2014 Early Career Teachers Conference

9:00 AM

1 Hour

The workshop will begin with a brief discussion of the elements of Science in the Australian Curriculum. The focus will be on how we can incorporate Science as a Human Endeavour into our lessons (especially for those who are using Primary Connections) Through interactive investigation participants will frame answers to the following questions: • What is Science as a Human Endeavour? • How can we assess it? • What are some good practical lesson ideas?

Presenter: Meegan Ballantyne

Target Audience: Primary school teachers

9:00 AM

1 Hour

How do we design the learning of science for students? How can we create a recipe with the ingredients we know and understand but include some new ones to make science more engaging for middle school students?

Target Audience: Middle school (yr. 6-9) teachers

9:00 AM

1 Hour

This career development workshop will help you to unpack what it means to be working at Proficient in the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. We will explore resources that are available online that can support your understanding of quality pedagogy in Science and how to collect evidence of your practice

Presenter: Lelia Kasprzak

Target Audience: Middle school (yr. 6-9) teachers, Primary school teachers, Senior school (yr. 10-12) teachers

10:30 AM

1 Hour

The development and enhancement of students’ numeracy skills and understanding is the responsibility of teachers across different learning areas that make specific demands on student numeracy. Science presents a great opportunity to integrate the maths curriculum and the Numeracy Capability: • Practical measurement (using informal units then formal units.) • Collection of data, • Representation of data (graphing etc.) • Interpretation of data from investigations These are just a few examples where maths and numeracy is needed in science lessons. This workshop will present some practical ideas on how to integrate maths and numeracy into the science classroom.

Presenter: Adrian Dilger

Organisation: Catholic Education SA

Target Audience: Primary school teachers

10:30 AM

1 Hour

What are some common characteristics among gifted scientists? How can these characteristics be used to develop high quality Science curriculum for them? Gifted students need depth, breadth and complexity in their curriculum. This session will focus on how to infuse these elements into their Science curriculum. Participants will be developing a unit of work suitable for gifted students. Note that, those who bring along their own unit plan (or the beginning of one) will have the opportunity to work on it during this session.

Presenter: Christine Grzesik

Target Audience: Middle school (yr. 6-9) teachers

10:30 AM

1 Hour

Student experience in middle school science determines their future interest in choosing senior science subjects, and subsequent career pathways. Teachers can engage students of different abilities and backgrounds by facilitating a challenging classroom that incorporates hands-on activity. This presentation uses a Year 8 Energy Unit to demonstrate possible formative and summative assessments using such pedagogy. It will also outline the impact of performance standards to deliver effective student feedback.

Presenter: Kate Morgante & Grace Napoli

Target Audience: Middle school (yr. 6-9) teachers, Senior school (yr. 10-12) teachers

11:45 AM

1 Hour

All the experiences children have at school help them to learn about social rules and relationships’ (Kids Matter). Teacher-student relationships provide an essential foundation for effective classroom management. This workshop aims to provide teachers with practical ways to build and support positive relationships with students in the Primary Years, as well as exploring two other important factors in creating a successful classroom/Science lesson.

Presenter: Lynda Garwood

Target Audience: Primary school teachers

11:45 AM

1 Hour

Have you ever wondered how to create a classroom environment where you cater for each individual student’s needs? This workshop will look at how I changed my middle school science classroom to foster a blended learning environment. It will focus particularly on flipped classroom models and inquiry learning whilst looking at how Microsoft OneNote can provide the foundation for this instructional change * Teachers are asked to bring their own computer with Microsoft Office and One Note

Presenter: Joanne Cowley

Target Audience: Middle school (yr. 6-9) teachers

11:45 AM

1 Hour

This session will look at some strategies and resources that can help you to successfully incorporate ICT into curriculum to enhance student learning Content will include: • Flipping the classroom • Edmodo • Scootle Although Science will be the focus of the session, the ideas presented can be applied in any curriculum area. * Teachers are asked to bring their own devices (eg. iPads, tablets, Laptops etc).

