Article link: student feedback

https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2017/10/15/developing-students-ability-to-give-and-take-effective-feedback/

10 Ways to Empower Students With Choice

Giving Student Feedback

MindShift blog-post
https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2017/04/12/why-giving-effective-feedback-is-trickier-than-it-seems/

Modern Practices

Some interesting reads!

https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2016/12/05/how-to-integrate-growth-mindset-messages-into-every-part-of-math-class/

https://eduwells.com/2016/12/10/5-tools-for-student-driven-learning/

Modern Learning Example: School 21 (UK)

School 21

An English multi-level school "Elevating Student Voice: Combining Wellbeing, Speaking Skills, and Project-Based Learning

TED Talk How to Learn From Mistakes

Found embedded in this MindShift blogpost 'Ten Tips for Launching an Inquiry Based Classroom'

Engaging learners - how might we go about it?

Some ideas from NZ and international educators c/o the Learning Network NZ...

Carol Dweck - Growth Mindset TED Talk

The Mindset website

Discussion about fixed mindset versus growth mindset - Brainpickings blog

Modern learning - the role of teachers in the 21st Century

This week's video to contemplate, part of my course in the CORE MLP116 - challenging our beliefs about the role of teachers in today's education programmes.

M.I.N.T.S.

I have decided that my Year Sixes are not taking enough responsibility to use capitals correctly so have put together this incentive...

Pupils will get to take a mini mint whenever they have correctly used:

M for the months of the year (and days!)

I for the pronoun 'I'

N for names (people, places, countries, brands, important groups)

T for titles such as Mr, Mrs, Dr, Sir, madam

S for the start of sentences. 

Thanks to Raewyn Green from the Southland Campus of the University of Otago for the acronym hint!

Beginning of the year!

This year (and this week coming!) I plan to make use of these links that I have pinned on my Pinterest boards...mostly free downloads from Teachers Pay Teachers...

Link to image source

'All About Me' pupil info sheet - though I have had to twink and change the American spellings eg favorite into NZ's favourite etc - thanks Science Doodles at Teachers pay Teachers!

And some discussion points from this Hot Spot activity sheet thanks to Kristine from the Young Teacher Love blog.

We will be doing the "In Team Kahu we..." mural again, as I have a whole new team of pupils - let's set up our expectations right from the start!

'Parents' 3-2-1' question sheet - asking parents for info about their child - thanks LA Beach Teacher at TpT as well as asking them for their most appropriate contact information.

'Student Rights and Responsibilities' - gets everyone on the same page about the expectations in the classroom - thanks Angelia at TpT!

I always do What Kind of Teacher Do You Want? and so does Miss Freundlich, it works with any age-group and helps the pupils see that you are wanting to work with them as a team and will respect their opinions and needs.

And we look also at What a good pupil does, says, is and is not - here is Sarah's example.

We will build our own version of this Respect chart and also look at this How Big is My Problem chart.

I will be sharing a copy of Stephanie's poster of Glasser's What We Learn chart.

Star of the Week certificate -  I've ordered this, printed with Team Kahu in the title - thanks Creative Classrooms!

'Uh-oh!' - a note pupils can take home with any work that they need to finish because they didn't do it during their allocated class time - thanks Sally at TpT!

Attention grabbers - you call out, the pupils respond - thanks Traci at TpT! I will be adding "To infinity..." (pupils call out "and beyond!") - sound familiar??

Link to image source

When talking about our learning and skills progression, I will share this Assess Yourself Novice-Expert chart and I also love this Which Step Have You Reached Today chart posted on a Lifetime of Wisdom.

We will also be referring to this Positive Self-Talking chart as shared by Elliott Seif.

For group work and partner discussions I will have these on display, as shown here by Tanja:
Partners  and   Groups

Passion Projects as a LIteracy Programme

I've been devising a change for my literacy programme for my Year Six class - I don't know why I do this... well, actually, I DO know (it's because I am always trying to fine-tune my class programme to give the pupils the very best possible learning experiences...) but I have come up with (to quote Blackadder) "a cunning plan" to incorporate reading and writing by using the Passion Projects idea in a different way, one that will suit the way I operate...I'll try it out and see how it goes at least!

