last assignment ETL402 picture books used

Have finally and hopefully finished my masters degree Was required to add fiction used in assignment to the ETL402 wiki but thought I'd explain reasons for fiction chosen here. NSW draft syllabus HISTORY Early Stage One Personal and Family Histories I chose a range of books to try and cover the sort of families we are working with. The family unit of mum, dad, children and grandparents is increasingly less the norm. We have a significant increase in divorced families, single parents and foster care. We recently had a family go through separation followed by the father committing suicide. I tried to select a range of themes in the picture books to cover the backgrounds from which children now come. Gray, K & Milgram, D. (2006). My mum goes to work. London: Hodder Children’s Books This is a picture book with short text. It shows a child undertaking a variety of activities while mum is at work. Curiously there is no other adult around while the child plays. When mum comes home the pair play together at a frenetic pace. The child is pleased when mum goes back to work. Told with humour but indicating the changing lives of children as there is no mention of dad. Theme of ability to look after oneself and independence but still have need of adult who cares. Kingston, J. (2004). A very important story. Sydney, N.S.W.: Hodder Children’s Books. Grandpa reads to his grandson and the little boy asks question about grandpa's past - goes through stages in his life and shows developments in history both globally and personally. Theme of reflection on the past and all the great/grand things one might do or be but the most important is being part of a family and comfort in that certainty. Moundlic, C. & Tallec, O. (2011). The Scar. London: Walker Press. Originally French and translated into English and published worldwide. Sensitively written as the boys mother died during the night - told from first person account according to a 5/6 year old's view of the circumstances. Colour of red suggests grief throughout the story. Grandma finally tells him his mother is still with him but in his heart. Wisdom of age is particularly touching as grandma's daughter has died. Focuses on her son in law and her grandson. Theme or resilience and courage in adversity - realisation that others are worse off than you but that even the worst situation can be overcome. Poulter, J. & Davis, S. (2010). Mending Lucille. Sydney, N.S.W: Hachette Australia. Also chosen because while there could be debate as to whether the mother has gone away or died, the girl is left without her. Symbolism of the girl's doll being torn and being mended by another adult woman who subsequently becomes her stepmother. Sense of loss expressed in a number of ways - comfort in finding a new kind of mother with whom one can share life. Reece, G. & Cencic, V. (2009). What does your daddy do? Sydney, N.S.W.: Hachette Australia. Imaginative story about different dads and what they all do - focus on narrators own dad being the best dad in the world. Everyone is different but everyone has a role to play - familiarity with one's own parent is important. Ractliffe, J. & Glassby, C. (2012). Dads : a field guide. North Sydney, N.S.W.: Random House Australia. Different dads have different characters - all pictured with something relevant to their type. Great for going down memory lane for the adult reader as there is much to remember from the past that is unlikely to be relevant to the child. Theme similar to the above book but this one has less text and the focus is on the visual. Wllis, J. & Parsons, G. (2008). There’s an ouch in my pouch! London: Puffin. Story told with some rhyme and repeated text - kangaroos specifically a joey who has been kicked out of his mother's pouch because it was uncomfortable. He seeks another animal with a pouch but eventually comes to find that his own mother (kangaroo) has a new joey in the pouch. Themes around acceptance of new arrivals in the family - generosity of others offering help, and sense of independence when joey realises he likes being out on his own. I used dialogic teaching strategy Jigsaw from Reading rockets www.readingrockets,or/strategies/jigsaw/ and book raps during dialogic reading Simpson, A. (2010). Dialogic teaching in an online environment: book raps. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 9(2), 32-46