Presenter: Jeremy LeCornu

Target Audience: Senior school (yr. 10-12) teachers

1:30 PM

1 Hour

Create the “hook” that get children interested in science and don’t want to miss your lesson. Magic tricks can be full of science. Learn about polymers, super absorbent polymers, memory plastic, etc. In this workshop you will learn how to put an egg into a bottle without touching it, suck water into a glass, change three pieces of rope of different lengths into three ropes the same length, get a drink bottle to disappear etc. You will be given a DVD with 20+ science based magic tricks that you can learn at home.

Presenter: James Young

Target Audience: Primary school teachers

1:30 PM

1 Hour

In this workshop you will have the opportunity to ask questions that have always puzzled you about the universe. As a group we will explore how you deal with knowing the unknown, anticipating the unexpected and engage students in inquiry. In the words of Richard Feynman “You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird... So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing -- that's what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.” * Teachers are asked to bring their own devices (eg. iPads, tablets, Laptops etc).

Presenter: Paula Mills

Target Audience: Middle school (yr. 6-9) teachers

1:30 PM

1 Hour

How do I teach Chemistry? What activities can I do? Where can I find relevant and engaging activities and resources? This workshop will allow you to answer these questions and more. This workshop aims to give teachers the opportunity to expand their subject knowledge and gather new ideas about how to teach some of the more difficult concepts in this Sub Strand of the Australian Curriculum: Science.

Presenter: Belinda Hawker

Target Audience: Middle school (yr. 6-9) teachers, Senior school (yr. 10-12) teachers

1:30 PM

1 Hour

How do you get students to measure, record, represent and most importantly, interpret data? You will explore this question through a fun, hands-on investigation that will give students an authentic experience of the process of science.

Presenter: Kate Dilger

Target Audience: Middle school (yr. 6-9) teachers, Senior school (yr. 10-12) teachers

2:45 PM

1 Hour

This innovative and exciting resource links the teaching of science with literacy. During this workshop participants will delve into the investigations of Primary Connections, develop their investigating vocabulary and skills and explore how the Primary Connections resource can help support the teaching and assessment of their science program.

Presenter: Peter Turnbull

Target Audience: Primary school teachers

2:45 PM

1 Hour

Sustainability is part of every teacher’s brief and incorporating it into schools is a requirement of the Australian Curriculum. Busy teachers may find this challenging or overwhelming. This workshop provides teachers with the complete Education for Sustainability (EfS) ‘getting started pack’. You will leave with: * A clear definition of what EfS is and why it is important to integrate it into teaching practices * Guidance on how and where it can be integrated into your classroom using the Australian Curriculum * Example of best practice from leading schools and other inspirational teaching ideas * Strategies in overcoming barriers and enabling staff and students * Hundreds of FREE to access, high quality ready-made classroom lessons and hands-on activities that can be used by all teachers within your school. “It gives overworked, under resourced teacher’s easy access to information and ideas for engaging students in environmental sustainability across the whole curriculum.”

Presenter: Angela Andrews

Target Audience: Middle school (yr. 6-9) teachers, Primary school teachers, Senior school (yr. 10-12) teachers

2:45 PM

1 Hour

The project LaunchBox will be presented and the workshop. LaunchBox is a Australian Nanosatellite program introduced in primary and secondary schools to reduce the complexity of the engineering understanding and space education by sending CubeSats in space. The teachers will be introduced to the first phase of the project (launching stratospheric balloons with a simplified Nanosatellite kit as a payload) and learn about concepts of space exploration and high altitude balloon launches. They will be introduced to the second phase of the project as well. In this phase the students will be required to work as a research team to determine the contribution that space and CubeSats could provide to the Australian society. All schools will participate to a competition to select the mission of these satellites in space. Several concepts of the capabilities of this technology will be presented to the audience and the details about the competition will be shown.

Presenter: Flavia Tata Nardini

Target Audience: Senior school (yr. 10-12) teachers