Brigidine College, Ward Street, Indooroopilly, Brisbane

BEGINNING TEACHERS’ DAY

Saturday,10 May,2014

Brigidine College, Ward Street, Indooroopilly, Brisbane

The Context
Now in its fourth year, the Beginning Teachers’ Day provides high quality professional development specifically tailored to the needs of English teachers in their first five years of practice and those who may be experienced teachers but are new to teaching English. One of the secondary aims of the day is to provide beginning teachers with the opportunity to boost their professional profile through seminar presentations. As such, this year’s program features workshops covering a range of professional and curriculum-related issues, presented by beginning teachers, experienced English teachers and teacher-educators. This professional development opportunity offers new-to-English, beginning and pre-service teachers the chance to extend their professional network, whilst attending workshops that offer practical strategies and ideas relating to the teaching of English.

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“It’s a Marathon, not a Sprint”

The first year of teaching can be a daunting prospect. Whether as a permanent, contract or supply teacher, we’ve all experienced the nerves of standing in front of students for the first time. We make many mistakes and learn about scary new levels of fatigue and stress we never knew possible. Similarly, teaching English for the first time can be equally daunting. We might be an experienced teacher from another subject given English for the first time. Where do we begin? How do we come to terms with students, subjects and practices that are unfamiliar to us? This keynote explores being a recently graduated teacher, but also being a teacher new to English. Erin shares pitfalls, successes and epiphanies every new and new-to-English teacher experiences in their marathon journey and reflects upon the factors and decisions that helped her remain passionate and committed to her craft.

Presenter
Erin Geddes (BEd, MEd) is a teacher and the library and reading coordinator at Forest Lake State High School with a background in reading and improving NAPLAN data. She has presented a number of workshops on reading at ETAQ’s Beginning Teacher Conference and State Conference and ALEA/AATE’s National conference and has written for Words’Worth.

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Beginning Teachers’ Day Program
Time / Activity / Presenter
From 8:30am / Registration and tea/coffee
8:50am / Welcome: / Fiona Laing,
ETAQ President
9:00am / Keynote Address: It’s a Marathon not a Sprint / Erin Geddes
9:30am / Session 1: Reading: Building Functional, Visual and Critical Literacies in the English Classroom
/ Julie Arnold
10:30 / Ice-breaker / Networking Activity
10:40am / Morning Tea
11.10am / Session 2:
2A Got 99 Problems but Pedagogy Ain’t One
OR
2B Debating in the Middle Years Curriculum
/ Elizabeth Elms and
Marian Wright
Rebecca Hewitt
12:00 am / Session 3:
3A Will Power
Or
3B Tricks and Tips from a Fourth Year Teacher
/ Rachael Christopherson
Nicole Johns
12:45pm / LUNCH
1:15pm / Session 4:Behaviour Management Seminar / Brad McLennan
2:15pm / Session 5:Using three Level Guides / Matthew Rigby
3:00 - 3:15pm / Closing Address

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Session 1:

‘Building Functional, Visual and Critical Literacies in the English Classroom

Abstract
Students face significant challenges when they move into upper primary and through to Senior. Whether or not they are personally equipped, they must make a profound shift in the focus of their learning - from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn’. Many are not ready for this shift, and this is the conundrum of the secondary English teacher.

This workshop aims to share an approach that: harnesses the power of literacy routines; carefully selects strategies for engaging in a wide variety of texts; and foregrounds the centrality of critical literacy. It assumes that all students are capable of great thinking and powerful learning. It will be a practical and thought-provoking session packed with ideas and strategies.

Presenter
Julie Arnoldhas taught in Queensland schools for 18 years, 12 as Head of Department and two as Literacy Coach across schools and subjects in the Brisbane metropolitan region. She currently leads an inspirational, enormous, amorphous, wonderful English team and coordinates whole school literacy practices at Corinda State High School, one of the state’s top-performers in reading improvement this year. She chairs the Professional Development Committee of ETAQ and is a QSA District Panellist for English. She has recently enjoyed, with Lynda Wall, theopportunity provided by Cambridge University Press to publish a set of student coursebooks for English Communication.

Session 2:

Session 2AGot 99 Problems but Pedagogy Ain’t 1

Abstract
This workshop will highlight the many lessons that the presenters learnt from a very intense first year of teaching. Aside from sharing horror stories and victories, the presenters hope to equip early career teachers with a range of activities and resources that encourage creativity and deeper understanding in the English classroom. It is hoped that teachers can walk away inspired, understood and equipped with a tool kit of “go to” strategies that they can use to make sense of curriculum and own their pedagogy

Presenters
Elizabeth Elms and Marian Wright first met in a classroom at QUT in 2008. Graduating with hopes to change the world, Liz and Marian both did their first year of teaching at Brisbane State High School in South Brisbane. Now slightly more realistic (but still enthusiastic!) about their career aspirations, they are proud to say that they survived their graduate year of teaching with their mental health still intact. They are excited about instilling confidence and empowerment in young teachers and believe that while there is a lot to learn, there is still a lot to celebrate about the profession.

Session 2B: Debating in the Middle Years English Curriculum

Abstract
Debating is an activity which many graduate English teachers find themselves coaching or coordinating in their initial years in the profession. It offers an outstanding opportunity for pre-service and graduate teachers to gain experience in assessing and giving feedback to young learners, and to engage with parents andbroader school communities. However, the Australasian debate can also be used as a highly-engagingassessment instrument, particularly for middle years English classes.

