Getting excited!

Hey all,

 

I’m getting super excited to start prac next week.  I visited the class during the week and arrived to watch a student demonstrating a few things (I didn’t quite catch the drift of the lesson, maybe show and tell?). One part included a different sort of paper plane. She threw it to demonstrate and it hit another student straight in the head. Everyone roared with laughter including the teacher and it immediately struck me as a good class to be in, with fun to be had! The students were quick to introduce themselves to me and soon afterwards, I had paint all over my hands. I can’t wait to start next week after I get a big fat assignment out of the way. Still not sure how I’m completing it yet but hey, us uni students, we seem to be able to do anything. I must have missed some information earlier so for those of you in the same boat, the prac booklet has changed if you didn’t know. Time for a reprint! Good luck everyone, have fun and learn lots!

Here is a link to it for anyone and myself to get to the prac book quickly!

http://www.usq.edu.au/current-students/assessment/professional-experience

🙂

 

NAPLAN

NAPLAN testing was on during the week. All I knew was that it was a big test for all kids Year 3,5,7 and 9. So I did some research.

It turns out that NAPLAN stands for Nation Assessment Program- Numeracy and Literacy. It was started in 2008 and tests students for the skills that development across the curriculum and not necessarily within a school week. It is used by the Government and education fronts to measure where our students are at with their reading, writing, language conventions and numeracy skills. This is great. Is it? Who really knows. I speak to many children most days of the week in my job and personal life and sadly a few of them were feeling quite stressed about the test. One cool, calm little darling mentioned that it didn’t count for grades but it was exhausting doing all that testing! Another added the comment, “if you don’t know the answer just choose C every time, it’s multiple choice.” This makes me wonder: Would these tests really be a good indicator of the level our of kids? I know as a Year 9 I probably wouldn’t have put a whole lot of effort into a test not for marks!

What is great is that NAPLAN will be operated online in the coming years with 2014 and 2015 still on paper. Oh the joys of testing!