ETL402 Sally RIppin presentation Monday

Went to hear Sally RIppin speak about her experiences as an illustrator and author and found her fascinating. I noted the following points: She writes for herself that is she does not compose her thoughts by thinking that she is writing for children. She puts herself into the writing using her imagination combined with her experiences in life. Her stories are based on her own memory of her childhood from her early years. She is running out of "B" ideas for Billie B as she thought there would only be 8 or so books and she is now up to 20. She was a tomboy herself so she wrote the character of Billie as something other than a fairy or princesses. Hey Jack! Was written in response to her own son being a reluctant ready unlike her daughter. She felt boys needed to be encouraged to read - the font is large to help the with the skill of recognising the words easily and with themes related to everyday issues boys would face. The sentences are short which she said is a challenge to ensure that the intention of the meaning is maintained. While she is an illustrator she did not want to draw for Billie B And so the illustrator is a Japanese Kiwi! whose drawings look remarkably similar to the lady herself but who has matched the image of what Sally wanted for Billie. Sally's background is so much part of her purpose as an author and illustrator. She talked of being in awe and wonder at the world around her. She lived in various parts of Asia as a child and subsequently went to China (Shanghai) to study art for three years. She spoke Hokkien as a child and learned Mandarin in China. She witnessed political history and started to write about the events. She then returned to Australia and became an English tutor for a Chinese girl whose parents wanted her to continue to speak Chinese while still becoming proficient in English. So she writes Speak Cinese Fang Fang hoping to be able to help children solve their own problems in a constructive way and to provide guidance for those found in sometimes complicated circumstances. Her desire to write for children comes from believing that she will not just entertain them but that she can make a difference to them to encourage them to grow in character and help them to realise that they have the strength to grow wisely.

ETL402 professional development opportunities

Saturday 8th September. Local Geography and History Teachers Association of the NT provided a great opportunity for teachers of history (or interested parties including me) to gather to explore the skill of analysing sources of historical information. Points of interest: While sources can be written or nonwritten (coins, photographs, letters, gravestones, architecture) no mention was made of literary sources as evidence of information. Discussed with some teachers the possibility of using literary sources of information as being of value in exploring historical events. Emphasis in pd was on prescribed texts. Oral histories are valuable. There was considerable discussion about this area of evidence as many students are community indigenous and much culture is passed down through very prescribed oral accounts of events of the past and why nature/seasons/environment are the way they are today as well as the reason for familial relationships being structured in a particular way - those of us from primary schools thought this was important for examining who we are today being influenced by the past. Discussion about being careful to ensure evidence is not of a single source - that analysing multiple sources is critical to the outcome of determining the value of the evidence. History is revised over and over according to interpretations of different parties uncovering further information. My view would be that literary sources of historical material would be of interest to children and teachers to encourage exploring the evidence.

return - August 2012 ETL 402

Have been away a long time. Have started last subject. Feeling very rusty academically but enjoying the readings. Whatever grade I always learn a great deal

Back again

Been a long time with much going on but.....
Have just spent a couple of hours reading for ETL511 and going through the 23 Things on the Learning 2.0 site in Naslund and Giustini Towards school library 2.0. Have done 5 of the things so far - posting on blog and joining Yahoo and Flickr. Intend to keep going to finish the 23 Things. Cannot keep track on the 43 Things post but I don't think that matters.

