We recently hosted six La Trobe BA Primary Education pre-service teachers for professional development as part of the La Trobe University Discovery STEAM Immersion Plus program (LTDSI). It was great to share our Tech School program knowledge in partnership with La Trobe University and the Discovery Science and Technology Centre.
We used the Escape Room work by La Trobe's Dr Robert Ross, Senior Lecturer, Director of RAMPS. Escape Rooms are awesomely fun activities, which are highly engaging, and with an immersive storyline, questions and students must work as a team to solve them.
The pre-service teachers learnt about Escape Rooms, created their own, and then shared this knowledge with primary school students as well as concepts such as narratives, mathematics, problem-solving techniques and AR (Augmented Reality).
It was a very valuable learning experience for the pre-service teachers, and the primary school students had a lot of fun, and without knowing it, a lot of learning!
These talented young teachers will have further opportunities to work with the Bendigo Tech School through pre-service placements and Professional Development.
Next year we are also excited to be hosting a program with schools and industry to partner with La Trobe University pre-service teachers to design STEAM units of work based on the Tech School learning model.
Many thanks to the students and teachers of Kangaroo Flat Primary School and Creek Street Christian College for giving up their time to help out some future primary school educators!
Pictured above is the Tech School team assembling the digital escape boxes for the program.
