The six page plan is actually working very well and as long I have a direction in mind for the week, it's not hard to whip up the formalities throughout the week. I usually try to plan Monday-Tuesday/Wednesday, then revisit the needs for the second part of the week.
One thing that I have noticed is that the children are often choosing diffferent places to sit, but not neccessarily different people. I have started taking short videos around the class so I can analyse them a bit more - but my first step is to give more direction about choosing sensible people to sit beside. Many of the children have identified this as an area of need for them.
I think the children are enjoying more responsibility and are generally stepping up to the mark (today was hopefully a one-off!). We are doing a Friday review for both literacy and numeracy, in the form of a WOW factor - something postive, and a Hot-Tip - something to work on. I make an effort to take those home and read them over the weekend so I clearly know where the childrens heads are at, then we re-read and remind on Monday when they glue them into their books.
The first week, the children really didn't have too much direction. So we looked at what a good reflection and goal setting was. This week, I'm blown away! (Although we still need to work on adding 'because..')
Some examples of WOW factors:
- I enjoyed sitting by other people because it helped me learn.
- I learnt to subtract by slitting numbers into parts so I could use tidy numbers.
- I enjoyed learning the three rules of speech marks.
- This week I enjoyed soing to group sessions.
- I thought my recount was cool because I used language features.
- I learnt how to jump the number line two different ways.
- I think that I made a good choice of book becasue it was very similar to the kind of person I am.
Some examples of Hot Tips:
- I need to choose to sit by myself sometimes so I can get my work done.
- I need to move onto my next times tables level.
- I need to use a ruler to rule my lines. (!!!!)
- I need to use more language features.
- I want to be more involved in reading.
- I need to sometimes sit beside a boy. (???? less distraction?)
- I need to help others by not telling them the answer.
Hi Alice - I am curious to hear how your journey has gone a wee way down the track? How are you tracking children's learning? Are your plans still 6 pages long? Has it been sustainable?
ReplyDeleteI am still doing something similar but struggling to ensure workshops are tracked and anecdotal notes are maintained... What do you recommend?
Oh Claire - what perfect timing for your comment. Everything is falling to pieces! It's probably not actually as bad as it seems, however, this term has just been a nightmare and it feels like we've hardly spent any time in the classroom and when we are I'm testing!
ReplyDeleteI'm noticing that most children have retained the skills we were developing to be independent learners, but they're not really developing any further (our Friday reviews and reflections have totally gone out the window). Some children have gone back to needing quite a bit of direction, and I've had two new children start this term - one fitted in well and the other needs a lot of guidence.
Between Friday events for our Buddy class in Invercargill, and us - we haven't skyped at all this term. Our skyping and emails (we're still sort of doing that when we can) used to drive independent learning time - so that's caused a little bit of a loss of 'flow.'
The positives though are that I'm noticing that the class are more supportive and cooperative than they were. Whether that's a natural progression or it was born out of the 'teaching about learning spaces and independent learning,' I'm not sure.
I'm still using the same plan, but because of various interuptions, I'm often still using Tuesdays or Wednesdays plans at the end of the week.
Could you email me a copy of the the planning format you use? I'd be keen to compare. I keep a space on my plans for anecdotal notes and it's one thing I've always been quite good at - probably not the most efficient way to track in the long term but it's working for now. I'm wondering for next year I might have a class list at my teaching space and students can check themselves for workshops. Say a tick for teacher-requested and a smiley face for volunteer - a bit like a roll log.