Diana Comp shares about providing resourcing, inspiration, and professional learning in her role as lead teacher technology.
My role as a lead teacher technology at Green Bay Primary
Transcript
When a new teacher begins their employment at our school, we take them through an induction process. All the teachers have a red folder that we’ve put together and it has all the strands and any information that they might need so we go through the red folder and talk about different ways of teaching technology at our school.
I always set up a display at the beginning of each term with lots of resources that I’ve gathered, and ideas for the teachers so that they don’t, you know they are so busy that they won’t have to go and find their own ideas. And teachers are encouraged to share, to pop up their own ideas that they’ve found during the term.
The cluster meetings, that’s something new that we are just thinking about. We are trying to get a cluster group organised in our area to support teachers from different schools around here. To bring ideas like a market day where they all share an idea, so it’s just a matter of supporting each other in the area and technology.
My role is ordering all of the equipment at school, where you have a two hundred dollar budget, each classroom has a two hundred dollar budget, so that is for the wet ingredients or anything else that might be required but I supply the dry ingredients. I make sure that if there’s any broken tools that they are replaced and I try to keep everything in order. Everything is photographed and so the teachers and the children know where to place that item if they’ve removed it from the shelf. We have a hard materials shed, we have an inside store room that has jewellery kits. And I’m just responsible for ordering any resources that are needed.
Another way to hook the teachers in I think is to provide lots of opportunities, sharing opportunities, something exciting that will hook the teachers in. Allow them to experience how to make something and then they can then take that idea back to their classroom.
Offering PLD to teachers, we always have somebody coming in at the beginning of the year to help us with going through the technology curriculum. Moira Patterson has helped us every year, so it’s great to have an expert come into the school to support us with new ideas of how to teach something. And to clarify the technological literacy that we stumble over. We have robust conversations about what terms mean, such as transformation, manipulation, and formation. It’s great to have those conversations that we’re all on the same page and we know what those terms mean and then have examples of how to teach those ideas.
Related videos
Planning for a coherent programme in primary (02:11)
Science and technology teacher Shannon Maloney shares how she works collaboratively with teachers to integrate technology into their programmes....
Building technology inquiries in years 1–6 (02:47)
Shannon Maloney talks about building rich technology units within a programme of inquiry in years 1–6.
Hooking primary students into technology (02:34)
Diana Comp shares some of her strategies for engaging primary students and growing understandings in technology.
Planning for technology at primary (03:59)
Jude Black and Diana Comp describe their approach to planning at Green Bay Primary.
New entrants identify the made world (03:14)
New entrants explore what technology is with teacher Jill Harper.
Year 1–2 technologists design for a purpose (03:52)
Students in years 1 and 2 discuss with their teacher why technologists make things out of different materials.
Year 1–2 future technologists (02:06)
Kathy Chandler and her year 1–2 students discuss technological outcomes and what technologists do.