Thursday, November 3, 2011

Higher education

As a wannabe researcher, I look forward to research cycles and finding things that I can bring back to the classroom. It's also good to know things that can refocus a discussion in a direction that can be more fruitful in terms of outcomes.

My thing for today is edmodo - a web2.0 technology bringing a limited facebook environment to the classroom. It may be what we all hoped OTLS was going to be. It's being used in some of the private schools around Perth and may be worth a look.



This has been a strange week as I decide whether to restart my research or seek L3CT as many have recently suggested. One process enhances my ability as a teacher and the latter recognises my achievements whilst providing a significant increase in salary. As someone seeking continuous improvement, I'm not sure I could sustain my interest long enough to complete the L3CT process for fundementally only monetary gain nor am I sure that I have the resources and support available to complete my postgrad whilst on full load.

At this time in a career it can be difficult, watching those around you seek and get promotion whilst trying to remain focussed on why you started teaching. The L3CT benefits are particularly suspect when considering the choice in this way.. No sane person starts teaching for the money - and that's the primary benefit of L3CT.

2 comments:

  1. As a L3 teacher myself the incentive for me to complete the process was the ability within my school (a very large metro school) to take on an area of 'passion' and be given time to explore it and develop it within the school. In my particular school context it gave me the time and influence as part of the leadership team to make some real change and explore innovation. So it isn't all about the money, although it was nice to be compensated in some small way for the amount of time and effort that must go into a role like that for it to be a success. IMHO :)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Maybe it's different in a large metro school, but I know in a small one, there is little time to complete the hoops to get it. I don't know many maths L3CT in high school, it seems to be the realm of the humanities.

    I've gone down the research route again.. it's where my experience lies and I can't face another raft of paperwork for what amounts to be a few dollars. I already have the support and context to implement change.. I'd be interested to know the outcomes of your experience and what the innovations were.. The sharing of research is an output that I'm not sure L3CT achieves outside the context of individual schools.

    ReplyDelete

Hi, thanks for leaving a comment.. it's good to hear what people think!