Writing inquiry - Week 1 examples

Examples of my students writing.

Students were given the screen shot and watched the animation again. Also included was a range of vocabulary which students were encouraged to use in their own writing.

Students took part in shared writing and then were asked to go and write their own opening. Students were supported and guided when needed.

Year 4 student

Year 3 Student

The Lighthouse

One of the reasons I choose my inquiry to be based around picture books and media is because I am a big fan of them. I also feel as teachers, we need to be exposing students to books and media to help develop their writing ideas and skills.

This week I used the Lighthouse off the Literacy Shed. I am a big fan of the Literacy Shed ( and the Mathematics Shed)and love the range of animations in each shed. There are a number of different sheds to choose from and I have explored all of these sheds and never once been disappointed.

I didn't have a real reason why I decided on The Lighthouse ,it was more I have always liked this animation and I have wanted to use it with a class for a very long time.

This week has been quite difficult as I have been out of class all week and haven't actually taken my writing groups.
I have had to rely on feedback from the teachers taking my groups and photographic evidence. Below is what I had put in place for those who were covering my class.

One of the main concerns I had for my chosen four was the fact they lacked ideas to help get them started to write. Left to their own devices nearly all of them would sit there not knowing what to write. Which showed in the unaided writing task I gave them.

By using picture books or media, I hope to help develop their ideas. This week the plan was to deconstruct the film and develop a story map and word bank for students to use.

I am someone who believes that when you are writing you need to have material all around the room to help aide students to develop and create their own ideas. It can be very daunting (even for adults) to be asked to write about something without any help or guidance.

At the start of the week I gave them screen shots (Courtesy of Tom Silver) from the animation and the students had to discuss a plausible narrative for what might be happening. Talking is also a big thing I am into when it comes to writing. My theory is 'if they can't talk it they can't write it'. I have been a big fan of Talk for Writing which was the developed by Pie Corbett and supported by Julia Strong and incorporate a lot of his ideas into my own lessons.

After this, the students then watched the animation stopping at vital points so that I could ask them a few questions and we could discuss  and make predictions as to what they thought. ( I did take ideas  that were shared on the Literacy Shed site).

Children also brainstormed language to describe the setting using nouns, adjectives and adverbs.

We discussed possible outcomes as we neared the end of the animation as well.

I then allowed them to watch the animation all over again with interrupting them. After that we discussed anything new we could add to our working wall of vocabulary, ideas and thoughts.

Next students worked in mixed ability groups and using the screen shots story mapped each scene using phrase, vocabulary etc. Students also created speech bubbles (where appropriate) to write down the Lighthouse keeper's thoughts and utterances.

I modelled this for students by creating a mini guided writing of the first scene and then as a group we did a shared writing of the second screen shot. Although not quite shared writing as we were only adding in vocabulary, phrases similes, alliteration etc.  By doing this I wanted to understand the task but also to model an expectation I had on them for vocabulary choices.

Below is the first screen shot and the vocabulary and phrases I modelled for them. This would be used later in the week when they started to write their opening to the animation. I would do a shared writing with them and use a lot of the vocabulary I had collected. I would then expect them to 'magpie' at least three of my words or phrases.

 

Modelled Vocabulary.

 

Sea crashing against the rocks

Bright yellow lights that goes on for miles

Light that beckons the ships to safety

Jagged rocks standing to attention

Clouds tip toed across the black night

Illumination of the silver moon

Solitude lighthouse standing alone on the edge of a cliff.

Full moon

As with most planning, I tend to plan the first two days and see where we get. All the above took the whole week to complete. Next week I will continue to use this animation and begin to develop some writing.

Writing Inquiry Week One

As I embark on my first inquiry I have decided to record my findings here as I know that questions, queries and uncertainties can be answered. I am not sure how to approach this inquiry and what is the best way to record all the evidence, information and findings I come across so any advice will be appreciated.

The four students I have chosen are students are writing below the National Standards for their age. All but one is a year three student.

