Wow! Term three due to start already. Time has really flown this year and I've had so many amazing opportunities thrown at me - it's been remarkable.
But before I go into all my reflection (catching up in one big long go), I think it is necessary to reflect upon the goals I set myself at the beginning of the year.
Goals:
1 Get Place Value teaching and assessing under tighter scrutinyAssessment has definitely improved and with that comes more awareness of needs. I have managed to focus more explicit teaching in this area - with noticeable results for some students.
2 Focus more on explicit teaching of reading strategies.Still an area in progress according to the classes end of term reflection. Students could confidently tell me what they had learned in writing and maths but found reading much more difficult. Time to pull out the modelling book more frequently!
3 Maintain and continue developing on-line collaboration and connections
Yes and no - along with blogging, Twitter has taken a back seat as far as contributing goes. I need to keep working on this. I did make it to Educamp Dunners but unfortunately not to my own hometown Educamp! I can only hope the opportunity comes up later in the year again.
Yes and no - along with blogging, Twitter has taken a back seat as far as contributing goes. I need to keep working on this. I did make it to Educamp Dunners but unfortunately not to my own hometown Educamp! I can only hope the opportunity comes up later in the year again.
4 Improve recording and collation of summative data
Happening! (Yay!) And across all curriculum areas.
5 Be nominated and successful in the position of staff representative on the Board
Done.
6 If possible, get a management unit - or at least run my responsibilities like I deserve it!
Done.
7 Jog 5km (I'm realistic, not Superwoman)
I WAS getting there, and then winter and reports happened and I discovered it's not fun to run in the dark.
8 >10.2.68 (Yes, this is cryptic...)
Needs attention.
9 Take up a new evening course or activityDone - and I'm thoroughly enjoying learning and creating in my acrylic and mixed media class.
10 Chill out and take more time for myself
Getting there. Some times are better than others.
Term three looks to bring better teaching practice within the classroom, especially in the areas of literacy.
Early in the year I identified that many of my students needed help with listening to sounds to aid their spelling and also, for many, their decoding. Having done my degree in linguistics I had a fair idea that it was their phonological awareness that was letting them down and so I needed to put into place a phonics programme. Most of the teachers within the school have attended Yolanda Soryl workshops and so my request to attend one myself was happily received. Yolanda still teaches (now as reading recovery), as well as runs her workshops and produces her fantastic resources. That meant a bit of a wait for one of her extremely popular workshops - so I spent some of my release time observing and reading up on how to implement the lessons. From there, I was able to develop my own basic programme and now that I've had the training I can refine my lessons further. I've also decided to timetable in short periods during the week to focus purely on listening to sounds (phonological awareness).
I felt for many of my students that there needs were very basic and were 'gaps' that needed consolidating. Not having experience myself in the junior area of the school, I had to grapple for a little bit, wondering the most efficient and beneficial way of introducing these. It was great timing that Jill Eggleton was to be presenting 'Lighting the Literacy Fire' - with a focus on Reading. She covered some of what I knew - oral language, keep it simple, embedding comprehension, and focusing on vocabulary - but gave practical and effective ways of delivering all of this each day. For me, it was one simple book. To have a shared book, everyday, without fail and a clear, consistent plan of what gets covered each day. Every week since that workshop I have had a shared book or poem and it's so obvious now the benefits it has had. The children are transferring the learning to their guided reading groups and their writing, AND verbalising what they are doing and how they know to do it!!!
I loved that Jill Eggleton was pro banning worksheets, however, I did question where eLearning and future focused learning comes into her model. I was taken back to the iPads in Literacy presentation by Stuart Hale, that was put on by the Canterbury Literacy Society earlier in the year. One of the first things he encouraged was for the teacher to engage with the technology them self. If you become a user, you become a pusher. He believes (as do I) that schools can not be the last place to know the future. He spoke of many apps and ways to use iPads for literature based activities (Wordbook, Piccollage, Stripdesigner, Lifecards, Puppetpals, Book Creator, Tinytap, Amazon). He emphasised though, that devices are designed to be personal - so ultimately schools should be heading towards BYOD. And I know that many are. In line with the e-learning planning framework, my take-a-way was that use of iPads and devices should be moving away from the emerging, engaging stage and towards the extending and empowering. That means allowing students to use higher-order thinking to be creative (use creativity apps) with their devices.
All of this learning was topped off, with an amazing opportunity to attend the New Zealand Literacy Association annual conference (thanks to both the Auckland and Canterbury Literacy Associations for their sponsorship.) The best part of attending a conference such as this is being with like-minded people and, this time, the wealth of knowledge and experience from both the presenters and the attendees in the room.
The plenary highlight, for me, was Steven Layne. He spoke of sparking a flame for reading - and fanning it. He talked about fires within the classroom.
He finished by telling us a story about a child he had taught early in his career who had said to him "You guys have made all the decisions before we even show up, you don't care what we're interested in." Steven changed his approach because of this statement, and it made me think about my approach. In general, I think in New Zealand we are pretty flexible and well resourced to be able to do this. My personality tends to usually fit the 'bonfire' profile. I'm a planner and I need to know the direction I'm going. I have to ask myself, do I allow enough room for change within my plans once I get to know my children?
My workshop highlight was Sheena Cameron and Louise Dempsey introducing their new book - The Writing Book. They spoke about children having a writers tool box - the skills and knowledge. The spoke of the importance of generating ideas and providing support with this, QuickWrites, their burger model, showing children how to plan, QuickStops, responding to writing and improving writing (may only be one or two things). Children should know what they're learning, be able to find examples in their own writing, improve their own writing, talk about their successes and next steps and feel like an author by sharing their writing. From listening to Sheena and Louise and referring to their book, there are a lot of things I do well. My next steps with writing is to provide more opportunities for my students to feel like authors. I also think that sometimes I'm a little too hard on my writers and could do with scaffolding some of them a little more with their structure and editing.
