Hey readers,
As we have reached the end of the 2015 school year here in Australia, the time has come to think towards the 2016 calendar year. Last week I received my timetable for next year which has seen a change to the subjects that I teach in that I am predominantly teaching senior secondary students.
Part of working with this age group is being able to adapt your teaching to the continuously changing nature of the student / teacher relationship. As readers will know the previous 2 years I have worked in the lower secondary / primary age group where building rapport with these students was quite easy.
On top of the challenge of building rapport with new students in this age group I have to create a brand new curriculum for my VCE IT subject – IT Informatics. This is in line with the new study design that has been developed to further enhance the subject in regards to computational thinking and systems thinking. These new changes I am looking forward to with the exception of having to create the SAT task.
Effectiveness vs Efficiency
Information Systems
Another subject that I am teaching again in 2016 is a Commerce based subject which links in really well with our Business Management, Legal Studies, Economics and Accounting subjects in VCE. This subject will allow me the freedom to work with many different tools including using some YouTube clips to reinforce real life examples such as from Gruen Transfer.
Gruen Transfer – The Pitch – Should the drinking age be lowered to 16?
This part of the show called “The Pitch” pits two advertising agencies against each other to promote a product. With my class I aim to run a few classes following with this theme.
As I am moving into my 6th year of teaching, my aim as it has been for my first day is to become part of a leadership team. In building towards this goal, I am always working towards finding new professional development sessions either online or externally to improve my knowledge of how best to work with children. Next year will be no different as one of my main aims is to attend the upcoming Teach, Tech, Play conference in April. This conference will combine to of my favourite topics – teaching and technology.
Definitely looking forward to the year ahead.
Till next time
Rossman
Travelling the road of ICT teaching and eLearning 
December 4, 2015 at 3:24 pm
Well done brother Rossman. Just from reading that, I can see you have a keen eye to develop your students ‘ life skills ‘, which is something I felt was overlooked in my learning years. 🙂