never seen before [and given the country’s debt probably never again] in this country. The ‘Building the Education Revolution’ Commonwealth Government initiative was part of Australia’s economic recession proofing strategy.   In talking with the builders and the various sub ...

Cybersafety sessions come to Elsternwick Primary.

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

This week our assistant principal Demos [pictured on the right] in consultation with 3 other local schools coordinated a series of cyberbullying workshops from ACMA [Australian Communications and Media Authority] for staff , students and parents. The staff session was well attended and the presentation was very informative. Several points resonated ...

Teachers not getting quality feedback and recognition

Tuesday, June 1st, 2010

I have just finished hearing a report on the state of teacher performance reviews in Australia completed by the Grattan Institute. Its a fairly controversial report as reported in the education review, ABC in South Australia, Australia 'fails in teacher evaluation' in the Sydney Morning Herald Australia 'fails in teacher evaluation' on Channel 7 ...