1. Making Connections
Practicum Exhibition
Stacey Harper 2014

2. Before teaching
• Undergraduate – Bachelor of Science
• Broad range of sciences
– earth science, biology, chemistry, psychology,
philosophy
• Majored in human physiology
• Now what?

3. First Connections
• Volunteering as a tutor
• Community
• Making a difference
• Why hadn’t I thought of this before?

4. Making Connections - Teaching
• A meaningful profession – making a difference
• Community and relationships
• Passion for learning
• Challenging and rewarding

5. Making Connections - Standards
• Standard 1 - Know your students and how they learn
• Standard 4 - Create and maintain supportive and safe
learning environments
– 4.3 Manage challenging behaviour
• Demonstrate knowledge of practical approaches to manage challenging behaviour
• Standard 6 – Engage in professional learning
– 6.3 engage with colleagues to improve practice
• Seek and apply constructive feedback from supervisors and teachers to improve teaching
practices.

6. Know your students and how they learn
• Mount Alexander College
• Diverse student population
• Investigation
– Discussion with mentor teacher and other teachers
– Observed students in other class settings
– Had a meeting with the Student Wellbeing
coordinator
– Spent significant one on one time with students
during in class activities.

7. St Columba’s exit slips
What have you learned today?
What is still confusing?
How do you learn best?

8. Making connections – Changing practice
• How did I use the evidence?
• Altered my teaching
• Timing of content
• Different activities
– More practical experiments and hands on activities.
• Planning different assessment tasks.
– ZPD

9. Making Connections – Know your students

10. Making connections
Know
your
students
Every
student is
different
Every class
is different
How I plan
classes
affects
student
learning
Beyond the
classroom
ZPD

11. 4.3 Manage challenging behaviour
• Behavioural Management?
• First placement – developing a confident teacher voice.
• Firm and fair, not just friendly.
• Students respond positively to a well managed
classroom.
• The types of challenging behaviour is very different
depending on the students you have in your class.

12. Making connections
Manage
challenging
behaviour
Firm but
fair
Consequence
matches
behaviours
Follow
up
Students
prefer a well
managed
class

13. 6.3 Engage with colleagues to improve practice
• Invaluable!
• Verbal discussion
• Planning
• Written feedback
• Reflection

14. Making Connections
Engage
with
colleagues
to improve
practice
Mentor
Teachers
Feedback
and
reflection

15. Teaching philosophy
• Relationships and connection
• Firm, responsible manner
• Everyone is able to learn

16. References
• Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. (n.d). Australian
Professional Standards for Teachers. Retrieved from
http://www.aitsl.edu.au/australian-professional-standards-for-
teachers/standards/list
• Rogers, W. A. (2011). Classroom behaviour : a practical guide to effective
teaching, behaviour management and colleague support (3rd ed). London,
England: SAGE.
• Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological
process. In M. Cole, V. John-Steiner, S. Scribner, & E. Souberman (Eds.).
Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.