Term 1 week 6 Professional Learning

Last week was a busy week:

Monday - e-asTTle moderation in school with Sarah (colleague).
It was was a great opportunity to be able to discuss a piece of writing while marking and comparing what we both thought and being able to justify and discuss. I found that when marking on my own I had in some cases given higher marks. After this moderation I have felt more confident in my marking as I have a solid example which I feel can help me with other marking.

Tuesday - e-asTTle moderation across cluster schools. Run by Toki Pounamu
We were given the opportunity to all mark the same piece of writing first in groups. I found this quite difficult as the piece of writing we were given was a narrative when our cluster had all done explanations. I feel the moderation would have been more valuable for my professional learning if this piece had been more relateable to the writing I was marking for my own class. We (All teachers) compared groups marks and debated why we had given that mark. We were given no answers as to what the people running thought which meant that i felt there were no definitive answers. This also took up a large proportion of the afternoon.
We had the opportunity to do some moderating of our own. As the first part took so much of our time there was limited time for this moderation and I was unable to have one of mine moderated as we only got through two piece of writing, which were done quite quickly with little discussion.As a beginning teacher I felt that i would have benefited more from being able to have one of mine marked by another teacher, however it was a good experience to be able to discuss what we would have given other pieces of writing and why. It enabled me to check that I was on the right track with mine.

Wednesday - Literacy through visual arts course
I loved going to this course. It gave me some ideas of how to engage students in language through the use of visual arts. Previously I have not considered how valuable art could be in literacy. The ideas we received can be used as a way to teach or a way to create and share our learning. As a beginning teacher I believe it is great to be exposed to new ideas. The ideas were simple and could be used in a variety of ways for a variety of things. I look forward to tying some of these, this year with my class.

As tiring as the week was I feel that all the experience were valuable for me and my teaching and assessment. I look forward to trying some of the art ideas soon.