2011: A Year of Change

2011 marked a time of upheaval, new possibilities, and transformative change in my personal and professional life. As I begin my third year of teaching, I believe I’ve finally found my educational niche, my calling. While I still don’t know where my journey is taking me, I know I’m heading in the right direction.

So, what were the events & experiences that defined my year?

1) The Class “That Never Was”

This traumatic episode at the beginning of my school year is one I have no desire to repeat – ever. Yet, this event turned out to be the best thing that could have happened to me at the time.

The diverse teaching role I took up afterwards proved to be a valuable learning experience; an opportunity to take risks, and develop my skills and expertise within a real-world school environment.

2) My experiences with Personal Learning Networks

My experiences with building, writing about, and presenting on Personal Learning Networks are perhaps the most rewarding of my year.

It is hard to fathom how my early friendship with “Sir Clive” (@clivesir) ultimately had such an incredible impact on my personal and professional life; yet my social networking and engagement with the online education community opened up a whole new world of opportunities, and took me to places I’d never dreamt of.

It feels like forever, but in literally one year after discovering Twitter and PLNs, I’ve:

Found my voice on a global stage, earning the respect of my peers and colleagues around the world.
Presented online at two international global conferences, and written several influential blog posts – which helped me rapidly expand my online network
Made and met new friends whom I would never have met under ‘normal’ circumstances.
Collaborated with teachers across 6 continents, leading the creation of the Global Classroom community
Found a source of inspiration, support, and mentoring like no other.

3) The realisation that I’m not alone.

As a relief teacher, it is hard to develop long-term collegial relationships, and I’ve often struggled to find people who understand and appreciate my work with ICT and global education. Yet, as I’ve blogged on several occasions this year, I no longer feel alone and isolated in my profession.

This year has had its glimmers of hope and opportunity. At the start of the year, I found someone who believed in me; who went out of his way to ensure I could experiment with ICT, and fought on my behalf in the complicated mess that was my contractual situation at the time. Ultimately, he talked me into the situation which enabled my involvement in Global Classroom; an opportunity for which I am extraordinarily grateful.

Now, as my year draws to a close, I no longer feel alone. I may not have my own class, yet I have built rewarding collegial relationships with teachers all over the world. By seizing this year’s opportunities to experiment with ICT, I have changed the way I teach, and the way I learn. I now have contacts all over the world, and I am grateful for their support, inspiration, and appreciation of my work.

In 2012, I will continue my search for a school where I’ll have the opportunity to learn, grow and innovate. I’m confident that I’ll eventually find it. I’ve built an extensive digital footprint showcasing my work, and I’m open to offers.

4) Building Global Classroom

As I look back on the extraordinary events and opportunities afforded by Global Classroom over the past few months, I am still astonished by my integral role in creating what has become a global learning community.

In the space of a few months, we launched a range of #globalclassroom projects, were nominated for an Edublogs Award; and I even found myself skyping with the Indian Finance Minister to co-inaugurate the The Learn English Online Project! But for me, it is the connections and friendships which mean the most.

We’ve created something bigger than ourselves, a community impacting on the lives of teachers and students around the world. I am truly proud of our efforts, and look forward to seeing where it takes us over the months, and maybe years, to come.

So, another year in the life of an educator draws to a close.

Here’s to 2012. May it be a better, rewarding, transformational year.

Local Connections & Conversations (ECAWA 2011)

I recently spent a few days at the ECAWA State Conference 2011, hosted by my State’s ICT Association; attending a range of interesting presentations, and meeting so many amazing ICT teachers and leaders.

A few highlights:

Finally meeting Paul Fuller (@paulfuller75), the teacher who inspired me to follow my passion with Web 2.0 all those years ago
Tweeting up with a few local ‘Twitter people’ & a few who flew in from Victoria – @pcoutas, @hectpowles, @mrrobbo, @pchmb, @janelowe, amongst others
A chance meeting with the first Western Australian Global Classroom participant; an encounter which will hopefully lead to the creation of a ‘global geocaching’ project for Global Classroom 2011-12.
Meeting several members of the iEARN Australia team, an encounter which will have significant implications for #globalclassroom in the months to come
Learning about the incredible educational applications of mobile devices & iPads (I want one!)

