Fab Learns Things

I am Fab. I like to listen, I like to learn things.This is me learning things.

[asapscience]

What kind(s) of intelligence do you hold?

[http://designinbiology.tumblr.com/]

[leolachu-deactivated20210110]

There is no reason too small to learn a language

You like the music? Go for it! Enjoy the books? Sure, do it! Heard someone speak it in a café one time and loved the sound of it? Get yourself some paper and start practicing!!! Don’t let anything deter you from learning something new 🌱🐝

[sciencealert]

Lettuce assume that the writer made a mistake. 😂😂 📷: CodeMonkey789/Reddit #science #sciencealert #engineering #lettuce http://ift.tt/2hUWKmZ

[educ7545]

Shared for @fablearnsthings!

[fablearnsthings-blog]

Hahahahaha, I love this!

[fablearnsthings-blog]

Design and Technologies: what are they for?

This animation is designed to help teachers to tune into the grand narrative of Australian Curriculum: Technologies. There are two subjects in the Technologi...

Heres another useful video explaining design technologies from Teaching and Learning in South Australia. This video is super clear and has great real life examples of desing technologies. It really expands on the previous ACARA video I posted. Something which I had previously not expected from Design Technologies is the apparent emphasis on project management and the need for the student to acquire a deeper understanding of not just the processes that go into design but all the surrounding factors including creative thinking, problem solving and sustainability issues.

[fablearnsthings-blog]

Design and Technologies: An Introduction

Introduction to the Australian Curriculum: Design and Technologies. Members of the Design and Technologies Advisory Group discuss the features of the curricu...

My critical rationale will focus on Design and Technologies. Through my wanderings in the realm of research I’ve found found a few simple videos that introduce this subject nicely. This one is a thorough Australian Curriculum based video which easily enables visualisations of the curriculum. Good job ACARA, love your work. 

[fablearnsthings-blog]

Cabbage-gate

There has been great uproar at one of my earlier posts, with many (one) people enraged by the use of what was blatantly a cabbage in place of a lettuce. I can only offer the humblest of my apologies for this grave misjudgement and hope that the following will appease the masses.

Here is a particularly beautiful glamour shot of a fine specimen of a snail on what my sources tell me is definitely lettuce this time.

Now lettuce leaf this alone now.

[fablearnsthings-blog]

Most Students Don’t Know When News Is Fake, Stanford Study Finds

A study of middle-school to college-age students found most absorb social media news without considering the source. How parents can teach research skills and skepticism.

This article makes me cringe. But cringy things are often things that we must overcome and I think on the whole we need to teach our students how to overcome this.

I often have conversations with my partner (who is a high school teacher) about this exact subject. Students can’t tell what news is real on social media. And we all know from experience that there is a LOT of fake news out there. And it isn’t just students, my parents often get fooled by these as well, it’s hard to tell whats real and whats not on the internet, but my argument isn’t that it should be easier to figure out what’s fake, but that people..EVERYONE... not just students should use critical thinking skills to evaluate for themselves what they should believe and what they shouldn’t. 

There are so many ‘real’ new stories from reputable stories that feature fake or misleading statistics and it seems more important than ever that we should all be sharpening our critical thinking skills. Maybe those 9 out of 10 people who eat Vegemite and also show signs of cancer also spent a lot of time in the sun (ahem, Australia) and maybe that 60% of people who have high IQ’s and are late all the time and actually just 6 people out of only 10 people that showed up to the interview for that research. 

We must always remember that 76% of statistics are made up. ;)

But seriously, this is a problem, and it’s something that we need to explicitly work on, which is where the general capabilities part of the curriculum become so useful, that's where our critical and creative thinking lies and when you look at it from the point of view of something so pervasive to our daily lives - the media - that’s when you really see it’s inherent usefulness. 

p.s. Whenever I think of critical thinking about statistics (or stupid statistics in general) I think of this (for those that don’t know you can click on a word that has a faint underline and it will open a link, I leave these little cookie crumbs everywhere in my posts) and of Freakonomics in general, which, if you haven’t seen it you should STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING RIGHT NOW AND GO AND SEE THE MOVIE OR READ THE BOOK or follow the podcasts or all of the above.

[Portfolio: Engaging Public Media - Media]

[fablearnsthings-blog]

Here are links to some lesson plans I've developed for use in my Creative Drama Classroom (and a few games and lessons from others as well). All of these lessons have been tested and proven successful in the classroom. Let me know if they work for you.

Okay, so this website isn’t as well-made as the last resource I posted but it is certainly useful. The criteria I had for this resource are fairly similar to the last one, relevant to me as a teacher and my future classroom, easy to access, easy to use and easily adaptable to the Australian Curriculum.

Once again, tick tick tick! Although this website is a bit clunkier than I would like visually it certainly ticks all the boxes. I particularly appreciate how all the activities have been separated according to age level, lesson type and content, making the ‘ease of access’ criteria very much fulfilled. 

