Paul's Place of Musings and Insights

the reflections of a techno-meddling teacher

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Real time formative assessment

One of the things that I am always tinkering away at is how to monitor student progress in class. I am but one in a sea of young learners and regrettably, I am not always able to pick up misconceptions or uncertainty from students during class. They are of course detected during checking and marking of work, but I am eager to refine this process.

Courtesy of Alice Keeler I tried using Google Slides during lessons. My students have access to laptop trolleys, and during this lesson, we were lucky enough to be in a 1:1 environment. My class were researching biomes, and I wanted to be sure that all were finding sources that were accessible to them. So many resources online are geared towards older students, and it is vital for me that I know my Year 5s are able to understand what they are finding.

I created a Google Slide doc with a single slide stating a question. I then altered the Master Slides and custom built a slide for the students to fill out. There was space for their name, as well as for an answer to the question on the cover slide – ‘What is one interesting thing you have learned during this session’.

I shared the document through Edmodo, and within two minutes all students had submitted a response and I had been able to review them. I immediately turned my attention to the students that either took a while to respond, or whose responses were a little ‘vague’.

The students then carried on with their task, seemingly renewed in their purpose by what was in their eyes a very minor distraction, and if truth be told, probably a useful little brain break for them.

This will now become a regular feature of my teaching practice.

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#ozprimschchat 13/2/14 AITSL Standard 1

Tonight’s #ozprimschchat was the first for 2014 and focussed on AITSL Standard 1 ‘Know Students and How They Learn’. The great appeal in tonight’s experience is not in my return to organised chats for 2014, but the subject matter involved. Most topics covered related directly to my teaching but tonight was extremely topical as we as a staff are undergoing professional reflections that align conveniently with the AITSL Standards that we need to meet for accreditation. I have spent the last few week pondering my place on the seven rubrics and have come to the conclusion that the language can be ambiguous and vague and really serves to make me doubt my abilities. Not to say that I am not confident as a teacher – far from it. I am talking about whether that means I am proficient, highly accomplished, lead or just at a graduate level.

Tonight’s chat put a lot of things in perspective. As always, it served to validate my thoughts about a topic. My interpretation of Standard 1 is shared by many around Australia, and this gives me a boost. I feel affirmed in my approach to not only mapping myself against Standard 1, but all of them. It also got me thinking (again) about classroom practices. One of the beautiful thing about topic chats are the tangent discussions that one finds themselves in from time to time. One of these was on the ability of the learning environment to transform and invigorate learning. Again, my views are mirrored by others and this helps. (At the end of the day though, I am influenced primarily by my students in these areas). Thirdly, I have championed the Genius Hour concept at my school and along with Jade and Andy (my Year 6 buddies) we have made it a highlight of our weekly timetable. Again, the benefits we see from our students are the primary motivator but its also nice to hear other on tonight’s chat advocating its awesomeness as well.

Click the Play button in the lower left of the object to play through the tweets or click here to peruse as a list.

 

 

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Parodies everywhere

This term in Maths, I identified a weakness across the year level in times tables facts. We had just emerged from the joy of algebra and were in the midst of geometry, but some gaping holes were emerging, and I decided that a turbo unit on times tables facts was needed.

Being a lover of creative outlets to enhance motivation for dry subject matter, and of parodies in general, I designed a task that would address the techniques needed for some of the trickier times tables facts, complimented by the power of a good tune.

Keeping it real in class

Keeping it real in class

The task required the students to form groups and to choose a popular song that they would change the lyrics to. These altered lyrics would be related to the learning of times tables as opposed to the recital of the facts themselves. Engagement is high, and despite my concerns that the Maths would get left behind in favour of putting on a good show, the students all engaged with the specifics of the task.

Certainly one to pack away for next year!

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Genius Hour Teaching

This post is not about me using Genius Hour in my classroom for my students. I do use it, and in reflecting on using it, I have adopted some of the principles or habits that it promotes into my practice. These are notions of following instincts, experimenting with new ideas, using new paradigms and mixing up traditional classroom practices.

Planning the steps

Planning the steps

After reading this post by @paulbogush I decided to have a go at creating RSA style videos as part of my Technology teaching. The process described in the above post lends itself to the design cycle and it satisfies my need to use technology only when it enhances outcomes. The making of these videos requires analysis and understanding of concepts and content and as such does not exist as technology thrown on to a unit for the sake of it. Above all though, those videos are cool! I wanted to experiment with them. I was drawn to the process and felt passionate about incorporating them into my teaching.

So in planning how I would deliver this new concept to the Year 6s, I had absolute freedom. I teach the subject and thus these lessons to the entire grade, so I really could do it anyway I wanted. This was good, because I was finding it difficult to sequence. I initially wanted to integrate the unit with Science, and use the videos to explain the steps in a volcanic eruption or an earthquake, but that content seemed a little dry and uninspiring. If anything was need to jazz up the video process, it was the presence of creative thinking and so I decided that scientific content would not be the best option.

Deconstructing a Fairy Tale

Deconstructing a Fairy Tale

I went back to my Junior Primary roots and decided to use a Fairy Tale. My friendly Cybrarian pointed me towards a volume of tales and in true selective rigour I picked the first one – Little Red Riding Hood. I should also mention that I made this ‘content change’ five minutes before the lesson. So with my plan it tatters, I now  bring this ramble back to Genius Hour. I felt in that hurried morning an exhilaration (maybe a bit too strong a word, but it was very exciting) about my teaching. I literally bounded towards my classroom, thrilled about teaching this lesson, which I really did not have a plan for. Beginning teacher Mr Huebl, five years ago, would have shuddered at this thought and cowered at the notion of going into the introduction of a new unit with little more than a vague notion of where it was going. After all, if I didn’t reel the kids into this first lesson, I would be fighting uphill for the rest of the unit to keep them engaged.

What I found though, is that I was liberated. I knew the process that needed to be gone through to make the videos, and even though I had deviated from my plan, I was able to ‘make it up’ to an extent as I went along. I’m happy to say that it was a success and after lesson one, I have an engaged bunch of 11 year olds, even if just because it was a fascinating novelty to deconstruct a fairy tale. If only, I chose to integrate with English instead of Science!

Developing a plan

Developing a plan

So I refer to the process I went through as Genius Hour teaching. I went with my gut feel that the content needed to change, I was teaching a unit about a process that I had never seen before, I was out on a limb regarding my comfort level, but it all went well. I feel that the experiences my students have been going through in their Genius Hour learning have washed off on me – I was teaching what I wanted, the way I wanted to, and we all lived happily ever after.

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