Term 3 Reflections.

Last week the class reflected on what Term 3 was like in our classroom.

We used three criteria's:

• What worked in Term ?
• What didn't work?
• What did we want to see in Term 4?

Students opted to work on their own or in groups of their own choice. The conservations I over heard were amazing. My students were really reflecting about the three questions and the language they were using made me feel so proud. Words like, self manager, independent, options, student voice could be heard throughout their conversations.

I wanted to punch the air as it finally seemed to all be working.

One BIG issue I have had with all of this change is how long it 'seems' to take. It wasn't a 'quick' fix and there were times I wondered if it was all going to work. I guess I thought all children by now should be 'self managers' and it has taken me a while to realise that this isn't always going to be the case.  There are still some students in my class who are 'directed' learners. I would say 2 definitely and another 3 now and them. So I guess out of a class of 26 that is pretty good. I think until I did this Term 3 reflection. It wasn't until I heard them discussing and talking about the questions did I realise how far they had come.  Rather than just say 'this didn't work"   they were trying hard to find alternative solutions and working with other groups to gather ideas.

Timetables

This term in the classroom we are learning to use timetables to decided what we will be doing each day.
We started this week and it seemed to go pretty well. There are already a few changes I know I need to make for next week but overall I am very impressed at how the class adapted to this so fast.

We have had a busy start to the term as we have had Athletics day as well as Softball training so it has meant that our hours of independent work has dramatically decreased.

Each Monday students will take their own timetable and review my timetable which will be on the IWB. By doing this, they can see what is happening during the week that are compulsory and when they will meet me for reading and writing groups. Once they have been pencilled in, they then look at their MUST/ CAN activities and decide when they are going to do them.

MUST activities are compulsory and tend not to change week to week. It usually is, touch typing/handwriting ( handwriting books for a small group only), spelling, reading, timetables, 100WC and a science question. Then I add in others that are relevant to their Topic for the term.

CAN activities are a range  activities that they do to help consolidate their learning. Most are linked to maths, art, music etc and some link to our Topic  Some of the class are doing their own choice and therefore don't complete the CAN'S. This is a small group of students who have shown that they are 100% self managers and therefore I have given them the chance to decide on their own learning during these times.

Changes:
I will divide the timetable into 30 minutes slots as students tended to only write one activity in.
I will add in all the MUST's for my 'directed' students which will be at the beginning of the week. (rest can decide when and where they put them as they understand they need to be completed by the end of the week).
Make sure I have seen everyone's Timetable by the end of class on a Monday.

Althletics

With the onset of Athletics day looming, our syndicate goes out together so children get the opportunity to practice the track and field events every day. I like that the children have this opportunity to work on their skills, participate and have some friendly competition. Yet how it used to be taught in the past even bored me. Therefore if I’m bored surely the students are as well? Don’t get me wrong, I am not anti PE and do love being outside, but to me it just wasn’t working. We tended to move around in our classes and spend up to 30 minutes on one chosen item. Trying to engage a whole class, teach them skills and then let them work on this always felt rushed and disorganised. I never felt like I was making most of the opportunity or able to really teach them the proper techniques. I also had students who found certain track and field areas quite tough and a challenge. Each day they dreaded this hour with one actually avoiding school in order not to do it. Notes slowly would come in as well and athletics training felt more like a chore rather than a pleasure.

This year we decided to try and teach it in a way that was more like a MLE style that some of us have been trailing in the classrooms. We gave the students options! The first day we did this we allowed them the opportunity to visit any station they like. They had to spend at least 15 minutes there and had to do at least 3 stations. It worked ok but as teachers we still felt we didn’t really have the opportunity to teach the skills without new students coming over and some were still overcrowded.

Day two we decided to group the children into their age groups and designated two stations that were the MUST activities. Each day, two groups would go to the MUST activities and then carry on with their CAN choices. The rest of the groups had CAN activities but had to complete a certain amount in the allocated time. This worked so much better as groups were smaller and as a teacher, I felt that I had the time to teach new skills and techniques. It also meant that students had ample time to practise and work on their technique.

Feedback from my students showed that they enjoyed being given the opportunities’ to decide themselves what activities they wanted to do. My students who found athletics challenging also enjoyed it as well. Even my usual ‘absent’ one only missed one day out of the two weeks we did this! They also turned up to Athletics Day as they had realised that they had a pretty good throw on them!

 

Visioning for design.

The Graduate Profile is one stage of moving towards our MLE. Most schools in Christchurch who are part of the rebuild have gone through the same process.

Schools Education Vision - Project Brief- Master Planning - Design - Construction

One of these meetings was based on our vision. How do we want learning to look? What do our children need now? ... and in the future?  On our journey to this stage teachers have had the opportunity to visit a number of schools who are considered to be MLE. What strikes me is that some schools have been built  brand new, designed with this idea while others have 'developed' from what they already had- their old buildings.

Unfortunately I didn't get to visit Waimairi School but listening to the teachers who did and their feedback it was probably the one school I felt really portrayed the idea about 21st century learners rather than the idea it was all about the building. I think that is one pitfall we can get into thinking a MLE has to be new with all this 'flash' ICT equipment, amazing furniture, new buildings. But to be honest that is not what it is about. The building does not make it, it is what is happening inside that does. I think this sums up perfectly http://fcl.eun.org/learning-spaces  what 21st learning is all about.


One question we were asked was to do with our practice- how will this look like? What LEARNING ACTIVITES are needed?

Most MLE take on four things;

• Collaboration
• Personalised learning
• Authentic learning activities 
• Learning through presentation

The nest step was to look at our own Graduate Profile and based it around these ideas and questions.

Our first one was EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATORS
What activities?
How will we make it work?
What do we need to enable this to happen (resources)?
What will staff need to do.

Below are some of the ideas we came up with.

        


What I always enjoy about these activities is what other teachers come up with and how sharing our knowledge and ideas develops our own thinking and may even change some of the ways we work and teach!

I was keen to take one and try it out next term and was lucky enough a few colleague's in the UK wanted to start up a pen pal club. So that is one way we are going to be 'Effective communicators'.