Teaching Strategies

Work during 2016
Over the last term my team and I have been working towards developing learning blogs with our students.
I created a year 8 blog which now acts like the old traditional white board. Students now have access to learning 24/7 and from anywhere in the world. Parents and whanau members can also go onto our blog and look at the work students are doing, help students at home and check on the progress students have made via students own learning blogs.
We have also utilize the use of google classroom when sharing practise activities, reading material, assignments when students are needing their own individual copies.

The beauty of working this way is that it allows the teacher to become more of a facilitator of learning by freeing up time to work with individual students, students can work together using shared google doc (and they don't even need to be in the same place to do this) and with time it is my hope that the students become self directed learners as they also have instant access to information they are interested in.

One of the negative aspects of working online and this is the only negative that I see at this time is that students are often very distracted by gaming, facebook, youtube and social networking.
Hapara student dashboard is being trialed at the moment and might help in providing greater on task behaviour.
One of the other ways to combat this issue is to include some of these sites into the teaching programme. ie social networking, youtube, facebook. which I often do in maths and inquiry.

Below is a link to our blog. You will also noticed is that it also links to our student blogs. Please feel free to look through them and make some positive comments on their work. Our students love reading positive comments about their work.
http://tarawerayear8.blogspot.co.nz/

The Classroom of 2030

An interesting and inspiring watch.

Inspiring students of the future

An inspiring video of how I aim to run my classroom.

Using the 5c's, Choice, Collaboration, Communication, Critical thinking, Creativity.

After years of teaching I have come to the conclusion that teaching should be based around research/evidenced based teaching programmes and strong relationships with students.

I enjoyed watching this video. It confirms for me my interest in developing future proof teaching techniques and helping students to develop critical thinking and essential skills.

"Education is not the learning of facts, but the training of the mind to think."

Albert Einstein-1879-1955

Note from e-asTTle course

Using e-asTTle
• The data needs to be used to inform teaching and learning.
• Students should use this assessment and its reports to help understand their current skills and knowledge and inform their learning goals.
• In order to provide accurate results, and useful data, testing needs to be done by current achievement level, not year group.
• The results need to be interpreted alongside other evidence to ensure that good teaching and learning decisions are made.
• A student’s test score in NOT an Overall Teacher Judgment as it simply does not even come close to encompassing the broad set of skills and knowledge described in the standards.
• If students of wide ability take the same test it is really only the ‘average’ sector where any useful information will be gained.
Getting too many right or wrong provides us with very little information.
Implication
• Test students on current achievement levels, not age.
• It may be necessary to create up to four different tests for some cohorts. Each student is then assigned to a test which is challenging for him/her.
• If we want to get good information from e-asTTle, the students need to get some answers wrong.
• A student that gets 100% correct gives little information on his/her next learning steps and e-asTTle has to extrapolate to give an indication of achievement. This is not necessarily an accurate score.
• Copying a test allows you to use the same test with a different group of students. Copying rather than reassigning the same test allows you to keep the two sets of data separate.
• Creating a similar test means that you can create a test using the same settings as previously but it will result in a new set of questions.
• A better option if testing the same set of students again is to create a slightly harder test. This will be a better fit for the students as it acknowledges the progress they have made throughout the year.
• Don’t test kids who are not reading at age 8.
· Share with the students their scores and their next steps.
· Show the cut score and celebrate the successes not the overall score.

2015 reflection

This has been a fantastic learning year for me. I started the year at James Street school. During term 2 I made a change to teach a year 8 class at Tarawera High school.

On my arrival I first noticed that the class seemed to be in a state of disarray. The students lack structure and routine. They had a teacher that had had a lot of time off and a term of relievers.
Drawing on my experience gained from PB4L, the Incredible Years programme and 15 years of teaching experience, I knew that I had to develop a strong trusting relationship with the students and set a class programme where all students felt like they were being successful in their learning.

I tried group teaching in reading, maths, and writing but found that the students weren't able to self manage and needed whole class teaching in order to develop a healthy classroom environment and establish a level of order.
At the same time I started to develop a relationship with some of the more challenging students in the class and their parents.
I found that providing  one on one time with these students enabled them to share their interests with me, home life, their concerns and social issues, which enabled students to start developing trust in me.

During this time I developed a relationship with home through phone calls, texts, and inviting parents to meet with me during my release times. Taking sports group also help to create the connection with students whanau.

I have also gain professional development in the use of google docs, google classroom and using
e-asTTle. I am still currently in the process of upskilling in e-asTTle and have a course to attend later in the term.

Using Google Classroom

Over the last two weeks I have been using Google classroom. It did take a bit to set up. Loading students google mail addresses, learning how google classroom works, loading work and identifying which students are following the activities assigned.
I am still learning how to track kids learning using google classroom.
Below is a link of PD that I have been following.

http://teachingtarawera.blogspot.co.nz/2015/08/using-google-classroom.html

The students are enjoying working from google classroom and have been saving a lot of their work to their personal learning blogs.

