Beginning research

I have found throughout this unit that the best way to get a clear understanding of the tasks requirements was by initially viewing the three sample sites that the tutors had put on the LMS for us. Being primarily a visual learner, having a visual representation has really helped me get a clear understanding of tasks we have been set and a good idea of the expected standard. A written description of the task may be read differently by people and can sometimes be mis-interpreted. I would also find it difficult not knowing when I had done enough to achieve the marks that I wanted without having something as a comparison.

Screenshots of sample sites 

I really like sample 3's site I thought that this would be of a good standard to set ourselves. It appeared to have addressed all the marking criteria to a high standard. Simple, clear, with easy navigation is what we wanted. I noticed that all the sites had addressed somewhere on their site about authentic learning, some more than others. This is something we will have to make sure we include in our wiki resource. I was disappointed to see that a group from last year (sample 1) had already done something close to what our group had planned to do (Healthy Eating). I was worried about this as I didn't want ours to be too similar. My concerns were later put at ease by our tutor who reassured us that our idea was fine.

I tend to feel when first starting out with a new task, it is that feeling of the unknown and I sometimes lack in confidence which makes you want to seek reassurance that you are on the right track before continuing and risk the fear of getting it wrong.

I noticed that two of the sample sites had a separate references page. However the other just listed the references at the bottom of the page. Did this matter? I asked a couple of members in my group in an email who were also unsure. Darlene checked this with Jenni on Skype chat who informed for us that either way was fine. It was up to us as a group. I think if we end up putting it as a separate page we may want to consider subheadings such as teacher resource page, introduction, lesson plan etc. That way, you would know what page you were referring to. These are all aspects that we will have to discuss as a group and work through together. When talking with my group member's I think we are all feeling very much the same. We all have many questions going around inside our heads that we want to seek answers for.

Query about Health and Physical Education (Australian Curriculum or WA) Screenshot of Skype Chat Jenni Parker

As expected many of us are very unfamiliar with the curriculum's. With changes currently happening whereby everyone is rolling over to the Australian curriculum it makes it slightly more confusing. For the past year I have been referring to the NT curriculum within my job role here in Darwin until recent changes over to the Australian curriculum which I am now trying to learn and understand. The WA curriculum framework is also new to me. I have found that these changes have made it a little confusing on which one we should be addressing for this task, especially when I then discover that Health and Physical Education was also only available in draft form for review. Why did we pick health I thought! Why not a subject area that was already completed? Are we making this too complicated for ourselves? After speaking with Jenni who happened to be on Skype at the time, it actually was not such a big deal as I had thought. We could use either. I gladly reported back this important information to my group in which we then extended our conversations further in our group looking at what one we would address, why, and how.

We discussed the different options and decided that we would address the year 4/5 scope and sequence lifestyle choices content from the WA Curriculum Framework.  This was also something that I wanted to clarify with our tutors. Are we required to address all the outcomes for knowledge and understandings or refer to only one. For example, did we need to cover Hygiene content in our task or can we just focus on one aspect of it's content such as varied/sound nutrition?