Changing it Up

Term One and our schools disposition is Effective Communicators. Usually  as a class we deconstruct each pathway and come up with ways on how we can achieve each path. I would then label the poster with these ideas.

This year I decided to do this in another way. My reasoning behind this was although we were working as a class to come up with ideas and then placing them on the pathways, I still felt some students were not actually engaged, using or reflecting on them.  I also felt I wasn't using reflecting/relating on them with the class as effectively as I wanted to.

When we first started using these pathways, it seemed fine to put ideas down as it was all new to the students and they had to learn the language, each pathway and how to relate it to class life.

I wanted to link the dispositions as much as I could to learning and everyday life. These dispositions are what we as adults also use and I wanted my students to see this and make connections. In came Stem (science, technology, engineering and maths). I set up a 'Tech Tuesday' where each week or fortnight (depending on the task) the students had to work in groups to achieve a Stem Challenge. The groups always had to be different and our dispositions linked to our success criteria.

Overall I felt the class saw more value in doing it this way as they could see a clear connection. This disposition worked so well with the Stem challenges as the students could clearly see each week how a lot of the paths related to their challenge. This connection achieved more student reflection and feedback as well. They also loved the fact that at times they were 'Leading' and you would hear groups discussing how this was a 'Using' or 'Leading' path.

Next Term I am unsure if I will continue with the Stem challenges or link our next disposition to a new challenge.