Using data to plan for next teaching steps

The below examples are students that I have identified in numeracy and literacy that needed extra support in their learning. I have changed the name of the students.
The use of I.E.P's (individual educational plan) or individual pathways helps to focus teachers when planning for the next steps. The idea behind I.E.P's are about being specific and reflective on both the activities using and teaching methods.
Here are the examples and personal reflections on learning.

Using ICT in teaching

Today my eyes were opened to the use of technology in the classroom.
I have been using technology for many years in teaching to help motivate students, engage them in new learning and for evaluation and assessment purposes. Today however was the first time I was able to invite a student who was sick at home into our classroom lessons.

Using Facebook, messenger and shared google doc's, students were able to work together, sharing ideas, thinking, and recording their learning.

The beauty of this way of learning was that it was completely student driven.  They were self motivated, enjoying the learning and were engaged. Once the learning was completed for the day their learning was sent to me via google mail. I was able to give direct feedback and feed forward.

Using google doc's also enabled students to take their work with them and continue learning after the school day.
The future of teaching and learning is exciting.

ALL literacy

2015 I was involved with up skill in the ALL (Advanced learner of literacy programme)

During this programme I was trained to identify students who were struggling to show success in writing. This programme is backed by research. So my first step was to look at the research and its benefits. Second step was to test my targeted students (I also included these students as one cycle of my literacy inquiry). Third step was to use the learning progression to find where these students were sitting. I identified what the students could do and their next steps. Example below.

I also changed my planning and had observations. A couple of times I was videoed which enable me to visually see my teaching methods, feedback and feed forward and how the students reacted to my teaching style and its effectiveness.
As a results all the students involved demonstrated progress in writing.

EOTC and Physical Education

Over the last seven years in have running the school sport and physical education programmes.
Including the GO4it programmes, sports leadership programmes.
This role has covered teaching physical educational activities, introducing and running sporting programmes and activities. I have also being running our school athletics, cross country, softball, rugby 7's, soccer and other sporting codes.

I have been a member of the inter-school cluster sports association and the eastern bay sports association.
One of my biggest roles was running the inter-school athletics sports.
This involved booking fields and sports gear. Coordinating with participating school and the local athletics club, setting up and running the days activities, recording and passing on results to schools.
During this time I have also run syndicate camps. The latest camp I was involved with was December 2014 where we took the students to Hamilton. The past years we have been to the beach and bush. During all of these camps it was crucial that parents were on board. They needed to be aware of school expectations and protocols and their requirement during camp and leading up to camp. RAM's and planning for these event were also another important issue. In order for these to take place all RAMs and planning needed to be past by the school BOTs.

Below are some examples of the planning, photos, training the I was involved with.

 

Daily Kupu

As apart of staff development we have been involved in creating a weekly kupu that the students will read every morning to the school over the intercom.
This has been very successful for the students and integrating Te Reo into the daily class programme, As well as the daily kupu we give a karakia at the start of each day, before eating, and at the end of the day. I have found the learning of new phrases difficult but have also asked the student experts in my class to help support me in my learning to Te Reo. The students have been fantastic and very supportive.
Below is an example of the daily kupu planning.

                                               

Teaching Inquiry

This is my first attempt at using teaching as inquiry as a method of teaching and as an assessment tool. These students were selected as a result of observations noted during my guided reading programme. This process took 6 weeks but could go longer. It is important to note that anecdotal notes were used throughout the process to track students progress and the effectiveness of my teaching methods.  

Teacher Inquiry Process: - 2013 Focusing Inquiry: Reading (Serenity, Mya, Utah, McKenzie, Mason, Charles, Mystery)

Wk 3 term 2- Wk 7 term 2

What is the intended learning outcome? Students will be able to use expression, voice projection and use punctuation                                                                            correctly

Why is this important? Phrasing correctly helps with understanding text

                                           Able to read confidently and competently to an audience.

Teaching Inquiry:

How do I enable the students to hear their own reading?

Using ICT to record voices.

Students to identify own errors and discuss how they can

improve.

Make a story book using ‘little bird tales’ web site.

Record a play using Audacity.

Personal reading using web cam.

Students that are not confident to read easier book in order

to focus on the expression, projection and punctuation.

What are my next learning steps?

Teach students to using ICT to record their reading of text. Self evaluate.

Focus on volume, expression, use of punctuation and

fluidness.

What resources will support this?

Web cam

Audacity

Little bird tales

Teaching and Learning:

So what did the students do / learn?

Read to small groups.

Shared reading out load with small groups.

Share a range of written language.

Learning Inquiry:

What are the students’ next learning steps?

Students have made huge progress. Serenity stills needs ongoing

support to project voice. Mya has moved down a group to

practise these skills with an easier text. Other’s doing well with

the above skills. All students have made gains in confidence.

Reciprocal Teaching

I have spending the morning reading about reciprocal teaching in reading. (BES Exemplar 4 Reciprocal teaching and Reciprocal teaching a schoolwide core teaching and learning strategy)
Next Monday our senior school which I am apart of will be visiting Edgecumbe Primary school to spend a day learning more about this reading/teaching strategy.

