Howick College Week 1

Well week one flew buy, while i didn't do alot of teaching i got involved in my classes and tutor group and spent time getting to know a few names.

My classes are Financial Literacy Planning, Accounting 11 and 12 and Economics 11. i have found the students to be good and have enjoyed working with them to this point, the first thing that struck me about Howick was how different it was to my first practicum school, the staff room was smaller and each department had there own area which meant they didn't go up to the staff room that often, this also meant we seldom saw our other student teachers.

The other major difference for me at this point is i am less fearful of getting up in front of the class and i find that the flow is starting to get better, i still need to work on classroom management but that will come. One of my AT's is away this week so i am in charge of her classes its busy but will be rewarding.

that's all for now.

Tuesday/Thursday

Today was our last economics class with Kelly until we have finished with practicum, it seems crazy to say but October is our next class (we will almost be provisionally registered teachers by then). Anyway we started the day in our usual fashion with a DO NOW a very good routine we read an article and discussed it amongst the class, the article was on ICT and the use of cell phones in the classroom very interesting reading, we then had a discussion about how to transfer files from computer to cell phone and vice versa, Rena bought in few items she had at home and gave us a brief description off how to use them and where to buy them.

The focus off this lesson was on unit plans that we had created in our groups, each group was given an opportunity to present there plan and was given feedback on the quality and ideas that they had put across. I enjoyed listening to each different group and seeing the different styles and approaches evident in the unit plans, it also gave me further ideas for when I am teaching this subject. It was also interesting to note the group dynamics and again gave me a small insight into how each student operates within a group and how they contribute.

Unfortunately not every group got there full allocation of time and Kelly had to cut the last two groups short, we were given more paper (seems to be a never ending supply) and ushered on our way. It was good to here that the quality of our group work is some of the best Kelly has seen, gave us all a shot in the arm as we head into practicum.

Thursday we moved onto growth and what is required to teach this unit to year 12 students. Anne gave us an article which we were required to come up with ten uses for in an economic classroom the article was on the Russian wheat crises and the subsequent ‘Grain Reaction’, that was about as far as my group got with the article (sorry Anne) anyway we did come up with some activities that I could be used for ideas such as (summarising, removal of headline students to decide on the headline for the article, role play/debate, flow on effects students to decide who it impacts, 3 level guide and others) this just showed the many uses for article that isn’t just read and answer questions.

We now move onto growth discussing what important info the students need to understand, the students will need to understand what is Real GDP?, how is it measured?, what does that mean? Is that the only way to measure growth? There were other ways to measure growth these involved the people and there well being (which is an interesting case). We then discussed the models with the majority of our discussion focusing on the PPC and remembering that the assumptions with this model is not it involves two goods, but all technology and human resources remain the same. Students will be required to discuss the curve and explain why countries could be inside the curve or outside the curve and what would cause this. This was our last lesson with Anne so she can go back to writing a book and enjoying marking.

I will be keeping people updated about practicum through this Blog.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boG5btFAtTc

see the wheat crises above.

Trade

Well, i learnt on Thursday that my ruling ability leaves alot to be desired, and is a definite work on when i am teaching Trade to year 12, as the last thing i want in the front of the class is to get the two country model wrong, otherwise i will look silly (which would be normal).

We worked exclusively on Trade which was interesting focusing on the two country model, one being the exporter (x) and the other the Importer (m), the key with this was to ensure the students understand who the exporter (the country that can make the product the cheapest) will be and who the importer (the country that wants to buy at a cheaper price) IE NZ importing from china, will be then the can identify that element when asked. often students can mess this up but once explained to them and asked them a few questions about why we don't manufacture ipods or the like in this country they will get the point.

After we had gone through the theory we attempted an activity sheet most of us manged to complete this OK, and we moved on to the absolute advantage and comparative advantage, we looked at absolute advantage first which states that a country can prepare more of a good or service using the same resources as everyone else, if you do not have absolute advantage you would not be able to trade and only those with that advantage can trade there good. However 'David Ricardo' contested this and brought a new theory into play comparative advantage, which refers to country's ability to produce goods or services at a lower opportunity cost then another county therefore making it beneficial for an absolute advantage country to trade with them. Again we completed some activities on this and that was the end of class, I learnt alot on Thursday and have come to the conclusion that i need to get a ruler and practice to ensure that i can model for the students, how to find the world price correctly.

ICT and M Learning

Today the class started with an exercise where the students where required to complete graphs on an activity sheet, a good way to see what students ability with economic models was like.

Next we moved onto ICT and M Learning, how can it be used in the classroom to enhance your students learning? this is a relatively new phenomenon but involves the use of cell phones and the Internet. We discussed windows movie maker and that it was an option if a student wasn't wanting to write and essay they may find it easier (and more engaging) to make a video and write the script and narrate that to the class. Today's lesson was a very interactive session and i felt everyone enjoyed what they were doing.

I did a very quick video to show how it can be used.