Gretchen's learning

Today Michelle and I were discussing literacy programme/achievement/learning happening in Room 1.  While there is good progress happening with reading I'm not happy with writing. What's happening currently: A focus has been on sorting reading levels, groups and independent activities.  Now that reading routines are established, I need to give my writing teaching a spruce up.  The children have been writing most days - but it is mainly independent and for 'mileage'.  I'm noticing some children writing as minimal as possible.  Some children are writing at length - but with long, run on sentences and repetition. I've noticed too that when we have an interesting experience together - if I mention 'writing' I get a bit of a 'ugh, we don't have to write about it now do we' type reaction. Currently, my expectations of the children's writing is too low - I've been happy if a sentence or two is written, thinking well it's a start!   B...

Good chat with 'critical friends' today reflecting on our teaching as inquiry. My reflection: I've got a bit stuck in the 'learn' part of the cycle and I need to make some small goals and focus on taking action.  One thing that will help is to calendar &/or diarise these actions. My first small goal, a take out from Mantle Winter School, is to script key questions and dialogue in my teaching and have this in front of me to teach from.

with Tim Taylor and Viv Aitkin - introduction of (at least) 4 tools. Reading -  Levels of Engagement Day 1 - we were presented with an image of a Year 2 class.  The teacher is off to the side in role as Florence Nightingale visiting the hospital at Scutari during the Crimean War for the first time.  Some students are lying on desks with class members around them  in role of doctors and nurses - all appear fully committed.  This image was taken 2 hours in to a lesson sequence The task: what was going on when FN came into that space? What do they need to know to do that? Looking backwards from the photo - back mapping/planning - what were the steps in?  What would students need to have ?  How will we shift them to the 1860s? Inductive process.  Invitation.  What will need to happen in our class to make this a meaningful experience?  We want students to learn what it was like to be in a place like Scutari and what kind of a differen...

MERGA 41 Keynote: Assoc Prof Marcy Wood - Making waves and opening spaces.   This was linked to a coastline image. waves: erosion and desposition, shaking things up.  Require open space: new possibilities, invitations, participation, creativity. inequity within maths learning spaces in NZ (as also in US). Status - who's good? we're rank ourselves, we rank others. We base this on perceptions of competence, assumption - rather than actual mathematical competence.  There can be a stereo-typical image of who is smart in maths.  Teachers need to erode stereotype and make space for everyone to be smart in maths. 'Higher status' students have more opportunities to learn - get more floor space. High status > over-particiation Low status > under-particiaption **i dentify our students who are over participating and under participating.  Consider what superpower might our over participators have that needs to be developed (e.g. listening) and ...

  so much to work with here .  This research project will support us to disrupt our teaching.  Today we talked about  initiate-response-evaluate  (IRE) which is number one pattern in classes globally.  One thing I can do is record myself teaching and hear how much of this I do.    As teachers we need notice what the kids are offering? what do we notice? what do we uptake?  Are we open  to being 'unplanned'  and understand the critical features of a collaborative argumentation instructional framework... And go meta - what do you notice I'm noticing? Be explicit , apparent , visible.  Focus on process. Scaffolds - teachers good at putting these in place - an important part is taking these down.

 An example of how Seesaw is a good tool to make learning visible, to document learning within our school. John is in a Quick 60 group with Mel (Learning Assistant) They use Seesaw to record what they've been doing. - As a class teacher I can see John is learning about cubes - that might connect to / inform my teaching in other areas e.g. maths.  I have a recording of John's oral language I might use as evidence when making judgements on ELLP matrix.  As SENCo I can consider how we can make the most of our intervention groups  with digital hat on I am pleased digital teachnologies/learn create share is being used well by all teaching staff  safety - the data is going straight into a secure place. With some of the new digital regulations/data storage laws coming in in other countries - those issues are a thing. And Seesaw is compliant with overseas data/privacy laws.   As it's on Seesaw - I was alerted to approve this post before it was pu...

 PLC facilitated by Jacinta Oldehaver. I have come away with much food for thought and ideas. A prompt we were given for homework was considering the prompt above re pets being allowed on transport. Come prepared to share one thing you worked on/added/modified/refined/evaluated/substantiated with this discussion board starter! So I was thinking how this could work in a junior class. A hook could be teacher in role - maybe having a discussion on the phone about the decision, or talking to her friend with one person being supportive of it and the other person not thinking it's a good idea. We could then go on to discuss what we saw/heard and share our thoughts and opinions using some of the 'Now What?' prompts from Jacinta's slide (above). We could start chats on Seesaw using the voice comment feature. We could experiment with Flipgrid and maybe Padlet (video feature) to record our opinions. Such an activity could be extended further : Maths - space on the ...