You can read my overview of intentions and term overview of topics here: click this link!

Basically, the plan is that at the start of the term I will offer up five different topics for literacy sessions - pupils will indicate which topic they are most interested in.  Guided groups will be developed from that, and I intend to incorporate relevant writing tasks alongside the reading tasks eg read an article about animal cruelty, write a letter to the SPCA commending them for their work - pupils may come up with ideas for writing as the unit progresses too (I want them to be guiding the direction of some of their tasks too...)

I need to have some aspect of control over the topics offered to the pupils as if I want to stay sane while building up the resources and lessons for four or five different groups I will need to keep certain limits on what is offered, while still giving pupils choices).  I have broken down some different topics into four terms - topics that twenty years of experience has shown are popular with pupils, while also trying to use topics that have relevant application to their world in 2015 and to have topics that will provide a good range of reading materials and writing contexts.

I have also aimed to cover a range of curriculum areas, with the topics being based on non-fictional themes, but choosing topics for which I will easily be able to find and incorporate fiction texts (ie in School Journal) that fit the theme as well, for instance in the unit about team sports we might read a narrative story about sportsmanship. I have also thought about topical events eg the 100th anniversary of Gallipoli and the Rugby World Cup.

I have thought of a range of EOTC experiences for the pupils to take part in at the end of their unit as incentives for completing a great range of tasks during the term. I have a goal to involve more parents, whanau (family) or community members as part of my class programme, so to have a couple of parents take a group of pupils for a morning fishing or to visit an exhibit at the aircraft museum, will be a good way to increase those connections.

For each unit, once I know which pupils are in that group, I will select the most relevant reading and writing learning outcomes to address, based on pupils' ability and next learning steps - these will be presented to the pupils for their comments and reflections on progress.

Wish me luck! I am off to start building up a class blog-post of online resources for each of Term One's topic units, as well as a Google Drive page for each unit (where the pupils of that group can look to find their independent task list, and I hope to also use the Google Drive for collaborated reflections and other shared tasks for each group/unit).

Farewell to my Class of 2014!

Last Friday was the last day for the totally awesome team of pupils that I have had the pleasure to teach during 2014...what a super fun year we have had together! It was quite an emotional day as this group of pupils really had a wonderful team morale and we had a great working partnership between us - I will miss everyone!

I always aim to develop pupils who will be independent, confident and capable young men and women, who care for others and respect themselves, and I think I achieved that (with more than a little help from their families/parents and previous teachers too)...good luck to all of them as they move on to the next chapter of their learning journeys, at their new schools in 2015...

Are you listening?

Image source

Some cool tips here for ways to help pupils learn to listen...

http://www.edutopia.org/blog-five-listening-strategies-rebecca-alber

BLOOMing good!

A great poster to remind us of the multitude of ways to incorporated Bloom's Taxonomy in the classroom...

Thanks Mia, An Ethical Island blog

iPads in the classroom workshop 31-07-2014

Some practical activities using iPad apps in the classroom...an e-learning workshop for teachers...

Remembering the SAMR Model...we will be aiming to be actively creating (modifying and redefining) our own products to share information with the ipads (rather than just "playing games" with apps)...

Today's task/s: incorporating maths, writing, oral language, visual language...

1. Use the camera to take 5-6 photos of 2-d shapes in the playground or classroom.
2. Use the Skitch app to label the photos. Then you can use the photos from your PhotoStream or CameraRoll to...

• Create a Tellagami in which you verbally describe the attributes of one of the shapes you photographed.
• Your Tellagami can be saved to use as a video file (to upload to Vimeo* or You Tube), or shared to Facebook, Twitter etc (if you have activated those accounts) or sent as an email for further sharing via a laptop.

• Create a ShadowPuppet presentation about your shapes. - this can also be saved as a video to be shared in various ways**

• Create an Explain Everything or Show Me presentation about the shapes - also make into a video to share.

• Create a QR code for one of your presentations and share it to a blog or send it as an email to print - the ipad has a QR Creator app as well as a QR Reader app.

