This is Me

My name is Catherine Grant and I have worked as a teacher for over two decades. I am an inspirational educator who leads and aspires to create positive learning cultures that empower learning communities to thrive, not only academically but social-emotionally. I am creative in curriculum design, empower positive classrooms through positive classroom design and have travelled the world to find strategies that empower and unite learning cultures. I am deeply loved by my students, and well respected by my colleagues. I have travelled the world to gain insight into other educational systems as I believe that as educators we need to constantly collaborate with others to better the worlds of our students. I also have completed a Masters of Education (Leadership and Management) focussing on Guy Claxton's Learning Power Approach and Executive Functioning Disorders.

MY EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

“From the moment we are born, we make sense of our world through exploring, testing and evaluating. We learn through experience and our desire to make meaning from that experience” – Kath Murdoch[1]

I believe the fundamental responsibility of a teacher is to nurture and model a love for life-long learning within their students. I have been deeply impacted by both the Reggio Emilia and Kath Murdoch approaches to inquiry based teaching and learning. I have utilised these approaches to restructure classroom space and utilise neutral tones to create “calm and relaxing” workspaces. Collaborative planning and teaching practice is used to seek to uphold the values that support this form of learning environment, particularly the importance of creativity when developing learning provocations, as well as building a learning environment that nurtures positive relationships amongst students as well as between the student and teacher.

I would also strive to “nurture students to be happy, knowledgeable and creative young people who care for others and make a positive difference in the world”. In recent years I have been endeavouring to incorporate Carol Dweck’s work on Growth Mindset into my teaching practice. I have come to appreciate the importance of modelling and discussing the importance of a having a positive, constructive attitude when faced with difficulties and adversity. I believe that this is particularly important in the early years to ensure that students are empowered with the skills and language to talk about what they are experiencing and how they might go about tackling a difficult task in another way. One of the resources that I have found helpful in teaching students about Growth Mindset are the video resources made available through the Class Dojo website. I have also sent home the question and discussion starters for parents to discuss Growth Mindset attitudes with their children. Parents have really appreciated this level of support.

The learning environment plays a significant role in nurturing student engagement. I believe that the classroom should encourage a sense of wonder and natural curiosity about the world and students should be enticed and excited to explore and investigate. In addition to a nurturing learning environment is the use of differentiated curriculum and assessment. This is essential to aid the learning potential of each student. Providing students with flexible learning opportunities that offer them different approaches to what they learn, how they learn it and how they will demonstrate their learning, enables students to access the curriculum content in a way that creates success for them individually and builds their learning capacity. Effective differentiation requires regular observation of students and how they engage with learning activities.

I believe that as teachers we need to be bettering ourselves as educators. I have a Masters of Education specialising in Leadership and Management. I am passionate about effective leadership and am currently working at Tyndale Christian School, Murray Bridge as the Junior School Leader. I enjoy studying because I am able to explore and examine current innovations in education and how to best use these within the learning environments.

I have been fortunate in my teaching career to have opportunities to incorporate a range of teaching methodologies into my professional practice. This enables me to be flexible and adapt my pedagogy in response to the requirements of the subject area being taught, the year level and learning needs of the students and the context of the school community. The teaching methodologies that I incorporate into my teaching fundamentally support a student-centred approach to learning.

Inquiry based learning is a powerful teaching methodology as it allows students to play an active and participatory role in their own learning. Kathy Walker’s research into effective teaching practices highlights the need for learning to be real, relevant and meaningful. Investigations allow for learning to be hands-on and personalised dependent upon the questions choose to pursue. It can be difficult to plan for student learning in this regard and this is where I find the Understand by Design (UbD) planning process allows me to effectively implement the requirements of the Australian Curriculum. Using the UbD planning process, I identify the skills and understandings that students are required to demonstrate through assessment tasks. The inquiry cycle is then backwards planned to ensure that I model and explicitly teach the skills and understandings that students require in order to meet Achievements Standards.

[1] Murdoch, K. 2015. The Power of Inquiry. Seastar Education. Northcote, Victoria.