Gretchen's learning

'OpeNups' are tasks that give students opportunity to activate their learning. A rich and balanced maths programme includes  tasks  - these are open and solved in a short time,  investigations  - solved over a longer period of time, and  games  - open, repeated use, focus can change. Open tasks promote the 'dos' (understand - know - do) - modelling and investigating and communication. The give us an opportunity to assess in a fun way - by children exploring.  We spent time building tasks that teachers can do repeatedly with students and adapt. The aim is to have a folder that cluster teachers will contribute to and share tasks for multiple levels. Teachers creating tasks builds consistency and alignment with the progressions. We'll have a folder of annotated 'samples' of what students need to be doing to be 'here'. I liked seeing how Rob modelled launching an investigation (into coordinates), how engaged all learners were and the possibility for te...

 Firstly - much kudos and respect to Alida Maritz and the other  Manaiakalani Innovative Teachers  for their sharing today. It was awesome to see Alida up on stage sharing her project, S urvival Kete for New Teachers , at the Manaiakalani 2022 wānanga today. She has created a valuable tool for teachers - especially those who are beginning teaching in NZ. The inquiry projects were a highlight of the day. Alongside the teachers' Survival Kete, a couple of sites that would be really useful for our school are  Read Between the Lines  for comprehension activities for our learners and  Algebros is a tool for maths learning - also a really good looking site.  Some other take outs and things to think more about from today: as leaders we need to check implementation, check theory and check ourselves and our confirmation biases.  Implementation journey of a self organised solution...  where light blue is how we got there from the data, what 's u...

Another great session with Rob today.  I like that this was 'PLD for affirmation'. It showed how we can strengthen things we are already doing - not necessarily more stuff we need to do.  As an example, we thought of a game used in a junior maths class. We then looked through Rob's  Level 1 elaborations  and highlighted which elaborations were being 'activated' when the students played the game.   I thought of a game I saw some children in Karaka playing where they rolled a dice and covered up that amount of numbers on a hundreds board with counters. This is activating forward number sequences and visual patterns for numbers. Rob challenged us to think how we could tweak the game to hit more of the elaborations - e.g. use two dice, record the number they roll, do it backwards (ie cover the numbers first and remove them - so backwards sequencing). This emphasised the value of games in our maths programmes and how much learning they offer. We can use a game t...

Our maths curriculum action team had the opportunity to observe some of Rob's demo lessons at Ardmore School last week. Rob modelled with a year 5/6 group how you can have 6 questions around the room, kids buddy up and move around answering as many as poss. Teachers rove listening in to chat. After 20ish mins of problem solving, students were able to select to go back to one of the problems and talk more about it with one of the teachers i.e. what was hard, what was easy, common strategies. This is an engaging and efficient way for a teacher to check in and see where kids are at and tune in to what misconceptions there may be and what next learning steps are. A way more efficient and engaging way to assess than GLoSS. We've planned to do this in Totara next week - it'll be great formative assessment. MoveNprove - this is a way to deliver a multi-choice question. It provides teachers with a quick snapshot of children's thinking in maths.  In a MoveNprove is a great '...

Fiona's slides Daily was the key here - Fiona's message is that students need to practise using their Drive everyday. This needs to be routine and is part of being a 'Cyber Smart Learner'.  For example - can you find your Drive quickly. There are three quick ways to find your Drive - it's good to know these. Some people like bookmarks, some like short cuts... We need to be planning and designing opportunities each day for students to work with Drive  - this doc is for teachers - we can check there are opportunities for children to do at least one activity similar to these each day. So for example, at writing time teachers might use the 'Weekly Writing Doc' for students daily journalling. These 'cyber smart' learning and practise activities would be a part of the learning already happening, rather than 'another thing', or something done as well as. There's lesson plans for teachers. It would be good to include something like these  Daily ...

 Te Rito Toi is a fabulous resource I have posted about previously that shows us the value in using the arts to re-engage children in learning following disasters and crisis (i.e. EQs, COVID). This conference was an opportunity to explore some of these lessons and have workshops with wonderful art practitioners. Professor Peter O'Conner  began today by sharing ' Teaspoon of Light ' -  It is an ideal lesson for first days back and may be extended upon.  Peter took us through the lesson with us as his students, which allowed us to experience how powerful every element is and that schools must prioritise  time and space for art and to connect, create and be together.  A warm up and connection activity (a drama game where we moved around space and greeted others in variety of ways) immediately made the space seem more comfortable and friendly/safe. Contributing to a cloth of dreams - chatting to others or not.   Peter talked about the power of questions, e...