Category Archives: Teaching

Toronto Superintendent Kathy Cowan visits Elsternwick.

On Wednesday 7/8/08 I was honoured to host Kathy Cowan a superintendent of a family of schools [SE6] in Toronto. I first met Kathy at Harvard University in 2006 and again in 2007 in Toronto when I visited a number of the family’s principals. … Continue reading

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Shift Happens updated video

I have posted the updated version of Shift Happens as its still worth showing teachers and parents to set the context for change in education. It goes for about 7 minutes but hang in there – the discussion afterwards is … Continue reading

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Get Smart – Open the Classroom Doors!

One of the central themes of the Big Day Out this year was to “get smart and open the classrooms doors” so that instruction, which can often seen as private teacher business, can be seen and improved. Each year Darrell Fraser, … Continue reading

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New Learning Spaces

This is another post on learning spaces we have constructed. These images are of a new building that houses years 5 and 6 students. The first image is of a large central spaces that facilitates learning in different size groups. … Continue reading

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Kath Murdoch, an inspiration on how to learn within a social context.

Readers of my blog will know that we have had Kath Murdoch working with our teachers at Elsternwick Primary over the past 4 years. Kath initially worked with the whole staff to develop some shared understandings about inquiry learning and … Continue reading

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Between Class Difference: Myth or Reality!

This week at our weekly leadership meeting we discussed a research article about an American school who number crunched student achievement over a 3 year period. This article really set us up for the weekly staff meeting where we were investigating the … Continue reading

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Andy Hargreaves speaks about a new learning gap.

              I heard Andy Hargreaves speak at the ACEL conference in Sydney last year and was impressed with his candor about governments setting what seemed to be easy targets for schools. I thought his … Continue reading

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Interactive Whiteboards

     | View | Upload your own I was at school with the whiteboard electrician, Steve yesterday as we resolved wiring problems in the new building. We are installing 4 new interactive whiteboards in the new learning spaces as well as motorized screens and data projectors … Continue reading

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Learning Spaces

  As we near the occupancy of the first new learning spaces constructed at Elsternwick Primary since 1920, and before I am completely swept away with the detail surrounding the final stages of this building, the whole construction process begs … Continue reading

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Classroom 2.0

Over the weekend I discovered this online collaborative learning community dedicated to supporting educators use technology with learners. It’s worth a look.

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Dynamic Curriculum Mapping

Last week Michael Ymer worked with 3 of our teaching teams to plan the Math Curriculum for the next semester. Michael is one of our key educators we contract to build and support teacher learning. He coaches individual teachers in classrooms … Continue reading

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“Great players are not just great athletes, they also have great fundamentals,”

I was sent an article about a famous european basketball coach Ettora Messina which I think has some messages for all young sports people who are in our schools. I don’t know about what other teachers who are coaches are … Continue reading

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Test scores not the total answer

Thanks to Warrick Wynne I found this, what I call a protest clip on testing that makes an even stronger point on the need for deeper learning, feedback and challenge loops, the value of arts and the need to challenge … Continue reading

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High Stakes Testing

I was prompted to do some research around what some call high stakes testing after a discussion at a leadership meeting recently where we discussed in my opinion the low value of testing unless the student got feedback on what … Continue reading

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Teachers ahaa moments

I was visiting Don Ledingham’s site this week where he had a short clip of a film that moved him as a youth to laugh and cry and perhaps inspired part of him to  become a teacher.  It got me to reflect on … Continue reading

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