Now is the time where Year 12 students are getting their Trial HSC exams results. Some will be delighted. Some will be disappointed. Regardless of the result and how students feel about them, they are still only 50% of the way there. They are only half way through the HSC marathon and there is still lots of room to grow. It is now the time to review study plans and focus areas. A strategic way to do this is to support students to do a deep dive of their their results.
I’ve used this template with my Year 12 Chemistry students. After students finish the template, we have a one-on-one chat. We discuss what they need to focus on from now until the written HSC exams. Students also use the same template when they do past HSC so they can continually adjust their study plans.
You can download and customise the exam reflection template.
An AI ‘takeover’ in schools is often portrayed as being inevitable and the teaching profession has little control over it. That teacher skepticism to AI tools is a barrier to “progress”. This false narrative displaces teachers as the experts of teaching and learning. Is student uptake of AI more unprecedented than expected? Yes. Can more be done in the space of professional support for teachers? Yes, a lot more. This is why Michael Sciffer and I led a session at the Quality Teaching in Practice Conference (QTiP25) at Newcastle University. We aimed to show teachers how they can empower their students to become ethical and critical learners in the age of AI; to challenge situations when AI diminishes rich learning opportunities. When we designed our session, we found the space was dominated by for-profit technology companies promoting their AI products (often under the guise of professional learning and teaching resources). What was missing was supporting teachers to teach students how to have conversations on the ethical and critical use of AI, and challenge each other’s assumptions, from academic situations to everyday life scenarios. That’s what our QTiP25 session focused on and this blog post summarises our session and resources. Our session was strongly influenced, and builds on, the fantastic professional learning on generative AI from NSW Department of Education.
Thinking scaffold to decide IF and HOW AI should be used
We adapted the GENAI assessment scale into a thinking scaffold that school-aged students and teachers can use to discuss how AI and enhance and diminish their learning. The scaffold has six levels of AI integration and asks students/teachers to think about the positives (pluses), negatives (minuses) and interesting considerations for each level of AI integration. Students/ teachers then use scaffold to decide and justify on a level of AI integration that would best enhance their learning. the The scaffold can be used to co-create agreed expectations of the uses of AI in a range of learning tasks, projects and units of work. The scaffold is designed to be used in small group situations, but can used individually.
Classroom conversations to co-create expectations of AI use
After each small group completes the AI thinking scaffold, the group nominates one representative to join a Socratic seminar. To support students (and teachers) to have robust conversations to co-create agreed expectations of AI use from diverse opinions, we selected specific Socratic sentence starters. The sentence starters are selected to encourage students (and teachers) to present different views, challenge each other’s assumptions, to ask each other to justify their reasoning and to support each other.
We also designed additional scenarios for students and teachers to think about where the use of AI extends beyond a learning activity and the classroom. They are designed to be used with the Socractic sentence starters to challenge the impacts of AI use in the context of integrity, equity, honesty and essentially, what it means to be human.
Our session at the QTiP25 conference emphasised the importance of equipping teachers and students with the skills to engage critically and ethically with AI. By enabling robust discussions to co-create expectations around AI use, teachers, as the experts of teaching and learning, can lead their students to collectively decide how AI is used (or not used at all) to enhance and protect rich learning opportunities.
In a perfect world, every lesson will be well planned and timed. However, every teacher has found themselves stuck with nothing planned. Maybe it’s because a colleague is too sick to send in work. Here are three fast, no-prep activities to keep in your teaching toolbox so you can take them out for any of these moments. They can be set as a whole class task, small group activities or individual tasks. They are also great for students who are fast finishers.
Non-fiction text reflection
Book your class into the school library or ask the Teacher Librarian to curate a selection of non-fiction texts (which may be related to the current topic, or not). Allocate 10 minutes for students to sample a book and fill in the non-fiction text reflection sheet. Repeat this two to three times depending on the length of your lesson. Then have students speak to each other about the books and select some students present to the class. You can even have students choose to borrow some of the books. I have done this activity many times and students love it. It’s a great way to explore the school library’s collection and to slow down and take a breather.
