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Teachers Talking Teaching

John Catterson (@jfcatto) and Pete Whiting (@mr_van_w) are two Australian Flipped Educators. Together they talk education, pedagogy and current practice. Find more of Pete and John: Website - www.catfisheducation.com YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/MrCattersonScience YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/c/PWhiting
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Now displaying: May, 2018
May 31, 2018

This week Pete (@mr_van_w) and John (@jfcatto) find some synergy in their holistic digital projections. Embracing the uber-efficient strategic programming of a blended asset matrix approach to "blue-sky" policy processing. It's king of our brand.

They also talk about the culture of teacher "wellbeing"; both within a personal and school-wide context.

 

Pete: Building a Positive Staff Culture Takes Work - Mary Davenport 

https://www.edutopia.org/article/building-positive-staff-culture-takes-work

 

John: Why it's important to switch off from work - Rebecca Vukovic

https://www.teachermagazine.com.au/articles/why-its-important-to-switch-off-from-work 

"Wellbeing" is a weasel word [sic] - @RobWard79

https://twitter.com/RobWard79/status/998072612235415552 

 

Apologies for the sound quality this week. The work experience kid (John) was left in charge of monitoring the audio. The self absorbed millennial that he is only really listened to himself, who sounds great BTW - On reflection, I'm not sure that was even an apology. 

May 24, 2018

This week Pete (@mr_van_w) talks about Malcolm Roberts' idea to restrict K-3 teaching to cover only Literacy/English and Maths/Numeracy. By his reasoning, these concepts are mostly interchangable and isolated to any context. Pete has other thoughts.

 

John (@jfcatto) looks at the difference between item teaching and curriculum teaching. Apparently one is good for students learning and the other raises school results. Unsurprisingly, Pete thinks that  one of these is more important than the other. 

 

Pete: Malcolm Roberts Academic Review 

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/education/gonski-academic-review-a-turning-point-in-australian-education/news-story/cd55f77d7c6c0783393b6e3cfeb53286 

 

John: Why Teaching to the Test is Educational Malpractice - Steven Singer

https://gadflyonthewallblog.com/2016/11/03/why-teaching-to-the-test-is-educational-malpractice/ 

May 17, 2018

This week Pete (@mr_van_w) examines the tempting lure of building lessons around the current fad in student culture. This happens to be Fortnite at the moment, it was Pokemon a couple of years ago and it will be something else next time you teach the topic. 

John (@jfcatto) highlights the need for teachers old and new to have a mentor to support them and their teaching. #findyourmarigold

 

Pete: Teachers and Parents Share Stories From Inside the 'Fortnite' Phenomenon - Patrick Klepak

https://waypoint.vice.com/en_us/article/59j9pk/teachers-and-parents-share-stories-from-inside-the-fortnite-phenomenon 

 

Forego Fortnite - Doug Robertson 

https://hestheweirdteacher.blogspot.com.au/2018/05/forego-fortnite.html 

 

John: Every Teacher Needs a Mentor - Heather Walport-Gawron

https://www.edutopia.org/article/every-teacher-needs-mentor 

May 10, 2018

Pete (@mr_van_w) talks about anxiety and depression and its effect on teacher burnout. Sometimes maybe a change is as good as a holiday and experiences may vary. 

John (@jfcatto) delves into some of Australia's Chief Scientist's criticism of the ATAR.   

 

 

 

Pete: Breakdown, reach out, recover - Victoria @mrshumanities 

 https://teacher5adaybuddybox.com/2017/04/18/breakdown-reachout-recover/ 

 

John: ATAR should be simplified or even abolished, says chief scientist Alan Finkel - Michael Koziol

https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/atar-should-be-simplified-or-even-abolished-says-chief-scientist-alan-finkel-20180423-p4zb74.html 

May 3, 2018

This week John (@jfcatto) brings in an article that he is really conflicted about and put down to the difference in application of Flipped Learning rather than the pedagogy itself. 

Pete (@mr_van_w) managed to finish the full 150 pages of Gonski 2.0 (BTW in no way building upon or related to any other reports that may have been written by the same person and referred to by a very similar name) and gives us his take on the key recommendations.

 

John: Is Flipped Learning looking at education the wrong way? - Melanie Ralph @lustreeducation   

https://au.educationhq.com/news/47871/is-flipped-learning-is-looking-at-education-the-wrong-way/ 

 

Pete: Through Growth to Achievement - David Gonski et. al.

https://www.appa.asn.au/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/20180430-Through-Growth-to-Achievement_Text.pdf 

 

May 1, 2018

John (@jfcatto) and Pete (@mr_van_w) are back from holidays to answer listener questions that have been coming in over the last couple of weeks. 

Despite John's "fat voice" https://youtu.be/1urXgf0gilg they manage to talk about:

  • Primary school teachers using music for good 
  • Social media accounts for teachers
  • The disappearance of the catfisheducation website.  
  • Some advice being a new teacher and knowing that there is a better way to teach but not seeing anybody doing it. 

 

New website: https://sites.google.com/view/catfish2 

Old website: https://sites.google.com/site/catfisheducation/ 

 

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