Breaking out of the Isolation

For me, the greatest value of the ECAWA Conference was the opportunity to meet, talk and share with local ICT teachers and leaders. Teaching can be a very isolating profession, and when you specialise in technology and global projects, this sense of isolation can get to you.

While I connect and collaborate with a global network of educators through social media, I’ve long struggled to find local teachers who I can talk to, and work with.

So now, as I reflect on the local connections and conversations that began over those two days at ECAWA; I’m looking forward to a more active engagement with my local ICT community, exploring the opportunities and collaborations to come.

2010 – My Journey So Far

Well, 2010 has been an incredible year. It was a year in which I passed some significant milestones in my fledgling teaching career, and it was a year of immense, transformational change in my personal and professional life.

As my year draws to a close, I am finally starting to realise my aspiration to become a knowledgeable, connected, and reflective 21st Century educator.

Looking Back

I’ve learnt some valuable lessons this year -

Relief Teaching is a professionally and personally rewarding career option.
- I have the freedom to experiment, develop a collegial network, collect resources, learn from my mistakes, and celebrate my successes.
- I am now able to teach K-7, and work in a variety of Government, Independent, and Religious schools.
In my line of work, experience & a positive reputation mean a lot.
- As I became a more experienced, and I hope, well-regarded relief (substitute) teacher, I noticed a dramatic increase in my work bookings over the course of the year.
- This enabled me to actively experiment and improve my teaching practice, as I moved away from my relief ‘time-fillers’ to actually teaching and assessingstudents’ learning.
- I am extremely grateful to those relief coordinators; (Hans, Deb, Sue, Jane, Cathy, amongst others), whose long-term support helped facilitate this empowering evolution in my teaching practice.
Writing merit-select job applications is an incredibly useful way to reflect upon and share your teaching practice with prospective employers.
- On a personal note, I realised that while I can clearly articulate my practice through written mediums, such as my blog, I need to work on my ability to ‘sell’ myself in interview situations. Practice makes perfect, and I’ll have another go next year.
The Personal Learning Network (PLN) – Every teacher should have one
- I believe the PLN is one of my greatest discoveries of my (short) career. I am an increasingly active member of the OzTeachers network, and have more recently realised the value of educational blogging and Twitter™ as professional learning tools.
- My forays into this ‘connected’ world of global educators are still in their early days, and I will blog more extensively about this topic in 2011.

Image: ‘Arrival on my Way‘
http://www.flickr.com/photos/16230215@N08/4722297430

And Looking Forward …

While I don’t really know what 2011 will bring, I hope it will be a better, more productive year.

I enjoy my job. It is a wonderful feeling to walk into a school in the morning, and have students (and staff) greet you by name (or in my case, various derivations of it!). I hope I will have the opportunity to build upon the personal and professional relationships which I have worked so hard to foster during my relief travels in 2010.

I will also be working towards several important professional learning goals, which I have decided to share here -

To continue to build my instructional toolkit; learning how to apply teaching and learning strategies, and reflecting upon my performance.
To further investigate, and hopefully experiment with, the practical implementations of Web 2.0 technologies in the classroom.
To build and contribute to my Personal Learning Network through my blog, Twitter interactions, and the “Blogs I Follow” via my RSS Reader.
To revisit my First Steps™ informed literacy and numeracy planning approach, seeking feedback from experienced educators on my planned literacy block organisation model.
To familiarise myself with the new Australian Curriculum, and rearrange my Curriculum Resource Bank (now containing over 4000 documents!) to reflect its’ structure and organisation
To begin working towards my Accreditation to Teach Religious Education.

A New Year Begins …

Well, that’s it for A Relief Teacher’s Journey in 2010. I have quite a few posts in the pipeline, and I’ll be back to my regular blogging endeavours in January 2011.

