Conversation – Chris Ford

I spoke to my SA about how her teaching has been affected by the new curriculum.  She said that she doesn’t expect it to change the way she actually implements her lessons and units; it will only affect the way she justifies them pedagogically.  She is excited about the possibility of incorporating more inquiry and cross-curricular elements into her teaching but she already does put an emphasis on both of those things.  When there are curriculum implementation days and training opportunities, she doesn’t feel overwhelmed by its open or flexible nature because it doesn’t sound too different from what she’s already doing.  She did mention that she’s still rather confused about the programming element but she’s happy to get the opportunity to learn.  Her advice to me was just to learn how the curriculum supports my own ideas and instincts rather than trying to use it as a ‘checklist’ of things to hit off one by one.