There are so many interesting videos and podcasts out there. Some of my favourite YouTube channels are Amoba Sisters, ASAP Science and Minute Physics. I love ABC listen for children-friendly podcasts. You can have the whole class view the same video or listen to the same podcast, or let students choose their own. I like to use reflection sheets for students to jot down their learnings and have them share it with their peers.
This is a simple yet powerful learning activity. Set a timer for 5 minutes, 10 minutes or 15 minutes. In the allocated time, students write a recount of informative text on what they have learnt this week, this term, the year so far or whatever you want them to (or whatever they want to). The key is to be like lightning and keep writing until the time runs out. So many other learning opportunities can follow. You can have students do a think-pair-share, select students to read their writing to the class or have students use their lightning writing sample to create a multimedia presentation to teach their peers.
What are your go-to activities?
What are your fast, no-prep activities for when you have nothing planned? Share yours by commenting below.
Are you a pre-service teacher about to do your practicum? Or are you a graduate teacher about to enter the profession? Wondering how to effectively use technology as a teacher and with your students, in a way that enhances your wellbeing?
I recently presented at a pre-service teachers conference at University of Technology, Sydney on using technology effectively in the classroom. Here are the highlights of the session. These tips are targeted at pre-service teachers about to go on their practicums and graduate teachers about to enter the classroom.
Google or Microsoft? (or Canvas or everything?)
Many schools will use mainly Google or Microsoft. For Google, this may mean all classes use Google Classroom and the apps that come with Google Workspace for Education such as Google Docs and Google Slides. For Microsoft, this may mean all classes use Microsoft Teams and OneNote Class Notebook. Other schools will use Canvas. Some schools will use a mixture of everything. Before you start teaching at your new school, ask which platforms the students you will be teaching will mostly use so you can become familiar with them. Ask to be added to other teachers’ Google Classrooms and Microsoft Teams (same year level if possible and same subject) so you can see what they’re doing with their classes. My school uses Google Classroom with students and I always add beginning teachers to my Google Classrooms when they ask. That way, they can reuse my posts on their Google Classrooms as a way to support them to develop their craft. For more details on how I use Google Classroom, see this post.
Get WiFi access BEFORE your practicum
This tip is mainly for pre-service teachers doing practicums in a NSW public school. When you first contact your supervising teacher or in your pre-practicum, ask them how to get a NSW Department of Education account for pre-service teachers so you can log into the WiFi. You are not suppose to ask others to log on for you and you don’t want to be using your mobile phone hotspot for your whole practicum. GET THIS ORGANISED BEFORE YOU START YOUR PRAC!
Digital wellbeing
Many teachers (including me) have work apps like Outlook, Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams and Sentral on our personal phones and tablets where everything is synced across. This can be very convenient (For example, I usually have my laptop connected to the interactive panel to display the lesson starter activity and I mark the roll on my phone.).However, this also means your work can slowly creep into your personal life and you find yourself responding to every ‘ping’ from your work apps on your personal devices. Everyone has a different way of working and you have to find out what works for you while respecting your colleagues’ personal time and the school systems policies. Here are some considerations:
Learn how to schedule send emails (and Teams chat messages) so if you want to write a message in the evening after work hours because it is fresh in your mind, you can have the message land in your colleagues’ emails or Teams chat during work hours. This means you can work the way you want and respect others’ personal time. If you are a pre-service teacher, ask your supervising teacher how they work outside of school hours so everyone has a shared understanding of contact outside school hours.
Set expectations for your students. This is particularly relevant for high school. Teenagers often do school work in the evenings, at night (sometimes in the early hours of the morning) and on weekends. I tell my students they can post on Google Classroom at any time, but I will look at their posts and respond on Monday to Friday between 8am and 5pm. I have separate expectations in the school holiday period, depending on the circumstances. If you are a pre-service teacher, ask your supervising teacher what their expectations are for the classes you are taking.
If you choose to have work apps on your personal phone, know the privacy implications for the relevant school system. Move these work apps to the last screen of your phone so they’re not immediately visible and available for you to tap when you unlock your phone. Explore features like Focus mode, Personal mode and Do Not Disturb mode to see if and how they work for you.