My year four student is writing at a level 1A (OTJ- Overall Teacher Judgment)  but it is not always consistent

All my year threes are writing at a 1P  (OTJ) depending on the day.

According to National Standards  in year 3 my students need to be doing this;

Students will independently write texts that are clearly directed to a particular audience. They will organise their texts according to a basic structure that meets their purpose for writing (for example, a story with a beginning, middle, and an end). These texts will include, when appropriate:

·         content, mostly relevant, that conveys several experiences, items of information, and/or ideas relating to a curriculum topic and that sometimes includes detail and/or comment

·         mainly simple and compound sentences that vary in their beginnings and lengths and in the simple conjunctions used

·         attempts at some complex sentences

·         some specific vocabulary that is appropriate to the content of the text.

By the end of year 4 they need to be able to;

Students will independently write texts, using language and a simple text structure that suit their audience and purpose (for example, when recounting, describing, narrating, reporting, or explaining). These texts will include, when appropriate:

·         content that is mostly relevant to the curriculum task, covers a range of ideas, experiences, or items of information, and often includes detail and/or comment supporting the main points

·         mainly simple and compound sentences that vary in their beginnings structures, and lengths and are mostly correct grammatically

·         attempts at complex sentences

·         words and phrases, in particular, nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, that clearly convey ideas, experiences, or information.

Below is the unaided piece of writing I gave my students last week.

Year 4

Year 3

Year 3

Year 3

Putting the zing into maths

I was lucky enough to attend a maths course that was focussing on the approaches to teaching mathematics.

I have always had a nagging feeling in the back of my head that at times I don't teach maths to the best of my ability. The reason behind this is because I was dropped into a classroom with no training in this math curriculum.  I have basically read the books, asked the questions and tried to get my head around what I am supposed to do. But I always wondered if I was doing it the right way.

Thankfully this course gave me that sense of relief that I have been doing the majority correct - ( haven't yet got my head around modelling books!).

This course focussed on the teaching of maintenances in maths which I still can't get out of the habit of calling starters.

What I found interesting was that a lot of teachers don't teach this or find it hard to set differentiated activities for the students. This is something that was expected from my previous school so is something I have never found difficult to do.

Courses like these are always great to go on as they remind you of old activities you have forgotten about and new ones to learn. This course also focussed on developing students mathematical discussion and encouraged the use of literacy in the lesson. Which I loved!

Takeaways for me were:

• Making sure that there were 'I can" statements for each stages and examples of this so students can see the progression, where they are at and what they need to do to get to the next stage.

One great idea was to use these statements as a maintenance activity. Either discussing what it meant or getting students to show you what they understand the statements to mean.

• Are we pulling out our information from our data?

What does your data say about your students? Do you re visit what they still don't understand? Does your teaching reflect your data? Use maintenance to re visit this and always differentiate to meet the needs of your students even those at the same stages.

• Don't teach Monday to Friday instead it should be Day 1 to Day 5 with the fifth day having a literacy focus.

Use picture books to communicate mathematical knowledge and learning, word problems or even get students to create their own maths story. As long as it is filled with language.

This is something I have tried hard to do each week. I noticed a lot of the teaching of mathematical was number based and when we were assessing the students we asked children questions based on a word problem/story which totally threw them.  One thing I have been trialling this week is the microphone on the active board. Each day I have put up a new picture up that they need to turn into a multiplication story.

• The Knowledge is important.

You don't always have to teach the strategies. If the strategy is not there then in most cases it is because the knowledge is not secure. Place value, place value, place value- students need a good understanding of this. Having moved to a lower stage in maths this is something I have learn this year. A lot of the time I am teaching the knowledge as my students don't have this understanding yet.

• Hands on

Show it , draw it, model it using as many different resources so students understand what the numbers means.
345
Use dienes blocks, money, write it, how many groups of?

What do I want to work on myself?
Get into the habit of using modelling books. I use a working wall and differentiate the activities by placing (big) sheets of paper around the room. I am (slowly) beginning to see the benefits of these books now.

