Covering the federal election, before the election

Since PM Scott Morrison did not announce the federal election date last week, it will now be held somewhere between March and May (see the post from ABC’s Antony Green for details). Various aspects of elections are covered in the Civics & Citizenship Australian Curriculum in Years 4, 5 and 6. Students are interested in topical issues in society and their local community. After all, it’s adults making decisions now about issues that will affect them, and it students feel quite strongly that they should have a say. Guiding that process from within a classroom can be a good thing.

And regardless of what opinions we hold on particular topics, learning how the voting system works, with assistance from free additional resources by the AEC (Australian Electoral Commission), is useful and one might say essential for everyone in our society. With our Election Activity Bundle, you as a teacher (or home tutor) have everything you need to guide this learning process.

Most of the materials can be used in a remote classroom, with the appropriate PDFs and other resources made available to the students – so they are definitely usable in a COVID scenario.

While the “Show of Hands” Activity of course works fine, doing the secret ballot from the “Running a Class Election” Activity is not practical in a remote setting, and that in itself is something that can be discussed with the students, compensating for missing out on actually doing it… what are the issues there?

The activities are of course specifically aimed at the above-mentioned year levels. However, the base resources are suitable for high school students and adults as well!  Everything you wanted to know about preferences, for instance.

So, while planning the latter part of your first school term this year, grab our Election Activity Bundle today, for only $9.

Online Teaching

It can be fun!

The OpenSTEM® materials are ideally suited to online teaching. In these times of new challenges and requirements, there are a lot of technological possibilities. Schools and teachers are increasingly being asked to deliver material online to students. Our materials can assist with that process, especially for Humanities and Science subjects from Prep/Kindy/Foundation to Year 6. We also have some resources for a few high school subjects.

Fully aligned to the Australian curriculum, we have hundreds of resource PDFs. Teachers have used these for literacy practise in English, as well as resources for the Humanities and Science curriculum. They have even been used for NAPLAN preparation!

Full units available

We also have full lesson kits – divided into four units per year level (one for each term). These comprise a teacher’s handbook with complete lesson plans for each lesson; a student’s workbook which takes each student through all the requirements of each lesson, complete with assessment; a curriculum plan which indicates which curriculum items are being addressed in the unit and a complete assessment guide with criteria sheet, to match curriculum strands. Our use of continuous assessment, provides both formative and summative assessment points and means that there is no need to arrange proctoring of an exam in order to gain a full assessment. The assessment guide can be used to populate the report, if needed, each term.

Learning at home

The units make use of the PDF resources. These can be distributed with the student workbooks, to each student, via email. The entire unit can be undertaken without the need for a virtual classroom if required, with the support of a parent or home tutor, and phone calls to the teacher as required. Students could email back a scan of the completed student workbook, and any additional material they have written. The teacher could also deliver video presentations, which students could download, and students could upload videos or audio recordings of themselves delivering their material.

The units can also be used within a virtual classroom setting, or via a video conference link, with the teacher discussing the unit and requirements with students and then sending them off to work through their workbooks. Students could present finished bodies of work online in later session. The OpenSTEM® units could be undertaken with just one such online session a week, again assuming some input from a parent or person at home with the child, given that we are talking primary school children.

Some of our more extensive units (such as our Ginger Beer unit) address more than just Humanities and Science, covering Maths, Business and Economics and English curriculum items as well. These would need the active participation of a parent to assist the child at home and we would recommend arranging a call with us to deliver the initial stages of the project.

Virtual Classrooms vs Video Conferencing

So what is a virtual classroom and how does it differ from video conferencing?

Engagement

We are all familiar with video conferencing programs such as Skype. These are growing more sophisticated and now include the capacity for screen sharing, type chat boxes and other tools to make having an online meeting or conversation easier.

Virtual classrooms (like BigBlueButton) are different because they have tools specifically for replicating classroom activities. As well as video and text chat, one can show a presentation, image or other document in the centre of the screen. The teacher or students (subject to permissions decided by the teacher), can write on pages of the presentation. So teachers can annotate slides, students can answer questions etc. Students can also be assigned into groups (anything from one to any size) and placed into “break-out” rooms, where they get their own copy of the presentation/document. Thus students can answer questions either individually or in groups, or discuss a topic, just as they would in class. The teacher can move between the groups to monitor activity. Break out rooms can be ended by the teacher after a set time, or at any time.

Timers can be used in the main room, e.g. to give students 10 minutes to write notes/answers. Or to allow the break out rooms to exist for only a certain length of time. Students are then returned to the main room to share what they discussed. Students can also chat in a side bar, to answer questions, or use an icon to “raise a hand” if they wish to ask something. Students can either type to reply or the teacher can allow them to contribute verbally by activating their microphone permissions.

