Before I begin accreditation I need to make sure I have “stuff”…. 

Oh I hear you! 

I can’t believe how many people I coach who come to me with a big box/onedrive/folder full of stuff and proudly tell me  

“I’m ready… I just need to put this into evidence sets” 

The box or folder of “stuff” includes work samples, data, screen shots.. so many things that they were convinced were great artefacts or evidence. 

The thing is though… none of this stuff has a context anymore and, a lot of it happened ages ago… so long ago that, if anything’s missing it becomes a nightmare to fill the gaps in the evidence.  

They’ve been gathering this stuff because that felt like progress. 

They’ve been gathering this stuff because they thought that’s what accreditation is.. you get “stuff” that shows the standards.  Right? 

Wrong… 

The process of accreditation is about showcasing your IMPACT not your “stuff”  

…and there are key things that you just must practice before you are ready to put your evidence togethers.  In some cases (well most cases) it’s actually better NOT to have any “stuff”. Not before you learn the key pieces of information needed to successfully put together a story of practice, with the right artefacts, talking about the right impact on the right people!  

So, in this episode of the Reflective Teacher Podcast we’re busting this myth about needing to have all the evidence in a box (or in your head) before you begin.  It’s wrong. It’s one of the number one reasons teacher accreditation in Australia is so hard. 

What you need is space to practice some key skills.  
Skill that we touch on in today’s episode!  Tune in right now! 

Who needs to write lesson plans anyway?
Teaching is an art and lesson plans are the maps we use to help us meet the needs of our students.  Without them, we might not take the opportunity to pause and consider the needs of each of the children in our classroom.  Lesson planning is something that is also a really important part of understanding the impact you’re having on your students. If you’re not planning to try something, to see if something works, how can you begin to measure your success and adapt your practice to increase your impact? 

Well… sometimes, you need a bigger plan too.  The lesson plan is where all the fun, details about resourcing, differentiation, strategies and more go.. so where does the content sit and why is that even important to your reflective practice?

Let's zoom out on your planning and see what we can reflect on...There are some amazing opportunities to hit multiple focus areas in your medium and long term planning too. In episode 131, we talked all about how each of these stages of planning supports each other. All so that you can focus on the details of the pedagogy, teaching strategies, differentiation and more. If you’re busy focusing on the content and NOT the way in which you’re delivering it… how can you see the impact you’re having.. not easily!

In the episode, I walked you through an example of an LTP and an MTP and talked about how that supported me as a teacher to deliver awesome learning outcomes for my kids.

Tune in because you’ll want to explore that with me. Download a copy of this episodes freebie too. It contains screenshots of the documents I was mentioning and then some reflective questions you can use to delve deeper into your own practice.

How do you make sure your learning goals challenge all your students? 

You've planned your unit, and your lessons using the Australian curriculum's achievement standards to guide your expectation. But... it's super hard to judge what might be considered a open quotation marks challenging close quotation marks learning goal of a cup from a couple of sample portfolios and a one paragraph summary of an entire year's worth of learning. 

We've all been there. We get it. 

And yet, the level of challenge in your classroom is vital. If it is set too high or too low the consequences can be big. The impact that you are making can be jeopardized. 

Here are four ways to measure the challenge in your classroom 

In this week's podcast, we're talking about all things focus area 3.1 “establishing challenging learning goals”. I'm going to share four ways that you can explore the impact of the strategies you're employing right now and measure how well your level of challenge is actually working in your classroom.  

These strategies will help you to measure set and support your students to rise to the level of challenge that pushes them, extends them and helps you to have the biggest impact possible on them as learners.  

Tune In to learn how to tune up your lesson planning when it comes to challenging learning goals that work for different students at different levels and with different needs. 

The first week of school is one of the trickiest.  You know nothing about your kids and can only use data, guess work and the advice of the previous teacher (if you’re lucky!) to begin to try new pedagogies and lesson ideas that will work.  

It’s a key time for getting to know each other both academically and personally. This time is really important. Without relationships, learning gets really hard... for all of us. 

So, starting the school year online and not face to face might feel like a BIG ask. You don’t know your kids, they don’t know you... and, if you’re teaching in early childhood, you’re not going to get much of an opportunity to practice classroom routines and other social and developmental milestones that are so important to establish at this early stage of the year. 

Yes. We’re talking 1.1. We’re talking about knowing your students, how they learn and what their social, emotional and developmental needs are. AND... we’re talking about doing that without being in the same room. 

NUTS! RIGHT? 

Research Based, online tools exist to help you measure and plan to meet their needs better 

What if you used this time to try some online tools that will actually help you to BETTER understand your students’ social emotional needs? 

That’s right, in this week’s episode of the Reflective Teacher Podcast, I’m sharing a very cool tool that you can use... right now.. With all of your kids (face to face or online). A tool that is specifically designed to help you measure the impact of your practices (online or face to face) on your student’s social-emotional wellbeing. 

This week, we’re talking about Microsoft’s Reflect tools and the amazing possibilities open to you to tackle this challenge head on... and get measurable results! 

It’s a headline that you’d expect to see after the past 12 months of uncertainty pressure and stress isn’t.  Teachers have most definitely been inundated by tasks and learning that are very much outside their comfort zone .  