• Rotations.

I haven't really been doing different rotation groups this term. This is because at times I can have three teachers in the room and with a class of 18 we tend to have our little groups set already.

• What I want to try is the idea of

Concept- small group teaching with the teacher
Practise- using the modelling book with set questions (six at the most) and a maths buddy to work with
Application- independently solve problems that also incorporate word based problems.

This is something I have done in the past but again let slip this term mainly because most of my students struggled to do any work independently and it has taken me a long time to set up/make resources that cater for this level.

Effective Communicator Week 6

One thing we all agreed on when setting up these challenges each week, was to utilize our own students in our syndicate and the different ways they communicate.

Most weeks on our own blog we have been high lightening all the different languages spoken in our syndicate and teaching the rest of the school one phrase they can share with others.

This week is no different.

Effective Communicator Week 5

This week we decided to have a maths flair to communicate.

Thankfully I do these types of maths problems a lot so my class loved solving this challenge.

How do you teach others to grab the moment?

Having a graduate student in my class at the moment has me pondering over a number of different things. This week I have been wondering how we train teachers to learn to adapt and go 'off road' as I like to call it.  If the opportunity arose in class would they adapt? Deviate from the planning? Grab that teachable moment?

Where do you learn this when you’re training to be a teacher?

Do lecturer’s and associate teachers help? Do they encourage them to plan but adapt? Do they model/show this and the importance of not always sticking to what is written down in front of you?

I have been trying to model this with my student because I feel that it is important.

The two I told her in the first week were:

·         First and foremost build a relationship with the students – get to know them well.

·         Learn to adapt, change, and go off timetable when the situation arises.

I still find a lot of teachers cant or (maybe) won’t do this. To me, part of being a good teacher is all about taking a risk.

By doing everything to the letter are we actually benefiting the student’s we are teaching or are we being detrimental to their learning?

They say the question is critical.

This term I have had to embark on this based around writing.

My head is full of wonderings. I can't say ideas as I feel I don't have anything concrete at all to even justify as an inquiry question.

The hurdle started when our advisor for the school asked me a number of question about what I do in class for writing. Everything she was asking me - I  already was doing and with success! I felt no closer to an idea and a little disheartened.

Everyone around me seemed to be coming up or developing questions and I began to feel  I was making the task harder than it was.

My main issues is I already reflect a lot about my own teaching and how this impacts the students I am teaching. Having just had my appraisal I have had a lot of food for thought and have been thinking a lot about how my teaching and learning has changed so much since moving to year 3 and 4.

This term, I have (nearly) a whole new writing group most are students who have yet to meet national standards therefore are a great target group for a teacher inquiry! Like maths I am working with levels and writers I am unfamiliar with.

I started to think I could base my inquiry around what I have done in the past with my students who have been writing at Level 2 and 3. In the past I have good success with my students and writing. I began to wonder was it because they were able and keen writers or was it the way I was teaching them? There fore I began to see this as a inquiry question.

The question they say is  critical. Get this right, and everything else is easy.

My Question : Can I motivate my writers (who are not 'yet' at national Standards) and increase writing quality so they can experience success as confident, connected and actively involved writers using media and picture book as a stimulus?


Edited: Thanks to feedback from Sonya I have edited my wording of low writers.

Happy Birthday !

It’s our birthday!

Who doesn’t love a birthday and not many of us can say we are 143 years old.

As a team we decided to make the most of it. We set aside Friday to be a whole party day.

We created cupcake toppers, made party hats and decorated a room so we could celebrate.

When we started planning this we used ‘our’ knowledge of what we should do. Most of the day, the students planned but in the end we had ‘set up’ the ideas. Although they designed their own cupcakes and designed the room, part of me now wishes we had let them decide a lot more.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a fun day and the students loved it. But I still feel we decide a lot for them and are not giving them a voice to lead us. (This is one area I haven't yet achieved this year). But what was amazing about the day is we covered so much of the curriculum and Key Competencies in this day with out have the usual day of maths, reading, writing etc.

