Welcome to the Blog. We thought we would start with some pictures on Australia as a ice breaker. A few cliche's added.
Australias Aborigines hold deep regard for Ayers Rock, known as Uluru in the native tongue. Aboriginals are the original owners of the land and in Australian schools they are acknowledged as the original land owners at all main events.
Sydney is the main city in New South Wales, a state in Australia. I put this picture in as the Sydney Opera house is a major tourist attraction with its celebrated architecture.
Australia has seen many changes over the last 50 years, with the biggest being the massive increase in diversity. Recent statistics show that 45% of Australians have one parent who was born overseas.
Australia has more land mass than the USA but has a population smaller than that of Los Angeles.
Any Australian man can tell you the importance of the budgy smuggler; an icon to wear to the beach.
Although an old movie, Crocodile Dundee was perceived by the overseas market to represent Australia.
Aboriginal Dreamtime stories.
The Aborigines, like the Christians, had their own stories that explained the origin of the world, themselves and all that make up the world that provided Aboriginal people with a strong and close association with the land for thousands of years. These stories gave unity and purpose to Aboriginal societies in the past and are important today in maintaining their identity.
Can you describe your school Culture?
ReplyDeleteMy own field placement school's culture seems to be that of a diverse community. America, in general has come a long way from the times of injustice and segregation. It's apparent that the racial tension that so many people had to suffer through has settled down. When I say 'Settled' I mean that it has become a lot better since then. However, it is still an all too taxing issue for us. Here is a link to an example of just one symptom of this issue [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_e4iLcij7I *I warn you that if you do look up this story it is very offensive and horrible*]
It has become such an issue that we have developed much needed methods of aiding those from other cultures. Education has become one of those methods, as educators we are encouraged to use different cultures related in our lesson curriculums. In short, racism and stereotyping comes from a place of ignorance, the human race has a big problem with segmenting things from one another, so education is how we have to combat that issue. We recently did a very neat Diversity project assignment in which we come up with ways of teaching children that everyone is different and that’s okay, it should be celebrated. A very good book for your own reference is a book called The Crayon Box That Talked. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5A0AQs3SCI Here is a Narrated version of it]
In my placement school we have a wide range of cultural diversity. We have students from Asia, Africa, Greece, Italy and Holland from the students i can recall. As far as i know we don't really have so many racial issues at my school, but i am only with grade one and two's so i don't get a wider scope of the entire school, and every school is different. I feel Australia has moved through the majority of racial issues in the 90's and has a great appreciation for cultural diversity. Cultural Diversity: Diversity in schools is more than just the colour of your skin. Students are coming from diverse backgrounds with differing religions, traditions and languages. This plays a huge part on classroom dynamics with many schools needing to include EAL programs for students immigrating to Australia. Teachers should take advantage of this learning opportunity as having cultural diversity in a classroom can positively enhance learning outcomes and social awareness.
Deletehttp://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/diversity/eal/Pages/default.aspx?Redirect=1
What influences and defines your school culture?
ReplyDeleteThe influences that define our school culture seems to be a myriad of people. Children learn by example and require a good amount of structure in order to feel secure in their learning environment. Most of them are school leaders, and if the parent is activity involved, the parent as a school leader too. Principals, educators of all cores, parents, counselors, and etc. are responsible for shaping a positive school culture and eradicating toxic school cultures and environments. I can’t speak for all schools, but for my own field placement, students are encouraged to recognize that their actions and words can harm one another and to cooperate as one school body they must respect everyone. My field placement school had a pledge of allegiance as well as a school pledge, actively involving students in the everyday expectations the school had.
In Australia "Influence of Aboriginal Culture: The history of Australia is taught in all school as part of the curriculum. There is special importance placed on indigenous culture and history, and the role aboriginals had in shaping the development of Australia from discovery to democracy." Although in most schools, this is still only a small part of the curriculum. But at least we are acknowledging the traditional owners of our country.
DeleteCultural Diversity: Diversity in schools is more than just the colour of your skin. Students are coming from diverse backgrounds with differing religions, traditions and languages. This plays a huge part on classroom dynamics with many schools needing to include EAL programs for students immigrating to Australia. Teachers should take advantage of this learning opportunity as having cultural diversity in a classroom can positively enhance learning outcomes and social awareness.
