I do confess it is two months since my last blog post!
So much has happened and there has been so much to do it is only now at 5.30am I am able to take 30mins to reflect and review the past two months.
I am now a midwifery lecturer with Griffith university in Queensland. Once again we have relocated and moved home. The picture above is the view from our new patio area of our new Queensland home.
The biggest stress has been the fact that this is the first big move we have made whereby I have also started full-time work. Normally I have been home and able to sort out domestic issues such as phone, utility and other such issues that come with moving home. However this time circumstances are different.
The domestic side of things maybe starting to settle a little. The landline is proving to be a problem and I am still waiting for a call from the removal men to tell me when they will be delivering our furniture from Shepparton.
New role
My role as midwifery lecturer so far has been as intense as the 'intensives' that the students have just attended for the past two weeks.
I am convening a second year course that I developed last year so I am very familiar with the content there are just some practical issues I have needed to become familiar with using the software platform.
During the intensives I prepared power points and teaching strategies developed from when I was a childbirth educator to promote group development.
I did seek out some verbal feedback from the last few students to leave on the last day of face to face teaching. Their immediate feedback included positively, they enjoyed the group work it helped them feel they could get to know more about others they don't normally interact with. One thing they said I needed to work on was asserting myself over those who talk and raise the noise level in class especially during the practical 'lab' sessions.
I did invite the group during the first session to write a set of group rules. I was a little laid back about this, I put up a sheet and invited them at break time to write on a flip chart piece of paper. The purpose of them writing their own group rules really is to make them more responsible in class. However I need to make this a more purposeful exercise and add a few rules of my own which includes talking and not being respectful in the class during the session.
I invite anyone to share any classroom tips for dealing with loud talkers or disruptive classes.
2 comments:
Congratulations Pamela, big move and obviously a good one! Sounds like you've done a great job on your first two weeks intensive with the students. Their feedback was lovely :) I like the way you got them to set the guidelines for your sessions, that's a great start. How to deal with disruptive students - that's a whole days's exploration in itself! Would be good to set up a Wiki for that - we could all add ideas ;)
Your view is very restful to the eyes. How are the children settling in? Cheers, Carolyn
Thanks Carolyn,
the girls are settling in just fine and appear to be settling into their school really well.
I like the wiki idea or maybe even running a workshop on it.
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