As teachers, we should never stop learning! Which is exactly what our staff did during our Professional Development week last week; engaging in team building, Visible Learning, communication and child safety workshops, as well as planning out the remainder of the year. I was privileged to attend the International Transforming Education Conference (ITEC) in Adelaide with 13 of my colleagues at the beginning of the week, then we joined in the PD for the remainder of the week.
Hopefully, the longer break meant some great time with your families, while we prepared for your child’s final terms.
The mid-Semester break is a good chance to see how every student is tracking. I see it as a professional goal to know about the progress and learning of all of the children at Melton. Behind the scenes I have an extensive data tracking system based on everyone’s reports. It allows me to see the learning and growth happening for each and every child at the College, and to continually adjust our goals and movement forward according to the children’s learning.
By taking a whole week in the middle of the year for PD and planning, it allows every teacher to perform a similar process; to take stock of their student’s progress and equip themselves with new tools. Above all, it’s a week infused with the love of Christ.
At ITEC, I learnt a lot! We studied some of the most up-to-date educational thinking under the umbrella theme of ‘Reimagining Practice’. A big part of that was the fundamental nature of reciprocity in teaching. There are some things others just know more about, regardless of their age. Have you ever had a teenager fix something on your mobile phone? It had probably been bugging you for ages, and they fixed it in seconds flat. Teaching is like that every day – sharing and learning.
We also focused on developing our students’ and teachers’ God-given potential, training in CANVAS, honing communication skills, and also learning about intention and success within the curriculum. Research shows that if children know what a teacher intends to teach in a class and how they know if they’ve succeeded in that learning, then this has a greatly positive effect. Perhaps as parents you could help us out, too? When your child gets home ask them two questions:
What do you think your teacher wanted you to learn today in…?
How did you know if you managed to learn that skill? We don’t want our children to come home and study or think alone, we want to collaborate with families in our learning. So join us on our quest to make learning more visible to all.
P.S. This term, the goal of myself and the Melton administration is to keep improving communication with our community. We are using new electronic systems, so please do pop in and tell us how we are doing. While feedback can be hard to hear, it makes us better at our jobs and results in a better educational experience and partnership for all.