I wish to thank all of my readers, around the world, for your readership & support over the past six months. A big thankyou goes to Veronica Chase (Substitutes FTW!) who made the first (and to date, only) comment on A Relief Teacher’s Journey. Also, thankyou to all my new Twitter™ followers – I look forward to talking to you next year.

I’ll be participating in the 2011 Edublogs™ Teacher Challenge, starting on Jan 10.

Happy New Year!

Image: ‘Happy New Year !!!‘

Forays into Upper Primary Science

As the Australian school year draws to a close, I have had the time to reflect upon and review my experiences teaching upper primary science during 2010.

March-May 2010 – Year 6/7 Science & Arts

Earlier this year, I replaced a science/arts teacher in a small independent Christian school in Perth’s southern suburbs. I taught Science and Art one day a week, working with a group of 20 students exhibiting a challenging range of literacy skills, learning difficulties and special needs. It proved to be a professionally rewarding relief assignment; one which required me informally plan, teach and assess students’ learning, rather than acting as a gloried (although well-paid) ‘babysitter’.

As a general rule, I tried to follow the absent teacher’s notes, in expectation of his imminent return. After discussing the situation with the regular classroom teacher; however, I increasingly drew upon my Curriculum Resource Bankand developing ‘instructional toolkit’ to translate the teacher’s suggestions into more engaging learning activities.

A Professional Experiment – Modelling Concept Maps

On my first day, I was asked to complete a unit on the Human Body, implementing a (poorly written) blackline master test. In a personal first, I decided to model the use of a concept map to assist students’ test preparation. The results were rather surprising, as I detailed the next day in my reflective journal:

“After the recess break, students had to revise for a test on the human body. I experimented with modelling the use of a concept map as a revision tool; using different coloured markers to highlight the levels of detail.

I was surprised to find that the use of this strategy enabled one student, who finds writing very difficult [and has an undiagnosed learning difficulty], to share his significant knowledge of the topic.

He was later able to complete most of the test, despite taking twice as long as his peers.”

Flickr CC Image: ‘Science Activity – Ecosystems‘

Putting this in Context

Throughout the Graduate Teacher Professional Learning Program, an extremely valuable mentoring / support program for graduate teachers in Western Australia, our presenters have discussed how effective teachers have a toolkit of instructional strategies which they can use to support and assess student learning.

Rather than using a strategy haphazardly, teachers can select a teaching strategy for a defined purpose, and use it to improve student learning outcomes. I believe this is an important aspect of ‘instructional intelligence’ (Bennett & Rolheiser, 2001), an area in which I have undergone significant professional growth over the past two years.

The seemingly trivial anecdote above marked the very first time I personally selected an instructional strategy with a clear learning purpose in mind (rather than following another teacher’s instructions).

Shortly afterwards, I recorded a professional learning goal to practice and evaluate my use of other instructional learning strategies in my relief teaching practice. As I will outline in my next post, I was extremely surprised and pleased with the results.

Reference

Bennet, B. & C. Rolheiser (2001). Beyond Monet: The Artful Science of Instructional Integration. Toronto: Bookation

Giving Something Back: Mentoring Student Teachers

I excelled in my academic studies at university; however, as a result of my youthful inexperience, I always felt vulnerable and unprepared during my practical teaching experiences. While I had some excellent mentor teachers, on several occasions I found myself working with unsupportive, and in one case, overly critical teachers. One almost drove me to quit my teaching degree.

Now, many years later, I have come to love working with student teachers at various stages of their teacher-preparation courses.

I may be “just” a graduate teacher, but my diverse relief experience and engagement in professional learning has enabled me to meaningfully mentor several future teachers in the areas of classroom management, planning and instructional strategies.

Working with “Terry”

While I’ve worked with many student teachers over the past two years, one really sticks in my mind. I met “Terry” (not his real name), earlier this year, when he was about halfway through his 10 week second year teaching experience. To be honest, he resembled me on my final year school experience. This was not a pleasant memory.

