Week+7+-+Who+Are+Your+Students?

**//Lecture Review by Michelle Lotriet//**  This weeks lesson was a bit of an eyeopener for me, and I was glad to have it. The first slide where we had to look at numbers next to students names and work out what they where for, really showed me how much my perception of a child could influence that child. This is where I decided never to form negative opinions of a child in my class room. The lecture also made me think about my person, I may not have the best manners, but in my class room I need to. Students will spend many hours a day with me as there teacher, and I will be a huge influence in there lives. Therefor as a teacher we need to model social behaviors, earn respect from students, set boundaries, and really strive to make a positive difference in students lives. As such you need to understand your students, as well as yourself. The rest of the lecture was a personal reflection on how ready you are to be a teacher, and what aspects and experiences you will bring to the classroom. The lecture also reminded us that students have backgrounds and experiences they bring to the classroom. We as a class can all learn from each other experiences and incorporate them in our learning. The example of a migrant boy was used in the lecture, which really opened my eyes to how this could be used in the class room rather than being ignored and treating all the students as the same. This was really good to see, as being a migrant I remember being treated the same as all the other students in the class which sometimes made it hard, as I did not understand much or the slang and phrases used. Great lecture just before we go out on teaching rounds.
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 * It is not our purpose to become each other; it is to recognise each other, to learn to see the other and honour him/her for what he/she is.**

Hermann Hesse || ||  ||  Who are your students? Find out through a range of engaging activities now attached to the references page. They include a list of suggested activites like spending 15 minutes a day with a different student doing what the child wants or creating lessons based on the students area of interest to simple one page matix sheets to find other people who can play an instrument, been to the MCG. Simple icebreakers to 'get to know you'.
 * 'Get to Know Your Students - Activities' //reviewed by Richard Gay

There is also '100 ways to energise groups: Games to use in workshops, meetings and the community' published by the International HIV/AIDS Alliance. This covers a huge range and could also be used for an activity a week: //** Well known phrases are written on a card and them torn in half. The halves are placed in a container and chosen at random by the students. Students then need to work with other students to find their matching half. One person volunteers to leave the room. The others choose a leader who, when the volunteer comes back into the room, is to lead the others in various actions. The volunteer is then to work out who is leading the others in clapping, foot stomping, yawning etc. That is the first person to begin the new actions.
 * [[image:E.jpg]] || **2. Match the Cards**
 * 9. Who is the leader**
 * 94.** //** What is the adverb. Having left the room while the class chooses an adverb such as 'quickly' or 'sleepily' a person must guess the word by having the others do something such as 'Talk that way'. **
 * 91. The 'E'game. ** ** Write an 'E' on a large piece os paper and place in the middle of a circle. Students will see from different angles a '3', 'M', 'W' or an 'E' highlighting how people see from different perspectives . **// ||   ||

 

**Gifted Education Web links** //reviewed by Alison Harvey//  In order to fully educate gifted students, we first need to understand what is giftedness and who are gifted students? Giftedness is outstanding (demonstrated or potential) intellectual, expression, or practical ability in a domain compared to others of the same age and opportunity (definition from: [|Victorian Association for Gifted and Talented Children]). Gifted children, like all children, are individuals, and generalizations can be misleading. Characteristics that may indicate giftedness include the following:
 * Outstanding reasoning ability
 * Learning quickly and easily and having the ability to recall information readily
 * <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Reading from an early age
 * <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Having a large vocabulary and using it appropriately
 * <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Developing a deep interest in a particular topic over an extended period of time
 * <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Showing curiosity, imagination and originality in thinking
 * <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Being persistent in following through a task to satisfaction despite obstacles along the way
 * <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Having a keen or unusual sense of humour
 * <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Having a questioning attitude.

<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">A report published by the Australian Government in 2001 ([|Senate Report The Education of Gifted and Talented Children]) recommended that special educational strategies should be provided for gifted children throughout Australia. One other recommendation that I found particularly interesting was: The Committee recommends to teacher training institutions that pre-service training courses include sufficient information about gifted children to make student teachers aware of the needs of those children and the special identification techniques and teaching strategies which the student teachers will have to use with the gifted on graduation.

There seem to be a plethora of sites offering resources to teachers of gifted and talented children on the internet (examples include: [|TalentEd] [|The learning place]) and a google search of "gifted education australia" gives 874,000 hits so hopefully these will be accessed by educators of these students. Having a daughter who is a high achiever, I am painfully aware that extension of capable students does not simply mean extra photocopied worksheets offering more of the same problems. As a teacher of the future I am looking to raise //all// my students learning and engagement with their learning to their full potential.

<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">**Students with Disabilities** //reviewed by Michelle Lotriet// This week I looked at the website for students with disabilities. The website was very consise and had some very interesting points. The assessment and curriculum toolkit was good to read, I think it had some good areas for helping students with disabilities in the classroom. I think the Student-centered planning would be very useful. The research was very interesting to read, and had some really good points. I never knew there was a home based program available for students with disabilities, this would be very useful for some families. The resources page was really good, and had some very useful links. Which I am sure families and teachers will find useful. The archives where useful to see how the program has developed over the years. Overall this website was very useful and gave me a great in site into how you would handle having a student with a disability in your classroom. Which was great as the only knowledge I had of this issue which was from my own classroom experience, and it is great to see how much the strategies for this has improved over the last few years. Students with a disability is an issue close to my heart and I have done some studies on this at University so it was great to catch up on this subject.

<span style="color: rgb(255, 0, 0);">**Haim Ginott** //reviewed by Svetlana Spaseska// Dr. Haim Ginott was a teacher, child psychologist and psychotherapist who created a communications approach. His communications approach had basic guidelines that he believed were important for communicating. Dr. Ginott suggests that a child’s feelings should never be denied or ignored; that behaviour is something that is treated as unacceptable, and the child should not be treated as being unacceptable; any negative interactions should be depersonalised, you should only mention the problem e.g. “I see toys not in their place”. When you address the problem you must do it in a calm way, the child will be able to understand clearly that the toys need to be in their place. Dr. Ginott believes that we should attach rules to things, e.g. “little brothers or sisters are not for hitting”. When children become dependent on things they can become hostile, it is important to let them do things for themselves. They need to be able to learn to make decisions and choose things on their own, e.g. “What to wear”. We need to limit our criticism around children and be more specific about things, and as usual try and not use words around children that they may repeat unwontedly.
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<span style="display: block; color: rgb(0, 0, 255); text-align: center;">‘ I've come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It's my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child's life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or de-humanized.’
 * Haim Ginott** || [[image:Haim_Ginott.jpg width="111" height="129"]] ||