Tips from teachers for teachers
And finally here are the tips from teachers, deputy principals and principals (who I highly respect and are known for their educational technology expertise and innovations) specifically for pre-service teachers and beginning teachers. 🙂 A big thank you to every one of them for sharing their advice.
Every student I’ve worked with wants to do well at school. But what does this look like for each student and how do they get there? This is where goal setting can be very powerful.
Goal setting is a well-known strategy to improve student motivation, resilience and academic achievement. Doing a Google Search will bring up many articles supporting this. Some of my favourite ones are from Edutopia and What Works Best from the NSW Department of Education.
But what does goal setting look like in a classroom and how can it be implemented sustainably and consistently? In this post, I will share what has worked (and what hasn’t worked) for me in leading the implementation of goal setting for over 200 students and involving 20 teachers. I have packaged the latest collection of promising practices into a OneNote notebook, which teachers and download and customise.
So, these are the strategies, practices and resources that have worked for me (all are in the OneNote notebook).
Supporting students to help students set SMART goals
S = specific M = measurable A = achievable R = realistic T = time-bound
SMART provided a framework for students to set personalised goals that are personal, aspirational and realistic. SMART also reduces the number of well-intentioned goals where progress and success are difficult to measure, such as “try harder in maths”, “get better grades” and “concentrate more in class”. Some videos I’ve found useful in explaining SMART goals to students are Setting Goals from BrainPOP and How to write a SMART goal from Khan Academy and
But it isn’t enough to know what SMART goals are. I found students needed a comprehensive scaffold, particularly in:
Breaking down goals into smaller mini goals
I included this in the ‘specific’ section of SMART. When students have identified a goal, they are guided to identify three smaller steps to achieve the goal. This was important for students to track and assess their progress. The smaller goals not only help students to work towards their goals but also allow them to see success and stay motivated when they have achieved a smaller goal.
Identifying barriers and ways to overcome them
This part was optional for my students but for those who did it, it allowed them to see if their original goal was realistic for them and/or identify ways to remove known obstacles that may stop them from achieving their goal.
Sharing progress and accomplishments with family
My prior attempts with goal setting have largely involved it being a very personal experience for the student. Students completed a goal setting resource and at the end of the semester, they reflected on whether they had achieved their goal.
There was nothing wrong with the above approach, but to make the goal setting process more meaningful, I now have students write a personal reflection comment that goes onto their end-of-semester academic report. Students know the intended audience of the comment is themselves and their parents/carers. The personal reflection comment acts as a culminating product that nicely wraps up a yearly goal setting process.
And now to tie all the promising practices into one delivery mechanism – OneNote Class Notebook.
Why OneNote is the best tech tool for goal setting
I have used hardcopy booklets, Google Doc, Google Slides and Google Forms to deliver goal setting programs. It is OneNote Class Notebook that has been the most effective in delivering a responsive goal setting program, particularly for a large group of students that is being delivered by a large number of teachers. How does OneNote Class Notebook do this?
Supporting consistent implementation by offering a baseline resource package that can be used as is but has the flexibility to be customisable. This means teachers who are very new to goal setting have a resource they can take straight to their class and the teachers who are more experienced with goal setting can modify the resource to suit their needs and their students’ needs.
Providing ease of monitoring – OneNote Class Notebook allows the teachers who are leading the program to see the progress of every student in every class. This means we didn’t have to wait for scheduled meetings and self-reporting processes to identify which students/classes/teachers may need additional support. We can see how everyone is going anytime and be proactive in providing support.
Allowing ongoing, responsive adjustments – This is where OneNote Class Notebook has outshined the other tools. With hardcopy resources and Google Workspace apps, once the resource has been printed/distributed, it is overly complex to adjust it. With OneNote Class Notebook, resources can be distributed one page at a time so future resources can be prepared, adjusted based on feedback if needed and distributed when a student or class is ready. OneNote Class Notebook is like a digital binder so every page that is distributed still feels like and appears to be a cohesive package. It’s not a bunch of separate Google Doc files, a bunch of different Google Classroom assignment posts or a bundle of hardcopy papers.
The teachers leading the goal setting program created instructional videos on the technical aspects of OneNote Class Notebook such as how students get to their OneNote notebook and the structure of their OneNote notebook. This meant teachers who are not confident with OneNote could use the instructional video to guide their students. We also provided in-class team teaching for teachers who requested it.
