CONFERENCE: Tarawera High School physical and outdoor education teachers Sophie Hoskins, Cameron McMillian and Kelly Ross will speak about modern learning and teaching at a national conference in Palmerston North next week.
Photo Kahurangi Gage
TARAWERA High School’s physical and outdoor education teachers will share their modern learning experience at a three-day conference in Palmerston North next week.
Head of department and outdoor education teacher Sophie Hoskins was invited to present at the Physical Education New Zealand 2016 Conference as a key note speaker, representing Education Outdoors New Zealand (EONZ) and outdoor education as a subject.
She will talk about how she nourishes and strengthens outdoor education within her programme at Tarawera High School.
Head of physical education Kelly Ross and teacher Cameron McMillian submitted a successful abstract on teaching senior physical education within a modern learning environment.
They hope to share their journey within the hour-long presentation – the good, the bad and the ugly on what it’s like using Google classroom, and their own Google website within the school’s new buildings.
A
long with that, they will share some useful tools, iPad apps and strategies they include within their senior courses to make learning accessible anywhere, anytime and any pace.
Ms Ross said Ms Hoskins was passionate about outdoor education and was leading the way in terms of modern learning practices – using technology and local environment to enhance students’ learning.
“Her successful and popular outdoor education programme at Tarawera High School is also nominated for a EONZ award which will be presented at the conference.”
On day three of the conference, Ms Hoskins will also run a workshop presentation on “chewing the fat in outdoor education”.
She said the idea was to encourage other outdoor education teachers to share their ideas on what was working within their programmes and look at the idea of more practical based assessment in order to cater for a wide range of students’ abilities.
Ms Ross said they hoped their presentations would help other physical and outdoor education teachers reflect on their own practice, challenge their thoughts and share their ideas.
“If everyone can walk away with one useful tool, one useful thought to take back to their school then we will be happy.
“We are not at all perfect in any way, but just want to be able to share our thoughts and ideas so others can learn too” she said.
Going forward the teachers hope to see more practical based assessments within the physical education domain enabling not only physical education but also outdoor education to continue to develop students’ natural practical abilities and provide an even more rounded, rich subject that every student wishes to participate in.
Source: Whakatane Beacon