My first thoughts are that it seems like a great strategy to use. First of all it is evidenced based and secondly it can be used across the curriculum subjects, not just reading.

The main ideas behind this approach is that the teacher teachers the skills of 'Clarifying, Questioning, Summarising and Predicting to students. Students then use this approach themselves and in turn taking on the role of the teacher.

I feel that this is very empowering for the student. The reading stated that when well implemented, reciprocal teaching has been shown to improve students' skills in reading, comprehension, metacognition(learning about learning), social participation, and self management.

I was particularly interested in the case study of the year 5 and 6 students and the students comments.

One student said, "It helps me understand what I am reading" (year 5 student), another said,"I used to think I was dumb; now I know I am not".

Success using this programme will be based on the quality of teacher scaffolding.
So my first job will to gain a deeper understanding of this process in order to have greater success of implementing it into my class reading programme.

Teaching Maths

My stage 6 students had a great time sharing their thinking. Students were using proportional thinking to solve multiplication problems like 73x8=...

Here are some of their workings

                  

Making Smart Goals

This afternoon Ana Byrne lead us in a staff meeting about setting up At Risk register for at risk students. We had to look and students literacy and numeracy data. Compare students data with the national standards and using data create smart measurable goal. These are to be reviewed at the end of the term. Below is an example of the smart goal.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1ziZRyYHRVqQXb405CWFKQzLnFTt63Ae-yGAUUiKAplo/edit#slide=id.p4

James Street School            At Risk IEP   2014

NAME:	DOB:	YEAR: 4	Learning Area: Reading	TERM: 1
Data: What is the data telling me? What is the priority for this student to learn?	Short Term Goals – Specific and measureable To be achieved within 1 term		Strategies: How am I going to teach this? What differentiation will be needed?	Review: Specific to goals and effectiveness of differentiation
He is reading at level 13. He is needing to learn blend sounds, and first 100 sight words.	To learn all of the first 100 sight words.		Use flash cards of unknown first 100 sight words. Daily practise with (Students name).	Yes he has learnt the first 97 sight words and some initial blends.
He now needs to learn the next lot of sight words. 200 sight words.	To learn all of the 200 sight words.		Use the same strategy as the above. We will also trial S.T.E.P.S computer based reading programme to improve word knowledge, blends, reading skills and comprehension.	Made great progress with STEPS and is getting a lot of enjoyment from his successes.  Now knows the first 200 sight words.
He now needs to learn the next 100 lot of sight words,	To learn all of the first 300 sight words.		Continue using the STEPS programme. Test the 300 sight word list. Write out flash cards to the unknown words to practise daily at home and school. Test weekly.	Make excellent progress. Knows 300 sight words. Strategy work well.
He is now working at 7-7.5 reading age. STEPS programme has helped and teaming up with home to continue to push his reading practise.	Develop sentence comprehension and word knowledge.		Clozed reading and word comprehension tasks during guided reading. Use pictures to illustrate meaning of unknown words.	I have not spent as much one on one time with him this term. He is also going to rainbow reading and making progress. Comfortably working at level 21/22. During guided reading I have been sowing in new vocab.  He has been able to discuss ideas in detail and is making good links to personal experiences. I stayed away from clozed activities as writing tends to be a block for   (Students name).

Personal statement

PERSONAL STATEMENT

I have sound knowledge and understanding of curriculum, learning, assessment theories and Treaty of Waitangi implications. I can effectively plan in-depth programmes, develop and implement assessment strategies that promote effective teaching and learning practice. My goal is to create and maintain a healthy interactive learning environment that caters for the needs of all students.

I have excellent communicative and people skills. I am trustworthy, responsible and committed to learning and teaching. I look forward to challenges, enjoy to laugh and to work with a team of highly motivated professionals. I will offer any school a highly motivated, energetic staff member, who is willing to tackle challenges, be involved in extra curricula activities inside and outside the school environment.

PHILOSPHY STATEMENT

Through my teaching practice aim to empower, motivate and encourage children to reach their full potential. I believe that a strong relationship between student, home and school is the key to the foundation of ongoing learning. I aim to empower students to talk about their learning and successes, and understand what next steps they need to take in order continue their progress in learning.

A co-constructivist framework underpins my teaching philosophy. Under this notion students and recognised as an in-depth source of knowledge and are encouraged to share ideas with their peers and teachers throughout the learning process. Knowledge and understanding will be gained through hands on authentic investigation and exploration of their surroundings.

Curriculum delivery will focus on building upon children’s prior knowledge through notions of scaffolding, modelling , using exemplars and by using examples from real life situations.

I understand the essential need to develop strong ties with the community. In turn helping to provide important background knowledge of the child and developing trust and understanding between myself and the community.

Upholding my philosophy of co-constructivism is the notion of reflection. Through reflection I will continue to develop my own practice, learning and professionalism. I will explore my own existing ideologies and reconstruct goals and plan based on knowledge gained through personal experience, professional learning opportunities and research. I have an open mind to constructive criticism and welcome feedback that will help further the development of my own teaching practice.

 

Reform of publish education

Interesting thinking. By Sir Ken Robinson