Fun With Maths

On Friday I decided to use a you tube clip for maths maintenance with my streamd maths class. My students loved it, when I got my usual students back, the ones who stay with me for maths wanted to share. We were sharing when our buddy readers arrived and we shared with them also. I got them to stand up in their school houses and asked Private Mike etc to give the answer. They loved it.


I should have gone shopping for a similiar hat at the weekend. I was thinking we could remake the clip with my students.

Solo Taxonomy

Here is another video for our PD and sharing session next week. I thought I would think ahead and embed the videos I wanted in my blog to find them more easily.
I really like how this teacher talks about how Solo Taxonomy has helped her be clearer as a teacher and when she talks about being a friend this fits in with our beginning of the year activities. I also hope it inspires my colleagues with our journey that we have begun with SOLO Taxonomy.

Engage Me

I was looking for a clip to start a pd session at school.  I found this on You Tube.  I think it is great as something to make teachers think. 

2011 class blog

My class blog has got off to a good start, with photographing my students portraits of themselves, and them using their Solo define map of ME to define themselves. My students are getting their parents to comment. I am giving house points for getting people to comment as an incentive so that the blog becomes more than students creating content for the sake of creating content.  I have had a good start because I organised the blog to be set up before the students started.  Other years, it has been after that, and taken ages to get up and running. Also I am much more confident in the design and setting. The ICT team with the principal's support have decided all classes will have a blog this year as most had one last year and to keep the learning going.  I had already decided to keep mine going to keep my own learning up, and to work on getting more comments as they have been far and few between in other years.  The portraits and me definitions have received very postive comments from the parents.  Wonderful.

2011

A new year has rolled around. This year my goal with ICT is to integrate better in my classroom programme. I had some success but this year I now have 4 classroom computers plus my teacher laptop. That means 2 students can work together if I have groups of 8, and if 10 in a group they can use mine. It also means that from 8.30 until school starts, students can complete work.
We had Solo Taxonomy PD for our teacher only day, with training on the rest of the maps. My other goal is to learn how to incorporate the maps in my classroom programme as much as I can.
Now our cluster is over so to speak, I want to be able to keep the learning I have done, and to continue moving forward with it.

Last Lead Teacher Day

Last week, we had our last lead teacher day. We shared our action research which was interesting to see how much thought and planning had gone into all. It will seem strange not having the ongoing PD which I have enjoyed very much. I find that I have learnt the value of PD and being current. When I first came to Botany Downs, I wasn't that fussed on lots of PD (and I find some current colleagues have this attitude), but having to stand up in front of others and explain my PD, try and inspire others to take the "call" and seeing change across the school, I can see the value. I like having current PD, rather than feeling like the last school to be having PD even though we are probably one of the last schools to have the cluster funding for ICT and inquiry in the way that we have. Going to conferences like Ulearn and Learning@Schools helps with the focus of what is current in our field of inquiry.

Highlights for me have been the external conferences, visiting schools on lead teacher days to see and understand how other schools do things; (Schools can be insular places.)getting the data projector and other equipment so we feel more like other schools who have lots of equipment, and how I have changed as a person, and a teacher. I had to learn to stand up in front of others, think more on my feet, be proactive in being able to do the ICT and inquiry things so I could model this for others, and become more flexible about letting students on and with equipment (becoming the facilitator).

One of the biggest buzzes for me is when students can demonstrate their learning or say "I get it." This year my students have started to "get"the creating stage of our inquiry journey, they are independent users on the computer, and more recently, with a homework project have created slideshows that have internet links, using Goanimate, and generally sharing their work. It was great to see with the homework projects all the acknowledgements. One student commented that another didn't have the acknowledgements. Cutting and pasting is still a huge problem. They have a second homework project due, so we will see if the message as got across. When we were viewing, one student came up to me quietly and said,"I think my project is too long." She was asking to take it home and reduce hers as she had got very bored with another and could see the same would happen with hers. Learning has happened!!!!. We are "getting it" with ICT and Inquiry.

Action Research

After 2 terms we finished our action research. Marie and I have one more presentation on it to make to staff. With writing, 2 terms hasn't seemed enough time to make a huge difference. There was improvement but only within the level. I think in hindsight that my choices of students made it harder. This was because they had other factors which impinged on their ability or willingness to improve, eg home circumstances, and suspected processing disability.

Overall, I think doing the action research helped me focus my teaching. Sometimes, when reflecting about it I wonder would I have done anything different, as with the ASTLE identification of needs to focus on, I had to do a lot of it anyway. I would have liked more computers so that those other students in my class who would have like more opportunity to use a computer too, could have had said opportunity.

One of the students that I focused on believed he thought better using a computer. I never found it so for this student when I sat alongside trying to get the thinking and links into the story to improve it, but who is to say it is not for other students, or this student in a few months or years. The idea that "Oooh, look at me I am on a computer," is still a prevalent thought at my school, and still a distraction, so the thinking is still to come. For the more mature/responsible student this is not so. They do focus, and attempt the new learning that I am trying to instill.

I found it interesting that Marie and I chose different approaches to our action research because of the year levels that we teach, and because of our professional goals that we had set at the beginning of the year. Marie did lots of modelling with the mimio, and students using kidpix to draw, and create their stories, whereas, I used the mimio also for modelling, a little bit of kidpix drawing, and direct typing into the computer to overcome the student's dislike of using pen and paper because of poor fine motor skills. I also had student retell stories during reading time; ( a time honoured method of integration).