Reading

First week of the break - lots of sleeping, lots of reading whatever posts come up from various blogs I follow, lots of thinking about what I do in the classroom and what I believe makes a successful learning environment.

In Term 2 I did not teach reading groups. I found that the learning intentions in Term 1 were almost "fake". They were made up because I "had" to teach reading every day. Yet I dont think the students benefitted from this reading time. Sure, they enjoyed the time being in a group with the teacher, but even more so with their friends if they happened to be grouped together. I tried workshop groups but found reading to be less effective as the students chose to come down with their friends - not always because it was their friends, but becuase a lot of what happens in the class programme is cooperative and collaborative, therefore they probably did need to be learning together in order to complete their activity, whatever workshop it was that they chose to come down to.  

From PROBE EOY 2016, I had only the ELL students reading below expectation, the rest of the students were either at or above.  The PROBE tests I have completed during Term 2 shows the same - all students have increased their reading age and, apart from the ELL students, all are reading at or above chronological age.  The 3 ELL students did have instructional reading - Yunseo on her own, and Abby and Suhyeok together. 

Now this isnt to say that reading didnt happen. Reading did happen. Reading happened every day.  We had a class shared novel that we read most days. (Cry of the Taniwha) We summarised, we retold, we discussed characters, we discussed the setting, we looked for clues to reorganise parts of the story.   We looked at vocab and what to do when we met unknown vocab. We etsablished the traffic light system - 

• Red Words - cant read, dont know this word
• Orange Words - can read, but dont know the meaning
• Green Words - interesting words in this text

We read for information during Samoan Language Week, we compared information from various sources, we contributed to shared documents and read ideas others had written. 

We went to the library every week, a time the students asked for if we missed. Reading was silent and individual and engaged.  

I will establish groups again in Term 3.  The focus will be on Reciprocal Reading initially and then move into Literacy Circles. I have not successfully established literacy circles before so this will be a focus in Term 3 - with a strong emphasis on the Oracy aspect. The ELL students I will take every day for instructional reading with the focus being on vocab. These students will also be in a reciprocal reading group and later in the term, literacy circle group too. 

Term 2 Week 10 National Standards

Having just completed Mid Year reports and sent them home, I refected on this blog post I read.  I used an OTJ - Overall Teacher Judgement - to assess if the students 

• required further support
• on track to achieve the standard
• likely to exceed 

The students have the usual reaction when handing them their reports with the instructions that they are addressed to their parents so they have to take them home and not open them. Mixture of pretend terror and nervousness and bottled excitement.  My comments to the students - there will not be any surprises in the report. You know where you are achieving, you know how much effort you have put in and you know what you can do and what you need to do next. If there are surprises, then you and me need to talk - so email me when you have read your report and we can talk through anything that did surprise you. I ddint get any emails and the next day, students all said they didnt have anythi  ng they needed to talk to me about.  

National Standards - 10 reasons why they have to go

So what are my feelings towards National Standards?  Like many teachers I was opposed to them when they were first introduced. No consultation, seemingly forced on us, a reluctance to "assess" the studenst on a set of criteria that seemed to move away from the group teaching model that enabled students to move at their own pace and make progress at their own speed. 

So as I read through the blog post linked above, here is my current thinking on National Standards.

1. They are not standard.
No, I guess they are not standard but they do set a standard to be acheived at a certain level of schooling. By using these standards, I believe my uderstanding of what students are expected to do at the levels through their school life gives a base line that we didnt have before. I believe there is less variation across schools now than there was before, even though there are questions around moderation from school to school. 

2. There was little consultation.
No, there didnt seem to be but we need to move on past this. They are here so just get on and make the most of them! 

3. They are confusing.
I dont find them confusing. I find them straight forwards and descriptive and progressive through the levels.  I have a good understanding of what is expected at Level 1, 2 and 3 and am starting to understand Level 4. 

4. The first 3 years is an absolute nightmare.
No, not an absolute nightmare - difficult in some cases yes, takes a bit of thinking around but this is possible. There are problems though with students who havent started on their 5 year old birthday so even though the anniversary report is after their first year at school, this catches up with the student between third year and Year 4 - they may have only had 2 years at school where they are at standard however by the time they get to Year 4 they are now below based on year level. 

5. Label children as below and well below.
Yes, but maybe this needs to be said? Life isnt always about being the best and the brightest - and schools can design reports so that the other qualities that students bring to learning are highlighted and reported on. It deepends on how narrow you make your focus. I think wording could be changed to say not meeting the standard, meeting the standard or exceeding the standard - semantics maybe but gives a different perpective.  

6. They cause teachers to rush.
This one I do agree with. The early learning years are a time for students to adjust to school at very different levels that they come in with.  Students need time to learn at their own spped and especially literacy must come when the students are ready. Learning through play and Move to learn I think are vital components of a junior school programme which will address the key competencies which is where I truly believe our focus should be on developing rather than the narrow academic band. 

7. Schools are compared against each other.
The story behind each school is important as all schools have their own strengths - however - and maybe this is said becasue of the school I work in and have worked in for a 14 years - the standards are achieveable when the key competencies are addressesd and focussed on. 

8. Narrowed the curriculum.
Rubbish.  They standards have not narrowed so that I no longer have the teachable moments or the arts - take a look around my room and it is full of colour and students work - I simply find a way to integrate what I know the students need into the direction they are interested in. If the learning intention is aming no sense, then you need to look at what you are teaching ......  

9. The standards give us nothing.
Disagree. The standards give a guide as to what students are expected to do at certain levels in their schooling. They do not take away the students talents - they enable teachers to look for ways to incorportae the talents and thus enhance the learning in math and literacy - If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have alwyas got. Teachers need to be willing to take a risk, as we encourage our students to do and move out of their comfirt zone. 

10. They cause us to feel that we have to prove ourselves.
Scared of accountability? Scared to be learners and to grow? Children are very very much the centre of my classroom. I dont believe the standards are killing our education system - but teachers who can't move away fromtraditional styles of teaching and look to what really is going to help children to be successful learners - KEY COMPETENCIES - I believe are the vital missing ingredient. 

I dont want to go back to what I had before. My learning has increased enormously in the past 5 years and the edcuation expereince I offer my students now is hugely more than what I did before national standards. National Standards were not the catalyst for change - but the teaching and learning that has come out of managing national standards has been instrumental in my development as a teacher. 

Term 2 Week 9 Well being

I came across this entry in a blog I was following. It made alot of sense on a topic that was current at school - WELLBEING.  

We were all asked to make a time to talk with the principal about Wellbeing and how we were feeling at school and about school and what the stresses were on us.  For me I appreciate that I have a relative autonomy in what happens in my room. I work with colleagues who trust the decisions I make and who interact with me as a professional. For me, having the "brakes" put on me is detrimental to my growth, however I work in an environment where I am supported to take learning and teaching in a direction that I think my learners need to go in, and no "brakes" are put on me. This contributes significantly to my well being. 

During a recent team meeting we were discussing what makes you feel valued and how you show others that you value them. It had come from a middle management workshop that Courtney had been on.  We discovered that Courtney likes to give gifts to her team eg. bring in coffee, Sam likes time with friends and the social aspect of a team, and I like to be recognised for the job I do.  It was interesting how we were different and the team works successfully as we all bring something different to the way we work together.

I have highlighted the parts that resonated the most with me and gave me questions to think through going nto next term.


Teacher Wellbeing- some research highlights by Meg Gallagher

http://teach-learn-lead.blogspot.com/

As I write this we are in the last days of the end of the second term of the year, in the middle of winter where it is cold and miserable and the flu/bug    season seems to be incessant. Many schools have mid-year reporting happening, so there is the added stress and it shows for many of us.

Let’s be honest though, teaching as a profession is inherently stressful. We are working with people all day and human beings are complex, sometimes tricky even. And relating to people is only the start of what a teacher is doing as you all know, but I am not going to spend time talking about what stresses us for two reasons; 1. There is plenty of research and anecdotal data to confirm that teaching is stressful and 2. Spending energy on talking about what stresses us often feeds the problem and doesn’t necessarily provide any solution to it.

In the last year I have conducted a small study as part of my masters in education qualification exploring positive wellbeing for primary teachers in their mid-career. I propose that the findings are likely to be relatively generic although to confirm that I would obviously need to conduct a much larger study. I do think however it is worth sharing some of the findings here as food for thought and a possible contribution to the important conversation about teacher wellbeing. Don’t think for a second that teacher wellbeing isn’t important either, there is plenty of research to support the notion that happy healthy teachers have happier healthier classrooms with happier healthier learners who appear to achieve better- simply put, your wellbeing is important to the learners in your care.

So here’s some of what I found out about what may contribute to positive teacher wellbeing in our current educational climate: 

1. People-centred leadership practices.

How the school leaders work with their staff in the school can make an appreciable difference to teacher wellbeing. In my research it was noted that it was the small acts of kindness and appreciation that really mattered such as a sincere thank you, a surprise coffee or chocolate treat (or appropriate healthier option), noticing when workload increased and doing what they could to alleviate the stress in small ways. It really centred around relationships and ethical behaviour.

Consider: How do you enhance your relationships with your staff if you are in a leadership position? What are the small acts of kindness that you know will be appreciated by members of your team? How can you build relationships with the leaders in your school? 

2.      Supportive relationships.

It is said that teaching is about the three R’s, relationships, relationships, relationships. The relationships teachers have are numerous; students, colleagues, parents/caregivers, leadership, school management/parent committees, community members, PLD staff etc. The reciprocal nature of student teacher relationships is really interesting, when teachers are doing well their students tend to follow suit, and when students are succeeding that tends to support teacher wellbeing as well. Our relationships with our colleagues can be protective too, it appears that where teachers work in a collaborative, supportive environment that still allows for autonomy and individuality they thrive.

Consider: How do you build and maintain relationships with your students? What is it about your classroom environment that enhances wellbeing for all? How do you acknowledge your colleagues positively? What do you do to create a positive working environment at your school? 

Relationships - I think teachers are very good at building the relationships with their learners. The part that interested me was how to I build a positive working environment at my school - it is each individual staff members repsonsibility to address this.

3.      Strong sense of purpose.

For the people in my research making a difference to the learners in their care was clearly a motivating factor and something they returned to time and time again when speaking about what ‘filled them up”. Having clear beliefs about teaching and learning, then following them as well as sharing school values can be empowering for teachers.

Consider: Why did you become a teacher? What do you believe about teaching and learning? Do you share your school values? 

Do I have a clear sense of puropse about what I am doing in my classroom and how I am going about achieveing outcomes for the learners in the room? 

4.      Self Efficacy

Adopting an “I choose…” mindset appeared to have a positive impact for the teachers in my research. They acknowledged they didn’t achieve true balance much of the time, if at all, but they all stated that the way they worked/lived was a choice they had made. This seemed to be empowering, they were in control of what they could control and owned it. They were also clear about what was out of their control and found ways to shift their focus. Think about a time that was challenging for you, what lessons can you draw from it? This is one way to reframe negative experiences that appears to help stop these events eating away at your self esteem. Another way to build self efficacy is to be self aware, knowing your strengths and weaknesses as well as addressing your health and wellbeing needs. The teachers I talked to weren’t afraid to ask for help and could track how they steadily shifted and changed their teaching practice to meet learner needs and improve management of their own personal resources.

Consider: What choices do you make around how you work and why? Are these choices working for you or do you want to change anything? If so what? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What can you share with others to help them improve their practice? Who can you ask for help when you need it?

Am I responsibe for my choices? Do I own my choices or do I allow someone else make the choices for me? 

Basically teachers, like most people I would suggest, need belongingness, connection, a sense of identity. This, for me, is like our essence that we can come back to when we are decision making, when we are under stress, when something doesn’t go right. The people around us can have a huge impact on how we feel, as can the stories we tell ourselves.

The words "stories we tell ourselves" stood out here because I firmly believe in self fullfilling prophecy  - if you tell yourself it cant be done, then it cant be done, A self-fulfilling prophecy is a belief that comes true because we are acting as if it is already true.- this can be positive and negative.

As I stated earlier, your wellbeing is important to the learners in your care so I hope that you will do what you can to help yourself to be the happy healthy teacher you know your learners deserve.

Term 2 Week 8 Fidget Spinners and Moving to Learn

FIDGET SPINNERS!      

The newest toy sensation that has taken the must have world by storm!!

The Glenfield Mall stall selling them had a queue that took 10 minutes of waiting in .... as children who must have must have anything new and their parents who give in to everything their child must have (not need) want the new toy ......

It is a toy .... 

HOWEVER ..... There is a student in my class with a very severe stutter. So much so that over the past term he has resorted to writing down what he wants to say or share with the class in a discussion for me to read outloud for him as it takes so long for him to get the words out that he wants to say.  While he has the fidget spinner in his hand, the words are clearer and he is able to participate.  This really has been an excellent learning aid for him. 

Fidget Spinner   

Children are going to class with bodies that are less prepared to learn than ever before. With sensory systems not quite working right, they are asked to sit and pay attention. Children naturally start fidgeting in order to get the movement their body so desperately needs and is not getting enough of to “turn their brain on.” What happens when the children start fidgeting? We ask them to sit still and pay attention; therefore, their brain goes back to “sleep.”

I am very interested in movement and how this can help children to learn, from a SENCO perspective as well as a classroom teacher.  I havent yet got my thinking together enough to put forward an actual proposition. But from the work I was doing last year on the Skateboard programme that was based around movement from an occupational therapy perspective to the discovery I have with Cam and his fidget spinner, I think there is growing and growing evidence about how movement is a key area to get the brains active and ready to learn.

I have purchased a Unit from this link on STEM Fidget Spinners to use next term. 

Fidget STEM 

  

Term 2 Week 6 and 7 Tuhononga Day and Oracy

Week 6 Tuhononga Day - Judo

I have labelled this Key Competencies because judo is about self discipline, managing self and co operating with a partner.  

I had 31 students in the group from Year 2 to Year 6.  Johan Boshoff took the group as the coach and I assisted, with Tracey Clarke helping to manage the students.  There were a small group of Year 2 and 3 boys who struggled initially with the self management aspect as they were playing around rather than listening and needed considerable re direction to get them focussed. However this was achieved quickly once I had seen whothey were messing around with and separated them, and as they were active for most of the time and only had minimal periods where they were required to sit and listen or watch, they were able to achieve the techniques.   Freddie became my new best friend!

Week 7 Oracy

Reflections during Team Meetings on reading we were given to read on Oracy and Oral Language in the classroom.

Week 7 Term 2

I found the reading very interesting.   The breakdown of the types of listening - informational, critical or evaluative, appreciative and empathetic differentiate in a way I hadn't really considered before.  Similarly, the type of talking - Exploratory, Presentational and Conversational.  Makes sense now that I have an awareness of the types.

Facilitating classroom talk - I use the talk moves from math and across the curriculum.  I have a hands down classroom and students know they are expected to do the thinking and to have a contribution if they are asked to share.  I use wait time and have been working on extending the length of this to give more time for thoughts to be processed.   There is still very much a girl-boy division in the room with choosing a buddy to talk to or work with.  Unless I intentionally make them choose a buddy of the opposite gender, or do the names out of the hat sorting they will always stay within the same gender buddy. This is an area to work on.

Recently I have started having students who have wanted to read a section from our class book have the opportunity to. The class have responded respectfully and there is always a volunteer wanting to read.  I am aware of keeping mat time to a maximum of 10 minutes at any one time so listening is active and directed. We do sharing back of thinking - with the focus being not on having a  correct answer but on using subject specific language and academic language as opposed to conversational language. In writing we have been exploring the difference between informal writing e.g journal and diary writing, and more formal writing  i.e an information report, and have taken this into modelling these types of language when responding to each other.   Negotiating and the way we talk to each other has been a focus as well as we have been learning and working with the differences between a social conversation and a learning conversation.  

I see oral language as being the basis of everything. It has been particularly noticeable with Yunseo  that there is so much she hasn't understood and cannot participate in as she doesn't have the language to explain or to understand.  

Week 8 Term 2

Listening to the language of the classroom. What interactions are the students having with each other? Social or learning conversation? Are there supportive words, or put down words being used?  Are students responding to each other? Who is doing the talking most?

This week the students have been very engaged on their Imaginary Land 3D maps. This has meant working in their group which was self selected so mostly based on friendship.  The conversations have predominantly been learning - discussing what to do next, dividing up jobs, time management with an encourager usually apparent just naturally in each group, and using the 3D math language when deciding which shapes to use.  One group had a team member away who would normally dominate. I wondered how this student would fit back in - he tried to dominate the other 2 verbally but they were too far through the project and although a little disparaging in his comments about their efforts, got on and helped them.  Very little talking from me this week, very much student to student and student to teacher talk. :)

Term 2 Week 5 AsTTle assessment

AsTTle testing week - just another piece of the data to build up the child as a learner.  

I make a point of telling the students that this is one test on one day and is just one aspect of assessing where they are in their reading and math learning.

This time the tests were completed on line which was good as it saved printing the paper booklets and  the tests were adaptive. This means that the programme chooses the next set of questions based on the responses given in the previous set - so adjusts up or down. 

There were no surprises in the data. I will share the printouts with the students though so they have an understanding of the process and why they do the tests.  This I'll do to start next term so they can set a goal based on what the data has shown. 

Working through PROBE and GLOSS, other peices of the evidence for each learner.  I share with each child after each test 1 to 1 with me what the results are.  

Term 2 Week 4 Maths Dyscalculia

Children come into the school year either liking math or not liking math. It can cause anxiety and fear, and low self esteem and low self confidence seems to be made worse by anything mathematical. 

Dyscalculia 

• There is no cure for dyscalculia. 
• It’s not a phase a child will outgrow. 
• Like the color of a person’s hair, it’s part of who they are.
• It’s the way their brain processes math.
• It’s important to remember that every child with dyscalculia has different strengths and weaknesses so take the time to find these out. 
• Create a stable foundation on which to build more skills.
• Hands on approach with materials.
• Grouping and regrouping very important.
• The long-range goal is to teach calculation techniques and reasoning that use math principles to solve math problems. 

I have been working with number patterns - taking away the fear of being right or wrong - by having open ended problems that need reasoning and personal circumstances when solving. I think the attitude of half my class who came in saying that they can't do math and math is too hard, is changing.  They are starting to understand that math is about patterns and looking for a pattern, finding the pattern, understanding the pattern, and then applying the pattern, takes away some of the anxiety they feel. 

I dont have students who are Dyscalculaic, however several of the points above are important for those who do find math challenging - grouping and regrouping, hands on, find the strengths, calculation techniques that make sense to the child - are important in a math programme.  I found math difficult at school, and I think this struggle has actually strengthened my ability to teach math in a way that is accessible and built on patterns. 

Term 2 Week 3 Math Would you rather

Math Starter - I found a link by accident to Would You Rather..?  math starters to look at thinking and ways of thinking through a math problem. I have started this week with the class and they have been a success!  

Would you rather?

The idea is to pose 2 options and the students have to logically think through and compute what option they would rather have - there is not necessarily a correct answer as it depends on the way their thinking goes.  For example:

Would you rather have $100.00 now or $1.00 a day until your next birthday? 

This was a great one to start off with as it enabled a rich discussion to happen as the students realised that when their birthday was as a deciding factor and then had to calculate how long till their next birthday. The discussion afterwards was based around the strategy they used to work it out - very very successful! Feeling very chuffed about it!

Examples

The students work individually initially through the problem making their own decision - my reasoning for this is that everyone has the opportunity to do their own thinking and come to their own conclusions before sharing with a buddy.  

I thought that some students may change their minds after sharing but this wasnt the case. ALL students stuck to their initial reasoning - and the students who find math more challenging were all able to participate on the same level as the other students as their reasoning was just as valid. Through the sharing process afterwards strategies were shared - ranging from the simple counting on and counting back to advanced multiplicative - all students were exposed to this range of thinking. 

Term 2 Week 2 Problem Solving in Math

Reading for Team Meeting this week was called

Teaching Values Through A Problem
 Solving Approach to Mathematics

                                                          Teaching value through Math

Essentially the article was about real life problem solving, about solving problems that were a real context and therefore making the math meaningful and purposeful. Not just problems that sounded realistic, but actually require the students to use math to find a solution to actually had. 

• equipping students to meet the challenges of life
• developing general knowledge and common sense
• learning how to be discriminating in use of knowledge, that is to know what knowledge is appropriate to use for what purposes
• integrating what is learned with the whole being.   

The context comes first and then the math comes out of the context so students need to employ a range of skills and strategies, not just within a topic e.g learning addition. 

A good read and thoyght provoking. I use the problem solving approach consisitently, but not in the context based approach as was suggested. Could be a direction to explore further. 

Term 2 Week 1 Daily Planning

I am trying a new planning system this term. It was a presentation at the Google Summit and uses Sheets for weekly planning.  It is a download that is then personalised for your own planning needs. Sheets is probably the google suite product I am least familiar with so this will be a learning curve for me! The present system I am using on a doc is good, but think I will give this sheets a try for new learning this term.

Link to planning on Sheets Term 2