Friday 18 April 2014

Busy times

I started the year looking at getting back into blogging more regularly, but the last two few months have been a bit of a mad scramble. Every year no matter how well prepared you are, how ready you are, organised; inevitably that first term hits you like a freight train. Once again the first term of the year was filled with new challenges and new obstacles.

This year I'm teaching 4 different senior classes of Year 11 and 12 students, many of these students I have known for years now and it is great to have them in my classes. Some students had left the region, changed schools, new school building opening and we had new staff join over the summer holidays. I love the subjects that I get to teach, especially my two History subjects and teaching online students again. Unfortunately my Modern history class numbers have dropped a lot, down to only 7 students this year. Hoping that the numbers increase next year, as this is the subject I'm most passionate about. My Ancient history class however is a composite Year 11 and 12 class, with over 20 students. Business subjects have remained quite constant.

I also jumped into doing my Masters this year. I'm studying online through the University of New England, doing a Master of History course. It's going to be a six year journey, doing 16 subjects part-time. I'm excited about studying, learning and developing my knowledge. After just the first 6 weeks I have already found new ideas and skills that I can apply to my students in class.

I'm also fairly active on Twitter with my PLN, do online readings and constantly trying new tech tools to use in classes. I love interacting with other teachers online in many diverse settings. Many discussions, articles, comments reinforce and challenge my own thoughts on teaching. I have drawn more from these interactions than from any other formats of professional development.

Life is busy, besides school and studies, I have a very active 3yr old and love spending time with my family. It is important to have a life balance, and it is an area that most connected teachers constantly battle with. As I enter Term 2, a term that has new challenges ahead. I have my next uni assignment, have a pre-service teacher with me for 5 weeks, attending the EduTech conference and taking part in a TeachMeet there for the first time. There are dozens of other things taking place, and I know the next 10 weeks are going to be extremely busy and challenging at times.

I hope to blog more in between all of what is happening, interact more, learn more, and develop more as an educator. There will always be room for more improvement and development.

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