Category Archives: teacher efficacy

Effective Lesson Planning: classroom systems and lesson sequencing

This is a follow up post number 2 on effective lesson planning. Now that we understand lessons should go differing lengths of time 20 – 40 minutes, what would that look like in one of the timetable blocks of 90-120 … Continue reading

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Effective Lesson Planning: length of lessons

Some of the questions, concerns and issues raised by trainee teachers so far include: constantly repeating instructions to students students forget what to do students either don’t finish the tasks in the time set or finish in the first 5 … Continue reading

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Working at Deakin University

One of the exciting opportunities that has presented itself this year is to work at Deakin University as a casual academic. What that means is that I work in the professional learning unit supporting trainee teachers in schools learn the … Continue reading

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Why become a teacher? part two – my story

Some people can pinpoint a single incident or person that answers this question – for me I need to tell a story as I came to my moral purpose quite late. I went as a young 5-year-old to Corpus Christi, … Continue reading

Posted in reflections, school, teacher efficacy, Teaching | 2 Comments

Why are you a teacher?

Ever had that questions posed to you? I have and its often followed by the popular quip: “because of the holidays?” What do the numbers say? More often then not it’s the story behind the numbers or data that inspires … Continue reading

Posted in teacher efficacy, Teaching | 8 Comments

Revolution School, a must watch documentary on ABC television

There is a new 4 part documentary on our ABC channel called “Revolution School” with the first episode screened last week. I think this is a must watch show for anyone interested in schooling. The ABC took cameras into a normal secondary … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Assessment, Data Wise Program, Harvard, Leadership, professional learning, school, teacher efficacy, Uncategorized | 8 Comments

identifying teacher itches to scratch

Schools in Victoria have many standardised data sets about student learning, student attitudes to school, parent opinion surveys and finally staff opinion surveys. This post focuses on this last data set, staff opinion. There was industrial action for the 3 … Continue reading

Posted in Data Wise Program, Harvard, Observation, teacher efficacy, Teaching, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Student feedback to teachers – just ask them we did!

We were working with Kath Murdoch this afternoon on using our student feedback to adjust the 2015 curriculum plans. Our students provided the followed recommendations to teachers which I thought were worth sharing: less teacher talk: which we are thinking … Continue reading

Posted in Feedback, Instruction, school, teacher efficacy, Teaching | 2 Comments

Alberta and Victoria: separated by two great oceans but close in educational thinking.

I have just finished rereading a 2012 research paper on transforming education in Alberta Canada. I found it a great read. I didn’t know for example that Alberta has been Canada’s highest performing province for over a decade. Andy Hargreaves … Continue reading

Posted in curriculum, Leadership, school, teacher efficacy, Teaching | 1 Comment

hire people who believe what you believe

I was listening to this Ted Talk by Simon Sinek on inspiring leadership and one line he said was the title of this post “hire people who believe what you believe”. He talked about a connector between inspiring leaders being “they answer … Continue reading

Posted in teacher efficacy, Teaching, Uncategorized, Video Clips | 1 Comment

Teachers Overseas: professional learning opportunities that also serve as an acknowledgement of effort.

  I couldn’t help post these 3 images taken in New Mexico last week. The first is a group of teachers and principals from two neighbouring schools Elsternwick and Elwood Primary Schools who share a common belief that relationships build … Continue reading

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Stop bashing public education for the tsunami effect will be big and long lasting.

I’m indebted to Greg Whitby for provoking me to write this post when he wrote on a quality education for all. Greg, I think was stirred by Prof Dinham when he recently wrote in the Age newspaper about what he perceived … Continue reading

Posted in China, Community, Instruction, Leadership, teacher efficacy, Teaching, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Michael McQueen on navigating around student engagement.

This is the second post from that Principal’s conference I attended last term. The theme if your read the first post (McCrindle) was on social trends and their impact on education, schools and teachers. We were fortunate to have two … Continue reading

Posted in Instruction, teacher efficacy, Teaching, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Walkthrough on Relational Learning

Over the past month we have conducted weekly walkthroughs to gather data on elements of our school culture. Prior to conducting a walkthrough we asked staff what they thought the protocols surrounding walkthrough should be. To build and keep up … Continue reading

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Personalising is really an outcome of differentiation: points to note for educators

At a recent regional Principal conference I heard Vic Zbar, an educational consultant based in Victoria; speak about personalising teaching and learning. Personalising learning he put it was really an outcome of differentiation. Vic then made a number of points I … Continue reading

Posted in Accountability, Assessment, differentiation, Geelong Conference, Instruction, school, teacher efficacy, Teaching, Uncategorized | Leave a comment