10 Year Anniversary Event - Professional Development Workshops for Alumni (Teachers)

Register to attend a free professional development workshop to celebrate the Melbourne Graduate School of Education’s 10 year anniversary.

To celebrate our School’s 10-year anniversary we are offering a free professional development (PD) workshops for alumni registered teachers. The PD workshops will be delivered by academics in their area of expertise and will be held at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education.

The workshop will count towards PD activities required for your teaching registration. By attending the workshop, you will be provided a certificate of participation as evidence of attendance.

Please note: The workshops will all commence at 6pm however some will last one hour and others two hours. 

A number of workshops are available. Please select from the following options when registering:

Student Wellbeing in Schools and Organisations, 6-7pm
Dr Annie Gowing, Coordinator, Master of Education (Student Wellbeing) and Student Wellbeing Specialisation
In this session participants will explore current understandings and developments in the area of student wellbeing. There will be opportunities for participants to share both the opportunities and challenges encountered in addressing this key area within within their schools/organisations.

Virtual Reality in the classroom, 6-7pm
Dr Joanne Blannin, Digital Learning Leader, and Matt Harrison, Lecturer 
The session will focus on how virtual reality and digital games-based learning are being used across a range of educational settings as tools for collaboration and learning.

Education Policy, 6-7pm
Dr Mary Leahy, Program Coordinator (Graduate Coursework) 
Knowledge or skills: the changing nature of work and the implications for education.

Languages, Literacies, and the Modern Interacting World, 6-8pm
Professor Joe Lo Bianco, Professor of Language and Literacy Education
This session will be highly interactive combining World Café debate and activities, self-reflection exercises and mini-lectures. It will begin with participants devising and describing their language biographies through an internationally recognised activity, and move on to develop notions of personal and social resilience and cohesion, language and opportunity, discrimination and reconciliation. We will discuss language pluralism from the point of view of the resources that multilingualism provides to individuals and groups of people in respect of their learning, their social interactions, their career prospects and social engagement in an increasingly complex multicultural world. Examples will be drawn from many parts of the world, especially Southeast Asia, Europe and Australia. Melbourne life and language will feature prominently.

Fostering the valuing of positive attributes of maths learning, 6-7pm
Dr Wee Tiong Seah, Associate Professor in Mathematics Education
This session will provide participants with a snapshot experience of the JEDAI approach to fostering the valuing of positive attributes of maths learning, which includes the maths proficiencies identified in the current national and state curriculum documents.

Insights from Positive Psychology: Strength-based approaches for supporting student and staff wellbeing, 6pm
Dr Peggy Kern, Senior Lecturer in Positive Psychology
Concerns over the growing rates of mental illness have led schools across Australia and abroad to increasingly spend time and resources focuses on wellbeing, happiness, character, and other non-traditional skills. Supporting these efforts, positive psychology as a field focuses on identifying and supporting internal strengths and external resources to promote optimal functioning, flourishing, and resilience in individual, organizations, and communities. Research and interventions from the field are helping people be happy, productive, and resilient. This session will introduce the positive psychology perspective and provide practical strategies to help students and staff thrive at school.

Country, Culture, People: Evidencing complex issues of knowing, and needing to know, 6pm
Nikki Moodie, Senior Lecturer In Indigenous Studies; and Dr Kathryn Coleman, Lecturer in Visual Arts and Design Education | UNESCO Observatory of Arts Education
The workshop will provide participants with an opportunity to engage with a new project that seeks to establish benchmarks for what pre-service teachers know, and what they need to know, in order to demonstrate proficiency in and application of two Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APST), namely: 1.4 Teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Students, and 2.4. Promoting Reconciliation.

Extensive research in the field of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) identifies that beginning school teachers feel uncertain and ill-prepared to either teach Indigenous students or teach Indigenous curriculum content. It remains however, unclear what minimum level of content knowledge regarding Indigenous issues is required before pre-service teachers can do either with confidence. This workshop proposes a bold departure from established practice in teacher education and poses two key questions:

1.What do teacher candidates know about Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander knowledges, languages, histories and cultures to evidence the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers 1.4 and 2.4?

2.What do teaching academics understand, interpret and implement Australian Professional Standards for Teachers (APSTs) 1.4 (Strategies for teaching Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students) and 2.4 (Understand and respect Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people to promote reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians)?