Happy Easter

Today's afternoon class ( last before the Easter Break)  was centred around how to promote the children's creativity and self expression through providing open ended materials for their creative work.

The students have enjoyed exploring and experimenting with different media.

The whole idea is that it's the PROCESS not the PRODUCT when it comes to children's experiences.

Happy EASTER .

Photo 7 -The Practical Skills Classroom

This is the classroom that has traditionally been the learning environment for  theory for the face to face students. To the left is the hallway you see in previous Photo (2) and to the right is a door that goes outside to the fenced area you see in Photo (1).

From this year we began using this classroom as a dedicated Play Session environment and removed all the desks and chairs. Each Friday morning children from local centres either walk with their educators or catch a bus with their educators to attend a play session which is facilitated by the Full Time face to face students.

On the days prior to the Play Session the students are responsible for planning the program of provocations that they will provide for the children who are attending, based on the children's interests and observations that they have made on the children in the previous weeks.

This does not show the classroom 'set up' - but ready to be set up later in the week. Although not a purpose built environment - the teachers and students are able to make it a warm and welcoming environment.

Thanks for reading my posts - looking forward to reading and commenting on yours. Please feel free to ask me any questions .....

Now....... how do I navigate my way out of this....... and find my way back in again :)

Cheers all- Liz Ingram Tamworth TAFE  NSW AUSTRALIA 

Here is the link to the website for Tamworth Campus

Photo 6 ONLINE teaching

This is me teaching "ONLINE" using the ADOBE Connect website classroom and a WIKI. This style of teaching is for the students, who, due to their location within the INSTITUTE  or due to their work commitments are unable to attend face to face classes.

We call this style of delivery Blended or Mixed Mode. The student studies from home but comes online regularly - once a week or once a month depending on the course and has access to a lesson prepared by the teacher and has the opportunity to discuss and be engaged in the learning via a chat pod.
The teacher is able to talk to the students as a group over the microphone.

This style of learning is not unique to our industry or our institution and is used in many places across Australia  and the world, but it was a learning curve and new to me when I began doing it 5 years ago.

 I enjoy this method of delivery as I enjoy the challenge of engaging students when you can't see their face or read their body language and they can't see yours either. Relying on your voice only to capture and maintain their interest.

To answer the final questions for this series.

What excites me about my teaching area? - I get to teach in a classroom or from my desk I also get to go out into industry to work with trainees on the job - so the variety and flexibility is there to always have something to be researching or creating to use as a resource.

Challenges that I encounter in my subject area? I teach over 30 separate units of competence over the qualifications of:

• Cert II in Community Services
• Cert III in Children's Services
• Diploma in Early Childhood Education and Care

Ensuring that the information disseminated to students is current and within legislation and regulations, means that a great deal of professional development and preparation time is spent reading and sourcing this information and making it relevant to the students.

The pedagogical approaches I use and why?

I have found that the most effective form of teaching is to ensure that the subject matter that is being delivered matches the client/ student group. I prefer to use a mixture of below within each class and depending on the level of qualification i.e. Diploma students I would expect more independent note taking as this is the AQF level of their qualification where as at a Cert II level there would be structure and use of worksheets as some student may struggle with taking their own notes.

These are what I mostly use:

• PowerPoints of summarised information from which I speak on the topic
• Photocopied Handouts ( try to keep to a minimum for sustainability)
• Brainstorming as a whole group and small groups on the white board or paper
• Research using computers in small  groups or individuals
• Practical demonstrations such as in how to wash hands or change a nappy
• Use of play session environment to put the theory into practise
• Simulated environment and role plays to look at scenarios and ethical dilemmas

5 Video from a lesson on CONFIDENTIALITY

This video is the finished product and I do apologise as it was not in the guidelines to show a finished product, however I felt it relevant that it be shown.

 I have permission from the only student who has her face shown in this video.

To describe the process and learning opportunities behind this, I shall set the scene.

I teach a small group of students who are working towards gaining a CERTIFICATE II qualification in Community Services. Some of the students in the class have some barriers to their learning which include literacy and numeracy difficulties and other learning difficulties. For this reason my pedagogical style is to keep writing or note taking to a minimum, and  instead to engage the students in meaningful and appropriate discussion and practise. These students have not gone out into the Industry as yet, but will do so in 4 weeks time.

The session shown in the video above was on the topic of  "confidentiality" and how important it is when hearing all kinds of information about the children and families that they would like to ultimately work with.

