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16 November Just got this link to an interesting article about Science for the global citizen [|Article]

Kathriona

4 November 2009 I have created a What's new and What's hot page which I hope you will all add to as you find things of interest Kathriona I also found this delightful little reading-what do you think? The **‘As If’** Philosophy  Effective teachers, it seems, have a central nervous system that is wired up in such a way that no other outcome besides success is possible. They choose to behave **as if** they make a difference. They act **as if** a difficult student is already behaving appropriately. They smile at a difficult student **as if** he or she is a valued member of the class. They speak to the student **as if** the student was listening carefully. They approach the student **as if** the student will appreciate their presence. Even when things appear to be going manifestly wrong, effective teachers continue to act **as if** things are actually going well. It’s **as if** their psyches have closed down to the possibility of failure. This **as if** strategy is a premise upon which effective teachers base their behaviour, their personality, and even their circumstances. Effective teachers don’t expect miracles, they rely on them !!  Adapted from ‘Managing Challenging Children’ by Gerard Gordon, Prim-Ed Publishing 1996 Monday 19 October I found this short clip on differentiated instruction which you might find interesting to watch and listen to

media type="custom" key="4595834" Thursday 30 July Do you remember me talking and showing you my Delicious website at the last contact course? Well now is the time to get into the act yourselves! Basically Delicious is a place where you can save your bookmarks in cyberspace (saves your my favourites listing being too long on your computer). You can write comments about the nature of the website you have book marked and what is good or not so good about it. Here's the link to my page http://delicious.com/Katychem The home page where you sign up is as above without the katychem which is my username You need to sign up-its free- you will need a user name and password. You can ntework with others-Paul and Lara are already networked to me so I now have access to their bookmarks and they have access to mine. I must admit I haven't been in thre for awhile so my challenge will be to put up some new ones myself this week. Your challenge is to join up, find some useful Chem websites to bookmark for yourself and then link up to others in our class by networking.

Wednesday 29 July Here's the link to Best choice [|Interesting resource links]

Tuesday 28 July The lastest Education Gazette has several articles about teaching as inquiry.Here is the link to the online version [] Read the articles and start a discussion thread on WebCT to talk about how this relates to your teaching and student learning in the classes you have taught so far. Are you consciously aware of the 3 key inquiries in your teaching? How might you prepare to test out teaching as inquiry in your next TE?

Sunday 26 July Your task is to go into the Best Choice website and explore the organic chemistry questions at Level 1,2 and 3. Do some questions at each level to test your own knowledge. You also need to consider the questions from a student's point of view in terms of ease of use, level of complexity, are they a learning, a review or a reinforcement question.

Place a comment on the website (see site for instructions on how to do this on the site) and also on Web CT in the student initiated discussion area about your findings. How useful is this site for teaching? How useful is this site for student learning? Would you use it regularly with students in your chemistry classes? Why/why not? You have the rest of the week to do this. There will be other activities as well in this second week of online so pace yourselves Wed 22 July You'll need to get out your NZC document and find the pages talking about effective pedagogy (pg 35-36). As you answer the questions below you need to be able to consider specific examples for each to support what you are saying and why these might be especially important in Chemistry or Science teaching and learning. 1. In your own words what do you think the NZC means by "effective pedagogy"? 2. Which pedagogies are you using as part of your Chemistry/ Science classroom teaching practice so far? 3 Which ones do you think you are able to use easily? 4. Which ones do you think you will find or currently know are a challenge? 5. Are there any which perhaps you don't understand or consider difficult to implement in your teaching? Post your answers/reflections to the above on your personal wiki page on the chem students wikispace

20/7/09 Each of you needs to share a "gem" that you saw on your last teaching section. While I would prefer it to be Chemistry based I know some of you didn't have Chemistry as a teaching option last section but a Science gem will do. A "Gem" by my definition is something special that stands above the norm-perhaps it has a sparkle, an interest or engagement factor that makes it memorable This gem might be an activity you did with students yourself, it might be something you saw an associate teacher do that you liked and might adapt to do your self in the future. It could be a gem of classroom management, especially if it relates to being in a lab. It could be a particular learning strategy you used/trialled or saw someone else use and that you particularly liked and woul use yourself in the future. It coul be something to do with the way the Chemistry or Science department operated that you thought was particulalrly good. So what you need to do is as follows: 1. You need to share this gem on the "Share a Gem" page on the Chem students wiki. You can just write on this page-remebmer to use the "Edit this page" bitton. You could upload a word dcoument, a file, videolink or whatever. You need to tell the reader (your fellow students and tuor) why you think this is a gem. Does it have effective pedagogy behind it? If so what is it? 2. You need to do this- 1 above-by Wednesday 22 July. 3. By Friday 24 July you will have made comment about at least 3 other people's gems on WebCT in the "Student Initiated Discussion" forum 8/5/09 I look forward to seeing your recent contact course presentations up on the wiki on your individual pages real soon! I will put in some more electronic references and links to those websites I talked about and showed you the other day on the Interesting resource links page. I have also put up a literacy forum page and hope we can spark some good discussions and explore some solutions to literacy in Chemistry Kathriona