Also the ‘separate by content’ section of this site allows you to easily tell which activities can be related to other areas of the curriculum (despite the fact that this website is not Australian as far as I can tell) which adds another tick to the ‘easily adaptable to the Australian Curriculum’ criteria. 

Mostly though I like the sheer number of quality activities on this website and the fact that you don't have to plough through heaps of pages or subscribe to get to the lesson plans, which can happen on many other education sites (ahem education.com). I feel like websites as easy as this don’t come along often and are very useful for busy teachers.

Hazzah!

[Portfolio: Resourcing - Drama]

[fablearnsthings-blog]

Being a black drama student: 'The fear of stereotyping is crippling'

Recent graduate Leah Harvey shares her experiences of being the only black female student in her year at drama school

Alright so, this article might not seem entirely relevant to primary education when you read it, but trust me, it is. Mostly just because every single person should endeavour to become aware of how dominated our society is by racial bias and stereotyping. And this should start early. We should be choosing plays like Hamilton to show young students or exposing them to Indigenous Australian Contemporary Theatre or even just showing inclusive casting such as the latest casting of a black Hermione in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

So this article is more like a jumping off point for how we as teachers can practice inclusivity and break-down stereotypes whilst teaching the curriculum. As Leah mentions in the article, we are lucky to be in changing times right now but we should really make the most of it. Particularly since we have the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures and Asia and Australia’s Engagement with Asia as cross-curriculum priorities in the current curriculum, a great example of how we are moving toward inclusivity which will only be utilised fully if we as teachers make the effort to show this inclusivity to our students.

[Portfolio: Engaging Public Media - Drama]

[fablearnsthings-blog]

Bangarra's e-Resources are part of our Education Program, created in partnership with Education Services Australia, provide insight into the creative process of iconic Bangarra works. Designed for primary and secondary teachers, they can be used to build class activities, promote discussion and develop skills in creating contemporary dance.

Wow! Jackpot!

This website is amazing! This would genuinely help me teach dance in the classroom. But more than that, it has a huge amount of relevance to the Australian Curriculum AND features Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture!!

When I began looking for a dance resource my criteria were: high quality, easily accessible, features dance elements and can be tied to one other part of the Australian Curriculum. But I genuinely thought I would have to search high and low and adapt something to the classroom. However, this resource is perfectly ready to be used in the classroom as is. It features high-quality images of beautifully produced dances, simple but detailed explanation of dance elements and stories, thorough background descriptions of the culture from which the stories portrayed through each dance come from and easily navigatable pages. There’s even activity pages and grade outlines! (Everyone praise the teaching gods).

It literally steps you through the process, so much so that you would be able to give this website to an older primary student and they could conduct their own researching process on this website.

The other thing that I am particularly impressed by is how accessible this resource makes Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture to people who may have little or no experience with it. This makes the process of including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Histories and Cultures (that’s a cross-curriculum priority for those of you playing at home) in the classroom much easier and waaayy less daunting (at least in my opinion).

[Portfolio: Resourcing - Dance]

[fablearnsthings-blog]

Florida teacher's long division song and dance goes viral (with video)

Who says long division has to be a bore?

Divide multiply and subtract (ohhhh) bring it on down and bring it on back!

Okay so once you watch this video you will not be able to get it out of your head. I was so excited when I found this article because it shows a perfect blending of Arts and Numeracy, something which is usually seen as a serious core curriculum aspect. There has been much talk of late about the importance of disposition in numeracy and how this can have a positive effect on learning, especially in early years and this article presents a perfect real-life example of a teacher working with the students’ interests and skills to create a positive disposition and a connection to the outside world (no doubt they got it stuck in their head too and couldn’t stop singing it at home and in the playground).

Even though as primary teachers we don’t necessarily have to teach long division this example can be adapted to our needs (I seem to remember my grade 4 teacher trying to get us to remember 12 x 9 by leaping across the room yelling “108!” and to this day that's how I remember the answer).

What they don’t mention in this article is how well this method shows that you don’t have to be dancing the nutcracker in order to teach dance or use dance in the classroom. You can do it as simply as this.

Another thing I noticed is that this method seems to create a game that the students want to win, they have to do each operation in the time allotted by the lyrics, and the singing classroom in the background seems to be cheering them on! What an awesome way to learn a not so awesome sum :)

Divide multiply and subtract, bring it on down and bring it on back!

[Portfolio: Engaging Public Media - Dance]

[fablearnsthings-blog]

Update

I have once again been thwarted by a familiar foe. Social anxiety. Only this time it’s a new type of anxiety inspired by the modern age, I like to call it social media anxiety. Something which no doubt many of us have experienced and which I’m sure our students will experience. Hence, it seems that I should mention it in an education-arts-technology blog. 

I don’t use a lot of social media because of this type of anxiety and I am finding it hard to upload things that I have created in particular because of this. That explains the great delay of my ‘making product’ portfolio entry on this blog. Despite that fact that I have already made it.

