Creative TAFE Home ~ Creative TAFE Index
    

Creative Delivery of Children's Services modules The following report details a creative approach to the delivery of two Children's Service modules by staff at Bankstown College in South Sydney Institute.      Introduction With the implementation of the Community Services Training Packages, the Child Studies Section at Bankstown looked to providing new and innovative ways of delivering and assessing the Diploma of Community Services (Children's services) for our learners. This project provided a lot of fun for learners and teachers as it is interactive and the outcomes were some creative learner assessment products.     What modules were delivered? The following modules were delivered: 3292H Provide opportunities and experiences to enhance children’s development. 3292J Enhance children’s play and leisure. The modules were delivered using playsession and related workshops. Playsession is a simulated work place for child studies learners. Parents and family day carers bring children to the sessions where activities are provided for the children. Learners are able to experience working with children and gain invaluable experience from the sessions.     Who were the learners? The group included 45 learners who were in their last six months of the Diploma course. The learners had completed some preliminary play subjects. An innovative approach was certainly needed for the sanity of both learners and teachers especially as the classes were scheduled for Fridays from 8.30am until 5.30pm.     Starting a playsession At Bankstown we were fortunate to be able to start up a playsession on campus. This provided the learners with a simulated workplace and provided us with a way to assess the learners in the workplace.  It also provided us both with an extra teaching room to implement small group workshops.     Implementing the modules We divided the day into two sections. The first two hours of each day was the theoretical component focusing on techniques such as mapping, development of concepts, developing interactions with children, questioning techniques relating to curriculum areas. The next six hours of practical workshops were three workshops running concurrently for two hours. Each student would attend three workshops per day. The workshops focused  on developmental stages and/ or extension of activities for curriculum areas. This included; music, language, sensory, fine motor, and gross motor to provide a few examples. A variety of guest speakers included a sign language workshop, presenters of new educational products and resource workers from the area.     What assessment did we use? Based on the learning outcomes we provided the following assessment: Participation in workshops Developing resources including an activity blanket, handmade books, games and resource folders of activities.   Provide an aesthetically pleasing environment (playsession) - the learners demonstrated this by painting the playsession walls.    An opening ceremony for playsession. The learners worked very hard on improving the aesthetics of the area and created a wonderful activity blanket for use in the playsession it seemed appropriate for the learners to demonstrate their skills to a wider context with an opening ceremony. The learners planned the day to commemorate the official opening of playsession.     Planning for the day The learners’ creativity was stretched to include the following: Community networking - learners organised information pamphlets on support services provided in the local area. This included local council and state departments, Fairfield Resource Centre, early intervention and Family Day Care. Resource Stalls - this provided learners the opportunity to resource for educational products that can be used in early childhood. Advertising - learners produced a flyer and posters to promote the event. Entertainment - this was provided by a local school, which provided Greek dancing. Fundraising - in the form of a cake stall (raising $120) which provided drinks, helium balloons and clown suits. Catering - organised through the Student Association this provided a free BBQ for everyone. The learners also brought in a wide variety of cultural foods. Speeches - made by three of the learners on the day.     On the day The event took a great deal of organisation, which was managed particularly well by the learners.   The weather was great for the day and it was most successful with approximately 100 children and 200 adults in attendance.     In conclusion As well as providing a good advertisement for the playsession and encouraging links between TAFE and the community, we managed to highlight our position within the college and institute and demonstrate our creative skills. We would like to encourage everyone to be proactive in trying out new and creative forms of delivery. The learners, the college and staff can all benefit from this. For further information contact: Joanne Fuller (joanne.fuller@tafensw.edu.au)

Top