November 2, 2016
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Comments Off on Disabilities and Mental Health.
For me, mental health and disabilities is a topic that is always close to my heart. Since I was 14, I found a love for volunteering, and not just volunteering for Cancer Research or big charity campaigns, but I volunteered for local disability charities. The first time I ever volunteered it was for a fantastic […] Continue reading
November 2, 2016
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Comments Off on Managing and Engaging with my learning – online unit 1
Todays post is about how I plan on taking control of my own learning. First I completed a task which asked me to look at what helps and what hinders my learning. I was then asked to write about I planned on using this information to make my studying practices more effective. Here is what […] Continue reading
November 2, 2016
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Comments Off on Take a Wonder into the Woods
As the old favourite goes – if you go down to the woods today you’re sure of a big surprise. After missing my placement lifestyle of being so relaxed and enjoying nature, that and after reading ‘Nearby Nature: A Buffer of Life Stress Among Rural Children’ (Wells and Evans, 2003) – I decided to drag …
November 1, 2016
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Comments Off on Outdoor play in Early Years
For my second week back at nursery, I was asked to spend my afternoon outdoors. This request was met by my delight at the chance to have a look into some more learning in the outdoor particularly as this is an age that I have had no experience working outdoors with. In the nursery there …
November 1, 2016
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Comments Off on I HATE MATHEM… Oh actually it’s not that bad!
Primary 5… some dreary day in mid-November. Maths test. The dread I felt when the teacher uttered the words the moment we came back into the classroom from morning break have never left me. I would not say I ‘fear’ maths however, it genuinely makes me feel uneasy. I think the main reason for this […] Continue reading
November 1, 2016
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Comments Off on Eh ken how tae dae a poem
For being such a diverse and vast element of language and literacy, I feel poetry may not be utilised as widely as it could. Not only can poetry be instantly accessible and emotive, it also allows children to see language in a fun and concise way. Poetry allows a multitude of opinions to form and […] Continue reading
November 1, 2016
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Comments Off on Professionalism Word Cloud!
As part of one of the activities on my online units for my course, I was asked to design a word cloud filled with words that related to professionalism. This is what I came up with: I completed this task twice with slightly varying words. Unfortunately the proper document wasn’t allowed to be uploaded here, […] Continue reading
October 31, 2016
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Comments Off on I really wish it was an infinite bar of chocolate
Chocolate cutting trick https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmBsPgPu0Wc I recently watched this video which showed someone cutting up a bar of chocolate. Originally I questioned where the maths was in this, until I looked further into this. I watched this video several times and tried to work out how a bar of chocolate could be cut up, with a […] Continue reading
October 31, 2016
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Comments Off on Baking is maths?
Liping Ma (2010, p.111) states that “mathematics is not rigid.” Originally, I would have completely disagreed with this statement as I believed that mathematics wasn’t important and not needed in real life. I thought that after doing maths in school I would never use it ever again because it was pointless. However, I discovered mathematics […] Continue reading
October 31, 2016
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Comments Off on Online Unit 1 – Identifying Skills and Abilities
Improvement is impossible without reflection. Reflection allows you to look back at yourself as a person and see where you are personally and professionally. Reflecting on and identifying your skills and abilities is important as it lets you recognise your strengths and weaknesses. Without knowing these, you wouldn’t be able to advance as a person. […] Continue reading
October 31, 2016
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Comments Off on Maths in Art
Throughout the Discovering Mathematics module we have learned that there is a lot more to maths than just timetables and textbooks, maths is all around us! It’s in space, nature and even in art. Who would’ve thought? In our recent lecture about maths in art all I could think was wow, in a subject once […] Continue reading
October 30, 2016
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Comments Off on How Many Socks Make a Pair?
During one of our workshops Richard presented us with the question “In the dark, how many socks do we need to take out of a drawer to make a pair?” Not to my surprise, the group’s first answer was “two” because who really has the time to rummage through their sock drawer to find a […] Continue reading
October 28, 2016
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Comments Off on The Only One Who Wins at the Bookies is the Bookmaker
Our most recent workshop was about probability and chance. This is most definitely something which we see every single day and affects people in both positive and negative ways. So, what is probability? Probability is defined as “the study of chance” in one of our key texts: “Alex’s adventure in Numberland.” Gambling is strongly connected […] Continue reading
October 28, 2016
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Comments Off on Online Units – Unit 1 (Section A – Activity 2)
I am currently working through my Online Professional and Academic Units. Although I posted the shorter version of this activity on the section “Personal Audit and Transferrable Skills” on my blog, I thought Id post the full version here. Activity 2 Complete the audit below, using the information from the table above. Recognition Reflection Action […] Continue reading
October 27, 2016
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Comments Off on Identifying my Skills and Abilities- Online unit 1
After completing Activity 1 and 2 I feel I have a better understanding of my strengths and the areas I need to work on. The completed activities can be found in my Personal audit and transferable skills page located along the top of the blog. The discussion task ‘What would you say are the most important skills/attributes/qualities […] Continue reading
October 27, 2016
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Comments Off on Internationally Inspired
Back to the grind. Watching numerous TED talks is the grind yeah?? This year is set to bring about a whole new plethora of knowledge and interests. I have chosen to take the International Baccalaureate elective and my reasoning for this is to broaden my own approach to teaching while also increasing my experience in […] Continue reading
October 26, 2016
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Comments Off on My second attempt of the OLA and NOMA assessments.
Today, I attempted both online assessments for the second time. My results were as follows: Literacy – 83% and Maths 81%. I improved 3% in literacy and achieved the same score in maths. I was really happy with this, however I believe that I could have achieved a higher score in both tests. This was […] Continue reading
October 26, 2016
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Comments Off on OLA and NOMA
Throughout my time in further education I am encouraged to further my literacy and numeracy skills by participating in the Online Literacy Assessment and the National Online Maths Assessment. These two assessments are made accessible so that I can measure my capabilities, as well as show me where I need to make improvements in my […] Continue reading
October 26, 2016
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Comments Off on A New Number System!!
Recently, in our Discovering Maths module we were asked to come up with our own number system. This proved to be a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. How can you come up with another symbol rather than the numeral we are use to to represent a number?! Myself and my partner […] Continue reading
October 25, 2016
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Comments Off on Identifying Skills and Abilities – Activity 1
Being a teacher involves more than just learning a curriculum. Standing up day in and day out teaching a course to a class is no good for the students nor is it any good for the teacher themselves. It is an occupation that requires self-evaluation on a constant basis. Reflecting on your own skills and […] Continue reading