The goal setting OneNote package
Download the Goal Setting OneNote notebook for your students. See here for more information on how to use OneNote Class Notebook to further customise the notebook and distribute it to your students. If you do use the resource, I would love to hear your feedback.
Establishing clear learning routines and behaviour expectations is fundamental for maintaining an effective classroom environment. In a previous article, I discussed my approach to setting routines and expectations for my year 7 class. At the beginning of each term, I find it valuable to review these with the students to ensure a shared understanding of how our class operates, ultimately optimizing learning time. In the past, I utilised slides, videos, and fill-in-the-blank sheets for this purpose. However, to inject more engagement and interactivity into the process, I have started to use chat cards.
How chat cards can enhance engagement
Each chat card presents a typical scenario and prompts students to identify the appropriate actions. By encouraging student conversations, you can assess their understanding of the established routines. Rather than straightforwardly informing students of the routines, the chat cards prompt them to actively recall and discuss possible responses, enabling you to address any misunderstandings effectively.
For instance, a card might ask about the three steps students should follow upon entering the classroom.
My class’s routine is as follows: 1. Go to your assigned seat. 2. Take out the necessary equipment. 3. Begin the lesson starter activity. This is a critical part of the lesson routine. It’s important it is consolidated at the start of each term.
Another card asks how a student can determine the required equipment for the lesson. In my lessons, students are expected to look at the whiteboard for this information.
In addition to reinforcing routines, some cards highlight complex situations where students may need support to know how to respond in a respectful manner.
How to use chat cards in the classroom
I find it effective to utilize these cards by organizing students into groups of 3 to 4, designating a reader and scribe within each group. The cards can also be integrated into gallery walks, where students write their responses on post-it notes and place them under the respective chat cards. Alternatively, you can assign different chat cards to different groups and have each group role-play the scenarios in the chat cards. Although I typically introduce chat cards midway through the school year, they can be employed at the start to collectively establish routines and expectations with the class. The possibilities are endless; the key lies in customising the cards to align with critical aspects of your classroom routines and expectations.
Download the editable chat cards
Access the editable chat cards here to tailor them to your needs and the needs of your students.
After teaching for almost 15 years, here are three STEM activities I have done many times that need zero (almost) preparation and use materials readily available in nearly every classroom. These activities can work from middle primary to middle secondary but can be adapted to suit younger and older learners. These activities work really well without worksheets so no photocopying is required. They also work indoors or outdoors. You can literally walk into a class with just yourself and run these activities. And best of all, students love them!
All of them can be used to explore concepts in science mathematics and technology such as:
Science – fair testing, investigation design, data processing and representation
Mathematics – data and representation of data
Technology – design process and coding
You can incorporate literacy activities such as writing procedures and recounts.
So whether you need a quick activity for your own class or you are covering someone else’s class in short notice and need something hands-on and engaging, check out these activities and add them to your toolkit of anywhere anytime lesson activities.
Note these activities need timers. I usually ask students to use the stopwatch/timer app on their mobile phones. However, if you are teaching younger students who wouldn’t have mobile phones or you are working in a school where students are not allowed to have phones in class, you can ask students to use the stopwatch/timer app on their laptops or go online and use Google Timer. You can also display Google Timer on the interactive classroom screen for the class to use.
Paper helicopters
Materials and equipment needed – paper, scissors, paper clips, timer
Paper helicopters are also known as rotocopters. An internet search for paper helicopters or rotocopters will generate lots of results. I particularly like this page, which has instructions, explanations and templates. If you can’t print the templates, you can ask students to draw their own templates. The video below also shows how to draw the templates.
Paper helicopters are great for teaching fair testing, average calculations and presenting data in tables and graphs. For some classes, I also like to link them to adaptations in seeds, particularly sycamore seeds like the video below.
Paper planes
Materials and equipment needed – paper, timer
Almost every student knows how to fold a paper plane, but instead of folding a plane that flies the furthest, have a competition to see who can fold a paper plane that has the longest flight time. This is a good option as it doesn’t need metre rulers or tape measures; just a phone timer (see the above note if your students do not have phones). I like to have students explore the Fold ‘N’ Fly website, which has a large range of paper plane designs with written and video instructions.
