Paul's Place of Musings and Insights

the reflections of a techno-meddling teacher

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Computational Thinking – for me and my students

I’ve never been taught explicitly how to program or code. Over the years I have developed my skills as necessary to maintain and share teaching and learning materials. I’ve managed to learn what I need to know as I need it, and then I inevitably forget it. I have also (sheepishly) used a similar approach in teaching these topics to my students. I have shown then what they need for a task and they have no doubt also forgotten the skills.
With the new Digital Technologies curriculum I now have scope to explicitly teach computational thinking to my students. I will be using the Scratch program in the first instance, as I recall finding it useful myself. This is the realisation that inspired this post – I only know a little bit more than my students. Now, the gap is still very wide, but it is closer than I am familiar with. What it will allow me to do though, is to be more immersed in the learning process that I am offering my students, as it will be much more relevant to me. I will have a greater appreciation of what they a re going through. This is something that I have not experienced for a while as a teacher, and to be truthful, is something that I find quite invigorating.

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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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Mid Year Wisdom

As part of teaching my students how to record and mix an audio file as a substitute for writing a blog post, I created this. Making it up as I was going along, I thought it would be a good idea to have each of my students come up with ‘words of wisdom’ that they want to share with next year’s Year 6’s. I thought it would be interesting for my current students to reflect on something that they see as important for ‘surviving’ Mr Huebl as a teacher. All the kids participated with good humour and this is our result.

Click here to listen —–> Mid Year Wisdom <——- Click there to listen

Reflecting on this lesson today, I see that giving relevant content to an otherwise dry ‘chalk and talk’ demonstration has led to a valuable resource not only for my current students, but my class of Year 5’s that I will meet officially at the end of the year. It has hit home the notion for not only myself but my students as well that with the plethora of web tools available, it is ridiculously easy to engage in meaningful reflection. I can only imagine how wonderful it would be to have 1:1 devices, where students could make these reflections ‘on the fly’ and then publish in a meaningful way at a later date.

The ability to do things as the inspiration comes is not always a luxury however, but I see after this exercise that these opportunities should be grasped at all costs.

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