Sometimes it is hard. With so many great ideas flying about it, you can feel overwhelmed with what you should and shouldn’t be doing. Our team has had so many changes this year and I always have to remember that whatever we decide and do needs to always be what is best for our students.

In the end the students had a great time and my own reflections and changes can be put into the planning for next year.

Some highlights of the day were;

Biggest surprise- many of them had never played ‘pass the parcel’

Greatest moment- so many of my students telling me it was the best day ever ( and now I am reflecting on how to create this most days!).

That we had an awesome day!

 

 

 

 

Effective Communicators Week 4

This week we are celebrating our schools birthday- 143 years old!


So why not set a task based around this. One of pathways to becoming an effective communicator is learning about how we can communicate using technology.

So the task…

 

 

Which sent you here

 

Task

 



How do you accelerate learning?

Lately I have been wanting to create more post to show evidence for my teacher registration criteria (RTC).
This is something I haven't been doing frequently and part of being a teacher it is a must. The Education Council of Aotearoa requires all teachers to be registered and to keep this registration up to date. I have recently become a fully registered teacher (again). When I returned from the UK I spent a year as a provisionally registered teacher. As I have now meet all the requirements I then went onto apply to be a fully registered teacher. I have posted quite a few posts that meet each requirement so felt it was about time I linked them to each section.
Today on BFC630NZ the chat for the three days have been based around national Standards. Today's chat was on this.


I have decided to post a few of my suggestions I made to show how I cater for these students.

Our inquiry this term is based on our writing. Target is our below/well below #BFC630NZ

— Ruth (@ChCh_based) August 11, 2015

Our whole team monitors and knows targeted Ss. I'm constantly asking/questioning progress #BFC630NZ

— Ruth (@ChCh_based) August 11, 2015

Finding what makes them tick. Get to know them, show you care #BFC630NZ

— Ruth (@ChCh_based) August 11, 2015

Sometimes the norm doesn't work. You need to tweak planning, do different things. Break some rules #bfc630nz

— Ruth (@ChCh_based) August 11, 2015

Sometimes the whole school needs to be on the same page when it comes to common strategies and vocab #bfc630nz

— Ruth (@ChCh_based) August 11, 2015

I have swapped around my TA. I take the ones who need accelerated and she takes others. #bfc630nz

— Ruth (@ChCh_based) August 11, 2015

Ruth is right, acceleration processes need whole school buy in and you need to be consistent #BFC630NZ https://t.co/iM7jFAtl5p

— StephT (@st3ph007) August 11, 2015

What am I doing wrong?

This year has been filled with a lot of challenges and once again this term has seen more challenges arise.

My biggest hurdle at the moment is maths. For the last few years I have taught Stage 6+. This year I started off teaching Stage 5+ and now I have moved down to Stage 4. I love all the learning I am doing and appreciate the fact I am getting to  know the math curriculum in more detail. What I am finding hard is my teaching and am I teaching my students in the best way possible?

The issue is these are year 3 and 4 students who (according to National Standards) should be at stage 5 by the end of their school year. We are only just starting stage 4! This doesn't bother me because...

My issue is I am beginning to feel my style of teaching isn't suitable for these students and I don't know what I can do.

Every day no matter how hard I am trying some of my students just don't get it. I feel like I have tried everything. Visual, hands on, making it fun, competitive, real life context yet in my eyes nothing seems to be working. I know a lot of people would just scoff and make a snide comment about the type of students I have in the class, no motivation, behaviour, just can't do maths. But that is not so.

I am big on reflecting and when things are not going right, I don't blame the students I blame myself.
What is it that I'm not doing right?
How can I change so that they can learn?

The answer still alludes me but hopefully...

Why can't they spell?

We were given some professional readings last week and one being a hand out form e-shortcuts.

