Two weeks before I began my Internship at Holy Spirit College in Lakemba, I attended three days of intensive winter school at the Australian Catholic University to participate in lectures and tutorials run by various lecturers.
The first lecture was conducted by the Emeritus Professor- Br Kelvin Canavan. This lecture was very insightful as it gave us an understanding of the historical background of Catholic Schooling in NSW. The following lecture was about caring for your students and being a quality teacher, this was conducted by Wendy Moran. This lecture we learnt if we were student orientated or content orientated teachers. I found this very interesting, and I learnt I am a student orientated teacher. This means I care more for the well being of the student and their engagement in the lesson and content than what I do in the content being complete. I'm happy with that result, because that is the type of teacher I am striving to become. In the afternoon, we had a past student, Justine Zarebski, come to talk to use about using ICT in the classroom. I found this lecture extremely useful. Justine's lecture illustrated to us the endless possibilities of using ICT within the classroom, particularly by making the lessons and content interactive and engaging for all students. Many of the strategies Justine put forward to us, I hope to implement into my Internship lessons.
On the second day, Kay Carroll ran a lecture based around the NSW Institute of Teachers, concentrating on what we will need to know for the following years to come. This lecture was informative and will definately aid me in understanding the NSW Teaching Framework. Wendy Moran's Classroom Management lecture will be very useful when it comes to implementing different classroom management strategies into my classroom during the internship at Holy Spirit College, Lakemba. Robyn Cosier came to speak to us about Resumes and Interviews. I found this lecture one of the most useful and informative lectures throughout the winter session. This lecture helped my construct my own resume and informed me on how to act and what to be prepared for when it comes to an interview for a position at a school.
On the third day, Christine Taylor, a speech pathologist, conducted a lecture on Voice Care. This lecture was interesting, however, I felt the lecture was irrelevant, as we did not need to know and understand the structure of the throat and many of her suggestions on how to care for your voice is just common sense. The OH&S and Risk assessment lecture conducted by Kay Carroll, I thought, was more useful because it related to the teaching profession and steps we (as teachers) need to take to ensure the safety of all our students. The Professional Code of Conduct and Teacher Well- being lecture conducted by Wendy Moran was an interesting session. These lectures reaffirmed all codes of conduct before we arrived at our internship so the codes are fresh in our minds. I felt comfort after participating in these lectures because it made me feel as though I am not alone if I experience difficulties whilst in my first few years of teaching. At the end of the third and final day, we presented our presentations, which were resources we could use within the classroom. It was interesting to see each group's level of creativity and I believe there are many useable resources that were created by my peers.
After the three days of winter school, I have developed some goals that I hope to achieve in my next professional experience at Holy Spirit College in Lakemba. The goals are as follows:
- Implement ICT and different teaching strategies to cater for the learning needs of all my students within my classroom, to make the content interesting and engaging. (4.1.5 Use a range of teaching strategies and resources including ICT and other technologies to foster interest and support learning.)
- To have a diverse range of lesson activities and classroom teaching strategies to encourage learning of all students who have different approaches to learning. Therefore I can have different options for students depending on their individual way of learning, but the completion of the tasks will show similar outcomes and understandings of content. (2.1.3 Demonstrate knowledge of students’ different approaches to learning.)
- Make a conscious effort to supply my students with the feedback they need to improve their learning and understanding of content. (3.1.7 Give helpful and timely oral and written feedback to students.)
- To create a safe learning environment for all students where they can feel welcome, feel like they belong, have equal abilities and rights to learn and encourage each other to learn regardless of their individual differences. (5.1.2 Establish supportive learning environments where students feel safe to risk full participation.)