Teachers have a lot of control in a virtual classroom. Trouble makers can have their permissions revoked and be silenced immediately. They can also be segregated to a room on their own, but still see the lesson material. Without an audience to play to, most behaviour settles quickly.

Email us for assistance if you want to know more about virtual classrooms.

You’re Not Alone!

Remember, there are a lot of people out there who have walked these paths below. We can assist you with resources, units, assessment, advice on virtual classrooms and many other aspects of online learning, including what works and what doesn’t. There are many other online communities that can also assist. Do reach out and let’s support each other through these trying times.

Election Activity Bundle

With the upcoming federal election, many teachers want to do some related activities in class – and we have the materials ready for you!

To make selecting suitable resources a bit easier, we have an Election Activity Bundle containing everything you need, available for just $9.90.

Did you know that the secret ballot is an Australian invention? Well Tasmanian actually.

Children are interested in topical issues in society and their local community. After all, it’s adults making decisions now about issues that will affect our children. And regardless of what opinions we hold on particular topics, learning how the voting system works, with assistance from free additional resources by the AEC (Australian Electoral Commission), is useful. With our Election Activity Bundle, you have everything you need to guide the learning process.

As these topics are covered in the Civics & Citizenship Australian Curriculum in Years 4, 5 and 6 the activities are of course specifically aimed at those year levels. However, the base resources are suitable for high school students and adults as well!  Everything you wanted to know about preferences, for instance.

School-wide Understanding Our World® implementations

Understanding Our World - integrated History/Geography HASS+Science programAre you considering implementing our integrated HASS+Science program, but getting a tad confused by the pricing?  Our subscription model didn’t not provide a So nowstraightforward calculation for a whole school or year-level.  However, it generally works out to $4.40 (inc.GST) per student.  So now we’re providing this as an option directly: implement our integrated HASS+Science program school-wide from just $4.40 per student.  Easy!

Just like with the subscriptions, we do price on the basis of at least 100 students, which means that very small schools see an effective higher cost per student compared to the above stated.  However, we’ve done a few projections and because of composite classes and the like this approach often still works out cheaper than the old subscription system.  Plus, our materials provide for multi-year integration which are a lot of work to achieve.  So you get proper solutions for your education needs, and at an unbeatable price.

Try our calculator with the numbers for your school!

Helping Migrants to Australia

The end of the school year is fast approaching with the third term either over or about to end and the start of the fourth term looming ahead. There never seems to be enough time in the last term with making sure students have met all their learning outcomes for the year and with final reports to be prepared. The OpenSTEM® Understanding Our World® program takes the stress out of the fourth term as far as possible, ensuring that all curriculum items are covered well before the end of term and students are kept occupied with consolidation tasks so that teachers can prepare reports.

In units for Years 5 (Shaping Society, Working Together) and 6 (We Are One, But We Are Many), students have an assignment on a topic from Australian history and several of the suggested topics cover migrants to Australia, especially those from Asian countries. There is also a discussion about why people might become refugees, through factors such as war and natural disasters,  or choose to migrate for a range of other reasons. Students in most year levels are examining cultural diversity and the make-up of Australian society.

In the news this week there is a story that has some relevance to these topics. Migrants and refugees from Asia make up a small but significant part of the numbers of people who come to Australia and find a home here, just as they have done since early colonial times. Many migrant and refugee women have experienced trauma and/or have come from countries where women’s place in society is very different than in our own. Some of these, just as in the rest of society, are single mothers or women at risk. However, they often face extra hurdles resulting from their history in their country of origin. For example, many women from Asian  and African countries can not drive, either because they have not had the opportunity to learn, or it may even have been culturally inappropriate. The lack of a driver’s licence severely impacts their ability to get a job and transport themselves and their children to activities, including school and sports.

Access Community Services in Logan, south of Brisbane, has a Women at the Wheel program to help women prepare for a driving test. Currently there are women from Afghanistan, Burma and Somalia in the program and there is a very long waiting list for places. The program tries to match women with instructors who speak their native language to help them to understand the nuances of Australian road rules clearly. The women are delighted with the program, reporting that they find it very empowering and citing that having a driver’s licence will help them to find employment and transport themselves and their children as needed, making them independent and contributing members of the community.

In a way, these women finding a role for themselves in the community through learning to drive cars is almost reminiscent of the Afghan cameleers of the 19th century (shown above), who came to Australia to lead camel caravans, assisting explorers and taking the goods produced by farmers in isolated areas to market. Some of these people, from many places across the Asian subcontinent, chose to stay in Australia and adapted with the changing society, finding new roles for themselves and contributing to society in a range of ways, not least culturally and by enhancing the range of food and restaurant options available. The strength of Australia lies in the way that we pull together when times are tough and people need help. Aussies have always had a reputation for helping those in need and it is great to see this spirit continue today as people work together to build a better society.