Watching students grow: A week in the life of this teacher
In this, my 100th post, I want to
reflect on some of the things that make me grateful to teach at Avila
College. The last week was exhausting and energising at the same
time. I believe a summary of that week will suffice in explaining why
I love working at Avila. Here is a snapshot:
World Integrated Unit
For three days,
groups of Year 7 students formed their own countries. They learnt
about preferential voting, designed a national flag, dance, anthem, sandwich and animal! Each country had to conduct a campaign to host the
Olympic games and use social media to their advantage.
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Treasurer, financial adviser and head of state deciding their country's investment priorities |
My role was to
look after the treasury and guide and the individual country
treasurers through foreign exchanges and a financial report.
Those poor souls
had to learn, in half a day, to use a spreadsheet and to carry out
buys and sells in the 12 virtual currencies we gave them. All trades
had to be evaluated in Australian Dollars but all amounts had to be
"parked" in the 12 currencies. For every trade, made-up
financial information was released to help them decide on what
currencies to buy and what currencies to sell. The aim was to make a
profit.
The unit was
prepared by my colleagues, Catherine Spurritt, head of the Languages
faculty and Emilio Bernardo, head of Humanities. I am grateful for
both them and to both of them for giving a role in which I observed
students grow and learn very fast.
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Example of the financial information on which the treasurers based their trading decisions |
Year 8 Maths Day
Although I
wasn't directly involved in the running of this day, I had had a
preview of some of the activities due to being a member of the Maths
faculty and to the fact that my friend, Steven Francis, was the main
organiser of these activities.
When I wasn't
required at the World Integrated Unit, I went to take a peek at what
the Year 8s were doing. They were running from building to building,
chasing clues and solving problems. Along the way, they collected
vouchers for chocolate! The students were having a great time and I
overheard comments such as "I haven't had this much fun in
ages!"
Some of the
activities were run through a dynamic website which Steven had
developed just for that day. There were Maths problems, the odd bonus
question such as "Name the country whose flag this is" and,
you guessed it, surprise chocolate to be collected.
I will not go on
about his day but the buzz around the school was just amazing. We saw
students engaged and working harder than could be expected on their
last week of classes.
A small honour
On Thursday
morning, Steven and I went to La Trobe University to attend the
opening ceremony of the Mathematical Association of Victoria's annual
conference. At that ceremony, we received an award for an article we
wrote earlier in the year. The article was on the use of BYOB, now
called Snap!, in the Maths classroom.
Helping students achieve
independence
Finally, on
Friday, a student in my homeroom gave me a Christmas gift with a card
in which she wrote the point behind the activities described above:
Avila helped me become independent.
I cannot think
of a better note to end the week on (Was that a preposition I ended
the sentence with?)
Comments
It is interesting to me to note that some of the times we find most motivational as a teacher are the times when we provide an environment/challenge and then step back and let students go. Cath spoke about AvilaWorld at Teachmeet last week and it was very inspirational. Glad it went well.
Congrats on the 'award' from your student too - messages like that make it all worthwhile !
Celia