1/5/09 I have added two more resources to the interesting resources page...go and have a look! Kathriona

28/4/09 I have added some material to the wiki today-there's a new page called Chemistry Experiments-it is a resource of pracs you might like to use-please just acknowledge the source i you use it. You each now have a page where I have loaded a copy of your presenations for assignment 1. Your task now is to make that page your own-put some text in to explain your presentation or perhaps upload a video clip (using widgets-the TV box above) or a web link to a site you have mentioned in your work for the unit (using links-see the link chain symbol above). Its a challenge but a good way to learn something new you can use in your teaching! Kathriona

16/4/09 Hi again I have put some information on WebCT again re the next contact course but most importantly I'd like you all to complete the evaluations of the presentations of the other 4 people in your group by next Friday 24 April. Have you been to the notfy me page-see tab above to right-this will provide you with an email update of what has been added to this wiki. Kathriona 15/4/09 Hi again Karyn I have moved your presentation to a new "Karyn's page"-see it listed under Navigation in the left hand panel. Will now see if I can resurrect my home page instructions! Kathriona

Hi Karyn The best thing to do would be to upload each attachment after the file below-by clicking "edit this page" tab above you can write on it as I am doing you can add more files, images etc-the key is to browse to find your file-upload it then select it for insertion at the poj t where you want it to go-use the cursor to pinpoint the place of insertion on this page. Remember to press save! Kathriona

**15/4/09-I have locked this page so hopefully it won't disappear again....

WELCOME to the Chemistry students Wiki!** 3rd time lucky!

  A wiki is a place where you can share ideas and materials with others. It allows you to store files in cyberspace rather than just on your computer. By asking you for your home emails rather than your Massey ones I hope that you may get use from this site once you finish your course at the end of the year and therefore lose your Massey email. By asking you to each upload a presentation of your Task 3 in assignment 1 what I hope you will see the great range of ways you are all thinking about Chemistry teaching and by sharing these with others you can get new ideas, ask questions of each other and maybe even have a new way of thinking about how to teach a particular topic.

A few key things about using the wiki Look at the left hand panel under Navigation 1. The Home page is the best place to start-I was trying to set this up initially with some directions on how to use the wiki although it has morphed 3 times as it has been accidentally deleted! The beauty is as you all become wiki experts the nature of this page can change to reflect what you want it to look like and I think we can actually lock it so it always looks the same when you log in-have yet to learn how to do that myself! 2. Assignment 1 presentations-this is where you can upload and insert your presentation of Task 3. To do this go to the page by clicking on the link. To edit the page-adding or deleting anything -go to the tab called "edit this page" click on it then you have the facility to change things. You will see a tool bar which allows you to do a range of things but the one you want is just under the word "Editor"-it is the box to the left of the one that looks like a TV set-by clicking on this a box will appear on the right hand side of the screen which allows you to upload a file-word, powerpoint excel whatever from your computer by pushing Browse then Upload. The file will then appear in a box above this and you need to select your file, click Insert and this will put it on the page-just make sure the cursor is on the position where you want to put it. Always remeber to save any changes you make by clicking on the Save box in the toolbar. 3. Karyn's page-I created a new page for Karyn's assignment and did a cut and paste to transfer it from the home page to this page Why don't each of you try creating your own page within the wiki? Go to Actions-further up on left hand side of page and click "new Page" you'll be asked to name it then you can add things to it as you like. 4. Interesting resource links-I have set this up as a page where you might like to add in bits and pieces as you find them. You can edit this page too following the steps above. You might like to upload a video clip using the widget box-that is the one that looks like a TV or add a link-they are the images that look like links of a chain to left of TV box. 5. Finally you can look at "recent Changes" to the wiki by clicking on the link in the actions box-this will tell you what has been changed/added/deleted by whom and when it happened. ALWAYS REMEMBER TO SAVE ANY EDITS YOU DO TO A PAGE-see the SAVE button up in the toolbat menu on the right. Kathriona