[fablearnsthings-blog]

Me trying to figure out my assessment...actually me most of the time.

[fablearnsthings-blog]

Tech n’ Arts

What are they anyway??

We had an interesting chat in the workshop about what exactly technology and arts are and it seems that this conversation can and has gone on forever. 

I’m going to attempt to 5R this thang but I’m going to use the framework because I don’t trust myself not to get sidetracked.

1. Report: In the workshop a discussion was had about what the definition of technology and art respectively could be. There were a great many varied responses and some debate occurred.

2. Respond: I was surprised at how difficult it was to define these .. well what would you even call them? Subjects? Themes? Objects? I initially thought that technology in particular would be easier to pin down because it was relatively recent, but it’s not when you think about it, isn’t the wheel technology? Sun dials? Technology has most likely been around as long as art has at least or longer (seeing as art was created using tools)

3. Relate: Each person it seems had their own personal idea of what art or technology might be and had assumptions that were challenged, for example, we were asked if a Bauhaus chair was art or technology?? Is a quilt art or technology? Is architecture art or technology? Significant common factors for a definition of technology were: a man-made object, serving a purpose

4. Reason: A PCSC (Purpose, Context, Specifications, Constraints) framework was then applied to these factors to form three levels of technology (at this point I’m blatantly copying off the slides but they are so succinct that it seems counter-productive to re-word them)

Level 1: Technology that fulfils a human purpose (e.g. a guitar)

Level 2: Technology that is an assemblage of practices and components (e.g. a song)

Level 3: Technology that is a collection of device and practices (e.g. a band)

Note: I have changed the examples to help me #learnbydoing but if you think these are incorrect please tell me!

5. Reconstruct: The definition we ended on was “any artefact, system or environment manipulated or designed by humans that* serves a purpose or meets a need”

*’that’ was changed from ‘to’ to incorporate accidental inventions like the glue on post-it notes or velcro, which weren’t technically invented TO serve a purpose but ended up serving a purpose.

So, now that my reflecting framework is complete I have a few random questions to ponder:

Isn’t all art technology seeing as it serves a purpose by entertaining or pleasing us in some way and is manipulated or designed by humans to serve this need?

What about when animals use tools such as sticks or rocks, is this technology even though it is not manipulated by humans? 

[fablearnsthings-blog]

Objectives & Expectations

i.e. what do you think is gonna happen?

In the first lecture we were given a set of questions which I thought may be pertinent to answer here and #reflect on later.

Q. What do you expect to learn in this course (EDUC7545 Teaching Technology and the Arts in the 21st Century)

A. I expect to learn practical skills to use in the classroom which will help with my teaching of technology and the arts. I also expect to navigate the current Australian Curriculum and acquire strategies and skills to enable me to teach technology and the arts.

Q. What do you believe, or assume and technology and the arts and education regarding these?

A. I assume through past experience that neither of these subjects is given enough time or importance within schools.

Q. How confident are you to teach these subjects?

A. I feel moderately confident in supervising these subjects and I feel that I can learn then easily enough but teaching them is an entirely different matter.

Q.What are you most/least confident teaching?

A. I am least confident teaching music, I an constantly tapping the wrong beat and always battled through my instrumental practice as a child. I am probably most confident in teaching some kind of sewing, photography or computer work, as I have personal experience in these and have attempted to teach people these skills a few times.

Okay, see you in a few weeks, post.

[fablearnsthings-blog]

Lettuce Reflect

Hahahahahaha! Get it?? I hope you like puns and stolen stock photos cause that is going to be the majority of this blog.

No, but really, let us reflect upon the first week of summer semester in MTeach, particularly EDUC7545 (Teaching Technology and the Arts in the 21st Century).

For the reflections, I will be attempting to use the 5Rs Framework (Bain et al, 2002) which involves the following:

1. Report: Describe (avoiding judgement)

2. Respond: Record my own response

3. Relate: Identify important factors and challenge them (e.g. personal experiences, values, assumptions)

4. Reason: Use relevant research to explain these factors and justify new perspectives

5. Reconstruct: re-evaluate reflection based on the above

Look at that ^ we are learning already!

[fablearnsthings-blog]

Post Numero Uno

Hey y’all, 

So this is me, on my very first day of prac with my little fists clenched in excitement/nervousness. I thought this would be a fitting way to start this blog. I initially thought that this blog would be all teaching themed but when I thought about it, I feel like teaching is primarily about learning in many forms. Learning that we help our students to do, learning that we do for our students and learning that we do for ourselves. I also don’t like using ridiculous, unnecessarily large academic words when there is no need because sometimes that just alienates the people we are trying to reach (and quite often causes others to zone out). So I purposely chose ‘Fab Learns Things’ as this title and as long as the powers that be are okay with it, I would like to keep this blog as simple, personal and casual as I can.