Through our discussions, it became clear that Terry lacked confidence in his teaching ability, and seriously struggled with lesson preparation and behaviour management. Watching him teach, I could understand his supervisor’s critical performance assessment; however, I was not particularly impressed that no-one had taken the time to teach him practical strategies for improvement.

Through the course of the day, I explained some behaviour management strategies for gaining student attention and managing the who, what and when of lesson transitions. I was pleased to see Terry experimenting with a few strategies, although he needed to work on his consistency.

I also went through the stages of effective lesson planning; stressing the need for an explicit learning purpose and observable assessment criteria. While I don’t bide much by the excessively prescriptive lesson planning preformats student teachers are expected to use, I have learnt, through painful experience, that a clear lesson purpose and explicit criteria are key to effective teaching.

After school, I spent an hour helping Terry plan a maths lesson on fractions, painstakingly persuading him to halt his rush into calculating improper fractions with numbers. I taught him how to plan using the First Steps Number resources, and suggested ways to introduce and conclude his lesson.

While Terry seemed much more prepared for his ‘model’ lesson, I was unable to return to the school to see how he went. I would have appreciated some feedback; however, this experience helped me to clarify and translate my First Steps professional learning into real-world practice.

Professional Learning: A Two Way Street

I find these informal mentoring experiences personally and professionally rewarding, as I find myself becoming more confident in my own abilities and instructional practice as a result of sharing my professional knowledge with other teachers.

I once read that learning is enhanced when we teach someone else, and this has certainly proved true in my case. Teaching and learning is a two-way street. I learn from my more experienced colleagues, swap teaching resources, and support student teachers in areas of need. Now, I benefit professionally from sharing my learning journey with my Australian and international audience via A Relief Teacher’s Journey. It has been a truly empowering experience.

Becoming a Reflective Practitioner and Blogger

As a new teacher, I established a reflective journal; documenting and reflecting on my teaching experiences, observations, and ongoing professional development throughout my first year.

I view my journal as a very personal record of my experiences. As I flick through my handwritten entries, recorded in multiple exercise books, I can trace the low points, bitter times, and highlights of my professional learning journey. I can now look back, laugh about my mistakes, and marvel at how far I have come.

I am no longer the nervous, inexperienced, and inefficient teacher I once was. I am hardened by experience, better organised, and a much more effective relief teacher. I am proud of my work, and enjoy the variety and flexibility my job offers.

Learning to Blog, Blogging to Learn

Now, writing for A Relief Teacher’s Journey, I have discovered the incredible power of blogging as a reflective tool, and as a medium for sharing my thoughts, skills, and practice with teachers around the world.

Learning to blog was somewhat easy. It is the lessons I have learnt through my blogging endeavours, and the professional connections which my work has fostered, which make the experience worthwhile. Thankyou for the feedback – it is greatly appreciated.

Until next time …

Celebrating my First Year of Teaching

Today marked the end of my first year of teaching.

I have awaited this day for a very long time, and it has come about through my work in 23 schools across the Government, Catholic and Independent school sectors.

To commemorate this day, I thought I would share excerpts from my very first reflective journal entry, and publish my Top 5 list of First Year memories & special moments. Here goes:

My First Journal Entry: Week 8, Term 2 2009

“In the final days of my university degree, I recall my lecturer advising us to keep a diary or journal during our first year of teaching. She said that this record of our experiences would become a keepsake in later years. Now, as I begin my first entry, I hope that this marks the start of a more frequent reflection on my experiences. …

Over the course of my first 50 days of teaching, my conscious reflection on my teaching strengths and weaknesses has led to a remarkable transformation in my teaching style and confidence.

I won’t forget my first class, a Year 6 at [name removed], in any hurry. I replaced a graduate teacher (an old university colleague) whose father had died suddenly. The class was naturally unsettled, and their relief teacher was a nervous wreck. These two factors ensured a rather ‘interesting’ day, and I even walked out the wrong entrance on my way home!