You can also show the class a short clip from the movie, Paper Planes, to introduce the activity.
Exercise and heart rate
Materials and equipment – timer
This is one of my favourite activities. It gets students moving and can be linked to many concepts, particularly in science. The idea is simple. Have students measure their resting heart rate, and do some kind of exercise from 5 to 10 minutes (I usually let the students choose star jumps, jogging on the spot, running around the oval, sit-ups, push-ups or another exercise they are comfortable with) and then measure their heart rate again. Data can be collated from the whole class. Discussions can be linked to so many concepts from respiration to athletic performance. See this website for more detailed instructions and videos.
If you have a bit more time and access to digital materials, you can have students create their own heart rate monitor and evaluate its effectiveness.
Being organised is essential in teaching. Every teacher has a teacher planner where you do your lesson plans, track student progress, monitor the progress of your goals, record professional learning notes, record meeting notes and much more.
I have never found a commercial teacher planner to suit my needs and over the last 5 years, I have created and refined my own teacher planner in OneNote. Here’s the structure of my OneNote digital planner.
Sections structure
I have a very straight forward section structure. For me this is the right amount of sections to stay organised and not be overwhelmed by too many sections. I have a section for:
These sections have the same pages. Each section has a page for each school week. Each page has a table format for lesson plans for each day and period, a column for a daily to-do list and a column for tracking the progress long-term projects. For the daily to-do list, I use the To-Do tags in OneNote to check off a task when I finish it. Whatever I don’t get done, I cut and paste it to the next day or week.
I like having my lesson plans, to-do list and long-term projects presented on one page so I am not flicking back and forth between different pages, which I found I did not like with hardcopy planners.
School notes section
These sections hold notes for the two different schools I work at this year. For my main school, I have pages to track homework and classwork completion. I have created a custom tag to check off student work.
Meetings section
This section has been set up so the same meetings notes template is created each time a new page is added.
Why I prefer OneNote for my teacher planner
I have tried various hardcopy planners and digital apps for lesson planning, but have found OneNote to be the best. My main reasons are being able to:
Sync my planner across my Surface Pro, iPhone and iPad. This means I always have access to my planner in most situations.
Use digital ink with the Surface Pen and Apple Pencil, which is extremely useful for annotations.
Email pages in my OneNote to colleagues or students if I need to. This is particularly useful for meeting notes.
What kind of teacher planner do you use? I’d love to learn from teachers how they use a planner to stay organised.
Despite being well into the 21st century, schooling is still stuck in the 1900s, demanding consistency and conformity. Learning is driven by bells and timetables. School systems want learners to do the same thing, at the same time, in the same way.
If we’re to shift these issues in a child’s school career by 2040, we must transform the schooling system to adapt to the needs of learners and teachers.
Do Australian children have to spend so many hours at school?
Do teachers have to spend so many hours face-to-face teaching?
Does school have to be five days a week?
Can students have an opt-in day, so they only have to attend school for four days a week?
I have been imploding watermelons with rubber bands with my Year 7 science classes for over two years. The kids absolutely love the experiment. We work as a class to patiently place rubber bands onto a large watermelon one at a time and revel in being suddenly splashed by pieces of watermelon. Here is a video of our experiment. See The Big Watermelon Experiment for details on how to do the experiment.
Imploding a watermelon with rubber bands is also a great way to teach how to write explanations in science. I like to use a cause-and-effect graphic organiser to teach students how to use forces to explain what happens in the watermelon implosion experiment. It’s a great opportunity to teach how to use scientific concepts to explain observations. After the graphic organiser, I like to use an explanation scaffold to support students to write an extended text that sequentially explains how rubber bands can implode a watermelon. In this activity, they use casual connectives, time connectives and rhetorical questions. It’s also a great way to embed any paragraph structures your school prefers like TEEL or PEEL.
Use the link below to download and adapt the writing scaffolds for your students.
If you have done the watermelon implosion and/or used the experiment as an opportunity to develop your students’ writing skills, please comment below to share your experience.
Alice Leung 
