Writing P.D 21/11/2017

"Great readers make great writers like good eaters make good chefs." Good readers often have a wider vocabulary.

What are some of the issues with students writing?
My response: When I think about my students' writing, I find that many of them have highly creative imaginations and are able to come up with interesting ideas to write about, however they struggle to put those ideas down in grammatically correct, coherent sentences. Sometimes they are lacking knowledge of how a sentence is supposed to be structured, i.e. subject, verb, object. Other times I believe students write in more of a stream-of-consciousness, and lack the revising and editing skills necessary to ensure it makes sense at the end. 

On the other hand, I also come across students who are highly capable of writing sophisticated, grammatically correct sentences, yet struggle to simply come up with enough things to say. I find these students require a lot more support in the early stages of writing, with brainstorming and planning their ideas. Supports such as a picture prompt or a story-starter can also make a huge difference for these students who struggle to get started. 

SSW - sustained silent writing - 10-15 minutes a day on any topic they want. (Quick writes)
Good writing includes:
Precision (it is to the point)
Clarity (not cleverness)
Focus (doesn't wander)
Fluency (easy to read)
Coherence (I can understand what the author is saying)

We need to be teaching students how to structure sentences. Different sentence styles video: Ian
'Writing a sentence is like a train...'
The bird.. Sat in a tree... Watching a delicious worm
How many ways can you organise the engine and the carriages.
Teach the skill on its own - content does not need to be linked to inquiry etc. Just use basic language, that won't confuse them.

20 words or less: GOOD SENTENCE.

How might I use these sentence ideas in my classroom?

• Have a play around with different orders for sentences (train and carriages)
• Give students opportunity to revisit a piece of writing and change some sentences - choose one type at a time, or focus on a range.
• Give excerpts from stories or journals for students to look for cool sentences.

Important: Clarifying, sharing and understanding learning intentions and success criteria:

Pick samples of writing apart: 'What makes this writing great?' 'What do you notice?'

What shouldn't we do? 

Co-constructing SC with students. 

Maths observation - TAI

Last week my team leader came in during maths time for an observation. The learning intention of the lesson was to order decimals to two d.p, and be able to put them on a numberline, knowing the difference between a tenth and a hundredth. The focus for my observation was around reflection at the end of the lesson. It is important to me that my class are reflecting on their learning, making links to the learning intention/goal. I also expect them to be able to identify if they're struggling and specifically what part of the learning they need to work on. I am using the resource given by the maths advisors and find that it works really well. 

What is not going so well is the written reflection. We often forget, so the interval bell will ring and we would have missed our reflecting time completely. Also, written reflections are still often about task completion, rather than actual learning. I think the next step in remedying this would be to get the kids to use the same reflection prompts that we use for verbal reflection, in their written reflections. Also need to set a timer each day! 

I've noticed in Riley and Ben, a real sense of ownership over their learning and they are spending their independent time on RELEVANT activities. They have even been bringing their evidence to me without my asking. The real proof if this is working will be when I see this learning demonstrated in a different context, totally independently. 

So overall, happy with the things I'm trying. I just need to be really consistent and ensure reflection is done well.

Lesson observation sheet from T.A.

Class Survey

I am thrilled with the results of this survey. It shows I have increased the amount of Te Reo I use which was a goal of mine from last year. I have taken note of the children who have mentioned the work being too easy as this is something I'm very conscious of, especially as I have so many high achievers this year. It is helpful to get this feedback nice and early so I can make some changes. It would be nice to know who the anomalies are in some cases so I could really make a difference for those kids.

Notes from the Bobbie Hunter Maths video 28/2/17

Notes from the Bobbie Hunter Maths video 28/2/17

When coming up with a question for maths
Anticipate the possible misconceptions and possible mistakes students might make

Should lead to the big idea or concept

Active listening - revoice, ask questions to try to understand their thinking,
Be a driver for your learning. Point to the person who's in charge. Point to the person who's going to help you get there.

Use drama to act out a problem to help unpack it (milk bottles)

The best student in the group is to make sure the others understand

Teacher focus on dynamics - not your role to give clues. May prompt with carefully crafted questions

Argumentation is encouraged - explicit mentioning of the talk moves
Give students an opportunity to share their ideas, justification etc, then ask the others if there are any questions. We don't interrupt until they have finished sharing.

Questioning tips for maths:

LEVELS OF THINKING	GUIDE QUESTIONS
Memory: recalls or memorises information	What have we been working on that might help with this problem?
Translation: changes information into another form	How could you write/draw what you are doing? Is there a way to record what you've found that might help us see more patterns?
Interpretation: discovers relationships	What's the same? What's different? Can you group these in some way? Can you see a pattern?
Application: solves a problem - use of appropriate generalisations and skills	How can this pattern help you find an answer? What do think comes next? Why?
Analysis: solves a problem - conscious knowledge of the thinking	What have you discovered? How did you find that out? Why do you think that? What made you decide to do it that way?
Synthesis: solves a problem that requires original, creative thinking	Who has a different solution? Are everybody's results the same? Why/why not? What would happen if....?
Evaluation: makes a value judgement	Have we found all the possibilities? How do we know? Have you thought of another way this could be done? Do you think we have found the best solution?

Maths TAI 2016

Maths Workspace

To give my students choice and more opportunities to drive their own maths learning, I use workspaces. These are set-up to work alongside the maths workshops as the place to go to practise skills and do evidence tasks when they think they have mastered a learning intention. The workspace has a range of different activities for different learner's tastes - games, tutorial videos, rich tasks, practise activities from workbooks etc.

Modelling books in reading, writing and maths

For my daily lesson plans, I use modelling books. These include learning intentions (often framed as a question), sometimes success criteria, the date student group/individual names for tracking purposes. These books are there for the students to refer back to in following lessons and independent time.  I also use the book for formative assessment, leaving examples of students achieving the learning intention and other indicators such as traffic lights.

Maths Workshops

My maths has for the most part this year been structured in a student-driven workshop format. Students do a weekly or fortnightly pre-test (self-checker - pic 1) to see what they know already and what their next learning steps are. Students then put their name down on the workshop booking sheet (pic 2) to show they need to learn that particular skill/concept.

I use this as a guide for who I will be teaching on each particular day. If there are a lot of kids down for one workshop, I will split the group in two or sometimes even three, differentiating them (but to the students it is 'random')

Maths Formal Observation and reflection

I feel that I have made good progress with using the 5 talk moves and it has become a normal part of maths that the students expect. I find myself using the moves without really knowing I am - telling me that it is starting to become a way of 'being' - more than just something I 'do'. The talk is still largely led by myself and I am making an effort to direct the students' talk back to each other and less back to me in the 'ping pong' style. I use lots of think, pair, share but I don't yet think the students are thinking deeply about each others' responses which is something that Jody picked up on in this Observation. I agree that my next step is having the students discussing more freely and having them lead it. Jody and discussed how this might be a challenge. We thought about explicitly teaching them to lead a discussion through modelling and 'role play' and using prompt cards. Deb also introduced me to the idea of a 'fishbowl', where half the group sit down and solve a problem and the other half observe on the outside and then ask questions for clarification. When I tried this, the questioning was very basic - only 'how did you work that out' etc, then there was little to no challenging or further questioning once they heard the explanation. This is something I would really like to work on as it is totally student to student conversation.

Tracking sheet in beginning stage