The Fourth Prac

I must say I have been disappointed to still not have had a chance to see the SmartBoard in action. Unfortunately, this is actually quite common and many teachers tend to neglect ICT in the classroom (Monteith, 2002). I am surprised as ICT is an important section of the NSW Institute of Teachers’ Professional Teaching Elements. It is contained within Element 4: Aspect 4.1.5 (Use a range of teaching strategies and resources including ICT and other technologies to foster interest and support learning). In an increasingly technological world, it is (to put it bluntly) simply impractical to not include ICT within the classroom. Due to the amount of technology children are surrounded with today, it is actually quite appropriate to include ICT within the classroom (Fellowes & Oakley, 2010). I believe it has so much potential to make learning fun yet effective, and children need to develop an interest in engaging with technology on an educational level. I had grown up with a slight fear of technology as I only had minimal exposure to it during my school years. This is certainly not something I would want to pass on to my students, so I have made a mental promise to include plenty of ICT in my teaching!

I came across the Storybird website and was impressed by what it had to offer for reading activities. This site allows you to view other people’s stories and to make your own! It’s a great way for teachers to create their own stories which may include sight words along with a topic the children have been learning about. Additionally, it allows students to actively create their own StoryBird by first selecting pictures on the site and developing their own storyline. Below is a link to the StoryBird website:

http://storybird.com/

I am also very passionate about using the interactive whiteboard in the classroom. When I first came across it I was very impressed and quite excited to include it in my own teaching repertoire! It allows you to create your own educational programs or even find some online. Below is a link to a site which has extra resources for each subject.

http://www.topmarks.co.uk/Interactive.aspx

References

Fellowes, J. & Oakley, G. (2010). Language, literacy and early childhood education. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

Monteith, M. (2002). Teaching primary literacy with ICT. Philadelphia: Open University Press.

Practical Number Three

This week’s practical was yet another enjoyable experience. This time I took on a small writing activity where I taught groups with approximately 5 students at a time. I was required to teach the kindergarten children the basics of writing a capital “D” and a lower-case “d”. It was quite amusing to see how they wrote the letters! The capital “D” wasn’t too much of a problem but most of the students’ lower-case “d’s” were the wrong way around! What made it quite comical to me was the way one of my boys had scoffed at the given task of writing lines because “he already had done it” then proceeded to write “d” in a reverse position. The joys of kindergarten!

Another interesting moment was to see the practice of Bloom’s Taxonomy being put into place. Below is a Bloom's Taxonomy tree developed by Kelly Tenkely, a former primary school teacher. It is a great outline of the ways we can get children to develop higher order thinking skills.

I had wondered how exactly this concept would be applied when teaching young kindergarten children. My practical teacher had incorporated this model when teaching her science lesson. The children were asked to discuss with a partner what pets they had at home. Then, the teacher created a list of all the students’ pets. So as you can imagine, the initial questioning was simple and fact-based, requiring a simple recall of their pets. The teacher then progressed to higher order thinking (analysing) by then asking the students to think about what different foods and drinks these animals might consume. They had to think hard about that question!

Through this particular lesson, and judging from my practical teacher’s overall teaching standards, I believe she is a great example for demonstrating professional competence in Element 2: Aspect 2.2.2 of the Professional Teaching Standards (Apply knowledge of the typical stages of students’ physical, social, and intellectual development as well as an awareness of exceptions to general patterns). For me, it has been a surprising experience to see how basic kindergarten teaching needs to be. I had forgotten how much they actually need to be taught and what they need to be taught, so it is great to be able to observe a teacher who understands their needs well.

Until next week!

References
Bloom's Taxonomy Bloomin' Tree.(2010, September 20). Retrieved April 3, 2011, from iLearn Technology blog site: http://ilearntechnology.com/?s=bloom&x=0&y=0