This workshop will outline how to teach a 5-week unit for Year 8 students, with an end product of a persuasive spoken/signed task for students in the form of a 3-4 minute oral, presented in teams of three. It will also address how to adapt criteria for the task to the three dimensions of debating – matter, manner and method – and arm teachers with strategies for differentiation and student engagement in both formative and summative activities. However, teachers looking to find new techniques for teaching persuasive or expository writing may also find this session of interest.

This workshop is especially beneficial for co-curricular coaches who are looking to enhance their coaching and adjudicating skills, and it will cover case-prep and strategy for competitive debating, especially for inexperienced coaches or those working with debaters in Years 5-9.

Presenter
Bec Hewitt is in her fifth year of teaching English and Drama at St Patrick's College, Shorncliffe. She is a graduate of QUT and recently completed her Master of Arts in English through UNE. Despite being the worst debater in the history of her school as a student, she is now Community Relations Officer for the Queensland Debating Union. She is a passionate coach, adjudicator and advocate for the activity in and out of the classroom

Session 3:

Session 3A Will Power

Abstract
Teaching Shakespeare! How exciting – and daunting. There is nothing more frightening and fulfilling than teaching a Shakespearean text in your first few years of your English teaching career. How do you engage your students with an almost ‘foreign’ language, complicated characters and a myriad of symbols that most Elizabethans would ‘get’ but baffle your 21st century students?

Having taught Shakespeare’s poetry and plays for most of my teaching career at both junior and senior levels, and having recently attended a three day ‘teacher intensive’ workshop with the Bell Shakespeare Company, I would like to share a few strategies that might assist in ‘teaching the Bard’. The workshop will examine a few of Shakespeare’s sonnets, as well as strategies for teaching Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Hamlet and Much Ado about Nothing. We may also have time to look at a few of the great speeches from Henry V.

Presenter
RachaelChristopherson currently teaches English at Brisbane Girls Grammar School. She has also taught English and Art in both co-education and single-sex schools, in both regional and urban settings. Rachael has presented workshops in local, state and national forums since 2003, and was the recipient of the ETAQ Peter Botsman Award in 2005. Her teaching is used as ‘model practice’ in the QUT Education degree course

Session 3B: Tricks and Tips from a Fourth Year Teacher

Abstract
Love your subject? Just not at marking time? Or at parent teacher interviews?

This session will give you some tips and tricks for managing the marking load that will help you mark with confidence and reclaim your social life in your first few years of teaching. Similarly, this session will also provide you with some creative ideas about how to bridge the gap between school and home, providing communication early and effectively to avoid difficult conversations and incidents with parents. During the session I will provide you with tried and tested ways to structure parent conversations and interviews professionally, providing succinct feedback on literacy goals. Come along for some top tips from one beginning teacher to another.

Presenter
Nicole Johnsis a teacher in her fourth year at Shalom College Bundaberg. Moving away to regional Queensland for her first year of teaching, she had to make connections with the community and build up social networks afresh. While finding the first years of teaching are all consuming, she quickly had to find a way to find a balance between work and life to avoid early burnout

Session 4: Behaviour Management

Abstract
All teachers in contemporary classrooms are confronted daily by thechallenges of classroom management. It has been and continues to be a hotpolitical and social debate among everyone in the community, many of whomproject strong views on how it should and shouldn't be implemented. Withinthe realities of a crowded curriculum, I will highlight the obvious issuesin current education settings and some specific suggestions on how teachersmay address these with positive behavioural, academic and social outcomes.

It will be my intention to make the discussion very practical and whilst mysuggestions will have foundation in theory this will not be the emphasis.Cutting edge topics that will be described and commented upon are as follows:

• Rights Culture;
• Media Hype;
• Lack of Respect;
• Boundaries;
• Classroom Dynamics;
• Parents and
• Effective Vs Ineffective Pedagogy.

I will also briefly outline aPedagogical Framework I have collaboratively developed with my colleagueKaren Peel that is an excellent auditing tool for effective teaching.

Presenter
Brad McLennan continues an education career that has to date spanned 25years, the last four of which have been in higher education and specifically teaching pre-service teachers how to manage classrooms effectively. Myteaching career culminated in a National Teaching Award (2009) recognisingan inspirational approach to optimising student learning in the middleyears. I have practical experience in both the Primary and Secondary sectorsand have taught domestically in Australia as well as internationally inCanada. My PhD research is investigating the most effective approach toteaching classroom management to pre-service teachers that results in aheightened sense of efficacy andtherefore buffers newly qualified teachersfrom stress, burnout and leaving the profession prematurely.

Session 5: Using Three Level Guides

Abstract
Matthew Rigby will focus on embedding the explicit teaching of inferential reading comprehension skills using three level guides. Inferential reading is a major weakness of many secondary Queensland school students. Two of the Year 12 QCS Test most commonly tested common curriculum elements (CCEs) are inferring and deducing. Using San Diego State University’s Prof Dougal Fisher and Dr Nancy Frey’s gradual release of responsibility model (2008) and QUT’s Dr Nea-Stewart-Dore’s effective reading in the content areas/learning to learn through reading (ERICA/LTLTR) (1983) model, he will guide you how to write and use three level guides in every unit of work you teach

Presenter
Matthew Rigby taught Senior Modern History and English in Queensland State and independent schools for 20 years before taking up a part-time lecturing and tutoring position at the Queensland University of Technology for five years. Over the last five years he established an independent literacy consultancy business delivering Years 11 and 12 QCS Test student and staff professional learning workshops on reading, persuasive writing, explicit instruction and teaching grammar. He currently works with 40 EQ, Catholic and independent schools in far north, north, north-west, central and south-east Queensland. He is an enthusiast for teaching derivation, traditional and functional grammars, reading comprehension and vocabulary building.

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