One article in there caught my eye as it was all about spelling. Lately on many teachers forums the discussion of spelling has popped up with many teachers wondering how to teach it.

A lot of the questions were about the best spelling programme and this notion that todays children don't seem to spell as well as on previous years.

We seem to think these days children can’t spell like the used to. So it was interesting when I started reading Was it ever thus that this was being challenged. The main question was how do we know?

There will always be a number of students who can’t spell. They will never master the spelling rules and systems. But do students of today spell any worse than say fifty years ago?

It seems that we link texting and the way today students abridge everything to their lack of spelling abilities. But where  is the evidence?

In his article Dennis Sleigh questions all of the above and ask a valid question- when it comes to spelling performances just how much do we really know?

He questions where the evidence is or if it is merely judgements of various individuals who themselves mastered the skills and today resent the weakness of current youths (Was it ever thus?)

A great way to explain this is John’s McWhorter Ted talk who explains that texting is a not a writing skill but a speaking one. I agree with him purely because when I text or even tweet anyone, I feel I am talking to the recipient rather than actually writing. And I am someone who does remember life before mobile phones!

People are always going to worry about spelling and I love how McWhorter actually highlights this right back to 63AD and even then people were complaining about spelling and literacy standards.

So is it really a modern day issue?

This article concludes that there will always be a significant number who will never master spelling no matter how much we teach them. He also highlight this will be the same for someone trying to learn a language, play a trumpet or even cross stich.

The article goes on to say that yes, we should still keep up the efforts to improve spelling and grammar but do it without beating yourselves up (Was it ever thus?)

Are we spending too much time worrying about the unsolvable?

Original article came from Was it ever thus? Dennis Sleigh  e-shortcuts July 2015

Graduate Student

Tomorrow I have my first Graduate student!

This is her first time in a classroom and I am slightly nervous. The Graduate degree is slightly different to the Post Graduate Primary degree that Universities run. This is more classroom based and you can take less than a year or more than a year to complete it depending on how quickly you meet all the requirements. As this is my first time having someone no doubt I will blog about the differences and similarities I had when doing mine.

I am not 100% sure how a post graduate degree is run these days. I did mine in 1999! At that time they only let fifty people apply for a place on the programme ( not sure if this is still the same). I applied for this only because I wanted to carry on with becoming an Educational Psychologist and was told that I should have a teaching degree as this would help me. So I sent in my application, passed that, then passed the interview section.

There had been over 200 applicants and my cohort of fifty adults had only five of us who had just finished our university degree. The rest had been in fulltime employment and had wanted a change in career.

I'm not sure what to expect tomorrow. I am quite lucky as I work alongside some who has just finished this programme so I can ask her lots of questions.

My biggest challenge will be to plan on paper. I tend to bounce form one idea to another, change my planning halfway through and post it note a lot of my ideas.

Tomorrow is going to be an interesting day.

Effective Communicators Week 3

This week as it was Cook Island Language week we wanted to create a task linked to this and the other Pacific Islands.

This task was a little harder as it wasn't something the class could solve in the time we allocate each week for this.
The capital City section was ideal to teach in class as many of my students had no idea how to use a atlas or work out what the capital city of a place would be.

It was also great to hear the children talk about who they were going to ask in the syndicate how to say 'hello' in their language. We already had a student from Fiji so they become effective communicators  by asking him.

When ever we spend time on these tasks we always use our pathways to discuss what sections of the path we are using. It has been great to see the students make these connections and tell me what sections they are using.

So this weeks task in photos.

Soul Searching

 

 

I love appraisal time as it is pretty much a time of 'Soul Searching'.

This year I have reflected a lot on the way I teach, who I am (as a teacher) and where I want to go.

I haven't answered them all and I am still searching and wondering about a lot of things.

 

What I do know is that last year was a very steep learning curve for me and opened my eyes up to how I saw things. I will admit I am stubborn, passionate and somewhat opinionated. Sometimes this isn't always a great combination. And near the end of last year, I let my ego get the better of me.

