Language Conventions & Text Structures: Do it in reading

What:
During a staff meeting, our RTLIT leader mentioned the strategy of teaching & learning about language and text features through reading.  Wonderful strategy and something I was aware of and doing already.  A resource we have in our school is the Short Stories Handy Resource.

So what:
These are great because included with each of the student texts are teacher notes that explain the different language and structural features.  I found these useful because I could identify the language features and discuss these with the group.  I was impressed with level of oral discussion once we started to look deeper into some of the language features.  I discovered that it was useful to discuss individual words and model how to visualise using the different features such as metaphor.
The resource also has a Bloom Taxonomy of student follow up activities.

Now what:  Continue to use these these texts and the teaching pages.

OTJ's - Support to make OTJ's wisely

What: TKI OTJ interactive modules to support educators to make OTJ's and to work with the National Standards in Reading, Writing & Mathematics.

So what: I have started to work through these and found them to be very useful at practising the art of making a valid OTJ using a range of student evidence.  I have found them useful because the standards are illustrated in a variety of ways through small tasks.  It was also useful to discover how to go about making an OTJ and looking for key aspects of the standard.

Now What: to work through the modules and to continue to practise with my own class.  I want to make sure that I provide a variety of tasks across the curriculum so I have a range of student evidence to use.  If they don't demonstrate an aspect in one task, I have other examples I can use.

Moderation - what it is and how is it being done

What: After a staff meeting topic discussion based on Moderation, I completed my own inquiry to find out more about what resources are available to assist educators with moderation.  I found my way to TKI and a range of resources that the MOE used that are aligned with the PACT tool.  These are the series of Frameworks used  with the PACT tool to make OTJ's.

So what:  I read lots and viewed a range of illustrations used to make OTJ.  The one aspect I took away from this was that as an educator I need to ensure that I provide tasks and teaching and learning that enables students to prove that can do an aspect of the different reading, writing and maths standards at that point in time.  The illustrations, found on TKI and within the PACT tool as as additional resources in the OTJ workshop resources provide a variety of different ways teachers can do this.  I also found that these are small tasks that can provide a wealth of evidence or multiple aspects of a standard.

Now what: to look into these more and to use them to guide my planning.  I would like to learn more about the Frameworks and PACT tool.

An illustration using the Frameworks

Cause and Effect: what is it

What: a mini lesson on 'Cause and effect' for writing.

So what: I discovered that it was important to use explicit teaching or showing/guided writing/independent writing model to support students to take on new learning.   In preparation explanation writing,   I ran a short cause and effect lesson.  First I told my group what cause and effect was after generating some PK.  I used a variety of simple models so it was clear to my group what I was trying to do.  Then, I used Think-Pair-Share, and students thought a one in pairs.  I gave them sub-coordinating conjunctions to use and a 'cause'.  It was interesting to see that the struggle students had at this first attempt.
After that we shared back and gave each other feedback.  Then I repeated the activity but students had ago on their own.  i noticed their confidence grow as we do this a few more times.  Finally, some students provided their own simple cause and effect sentences.  I found it worthwhile to use simple terms and to use their own topics for the modelling activity as well.

Now what: To try and this structure more often and use simple terms and vocab so students can focus on the skill and not the content.

Practical experiences: Science

What:  In preparation for science fair, we split our class into two groups and completed two different practical experiments to model the scientific process.

So what: Once again, I was impressed by the level of engagement when students were given a practical experience to complete.  I observed student inquiry as they modified the experiment.  For example, student completed a combustion activity to discover what elements are needed for combustion to occur.  Many were aware that oxygen is needed and quickly looked at comparing the rates of how long different candles took to go out.  It was also a good opportunity to make observations of what students saw.  It was interesting to observe that most were simplistic in their descriptions, for example, "its a flame".  However with prompting, were able to look closer at their flames and see the different colours within a flame and the different size and shape of their flames.  The oral discussion was great - students were making predictions, generating their own questions and verbally describing what they saw and thought and applying some reasoning based on evidence, with some support.

Now what: Supporting students to complete the written follow up for the activity.

Tracking student work using TDashboard

Revision History

What: Students readily tell us 'I have done lots of work - see' as they hold  up a book or in some cases a screen with a google doc.  One feature, the most impressive I think, is the ability to look at the revision history of a doc in real time. One studentspersisted that he was working on his doc for the whole session and he did lots.

So what: I used TDashboard to see the revision history of his doc.  Then, together we looked at the revision history.  He could actually see how little he did in the allocated time.  This function gives teachers evidence to 'show' learners their own productivity and to support students to make a goal to improve their work habits.  Which we did.  he was aware that I would check in and 'see; exactly what he was doing.

The marvels of Teacher Dashboard

What: A PD session with Rosemary from Hapara.

So what: I discovered the new features of Dashboard and the integration of workshop - a similar platform for Google classroom.  What was really great was seeing how easy it was to make groups within dashboard to share docs to individual folders.

Now what: to set up groups and to use the groups and smart share function.  I currently share docs to the how class but these group function is great.

The group function in Teacher dashbaord

One to one writing: explicit teaching

What: explanation writing for science fair.  I generated questions for this learner to research and provided him with a small number of videos to watch as I have observed that he is highly interested in watching videos.

So what:  he gained more from watching videos about his topic.  I also found him short articles to read about his topic of fish gills however I observed him rewatching the clips to help him answer his questions.  It was useful for me to give him questions to inquiry as he was challenged to break down the process of how a fish gill works.

Now what: continue to use prompting and explicit teaching of how to find information for how each part works.  I found a explanation rubric that was useful to guide me in what I needed to ensure the learner had in his piece of writing.

Student working doc

Reading with post its

What: Using post it notes in a guided reading session so students can record individual 'student voice' on the spot.

So what:  I realised that during guided reading, some of the akonga struggled to verbalise and keep track of their thinking in response to teacher questions as we read.  In response to this, I gave each akonga a bunch of post it notes to write a short response on.  I discovered that akonga only needed to write enough for one post it - so they saw the question as achievable and could track their own thinking during sharing back.

Now what: Make it a regular practise.  It is also a good way to record student voice for assessment purposes.

Student responses

Digital Modelling books - what are these???

What: Digital modelling books.  I use modelling books with some efficiency - I was actually looking to improve how to use these.  Upon research digital modelling books - I struggled to find much information about these - I discovered this post from a fellow NZ educator.  The post outlined an effective way to use 'real' modelling books.

So what: I looked at how I used modelling books and had a go at setting up my modelling books for my reading group.  I found it was an effective way to record student voice and to generate and gather evidence of learning.

Now what: try to use them consistently.

Writing: Sentences are?

What: A follow on lesson about what a sentence is.  I was challenged with two authors that needed to use a variety of sentence structures and types in their writing.  How could they use a variety of sentences if they did not know what these were and how to create them?
Below is the observation document.

Term 1 appraisal observation