* from Vimeo or You Tube the video can be embedded into a blog for immediate sharing, or the URL link can be copied to use in a document or website eg a Facebook post

** The pupils and I usually set a criteria for the work that is to be shared - this often happens during the writing process that occurs before the app is used - we use the appropriate text type features to suit the purpose of our video and the audience that will be viewing it. This means that the pupils write a draft and peer check it against both the criteria of the text type eg an explanation as well as then having a criteria of what needs to be included when the writing is 'published' via the video app.

• I usually also set a time limit eg for an iMovie they are only allowed maybe 30 seconds of completed/edited video in which to share their message (iMovies that are too long will clog up the memory space of the ipad account)

Science Fair preparations

Information for the Southland Science Fair - held in mid-late August each year.

Introductory activities: maybe use to get pupils thinking about scientific process:

• Turn Milk Into Plastic!
• Home experiments from Science Is Fun

With the Sci Fair being held in Week 5, it means we only have four weeks to carry out our investigations and write them up for display and interviews with the judges.

I plan to introduce scientific process in Week One, pupils to then choose their investigation, materials gathered for the start of Week 2 - with on-going record keeping for Weeks 2-4 and the final write up happening at the start of Week 5. So I have looked for quick investigations where results should be showing in the time-frame - I have also selected ideas that flow on nicely from our Term 2 inquiry about our solar system, as well as any that could be related to the Science Fair special theme of 'Living in a Cooling World'...

Pupils will work in groups of 2 or 3 and can choose from any of the ideas below (which are from Science Buddies which has a huge range of fantastic investigation ideas):

1. Is It Getting Hot in Here? - temperature/greenhouse gases - Ben and Jonas
2. How Salty Does the Sea Have to Be? - floating an egg  Jennifer and Caity
3. Is the Soup Ready? - measure the amount of water dried beans can absorb
4. Shaking for Butter - which temperature works best?  Nikka and Anthony #1
5. Mag-nificent Breakfast Cereals - how much iron is in your cereal?  Coebie and Damien
6. How Greasy Are Your Chips? - measuring the fat content of potato chips
7. Bigger is Better - how much baking powder do muffins need?  Kim and BJ
8. Growing, Growing, Gone! - the use of nitrogen fertilizers on plants   Nikka and Anthony #2
9. Radiant Radish Seeds - how much heat can a seed take?
10. Which Way Up? - how does gravity affect plant root growth?
11. Do Plants Need Soil? - a simply hydroponics investigation
12. Home Sweet Biome - which environment is best for plants?  Dylan and Brayden
13. Recycling Grey Water - do the plants like it?  Brock and JM
14. All Packed Up - how does packaging affect the storage of fruit?
15. Can House Colour Reduce Energy Bills? - how colour attracts heat Keegan and Logan 
• instructions            background info**
16. Cold Room - make your own solar air heater  Lisa and Richard
17. Roof-top Gardens - do they help keep your house warm?
18. Colour My World - how do different colours of light affect plant growth?  Maria and Lane
19. Breathe Out - how does increased levels of carbon dioxide affect plant growth?
20. Feed Me - how do different fertilizers affect plant growth?

** background info can be found via the link on the Inquiry page of our classroom blog - scroll down to see the Science Fair heading and select the links for the appropriate investigation/theme!

HEALTH - Firewise - Fire safety practices

For the first week of Term Three our school health safety focus is Firewise - very important with so many homes using fireplaces at this time of the year!

The NZ Fire Service Firewise programme is aimed mainly at Years 1-2 but the resources can be adapted for older pupils, with a DVD available for Years 7-8 (and some parts can be used with Yr 5-6 with careful consideration).

With my Yr 6 pupils our focus will be on revising the basics about fire safety eg keep matches out of reach, the heater-metre rule, don't play near barbecues or fires; with the main focus being on Get Down...Get Low...Get Out Fast! (and Stay Out) and having an at-home escape plan and safe family meeting place.