It’s no wonder then that reflective practice and gathering evidence for accreditation would take a back seat. 

Right? 

And yet. 

2021 also saw educators learning new skills (er thanks Ms teams, Google Classroom, online learning, etc) faster then they have had to before.  

It gave us plenty of opportunities to feel uncomfortable and… perhaps more importantly, it may have given us permission to get things wrong and try again. 

At Edufolios, we help educators to tell stories about their practice and then use the Australian Professional Standards for Teacher to understand (and celebrate) their impact.   

That means we have thousands of data points to explore.  Data points that  tell as story about what teachers in Australia have been focusing on the most during 2021 

What’s the real story of teaching practice in 2021?  

In this week’s episode we: 

• Celebrate those of you who have continued to reflect on your practice. ( nearly 9000 focus areas got tagged last year.. yep 9,000 – reflective practice is alive and well!) 
• Look at which focus areas the uni students are talking about the least and come up with a plan to create an opportunity for the HA and Lead teachers to use this information to help improve their pre-service mentoring. 
• We look at how teachers’ focus have shifted… significantly… from the last time we did this in 2020 and what we can learn from that to help us move forward 
• I share the one focus area that, for the first time ever, has become the least talked about focus across three career stages.. and it’s NOT a good thing peeps…  

• I celebrate that 6.2 (professional development) NO LONGER holds the top spot for most talked about standard 
• We use the data to consider plans for professional development in 2022 so that you can move forward with confidence (even when teaching is so uncertain!) 

There’s a massive difference between being a uni student and a “real” teacher right? 

You’ve spent years at university studying so that you can take your place as classroom teacher.  There will be 30 students (maybe more) waiting for you to guide them, to support them.  You’re about to get the opportunity to make a REAL difference in people’s lives. 

On Prac, you had a mentor who could steer you in the right direction and, gave you security. The buck, ultimately, stopped with them. Not you. 

Now things are different, and it feels pretty scary.  Right? 

The truth is most teachers feel that same feeling at the start of every new term… you are not alone! 

There are thousands of teachers who are moving to new sites, new year levels, new subject and… most definitely, new kids and they are all feeling the pressure to make an awesome difference this year.  

Many of them will also be thinking about working towards proficiency, towards getting full registration and moving through the proficient teaching standards.  

So, whilst things are new and a little out of your comfort zone, this podcast is here to give you five things to help you transition from uni student to classroom teacher. 

In this week’s episode, I’m sharing five things I wished I had known as an early career teacher. Five things that fly in the face of all the people-pleasing and burning out…. 

Be prepared for a bit of a mindset as we explore boundaries, what happens when you choose to say “yes” all the time and how important it is to make time for YOU.

If you’re about to begin your career in the classroom, to move from prac. student to THE TEACHER, then things can feel a little daunting, can’t they? 

Becoming an early career teacher is like moving from L’s to P’s, it’s time to take full responsibility for some students and to apply what you’ve learnt at uni. You’re the one behind the wheel, making all the choices but there’s no one there with a second set of pedals to hit the brakes or adjust your steering.  You’ve got to have GOT this…

I can totally understand why you feel this way. There are so many stories about early career teachers, expectations, job prospects and burnout.

It’s a cultural thing and we’ve been taught that pleasing others (often at the expense of ourselves) is a way to make connections and impress.  We’ve also, somehow, learnt that making mistakes will look bad.; that teachers can’t do things wrong. Even a spelling error can belittle your career and cause judgements around whether you’re fit for work.

Well.. I’m here to tell you that none of that is helpful or even good advice and you have a choice to reject it all! Being an early career teacher DOES NOT mean sacrificing yourself, being perfect and never asking for help… There are actually plenty of people who can support you and would encourage you to make lots of mistakes so you can GROW!

Seven tips to help you create amazing context statements

When your assessor looks at your evidence, you want them to see the impact you have made. No matter WHO you've been working with. To do that, you need to show them the context of your work. How can they see the difference you've made if they don't know where your students, colleagues or site were at to start with. Learn how to make sure your impact is OBVIOUS to your assessor with these simple tips

If you're working on your evidence of practice and you're wondering how you know you've got the right artefact, what on earth you're meant to talk about and how you can be sure you're on the right track then this replay is for you.

We're heading all the way back to episode 003 to learn exactly how to answer these questions.  Grab your free Colour coded companion guide at edufolios.org

Planning to get your portfolio of evidence done this holidays?
Right now, classes aren’t on. Planning can wait and marking is non-existent.

It might be a great opportunity to start getting to grips with your evidence sets for teacher accreditation.

Whilst we’d encourage you to take a well-deserved rest right now.  We get it.  This task feels big and now there’s some space you could choose to fill to get it done…

So, how do we make sure that your valuable time is spent on all the right things?

This is a replay of a very popular episode.  Episode 072 of The Reflective Teacher Podcast walks you through exactly how to approach gathering evidence against the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.  We’ll help you to focus on the right things so that you’re not wasting any time!

Don’t forget to share the reflections you right with @Edufolios on any social platform you like!  We can’t wait to read them!