As the weeks went by, I was gradually exposed to more schools, and started implementing my pet astronomy project. I encouraged my classes to write to NASA and the Perth Observatory as part of the International Year of Astronomy 2009.

This activity generated a lot of discussion and interest, and [name removed] did eventually receive a reply from NASA. In hindsight, I would have planned the activity more thoroughly, contacting astronomers and observatories to find people willing to engage in the project. As my relief activity repertoire grew, I ultimately abandoned this activity.

As Term 1 turned into Term 2, I spent a significant amount of time working at [name removed]. I am grateful to the staff and students of this school, who have supported and stimulated my professional growth in the areas of behaviour management, fitness games, and as a facilitator of student learning. “

As I look back on my early journal entries, I can see the incredible personal & professional transformation I have undergone in my first year of teaching. I am no longer a “nervous wreck”, and have vastly improved classroom management and relief teaching skills.

Remembering the terrible stress & exhaustion of my early days, I am grateful for the opportunities & professional growth relief teaching has afforded me.

I’m on a journey, and its’ been one hell of a ride!

The Top 5 Moments & Memories of My First Year

One: Watching my students learn & grow up

Over the past 20 months, I have had the wonderful opportunity to watch hundreds of my students grow up; forming into the young people & young adults they are destined to become. Watching the transformation, learning & growth of my students over time has been one of the greatest joys of my relief teaching practice.

Two: The support of my colleagues

As a graduate teacher, I have valued the support and guidance of my experienced teaching and non-teaching colleagues across a range of schools. I wish to extend a sincere thankyou to all those people who took the time to share their experience and expertise; answering the many questions presented to them by a teacher new to the profession. I hope to emulate you one day.

Three: Breakfast Club Moments

I’ll never forget the stories and discussions shared with students over their morning toast and Milo. I love volunteering in these friendly, informal environments, and it has been a pleasure to work with the dedicated volunteers who run these school programmes. Three Cheers for “Mr Possum”. [Don’t worry, someone will know what that means!]

Four: My Professional Development as a Graduate Teacher

I have undergone significant professional growth in my first year of teaching, incorporating the benefits of other teachers’ many years of classroom experience into my own teaching practice.

Some of the highlights include:

My experimentation with instructional & collaborative learning strategies in my relief teaching practice
Cracking the code of First Steps Numeracy, an incredible Western Australian resource for the teaching and learning of mathematics. I’m now working to unlock First Steps Literacy, admittedly, a work in progress
Learning how to read & captivate middle and upper primary audiences using books by Andy Griffiths (e.g Just Tricking) and Roald Dahl
Developing my Teaching Files & Resources Database (4.01GB), which now contains over 3000 units of work , teaching resources, lesson ideas, professional learning materials; as well as my catalogue of 1500 digital learning objects from the Teaching & Learning Federation.

Five: Paying off my university HECS-HELP debt

This one’s self explanatory!

Finally, the Top 10 Things they DIDN’T teach you at University/College

I highly recommend this Top 10 list, although I’d ignore the advice of Number 9. Having personal experience with Number 8, I can only agree that there are some things that Uni/College just doesn’t prepare you for. Sit back, and enjoy!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lulUvYfRl_c]

Here’s to another year.

A Relief Teacher’s Journey continues…

Get involved with Breakfast / Lunchtime Clubs & Activities

Starting out as a relief teacher in early 2009, I was surprised to receive a student’s invitation to visit the morning Breakfast Club. What I found even more surprising was that this particular student was a member of the infamous “Room 15”, a troubled Year 6/7 class about which I had heard no end of horror stories. While initially hesitant, my acceptance of this invitation proved to be one of the most important decisions I made as a graduate relief teacher.

I found the Breakfast Club a friendly, informal setting for building respectful relationships with students, and it was the scene of many interesting conversations about football, skateboarding, gardening, and the latest mobile phones.

