September 2021 | Latest News
Valbec hosts numeracy expert Tina Berghella in ‘Unpacking numeracy in a pandemic’
Thursday, 16 September, 6-7pm.
Every day we receive updates of COVID19 data, restrictions and risk advice that is rich in mathematical information. How do we make sense of it? How can we support our learners to make sense of it?
Join Tina in a discussion about some of the numeracy demands embedded in public health texts.
Tina Berghella is an independent VET consultant with a science and manufacturing background and an interest in numeracy in the workplace and in real life.
https://valbec.org.au/2021/09/02/webinar-unpacking-numeracy-in-a-pandemic/
Valbec practitioner profile - Pam Mahlis
This month the eValbec spotlight is on multi-skilled, versatile and resourceful LLN professional Pam Mahlis.
Pam began her teaching career as a secondary teacher and has taught a variety of maths and science subjects to a wide array of learners. A number of years ago she made a transition to adult education where she has been working as an LLN teacher.
For Pam , VALBEC is an organisation which encourages and inspires educators to share knowledge, information and practices which they have gained throughout their teaching journey in order to enhance students' learning. Pam’s passion lies in teaching numeracy to learners in order to help them realize the importance of mathematics in their everyday life.
Hopefully you’ve been enjoying the inspirational activities of Adult Learners’ Week as we leap into spring. This month I’m marvelling at people’s resourcefulness, adaptability and generosity of spirit.
People make Valbec, and none more so than Valbec’s project officer Leanne Wu. I’d like to acknowledge Leanne’s work behind the scenes keeping the Valbec show on the road. At the moment, Leanne is working with webmaster David Collett of Web Generation in helping Valbec make the transition to a slick new website with an integrated members’ portal. This on top of her ongoing tasks which include fielding emails, wrangling registrations and mustering memberships, to name but a few.
Valbec committee people are also busy organising webinars and putting together our annual Conference with keynote speaker Daniel Teitelbaum of Playful Thinking. Remember to chisel this year’s Conference date 25/26 November in your calendar. And I’m still optimistic that VALBEC2021 will have a face-to-face component at Angliss Conference Centre.
In the meantime dear readers, keep marvelling at the wonder of people and register for Valbec’s upcoming webinars in September; Tina Berghella on the 16th of September and chat with SBS’s Lost for Words teachers Jo Medlin and Adam Nobilia on the 29th of September (more details on that to come).
https://www.sbs.com.au/ondemand/program/lost-for-words
Elizabeth Gunn
Valbec President
Join or renew online.
https://valbec.org.au/membership/
If you join in August, September or October, deduct 50%. Renewal falls due the following February
Members receive:
- 2021 – the Valbec professional learning series of 6 workshops will be free to current individual members.
- Discounts for the Annual Conference and other Valbec statewide professional development.
- Three issues of FINE PRINT per year – a quality LLN journal for discussion and debate about good practice, theory and policy issues. Feedback and contributions are actively sought from members about content and issues.
- eVALBEC – our e-mail communication keeping members informed of professional development activities, general committee activities and more up to date policy changes.
- Free online numeracy resources.
- Focus on significant policy issues impacting on the field.
Valbec 2021 Conference – “A Passage In Time – Changes in Teaching and Learning Practices”
This year’s conference is about the changing nature of teaching and learning environments. If you have something to share about your changing journey as a teacher and/or learner why not put your hand up to present at our conference? We would love to hear from you at info@valbec.org.au.
Webinar: Unpacking numeracy in a pandemic
Valbec
September 16 at 6:00 – 7:00PM AEST
Presenter: Tina Berghella
Every day we receive updates of COVID19 data, restrictions and risk advice that is rich in mathematical information. How do we make sense of it? How can we support our learners to make sense of it? Join Tina in a discussion about some of the numeracy demands embedded in public health texts.
Tina Berghella is an independent VET consultant with a science and manufacturing background and an interest in numeracy in the workplace and in real life.
Free event: A national conversation on adult literacy approaches - what works?
Adult Learning Australia
September 8 at 1:00 – 2:30PM AEST
Keynote: Analiese Robertson- Director, ACE Aotearoa (NZ)
Panelists: Various
Celebrating Adult Learners Week and UNESCO International Literacy Day – Adult Learning Australia’s national conversation will bring together leading education organisations to explore their submissions into the Australian federal government’s inquiry into adult literacy and its importance. More details
LIVEWORKSHEETS
Liveworksheets allows you to transform your traditional printable worksheets (doc, pdf, jpg…) into interactive online exercises with self-correction, known as “interactive worksheets”. Students can do the worksheets online and send their answers to the teacher. This is good for the students (it’s motivating), for the teacher (it saves time) and for the environment (it saves paper).
Interactive worksheets take full advantage of the new technologies applied to education: they may include sounds, videos, drag and drop exercises, join with arrows, multiple choice… and even speaking exercises that the students must do using the microphone.
https://www.liveworksheets.com/
iSL COLLECTIVE
iSLCollective.com, the ‘Internet Second Language Collective is a community of language teachers from around the globe who share worksheets on this free-to-use platform. It’s for all language teachers, whether teaching in schools or doing one-on-one private tutoring. It has fill and send features, it generates a link to the worksheet and can be uploaded to Google classroom. Students will be able to fill the worksheet online.
“I stopped going to school when I was 13 so I could work. When I went back to finish in my 40s, I didn’t feel good when I graduated. I felt like I shouldn’t be there, and I didn’t deserve it. That feeling followed me all those years; it affected how I thought of myself. That’s a long time for someone to feel shame for something that happened when they were 13 years old.”
This quote from an adult learner opens Holly Armstrong’s article “Shame: an avoidable barrier to adult literacy learning” in Fine Print Vol.44(2). In case you are put off by the title, it is not a shaming article by any stretch. In fact, it is full of supportive and constructive ideas for freeing learners from shame.
As the great Molly Meldrum would say, do yourself a favour and have a read: https://bit.ly/ArmstrongFPVol44_2
Job vacancies advertised by NHVIC
eVALBEC
eVALBEC is the monthly electronic newsletter of (VALBEC) the Victorian Adult Literacy and Basic Education Council and is sent to about 1000 practitioners on the first of each month (other than January). It is also available in the ‘News’ section of our web site
Disclaimer:
The activities, goods and services mentioned in eVALBEC are not endorsed by Valbec in any way. People should make their own judgment about the suitability of each item.
How to submit items: https://www.valbec.org.au/evalbec