Seasaw

This year I am going to be experiment with the student to share their learning using seasaw. I have set up my class and I will update on how it is going.

Observation

Today I had the opportunity to go to another school and observe another (more experienced) teacher for the day.

It was great to see how different other classes run.  I picked up some great ideas that I can use to boost the current routines I already have.

Important take home ideas from today:

• remember that most classes are bigger that my 11 students so routines need to reflect that. The size of my class means that routines etc are more manageable.
• the structure of my writing programme - how to break up explicit teaching
• class wide reading literacy ideas (literacy bingo) - a selection of activities that must be completed by the end of the week. 
• using the same basic facts sheet in class and for home learning
• bigger inquiry based buddy project with digital class.
• how different the relationships between students are when there are so many more of them.

Staff Meeting- 10/2/2016
Transferred from previous blog (Written on 20/2/16)
Last week at our Staff meeting Madeline a facilitators form the Toki Pounamu project came to discuss the idea of rewindable teaching using technology. I found this to be valuable for my practice as it made me more aware of ensuring there are ways for students to be able to go back and revisit their learning. 

This I have been incorporating the use of the active board in most lessons to record student ideas and things we have been learning. In the past week after our meeting I have been encouraging students to go back and view what we have done while working independently, some are beginning to do this of their own accord now. 

I am in the process of setting up modelling books for group work. I have been considering ways in which I can ensure these are used effectively in the class and how I can develop routines for students to regularly look back at learning on their own.