Jacob Walker Professional Blog

 Is what in my mind must go through every parents head at this time after lock down. With a large majority of students at home potentially "wasting" hours on fortnite videos or rewatching quick laughs like "I like your cut G!" I decided to try and refocus my sessions to be a little more broader in terms of how learning is applied. For my school this year we have a goal of integrating all our math strands into project based learning which will happen all through the year. So gone are my days of happiness and joy at providing only one area of maths learning per term......not! The curtains have finally opened to my dreams of project based math activities that rely on hooking students in with some sort of hands on fun activity that takes weeks/months and encompasses maths in a real setting. I have always stated that maths is my worst area and yet I am being held up as an example for what could be achieved. Look at me now NCEA UNIT STANDARDS MATHS!!!!! Jokes aside here a...

 I have recently come across and article shared by my colleague which talks about how we have so much access to new learning opportunities via the internet. I for one have always pushed this with my kids because that is exactly how I have managed to build up my content knowledge in a range of areas that were needed at my school. My university education underpins this though and without my actual qualification I would probably not be in the position I am in. Along with this I have to admit being a teacher does give rise to the opportunity to learn the basics of a range of new skills due to having to give your students the opportunity to learn these. An example of this is me taking over the robotics programme for my school. I had no training in robotics or STEM education before I was given the opportunity to run  a whole programme around this area. I had done some basic coding back in College but let's be honest it was more about playing Counterstrike with the boys on the school...

Reflective entry on effective communication and collaboration between Teachers to students, to parents.

Blogging can be an effective way to share your professional knowledge and persona with your community and is great for recording professional growth and development however blogging platforms like blogger and wordpress are not the most accessible content creators for most of the community, as I have found through personal experience.  In terms of sharing your brand as a teacher to be effective you need to be accessing the forums that your community access. To this day that would be Instagram and Facebook. Then you would need to make sure your content is appropriate for your audience and ensure it encapsulates the brand of teacher you want to show. I have set myself up with an Instagram page that solely focuses on my STEM development and I use this to share my creations and things that I think my students would engage with. This is part of my brand as a teacher and I make sure that I interact in a way that ensures I maintain critical thinking and a learner focused relationship. ...