Teamwork and collaboration

Harvey,Bearley and Corkum - Core steps in decision making - required reading - view that implementation must be part of decision making and problem solving. It is easy to discuss problems and make decisions - much harder to implement the solution. Thought the 6 step approach of value - particularly the Mind Set - the first part of how to think about the problem is probably the most important - what attitude do you bring to the problem? What do you think of it? Approach to the problem probably marks one's behaviour throughout the further 5 steps. In the organisational context - a sense of vision or mission in the organisation will make arrival at solution easier. Having no vision could make the process reactionary and negative.
Article goes on to describe the sort of problems that may arise - puts them into categories. What does the TL face? Probably all 4 at different times - TL needs to recognise what they are facing and how to deal with each situation whether it be an improvement or a new venture. As the TL is in a central position in the school, a number of different problems are likely to arise.
Hough and Paine - Collabortive decision making with teams - required reading - collaborative and collegiate methods - preferred methods in teams to resovle problems. Interesting discussion about committees not being such successful problem solvers in schools. Agree with this having worked with principals who believe every problem can be solved by forming a committee meaning that there is a plethora of committees but still no solution.
Collaborative processes require a principal who believes in collaboration and allow such decision making to take place. Team work goes hand in hand with collaboration not committees.
Forming, storming, norming and performing mentioned - current principal loves this process and constantly raises it at meetings - I'm not sure that we ever get to performing as there are so many changes to our daily/weekly/monthly lives.
Law and Glover - Leading effective teams - required reading - finally found out who created the development model for teams - Tuckman in 1965 - as mentioned above, current principal loves it to death. Article made more sense of it to me than principal.
Team roles p.82, found this very informative - helps put into perspective role of TL in teams - group dynamics - how does TL's role as a non-teaching classroom/subject teacher, work within a team? - caused a lot of reflection - TL needs to be flexible and collaborative perhaps more than others. If the reliance on individual skills may undermine team work, then it really does require a conscious effort in making the team work.
p.84 empathy, warmth, genuineness, concreteness - good basis for describing quality of relationships in leadership in teams
Beck and Yeager - Making teams work:an underused window of opportunity - required reading - have seen some of points about why teams fail - p.184 - gimmick approaches - someone read somewhere so let's try it. Discuss it in the team and then feel good about it - move away back to desk and what has changed? Not much. Requires vigilance that TL ensures new or old ways of making teams work are developed in a team spirit and constantly and carefully checked to ensure success.
p.188 - a team of 4 also means there is one more - the actual team or group of 4. interesting concept as the group can have a life of its own. Need to know how to diagnose the group's needs and how what sort of leadership style suits that group. I would add that there is a need to understand how that group fits into and relates to the whole of the school.
p.193 - shared responsibility , clearly empowered team members, clarity about who else will be involved in decisions and a leader who actively facilitates communication to build trust - team will work. A critical paragraph for my understanding of leadership skills fr a TL.

Response to forum comment 22 March 2011

Noted a post on forums which I found deserved a response but have chosen to add to blog. The writer questioned the necessity to spell words including pharaoh and hieroglyphic (both of which were spelled incorrectly) asking if it mattered if her daughter could spell those words. She queried whether students should know Pythagoras' theorem and how to multiply fractions without a calculator. She thinks these things are becoming obsolete as everyone can 'google it'. Further the writer thinks that one can change jobs every year not just stay in the same job for years and that students should not be forced to stay at school so that the 'government can claim low unemployment rates'. Spelling - language is living - it changes according to many things but most of all usage. Spelling and grammar will change over time, words come and go, but if youth does not have the basis of the structure including spelling, they may find it very hard to understand requirements in the workforce, written instructions in areas of safety, laws, tax etc. Pharaoh and hieroglyphic - it may not matter to some, but the Egypitan culture from whence these words originate, gave much to our society and it is worth respecting the knowledge we have now that came from them. To spell or not to spell correctly - it does help to understand much that came before. much that we need to know and much that will come after (even in a changed form). Pythagoras - well I was never much good at maths but I appreciate how much of our world revolves around mathematics (the writer didn't mention science which surprises me as so much of my world is made up of scientific matter!) It may not appear to matter now but many trades require mathematics as a basis for the skills therein and Pythagoras may matter. How do we know at a Year 9 level of school. If the student does not have that information they may not gain the qualification and therefore the skill, later. Fractions in your head - sharpens the mind - the brain is probably the most underutilised organ in our body - use it. If a person wants to change jobs every year - boy would they have to be well equipped with knowledge and skills. Schools are there to provide students with that knowledge - we are there to provide and guide. There are many faults with our schooling system but that is the intention. To 'google it' - well whatever you want may appear to be there but isn't this what TLs are supposed to be doing - teaching students not only how to find the information but to determine its authenticity, veracity, accuracy - does this really answer my question and if not what else do I need and how can I decide if it is appropriate? Spelling is my bug bear - I am tired of having to ask students in grade 5 what they mean - it is a critical part of communication in language - whether Pharaoh is important or not isn't the issue