Deletehttp://www.education.vic.gov.au/school/teachers/teachingresources/diversity/eal/Pages/default.aspx?Redirect=1
Classroom Management: Classroom management has changed with integration of school wide behavior focused systems and policies. Systems such as the Tribes Community Learning System, Kids Matter provide schools with a framework for building a positive collaborative learning environment.
Deletehttp://tribes.com/about/
My school culture is held together by the "Student engagement, inclusion and wellbeing policy". The policy
DeleteIdentify some aspects about the teaching and learning culture?
ReplyDeleteI am not quite sure entirely what you mean by the aspects of the teaching and learning culture, I will respond more appropriately upon further elaboration of this question. I do know that, as educators, we are encouraged to be flexible to the learning needs of each child. We must understand that every child is different and whatever the case may be we must be prepared to face those challenges to insure that we enrich each child’s educational development properly.
Teachers are still very much the focus of the class, although there is a greater understanding of the need for collaborative and creative learning, which is prevalent in schools.
DeleteI think the model for primary teaching is much more collaborative and creative, although this is still filtering into schools. A lot has been learnt around how children best learn, and this is being implemented into classrooms. There is an emphasis on ICT becoming more prevalent in schools, as the world that the children live in when they finish their schooling is very different from how the world is now. Most classes have interactive whiteboards, and acces to computers. In some primary schools every child has an iPad.
DeleteCan you identify any similarities and differences between Australian and American school cultures?
ReplyDeleteTo place my thoughts in correct order, I decided to create a series of lists to answer this question.
Similarities between Austrlian and American school cultures:
- While I am sure that they are phenomenally different over all in content, the intent is the same. Standardized testing seems to be quite comparable similarly. Naplan and Westest are both measures of the skills that students have acquired through curriculum and standards.
- As with the influence and teachings of the influences of Aboriginal culture and the formation of Australia’s development, we also teach influences of our own culture, I.E., The Boston Tea party, No taxation without representation, and etc.
- Another similarity would be some of the issues that we have. Bullying is a main issue, specifically the sudden influx of cyber bullying in the lives of both American and Australian children.
- Technology in our schools seems to be a big deal and a big problem all at the same time.
Differences:
-I have seen that a difference that we have would be the program use in Australia to help those who have just immigrated to their country. I have researched the EAL program recently and am quite interested to see that multicultural aids and such are provided for these students. I don’t imagine that America has such a program, as far as I have seen they do have IEP and IDEA acts, but it doesn’t much cover students who are not English speaking and new to our country.
--While our IEP system is very much like the Australian school for children with intelligence quotients between 50 and 70, I am unsure how special needs students are fully introduced to their classroom environment. I noticed that they do have the aids which help them with their learning and some families get funded, but I’m unsure if it is guaranteed, I’m not sure entirely how that works, I’ll need to do more research on this subject. Here is a link to some information about our IEP program [https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/special-services/ieps/understanding-individualized-education-programs] Similarly, I see that they both must perform an evaluation to determine the needs of the child. But the process seems to be quite different from that of our IEP.
Here are our questions, I do see that you have answered a lot of these questions in your blog, you may just have to elaborate on them, if you want to, otherwise, for the most part, your blog has answered a lot of our questions, if anything, restating would just be for our own clarity.
ReplyDeletea. What are the most commonly used instructional approaches in the Australian classroom and what strategies are used to promote development of higher-level thinking skills?
b. What are the components of a lesson plan, and are there state or national educational objectives?
c. Are the backward design and differentiated instruction used in the classroom? Explain.
d. How is classroom management addressed and how are students with disabilities served?
d.Special Needs: Special Needs are dealt with both in mainstream schools and also in school dedicated to different levels of ability. Within this avenue are Special School for children with Intelligence Quotients between 50 and 70, and Special Development Schools for children with Intelligence Quotients below 50. If a child has an IQ above 70 but has a diagnosed learning disability they are generally funded according to severity. This can include Spectrum Disorders which encompass a broad group of problems, such as autism and aspergers . Some children if they qualify get access to an integration aid (a paid helper for the student) for certain hours per week. Teachers work with parents, integration aids and case workers to develop plans to maximise learning opportunities for a student with a learning disability.