 

A recent trip to Wellington along with my professional readings and comments on Twitter made me realise I needed to stop and take a step back in regards to how I was approaching all the changes that were occurring in our school. One of the highlights of the trip was listening to the principal of Amesbury School talking about how new teachers entered their school. Teaching them that it was 'sacred' ground and to tread lightly in regards to their ideas, thoughts and opinions of how they thought the school should be operating. I happened to attend this trip with my principal and at that moment I wanted the ground to swallow me up. Everything she said resonated with me and what I had done wrong!

 

 I let my enthusiasm get the better of me. Now there is nothing wrong with this but I pushed too hard and voiced (loudly) my opinions. As much as I was keen to start changing my pedagogy and take on all the great ideas off Twitter I had to realise that not everyone else was ready. Things take time, and sometimes I am not the right person to be promoting this. Yes, it's wonderful to be trying new things in your own class and feel a sense of success but not everyone sees what you are seeing. I started only looking at myself and my own ideas rather than the vision of the school and what was best for our students.

 

This is the great thing about reflecting on your own learning. You will make mistakes and get it wrong but you can move forward and make changes.

 

Week Two of Effective Communicators

Week Two of our Effective Communicators saw the whole school working out another clue.

All classes how now received their first puzzle piece and they are desperately trying to work out what it could be.

I let my class solve this week’s clues in groups of three. We stopped at time to discuss and talk about what parts of the Effective Communicators pathway we were using so they gained more insight into what it meant to be an ‘Effective Communicator’.

I was extremely impressed with my class this week as they didn’t really need my help at all. I posed questions to them when they were stuck and tis enabled them to solve the clues!

This is what we started off with

 

Next we had to solve this. My class quickly realised that there were two different puzzles in the envelope.

 

     This gave them the clue to the next piece of the puzzle.

 

From the picture of the door, you can tell I work in a very old school building!

Inside the chest was their next piece of the puzzle which contained a cross word.

 

My class caught onto this clue quite quickly realising they needed to highlight all the other letter. What was harder was some couldn’t quite comprehend the answer – ‘wills has the key’ = Miss Will (a Teacher) had the key they needed to collect. Once they clicked on they received a key with their room number on it. This went back into their Effective Communicators bag and then returned to the blue box to await their next clue and a brand new puzzle piece.

Working with a beginning teacher (BT)

So far this year I have worked with three different teachers and three completely different styles of teaching and planning. This has got me thinking about they way I teach and plan. This term I am working with a BT (beginning teacher) and I have already realised that my way of planning lessons doesn't gel with there's.

This is one problem you have when planning and teaching in a team. I have had to adapt my way of planning to suit someone else. Now, I can hear some of you asking 'why doesn't the other person change theirs?' and to be honest fair comment but as an experienced teacher and them a BT is that fair? I have the experience to adapt and change where most BT find this quite hard to do.

I don't plan long detailed planning these days. Back in the UK we were always expected to have detailed planning of every single lesson and even then I found that hard as I had a tendency to chop and change everything. These days I don't plan in so much detail and I tend to plan the first two days and then from that gauge how the rest of the week will transpire. My planning is fill of scribbles annotated notes or post its. I am quite happy to go off on a tangent if it means meeting my students needs.

I am someone who can pretty much think up an idea on the way to work and run with it. I chop and change my planning, ideas and pretty much my day sometimes.

This isn't for everyone.

I began to realise this in the first week with my new colleague. While I was explaining my ideas about blocking out the whole morning for reading and writing I could sense she wanted actual times. I had envisage we would mix it up a bit. Set whole class teaching of the writing, let some go off, small groups teaching, a bit of reading, back to writing etc. What they wanted was a lot more structure and a block for reading and writing.

I am learning (slowly) that sometimes you have to let go your ideas and slip into others even if it is not want you want. There will be time for me to help develop my new colleague into being a little more flexible but for now my role is to be supportive and help them become a great teacher.