For our literacy sessions this week, I plan to pair the pupils up to research and present one aspect of fire safety advice, using the Firewise booklets that the Fire Service has sent us (again, these are aimed at younger pupils but my older pupils will benefit too from having the messages reinforced). We will set a criteria together first so pupils have clear guidelines of what to share.

Pupils will create a presentation of their choice on the ipad to share on their blogs and on our class blog.

Myths and Legends...a reading/writing focus

For two weeks we are having a myths and legends literacy focus, as a flow-on from our inquiry about space, during which my release teacher worked with the children on activities based on a variety of space-related myths eg why the moon is in the sky and how we have the night and day etc.

My intention is that the pupils will read some other Maori myths, with the focus on comparing the elements of the myths, before then writing their own myths to explain a physical phenomenon that is space related eg why there are stars in the sky or why the moon is white etc.


Here is the cover sheet that all pupils will have in their books for reference and tracking (Google docs) and here is the comparison chart that they are to fill in as they read (and will refer to in the second week as they write their own myth or

Pupils will have compulsory set tasks that involve close reading, sequencing, word studies and comprehension tasks for each myth (from the resource 'School Journal Theme Units, Yr 4-8, Myths and Legends' by Meryl Hughson, published by Curriculum Concepts, 2000).  It uses some school journal stories from 1981 - 1995.

I have made up a list of free-choice response activities that I have generalised so they can be applied to any of the stories that the children read. There are rules as to which activities pupils can choose and how long they can spend on the tasks during class-time (as we know, with children an expectation has to be set and they have to be accountable to it or nothing will be achieved!)

This resource by Raymond Huber has a great definition of myths and tree diagrams to help pupils clarify the differences between myths, folk tales, fairy tales and legends, as well as activities for teaching children about the different elements of myths such as heroes and magical creatures. If I was spending a lot longer on the theme then these would be activities that I would use!

Science inquiry - Why is Planet Earth the best place for me to live?

This term's school-wide inquiry is a Science them of outer space....

Our key understandings:
* The earth is the ideal place to live because it has water, atmosphere, food, gravity, animal live and the right temperature. 
* The sun is vital to our existence as it gives us light and heat. 
* The moon affects the earth. 
* Space is vast and made up of many galaxies.

The core knowledge:
* The earth is ideally located from the sun to have a temperature range that supports all kinds of life. 
* The sun gives light and heat. 
* Planets and moons rotate and orbit around the sun or their planet. (Rotation produces day and night. Orbit produces years.) 
* There are different types of astronomical bodies e.g. stars, comets, asteroids, planets, protoplanets, moons. 
* Each planet has a unique gravity, atmosphere, surface and composition.


Due to a combination of many factors (a nine-week term, a senior production happening in Week 3, my student teacher being on posting with 8 days of control in Weeks 4-6, and speeches happening before the end of term) I have broken the inquiry into three sections:

• Weeks 1-3 (mainly 1-2 due to rehearsals for the show) are our exploration weeks, running on a Star Trekking theme - 
• Week 1: the children contributed their first thoughts about the inquiry question to a padlet.com page and then, during reading time, the pupils used the links on a class blog post to find out about one of the planets:  Week One: classroom/student blog post - Star Trekking mission #1
• Week 2-3: they can use the links on this blog post - Star Trekking mission #2 - to find out about other celestial bodies in our universe, whichever they were interested in.  We had first completed a group brainstorm of space-related words.  I have also given a list of the main words to our ESOL pupils so they can bring in their home-language words for the word-wall.

My  student teacher began a Social Sciences inquiry based on celebrations last term and will continue this in Weeks 4-6, coinciding her inquiry activities with the Maori New Year celebrations "Matariki" (the late May/early June appearance of the Pleides above the southern horizon) so this fits really well with our science theme.

In Week 7 the children will use the information they have learned to write a speech about any aspect of the topic (if they choose to) and for Weeks8-9 I plan to have a few HOT activities eg questions to debate, such as 'If we had to leave Earth, where would we go and what would we need to have?'  or "Which is more important - sunshine or water?"
 
Some other bits and pieces I have found along the way...

A great introductory/motivational video:


A cool video with examples of how to show the proportions of the planets and sun etc with everyday objects: