Inquiry Update

This year, my inquiry began as a research project into Gwenneth Phillips' strategies for teaching reading. I thoroughly enjoyed learning about the specific prompts she developed to guide students, and have begun using these in my lessons. I found that it helped greatly in guiding students to stop and think, before I too eagerly jumped in to help them out. It has definitely been a great challenge and one I will continue to work on over the year!

Last week, I decided to veer my Inquiry down a new path, in order to meet the needs of a specific group of children. These children have been working very hard this term, however have demonstrated difficulty in their retention of high frequency words. The group have little alphabet and word knowledge, which has caused them to plateau at Magenta. Over the next weeks, I am wanting to research into memorisation strategies and create a learning tool to help students retain the high frequency words needed to progress in reading. This will be an exciting journey in Term Two - will post my plan of attack over the next few weeks!

Creating a site to support literacy in Year 0/1!

In our MDTA course we have been challenged to create a Google Site, which we can use in our classroom to support learning. Teaching in a New Entrants/Year One class, I need to make sure the site is easy to navigate, interactive, and allows for all levels to engage in the activities. Currently, my idea is to focus the activities around letter-sound knowledge, blends and their sounds, and high frequency word recognition. For each of the three focuses I plan to have an appropriate YouTube clip, an activity on Explain Everything, and a hands-on activity using materials (they will use their iPad to record evidence of completing this activity). The site is planned to function as a place where students who have completed their daily literacy task go for further "meaningful" tasks to support their learning. Students will be asked to complete one video activity, one Explain Everything activity, and one hands-on activity, in order to engage in a range of modes.

I have attached a screenshot of my Google site plan so far and will post updates as they develop...watch this space!

Rewindable Learning

As I endeavour on my first year in the classroom, I have definitely battled trying to manage catching up students on work they have missed due to being absent. This can be due to students not showing up to school, showing up late, being pulled out of class for other commitments, or even being absent due to lack of understanding or focus.

It was inspiring to hear Dorothy Burt and Helen King speak to us today about how we can manage this in our digital environments. Some ideas raised included recording lessons taught on a device, creating video tutorials for strategies, and recording instructions on tasks that are to be completed. These digital REWINDABLE resources would then be placed in an accessible folder where students could revisit these ANYTIME, ANY PLACE at ANY PACE. Students are able to rewind learning sessions to either catch up on learning they have missed or revisit concepts they want to consolidate.

Creating visible and rewindable learning for students not only can reduce the amount of dependence students have on their teacher, it allows students to take ownership of their learning and realise that learning can occur away from the immediate radius of the teacher.

Creating a Collaborative Current Events Site

Today, I got to experience how valuable it is to learn through "doing". Although we were not completely thrown in the deep end (we have been fortunate enough to have some guidance through sites already), getting stuck in and creating a page allowed me to actively learn and engage in the construction process.

As a team, the MDTA is constructing a resource on current events for teachers to use in their classroom. Our site is multi-model and encourages students to look at various perspectives of groups involved in the event. We have included teacher notes, lesson outlines and many various resources to engage students in their learning. Follow the link below to my page!

Current Event Site - Challenging our "clean green" image

Conquer Conflict Cauldrons

As much as we want to avoid conflict, we are often faced with situations in which we have to deal with contrary ideas, values and beliefs. Left bubbling away, these cauldrons can erupt into nasty distasteful pieces of work - which many of us may have experienced in the past. Personally, I avoid conflict like the plague and on Friday a workshop challenged me to think of it as a learning opportunity. Sarah at Stonefields School highlighted to us how we can look at conflict as a positive experience, in which we take on the challenge of appropriately addressing the issue. So instead of letting the cauldron overheat why not take positive action to cool it down?

Consider:

Communicating - Communicate what is bothering you in a clear and respectful manner - talk to those directly involved and avoid letting it travel through the grapevine.

Controlling emotions  - Ensure that you are in an emotionally stable state to address the situation - if you feel angry and upset you will want to take time to calm yourself before saying something you may regret.

Personality differences - Do not forget that we are all different and need to learn to accept others ideas and values. Collaborate with others and celebrate these differences instead of allowing other viewpoints to frustrate you.

Working on Web Design

When working on web design it is important to make sure you create it for an audience with a diverse range of "tech-savviness". Have you made sure that your site and its content is visible for your audience? Is the information easy to find and in an obvious place? How many clicks do users need to make to get to where they need to go? Have you made sure your design is consistent and visually appealing? 

All of these factors will determine how your site is navigated by others and how your students engage in the learning on the site. After all, you want to make sure you limit the amount of time students spend trying to access their learning, so that they have as much time as possible to get stuck into their activities. 

Multi-Modal Learning with Google Sites

Today I not only discovered how to create and edit a Google Site, I also had the chance to create a quick multi-modal site for students to explore the story of the Three Little Pigs (see screenshot of my site above). Making the site multi-modal allows students to engage in a variety of learning activities and explore ideas and perspectives from various angles.

By clicking on the six links I found, students are challenged to look at the story from the wolf's perspective, explore  the challenges a wolf would face breaking into houses in our world, look at creative ways others have reinvented the story in other contexts, and they can also explore the traditional tale through collaborating with others in a play or engaging in an interactive reading site. There is so much material online that we are able to explore for the benefit of our individual learners, and today I was reminded of the fact of how much is right at my fingertips waiting to be discovered.

By scrubbing up on your Google site skills and getting your Google search on you can quickly create these simple but interactive sites for your class!