LAST EVER BLOG POST…

Well I have watched the lecture for the week and completed the learning pathway so I can officially say that I have covered all of the course content for EDC3100!!

This means that I just have assessment items to complete, which include:

EDX3270: ALL FINISHED

EDC3100: Assignment 3 due Tuesday

EDC2100: A little bit more study before I do Quiz 2 on Tuesday

EDX3280: Do practice exam questions, watch recorded exam review session, finish off readings, and STUDY for exam on Tuesday

So still a lot to do, but nearly there!

Thank-you to anyone who’s read any of my rather boring and rather lengthy blog posts!!

Time to smash out my final year and a half, and become a teacher!!!!!

Courtney H

 

Assignment Three Expectations…

After completing the week fifteen learning pathway I was a little overwhelmed. In the first part of the learning pathway there was a section where we could calculate what results we would need on assignment three to get our desired overall mark for the course. Seeing these results I was determined to knuckle down and work hard on assignment 3.

However after continuing on to read the remaining books in the learning pathway I felt a bit defeated already. Like Bianca states in her blog post I feel like the expectations for assignment three are high!! I got a little confused as the learning path discussed the finer points on what was a success, not a success, factors, experiences, evaluations, insights, and everything else!! Like Bianca I also had a fantastic professional experience, however it can become a bit draining to reflect on it in such detail and preciseness. Oh well…

In the meantime here is some reflecting music to help anyone struggling with their reflections.

Courtney H

Week Fifteen…

Wow, I can’t believe that semester one is near its conclusion. Some parts of the semester have flown by (such as professional experience), whilst other parts have dragged on (assignment after assignment). I will definitely be pleased when I can finally say that all my semester one work has been completed, and I can start enjoying our small break!

Whilst working on the week fifteen learning pathway, I came across one of David’s blog posts which I found quite informative and interesting. In this post  David reflected on what’s been happening with the EDC3100 course so far for this semester. He listed a range of changes which have been made for this semesters offering of the course, which includes:

1. New module 1 and assignment 1 design; to reduce student workload and focus on a few particular outcomes
2. Assignment 1 as an Excel spreadsheet; to provide students with more experience of using an application type they appear not to have used a great deal
3. The return of Toowoomba lectures, including live Zoom streaming; overall to improve student learning and results

Reflecting back on the course I would say that all of these changes have been positive for me, assisting to improve my understanding of course content and overall quality of my assessments.

1. Assessment one which consisted of an ICT evaluation checklist and the learning journal was quite a small assessment item (in comparison to 2500 word essays and unit plans). As such, the reduced workload of the assignment allowed for me to have more time engaging with the initial course content
2. As David suggested, I (like many other students I’m guessing) have not used Excel a great deal. In fact, I remember using Excel only twice before; In Grade 7 to complete a bar graph on something to do with our unit on politics and another time in high school but I can’t remember what for. Assignment 1 left me with no choice but to use Excel. At first I was a bit daunted by it but by the end of the assignment I was glad for the extra experience using the application, felt more confident and capable using Excel, and it was also relieving to have a change from the generic uni assessment of essays.
3. Each week without fail I watched the recorded version of the Toowoomba lecture, so I was quite surprised to find out that they didn’t even exist in the 2015 offering! The lecture allowed me to consolidate my new learnings I had gained from completing the learning path for the week and provided me with extra guidance during assignment time. My only critique is that sometimes the lectures directly repeated the information in the learning pathway.

Well I’m off to continue work on assignment three! Bye for now,

Courtney H

Week Three Down! (Almost)…

Today, Friday 3rd June, was my second last day of professional experience. As the Fraser Coast Show Public Holiday fell during my placement I have one more day to go next week. I will be very, very sad to leave my Prep class and get back to reality…which is assignments, work, assignments, exam study, oh and more assignments.

In week three I taught and did similar things as I discussed in my ‘Week Two Down!’ blog post, such as PM Benchmarking, literacy and maths rotations, maths warm ups, explicit literacy teaching, story reading, etc. Each day this week I ran the class and taught for almost all of the day, with the exception of a 30 minute handwriting lesson which the mentor teacher opted to teach. I have also spent time this week ensuring that my ICT-based lesson plans for assignment three are completed (well, almost) and I have mentor feedback on all of them.

Today, a USQ Liason Officer came and paid me a visit. On my prior two placements with USQ I had a lovely liason officer who simply asked me how my placements were going and whether there were any problems… ‘all good and no problems’ were my answers. Today, I had a new USQ liason officer who came prepared with a list of about 30 questions!!!!! We sat opposite each other in a conference room, which was very formal, and I was extremely nervous! He asked me all of the questions and I had to provide evidence for each of my answers as he wrote down what I was saying!! It was very nerve wracking to say the least!

I hope everyone else has enjoyed their placements! Until next time,

Courtney H