Last week Claire Amos wondered if New Zealand's Graduating Teacher Standards were future-focused enough. Having come to know the standards well both through being a fairly recent graduate and having used the standards as framework for my eportfolio, I can say the standards need a tweak but it is the delivery of the standards that... Continue Reading →
Weekly Reflection: The Last Post
New Zealand Graduating Teacher Standard 7.c "Graduating Teachers are able to articulate and justify an emerging personal, professional philosophy of teaching and learning." What my Diploma in Teaching helped me Learn 45 weeks 6 exams 13 assignments 2 teaching placements 169 posts 29,311 hits And as of 2.13pm on Thursday I'm done. When I enrolled... Continue Reading →
Is it almost time for this blog to end?
As I'm coming up on the end of the year, I've had a couple of people ask if I'm going to keep blogging now that I'm almost a real teacher. At first I thought no. There's nothing worse than a blog which dies a slow death (I should know I've managed to kill 3 personal... Continue Reading →
Teaching mihimihi through digital media
New Zealand Graduating Teacher Standard 4.e Graduating teachers use te reo Māori me ngā tikanga-a-iwi appropriately in their practice. The other project I had to undertake for specialist week was a group assignment on language learning. The task was to create a teaching resource as a group. We were given the option of making a poster... Continue Reading →
How forgetting about ‘the teaching’ helped my students and I learn
New Zealand Graduating Teacher Standard 4.c "Graduating teachers demonstrate high expectations of all learners, focus on learning and recognise and value diversity" Graduating teachers focus on the learning. It seems like such a simple idea, you can talk about it, read it but actually doing it? That took me a long time. For my first... Continue Reading →
What is the purpose of the Graduating Teacher Standards?
New Zealand Graduating Teacher Standard 7.b Graduating teachers uphold the New Zealand Teachers Council Code of Ethics/Ngā Tikanga Matatika. A few weeks ago I had someone "why were graduating teacher standards established in nz" and I thought "that's a good question to which I don't know the answer." So I decided to blog on it... Continue Reading →
How a simple warm up can lead to learning
New Zealand Graduating Teacher Standard 1.a Graduating Teachers have content knowledge appropriate to the learners and learning areas of their programme. It was just a simple maths warm up called 'guess my number.' It's kind of like hangman but for maths. Now I'm sure you are rolling your eyeballs. Hangman? Seriously? But the thing is... Continue Reading →
Weekly reflection: Making the most of teachable moments
New Zealand Graduating Teacher Standard 4.a Graduating teachers draw upon content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge when planning, teaching and evaluating. One problem I've been mulling over for the last few months is making the most of teachable moments. I know that there are moments when teachers need to, in the words of my former eduction... Continue Reading →
Speaking 한국어 to one student helped me to engage with many more
New Zealand Graduating Teacher Standard 6.d Graduating Teachers promote a learning culture which engages diverse learners effectively. I speak Korean. I don't speak the language particularly well, but alongside living in the country for four years I also attended night classes at Seoul National University. As a result of my study I can read and... Continue Reading →
Dear Teacher Education Providers – Can you enter the 21st century please?
New Zealand graduating teacher standard 4.d "Graduating teachers demonstrate proficiency in oral and written language (Māori and/or English), in numeracy and in ICT relevant to their professional role." Dear Teacher Education providers Yesterday I received my pack for Teaching Experience 2 containing a wonderful array of informational booklets, multi-coloured forms for myself, my associate teacher... Continue Reading →
Teaching the Teacher 