Jaclyn Munro: 3886899

Victoria Universitys Big Day In

2nd April 2015

Aboriginal Inclusion: Teachers Create Change

During this professional development session, we were educated on the inclusion of Aboriginal and
Torres Strait Islander student engagement within the AITSL standards. These strategies are
important elements of our Australian heritage and should be openly and supportively discussed
within classrooms all across the country.
With immigrants of Australia, having a unique settlement story, it is sometimes forgotten that our
indigenous land owners were the main victims of our changing society. When I was being exposed to
this information, I felt as though aboriginal strategies of teaching could be incorporated in a variety
of other ways which still remain respectful to their history.
Having recently completed an informative essay on the 8 Aboriginal Ways of Learning, I became
aware that we are implementing these teaching strategies in a variety of subjects. The issue that
may have arisen from this is that it is not regularly recognised as an aboriginal strategy for teaching.
A memorable quote from this informative session was; Great teaching and learning can be
uncomfortable. This strongly fits in with idea of the current normalisation of aboriginal
stereotyping, which should be prioritised to be a changing factor. In conclusion, the idea of dealing
with individual differences and learning how to respectfully communicate to one another holds
significance within the classroom.

Sexual and Gender Diversity

During this professional development session, we were educated on the normalisation of sexual and
gender diversity in schools. It covered how to prevent homophobia as a whole school approach due
to the statistics that express that school is the main place for physical, social and mental abuse to
occur.
The idea of this session is to encourage schools to become a safer environment for people to
comfortably be part of, and develop an increased support centre for students who are coming out.
This first steps in doing so is with the elimination of homophobic and sexist language, just like you
would disagree to students using cuss words within the school yard.
Another program that can be implemented is hosting positive discussions on sexual and gender
diversity and eliminate the common stereotypes: with the inclusion of the gender stereotypes of
teachers.
Teachers are encouraged to become active and supportive members of the classroom who are
comfortable with talk about the manner and answering questions which are raised. This shows a
visible support system within the school.
At the conclusion of this session, we were given reference to the relevant website which further
expressed the information that was presented. www.safeschoolcoalition.org.au gives a good insight
for teachers who may have questions about the parameters within this given topic.

Jaclyn Munro: 3886899

Alternate Professional Development Days

AEU Professional Development Day
During this professional development session, we were educated on the progressive ideas and wants
of the Australian Education Union. This was an insightful session as a pre-service teacher, as we were
able to understand how community based the profession of teaching is.
On this day, we had speakers from Independent Schools and Catholic Schools which spoke about
how they are funded through other means. The spoke about ways in which you need to be
accredited to work at these schools and how to find jobs online.
The session concluded with a Principal from a Government Primary School, who went through
various aspects of job applications, key selection criteria and being able to show evidence of the
AITSL standards. This was a very beneficial session as I became more knowledgeable on the
Education System structure and who is there to support me.

VSSEC Professional Development Day

During this professional development session, we were educated on the importance of expanding
the science curriculum. This session was hosted at The Victorian Space Science Education Centre, at
Strathmore Secondary College.
On this day, we were able to discuss with the various ways in which we as teachers can make science
more engaging. We spoke about the idea of practical learning and making it inquiry based. Many of
the activities hosted at VSSEC are student-driven practical activities with little help given from the
supervising educators.
We were exposed to their Mission to Mars practical activity, ICT application of knowledge and
laboratory work which can be completed there. We also got to engage in a Skype call with the wellknown Educational theorist Jane E Pollock who gave us an insight on the high yielding strategies for
teaching and how we are able to implement these within the classroom.