week+1

**__Week 1__**  Author: Claire Collings 10/03/09

__** Lecture Summary **__ The lecture was presented by Greg Powell. Firstly he covered the administrative and assessment components of how the Issues subject will be conducted. He then moved on to the need for effective teachers as part of effective schools and learning and the qualities that effective teachers possess and the motivation behind wanting to teach. The key points (as taken from lecture notes provided) are: Good teachers are: Effective teachers: Strong emphasis was placed on the need for creativity and passion and for continual reflection as part of personal teaching identity. There was also focus on the issues faced by male teachers and appropriate behaviours of all teachers. We finished the lecture by watching a video of a talk by Sir Ken Robinson on ‘The Power of the Imaginative Mind’. []
 * Passionate
 * Creative
 * Flexible
 * Can integrate
 * Can make connections
 * Know how their students learn and build on the knowledge their students already have
 * Have a strong grasp of the content of their discipline.
 * Use teaching strategies matched to the learning styles and needs of their students to engage them with content.
 * Contextualise their teaching practices. They centre their teaching on the experiences of their students, equipping them with knowledge and skills they can use in everyday life.

The following websites were included as research support for the topic: [] Sammons, Hillman and Mortimore (1995) []
 * Department of Education and Early Childhood Development (DEECD): Blue Print for Education: Effective Schools
 * School Effectiveness Research:

**The readings for the lecture were:**  **__ Reactions to the Lecture __** I found the first lecture to be well presented, informative and motivating. I felt that it identified the need for teachers to take a wider view on what is required from them beyond just curriculum outline. It emphasised strongly the equal importance of creativity and passion as well the need for flexibility, the ability to integrate and make strong connections in order to be a good, well rounded teacher. The video presentation by Sir Ken Robinson was excellent. I found him to be an inspiring and passionate speaker who is championing the power and importance of creativity. He spoke of how vital creativity is and yet how so often creativity starts to be discouraged in children due to society’s perception of intelligence. He spoke of how this needs to change and that we should embrace the creative capacity of children and help them to be the most they can be. A need to see intelligence as being diverse, interactive and distinct.
 * Changing Minds: A Glimpse at the Experience of Transformative Learning – Peta Heywood
 * Arias of learning: creativity and performativity in Australian teacher education – Julie White - Cambridge Journal of Education – Vol 36, No 3, Sept 2006, pp435-453
 * From an old world view to a new – Beare. 2001.
 * Timeless Learning – Miller. 2006.


 * __ Reflections __**
 * 1) I found the lecture interesting and engaging. I thought the workshop was a good introduction to the new teaching community but felt that it could have covered more in the time. I would have liked more guidance on the role, structure and expectations of Wikis.
 * 2) I found Ken Robinson to be truly inspiring and hope that I can enable children to be their most creative and true selves so that they are excited about engaging with learning.
 * 3) I found the readings to be valuable and relevant to the lecture content. They follow a constructivist approach and I feel that they explore and explain the far reaching possibilities of people’s potential.
 * 4) The emphasis placed on the need for creativity resonated strongly for me as a large part of my motivation to become a teacher is to inspire learning through creativity and to support and encourage creativity in children so that they take it into adulthood.
 * 5) I believe that as grow older we are discouraged from being creative and I have my own experience with this as a teenager having to make subject choices. I do now endeavour to be creative in all that I do and believe that my life experiences will be valuable to me in being creative and encouraging creativity in the learning environment.
 * 6) <span style="color: rgb(16,16,66);">I want to provide a creative and stimulating learning environment so that children develop skills to help them in everyday life as well as achieving all their latent potential.
 * 7) <span style="color: rgb(16,16,66);">I believe that creativity should be present in all aspects of learning to promote higher order thinking and to provide a connectivity to children with the world around them.
 * 8) <span style="color: rgb(16,16,66);">I think that you can’t expect the same response or outcome from each child and that people have one or a combination of 8 intelligences as defined by Gardner. Various learning styles and teaching strategies may help to identify the mix of intelligences in students so that you can encourage and support.
 * 9) <span style="color: rgb(16,16,66);">I feel it is important to engage with students and to find out what their learning expectations are.
 * 10) <span style="color: rgb(16,16,66);">By providing the opportunity to engage in creative learning, students will have a memorable experience that will hopefully contribute to the willingness to explore and engage beyond requisite assessment parameters. “If we employ, for instance, that bureaucratic language in which teaching becomes not an occasion fro creativity and dissent and, above all, individuality, but rather, the ‘implementation’ of others’ ‘objectives’, the process of education is mutilated.” – Pinar,W (2004) What is curriculum theory?
 * 11) <span style="color: rgb(16,16,66);">In reading about transformative learning I found the writing style to be a little in the style of spiritual healing book but found concept elements to be valuable, in particular the environment needed for transformative learning. “Educators who understand the concept of transformation, either implicitly or explicitly, recognise the need to assist their students to develop patterns of thought, to make clear the connections between experience and ideas, to develop links between themselves and others and to see themselves as part of the universe” - Changing minds: a glimpse at the experience of transformative learning – Peta Heywood.
 * 12) <span style="color: rgb(16,16,66);">I found the article 'The Arias of Learning' to be an interesting study and it brought up the following key concepts: Creativity is about risk taking and daring, in both teacher and student. The need to have a positive attitude towards my own creativity. To support and encourage students thinking, exploration and ideas.
 * 13) <span style="color: rgb(16,16,66);">“Any plan for schooling of the future must start with a recognition of the importance of a child’s world-views and belief systems, and of schooling’s responsibility for their systematic development, authentically and without dogmatism or indoctrination.” – From an old world-view to a new - Beare.2001
 * 14) <span style="color: rgb(16,16,66);">I am excited about what lies ahead.
 * 15) <span style="font-family: Symbol; color: rgb(16,16,66);"> <span style="color: rgb(49,78,78);">I am still unsure about the Wiki. Have I reflected?