I found myself meeting the majority of my challenging students (Yrs 1- 7) over their morning toast and Milo™, and my regular attendance over time helped me earn their respect and trust.

While I no longer attend that particular school, I regularly volunteer in other schools’ Breakfast Clubs whenever I have the opportunity. I highly recommend this experience for relief staff & classroom teachers. You may only be able to spare 10 minutes once a week/fortnight, but it is worth it.

Lunchtime Clubs & Activities

Now, not every school has a Breakfast Club, but one school, where I have had extensive relief work, has developed an innovative whole-school activity timetable which runs during lunchtimes. Depending on the day, (rostered) staff members and students play rugby on the oval, play games on the library computers, or work in the Kitchen Garden. These activities are open to all students, and seem to be very popular.

These activities can provide valuable opportunities for teachers to get to know their students; catering to their diverse interests, and providing some with a safe environment during play breaks. This is particularly important for those challenging students who struggle to cope with the complex social demands of playground interaction.

Regular involvement in Clubs / Lunchtime Activity situations, even once a fortnight, can help teachers establish their reputation and make connections with challenging students. These activities don’t have to be a chore, and they can prove extremely rewarding.

Relief Teaching: Chalk & Small Talk!

Becoming an Effective Relief Teacher

In my first year of teaching, I have learnt that effective relief teachers:

Work to develop positive relationships with students and staff
Demonstrate sound classroom management skills, and
Have a repertoire of instructional strategies and relief fill-in activities

In my experience, the development of strong relationships has underpinned my survival and increasing effectiveness as a relief teacher. They have helped me establish a positive reputation in a variety of schools (where I have regularly worked), and contributed to a significant reduction in my classroom management challenges in relief situations.

Chalk & Talk!

Whenever I work in a school, I make an effort to talk and interact with staff and students. Staying in the class all day does nothing to raise students’ (and staff) awareness of your existence. As you meet and interact with students in informal playground settings, you become less of a stranger, and, well, in my case, known as the “funny guy in the cowboy hat”. This helps to break the ice when you eventually meet these students in formal classroom situations.

You generally need to teach a class 2-3 times before students start to accept you as the genuine article, and it can literally take several weeks to months working in a school to build respectful, trusting relationships with students.

These relationship-building efforts must be complemented by a firm and consistent classroom management approach, and careful observation & handling of your behaviourally challenging students.

The development of positive, respectful relationships takes a considerable amount of time and effort, and is virtually impossible to do as an agency relief teacher. I have been on both sides of the fence, and have come to love the opportunities and variety afforded by my independent relief teaching practice.

A Relief Teacher’s Story: Working with “Troy”

When dealing with challenging students as a relief teacher, I make a point of identifying and remembering their hobbies, interests, and talents, and try to incorporate them into incidental conversations or classroom learning activities. Believe it or not, given time, this little strategy can work wonders.

I first met “Troy” in mid-2009, and one of my earliest memories of him is of his playing power-games with the Principal. He was very good at ignoring instructions, avoiding work, and arguing/fighting with a student with Asperger’s Syndrome.

This student caused me (and the Principal) more than a few management headaches, but funnily enough, I liked him. I was always fair and consistent when managing his behaviour, and dealt with his attention/power-seeking behaviours in a calm, measured manner.

Through informal conversations, in and outside the classroom, I discovered Troy’s passion for building expensive model cars. While I’m not particularly fussed with cars, I made an effort to talk about & follow the progress of his latest creation whenever I taught him.

Over time, Troy’s attitude towards me changed. He was increasingly happy to talk to me, and became more respectful in his speech and manner. He still demonstrated his attention-seeking behaviours, and I remained firm in my management approach. I’ll never forget the moment when he finally recognised my authority, but sadly, I was never to directly teach him again. Running into him several months later, I still remember his shocked and pleased expression when I asked about his model-making activities. Yes, I remembered! Sadly, like so many of my success-stories, he has since left the school.

A Relief Teacher's Journey

Category Archives: Graduate Teaching