By using a project based approach the students together brainstormed words to create an ACROSTIC POEM  using the letters CONFIDENTIALITY. They then chose music, rehearsed how they would show their words and gave me ideas on how it should be presented in its final format. This approach, I explained was similar to how they would work with groups of children i.e. setting up provocations or exploring interests and following them through to promote learning.

This group of students worked for 3.5 hours on this plus it took an hour to edit and 4 hours to upload onto YOU TUBE.

Rather than packing up the activity and changing to our " scheduled" next lesson after the break at 11:15 am - we kept going as the interest  was still there.

This in itself was modelling to the students a FLEXIBLE approach to routines in early childhood services.

Photo 4 Using Technology in the classroom

In this photo we see a student participating in a class of face to face teaching.

The SmartBoard in the classroom is being used  where by the students can consolidate their learning with some hands on and fun experiences.

 I designed interactive activities using the SMART Notebook program to cover each unit of competency that I teach.

This activity is a matching activity where the selected student comes and matches the name of the theorist to their particular theory.

This activity can be done in teams of students and I find that the opportunity to partake in these 'SmartBoard' lessons also teaches the student how to use the SmartBoard as many Early Childhood Services are buying similar products. 

Photo 3 - A lesson on Interacting with Children

Here we see a student working in a small group with the other students. The aim of this activity was for the students to practise using ' open ended questions' and to make statements as they would in a real situation playing along side a child or children.

 In groups of three 1 student played the role of the ' educator' and 2 were the ' children'.  In my experience many students find this 'conversation with young children' challenging and so the more practise they can have and get used to it will help overcome their insecurities.

 I have found that many students are shy of the sound of their own voices, so we practise story reading and singing regularly.

Some of the discussion in this class  group centred around:

• Extending children language and literacy by asking open ended questions
• Encouraging children's motor and planning skills through making encouraging comments
• Scaffolding children's interests in trains/ transport/ construction

The students did this for around 30 minutes, taking it in turns to be the educator or the child.

The feedback from the students was positive and they would like to do this more and more.

Photo 2 - What does the building look like inside?

Coming in the front door of the building, you can go straight ahead and upstairs to where  Aged Care and Assistant in Nursing and Plumbing courses are taught ( yes! A funny combination.... ) or turn to the left and up these stairs you will come across the  Children's Services Classroom and the one other classroom on this level, which is traditionally used by Community Services teachers for their courses.

 The teaching staff all have shared offices. My office is the first on the right shared by 2 other colleagues and the offices continue down the right hand side of the corridor. All buildings in this Campus have a block name - From A block to S Block. Our building is known as "F Block" .

 The Tamworth campus is the largest Campus in the NEW ENGLAND INSTITUTE with over 110 courses from short courses to statements of attainment to Diploma level offered and over 200 staff in either a full time or part time teaching capacity or administration roles.

Here is a link to the Tamworth Campus Website


Tamworth is a Town of over 50 000 people in North West area of the state of  New South Wales in AUSTRALIA.  The geographical area of the New England Institute is large - the next Campus in this Region is 50 km away and the furthest over 400kms away.


I am a fulltime teacher , and I  have been working for Tamworth TAFE for over 10 years in a part time or full time capacity. My Training is a Bachelor of Education Early Childhood from Newcastle University and my career prior to full time teaching in the VET sector was as an early Childhood Teacher/ Director in Child Care Centres and Pre Schools as well as working in Special Schools and with young children with Disabilities in an Early Intervention program.

Photo 1 - What do you see from the Car Park?

Hello - I'm Liz Ingram. I am happy to be a part of this project.

 It is my first time as a BLOGGER.

This is the view from the carpark adjacent to the building where I teach. Where I teach is  called NEW ENGLAND INSTITUTE - Tamworth TAFE Campus. I am a teacher in Children's Services . We teach adults - 17 and up to work with children across a variety of settings -

• Family Day Care Educators ( educators who work in their own home and care for up to 5 children aged 0-5)
• Pre School ( as educators of children aged 3-6)
• Long Day Care ( as educators of children aged from 6 weeks to 6 years)

The minimum qualification to work with children in Australia is a CERTIFICATE III in Children's Services. We currenly have a mix of external, internal, trainees and RPL ( recognition of prior learning)  students numbering around 100 at the time of writing.

 Behind the fence is a little playground that we have just started building and we use it when we have visiting children's services.  Children come from our local area to allow our students some interaction with the children and opportunity to place theory into practice.