So, it's a continuing literacy journey. I'm also lucky within this first half of the year to have gained my first aid certificate, have a first year student teacher (to return again later in the year), be elected to the BOT and to attend a Sport Start course provided by Sport Canterbury to implement their programme into our school/syndicate. Sport Start is focused around teaching students strategies and generic skills instead of specific games and units such as 'small balls'.
I hope that the remainder of the year is as enlightening as the first half. I look forward to the term ahead - being only nine weeks, I'm sure it will fly by!
Getting there. Some times are better than others.
Term three looks to bring better teaching practice within the classroom, especially in the areas of literacy.
Early in the year I identified that many of my students needed help with listening to sounds to aid their spelling and also, for many, their decoding. Having done my degree in linguistics I had a fair idea that it was their phonological awareness that was letting them down and so I needed to put into place a phonics programme. Most of the teachers within the school have attended Yolanda Soryl workshops and so my request to attend one myself was happily received. Yolanda still teaches (now as reading recovery), as well as runs her workshops and produces her fantastic resources. That meant a bit of a wait for one of her extremely popular workshops - so I spent some of my release time observing and reading up on how to implement the lessons. From there, I was able to develop my own basic programme and now that I've had the training I can refine my lessons further. I've also decided to timetable in short periods during the week to focus purely on listening to sounds (phonological awareness).
I felt for many of my students that there needs were very basic and were 'gaps' that needed consolidating. Not having experience myself in the junior area of the school, I had to grapple for a little bit, wondering the most efficient and beneficial way of introducing these. It was great timing that Jill Eggleton was to be presenting 'Lighting the Literacy Fire' - with a focus on Reading. She covered some of what I knew - oral language, keep it simple, embedding comprehension, and focusing on vocabulary - but gave practical and effective ways of delivering all of this each day. For me, it was one simple book. To have a shared book, everyday, without fail and a clear, consistent plan of what gets covered each day. Every week since that workshop I have had a shared book or poem and it's so obvious now the benefits it has had. The children are transferring the learning to their guided reading groups and their writing, AND verbalising what they are doing and how they know to do it!!!
"Reading is making sense. Not sounds."
--Jill Eggleton--
I loved that Jill Eggleton was pro banning worksheets, however, I did question where eLearning and future focused learning comes into her model. I was taken back to the iPads in Literacy presentation by Stuart Hale, that was put on by the Canterbury Literacy Society earlier in the year. One of the first things he encouraged was for the teacher to engage with the technology them self. If you become a user, you become a pusher. He believes (as do I) that schools can not be the last place to know the future. He spoke of many apps and ways to use iPads for literature based activities (Wordbook, Piccollage, Stripdesigner, Lifecards, Puppetpals, Book Creator, Tinytap, Amazon). He emphasised though, that devices are designed to be personal - so ultimately schools should be heading towards BYOD. And I know that many are. In line with the e-learning planning framework, my take-a-way was that use of iPads and devices should be moving away from the emerging, engaging stage and towards the extending and empowering. That means allowing students to use higher-order thinking to be creative (use creativity apps) with their devices.
All of this learning was topped off, with an amazing opportunity to attend the New Zealand Literacy Association annual conference (thanks to both the Auckland and Canterbury Literacy Associations for their sponsorship.) The best part of attending a conference such as this is being with like-minded people and, this time, the wealth of knowledge and experience from both the presenters and the attendees in the room.
The plenary highlight, for me, was Steven Layne. He spoke of sparking a flame for reading - and fanning it. He talked about fires within the classroom.
- The Bonfire - controlled and has to be prepared prior, needing the right tools, materials and place.
- The Flash fire - very sudden and occurs when two combustible materials come together (certain child + certain book).
- The Wild fire - uncontrolled, unexpected and often happens by accident.
He finished by telling us a story about a child he had taught early in his career who had said to him "You guys have made all the decisions before we even show up, you don't care what we're interested in." Steven changed his approach because of this statement, and it made me think about my approach. In general, I think in New Zealand we are pretty flexible and well resourced to be able to do this. My personality tends to usually fit the 'bonfire' profile. I'm a planner and I need to know the direction I'm going. I have to ask myself, do I allow enough room for change within my plans once I get to know my children?
My workshop highlight was Sheena Cameron and Louise Dempsey introducing their new book - The Writing Book. They spoke about children having a writers tool box - the skills and knowledge. The spoke of the importance of generating ideas and providing support with this, QuickWrites, their burger model, showing children how to plan, QuickStops, responding to writing and improving writing (may only be one or two things). Children should know what they're learning, be able to find examples in their own writing, improve their own writing, talk about their successes and next steps and feel like an author by sharing their writing. From listening to Sheena and Louise and referring to their book, there are a lot of things I do well. My next steps with writing is to provide more opportunities for my students to feel like authors. I also think that sometimes I'm a little too hard on my writers and could do with scaffolding some of them a little more with their structure and editing.
So, it's a continuing literacy journey. I'm also lucky within this first half of the year to have gained my first aid certificate, have a first year student teacher (to return again later in the year), be elected to the BOT and to attend a Sport Start course provided by Sport Canterbury to implement their programme into our school/syndicate. Sport Start is focused around teaching students strategies and generic skills instead of specific games and units such as 'small balls'.
I hope that the remainder of the year is as enlightening as the first half. I look forward to the term ahead - being only nine weeks, I'm sure it will fly by!