Deletea. Higher Order Thinking: Involves transformation of information and ideas and is based on the reformed Blooms Taxonomy. This occurs when students combine facts and ideas and synthesize, generalise, explain, hypothesise or arrive at some conclusion or interpretation. This is one of the factors of productive pedagogies.
Deleteb and c. Differentiated Curriculum: This incorporates the use of lesson plans, including lesson objectives, learning intentions and goal setting. This is a structured way for teachers to plan their lessons so that it has an intention that is linked with the curriculum and flows in a logical way that provides students with the opportunity to understand the content delivered. Goals should be individualised and should focus on improvement and progress rather than receiving the highest grade. Differentiated learning needs to take into account the varying skill levels within the class. Teachers needs to consider activities that are achievable while challenging, but still within the individual students skills level.
DeleteAlso, this is a personal kind of question not mandated by our classes, but it does relate to culture. How do you feel that media perceives Australia? I do see Crocodile Dundee, but is the stereotype a positive one or a negative one? Is it something that is often thought about? Another example may be the character from Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, Buck, I think his name was. I was just curious as to how you all felt about the various stereotypes presented through media. I'm curious considering that media is a big portion of another career choice of mine *I am also a graphic design major focusing on game/ character design as well as comic book creation and ETC*
ReplyDeleteI think the 'American' media perceives Australia in a very different light to what is actually here. For instance crocodiles do not play a part of our worlds, unless you are in far north Queensland, or the centre of Australia. In Sydney, Melbourne, Gold Coast and Brisbane, we don't have much connection to the outdoors, as would be represented by the media. But i don't think Australians bother to much about this portrayal. How do you think the media perceives America?
DeleteJust on your personal note I lived in America for a year in 1990 and have been back 3 times since. I find it annoying that Australia is still perceived by the likes of crocodile Dundee or Steve Irwin. As for Australia as a country I disagree with Mel slightly on our connection to the outdoors. Camping, bushwalking, rockclimbing, snorkling, 4wd driving, fishing, mountain biking, hiking, skiing, diving, cross country, rally racing are all done in the outdoors. Australia has the famous national parks that people from around the world come to see. We have Flinders Ranges NAtional Park, Kosciuszko National Park, Purnululu National Park, Kakadu National Park, Great Sandy National Park, Cradle Mountain National Park, Uluru National Park (the red center), The Daintree Naitonal Park, The Grampians National Park, Wilpena Pound in South Australia, Glasshouse mountains in Queensland, and so many more.
DeleteFrom friends in other countries Australia is a land mass the size of north america with a population of less than 30 million. We have stunning cities, some of the best surf beaches, rain forest and national park in the word. Melbourne are the connoisseurs of coffee. Our wine growing industry is considered one of the best in the world, we have the worlds best whiskey (awards) in Tasmania, and a friendly atmosphere. Australia has free healthcare with private health or 1% extra tax after 30. Our University Fees are government subsided with the ability to pay back only after you start earning above minimum full time wage. We have the largest blocks of land per average population and the biggest houses per average population. But we also have 3rd highest cost of living (such as food, bills etc) with Melbourne where we are the highest in the Australia. We have a very multicultural Society with one in 3 Aussies born overseas. We have some of the best 3 hat chefs in the world in Australia and Melbourne has more cafes and restaurants than any other state in Australia. Aussie Rules Football is our national game in Winter and Cricket in summer. From the multiculturalism, many people practice different beliefs both religious and non religious. We have the normal Abrahamic religions Christianity, Islam, Judaism with different denominations of Christianity making up the biggest percentage in Australia. We also have Hinduism, Buddhism, aboriginal traditional and many others with statistics showing that the population identify with over 290 different ancestries. We also have a large percentage who dont identify with any religion.
Hello
ReplyDeleteI very much like the dreamtime picture. May I ask as to its origin (and may I ask also whether I may use in a Facebook post if link back to your blog?)
Thank you either way.