Call Back Day

STEM 

On our call back day, we had a day with Susan Heeps. This was an expansion of our science teaching and understanding. 

Importance of introducing scientific practices/ vocabulary during the day. 

Classifying things to help us understand it. 

Looking at the relationships between different things.

Students page - Shows their thinking. Get them to share- this will help them explore their own thinking and giving them agency. 

All things in the natural world that have a structure have a purpose. '

'Parking some ideas' - there are many ideas and concepts - Sometimes you need to park ideas and focus and go deeper with one particular idea or learning area.

Austin Butterfly - 

Science Lesson Ideas:

1.Exploration of different objects- Compare and contrast ( Introduce- Venn Diagrams, focused observation, inferencing) Shells, bones, rocks.

2. Cartesian Diver 

3. Classifying shells 

Sort specimens/ shells into groups/ categories. 

Look at others. Post it note questions you have. Group or students share, photo on TV - talk to the picture. Develops key competencies, building science knowledge - classifying, communicating your thinking, thinking and inferring.  How can you convey to others the categories you created. Recognising patterns, protect sample set.

4. Candles 

Term 12018 Reflection

Term 1 

1. Using a Checklist 

This year I have adjusted my checklist process. When students have completed work they add it to a checklist- I comment on it and color the cell so students know what to do next. Green means it is ready to blog. Orange means there is a comment and feedforward, yellow means I can access it. This is making students more accountable. I found this easier than using teacher dashboard because I can see all the students and their work due this week at a glance. 

Next steps: Monitoring my select student's next term who are not getting work done. Giving them two options for the day. Do this then you can do this. Check in with them after every block. 

2. Science
The science learning this year has been fantastic. I have completed about 10 science-based lessons from Susan's bank of lessons. My students are now starting to use their science books in the sessions and their 'me' pages are becoming more developed with their ideas and thinking opposed to pictures or nothing at the start. 
Next steps- Use the question cards during EVERY lesson. Focus on 1-2 a lesson as we work our way through Students will become familiar with critical thinking and the sentence starters help them form sentences.


3. Digital Modelling Books
This term I used a digital modeling book and had documents where students worked collaboratively on. This was extremly effective- The students loved it and they used other students work to support/ help their learning and understanding. I noticed that It worked best in small groups 6-8. I also need to make sure I change the editing rights after the lesson so students can go back and deleted others work. This term I really want to try and use them more. I managed to use it once a week BUT this isn't reflective of how often I taught writing- I need to update the modeling book after every session and ensure students are using it.
Next step: teach students where it is- Constantly refer to it. Get students to look at it when they are stuck.

M.I.T Moonshot

This week I have been thinking about my moonshot inquiry. During my last KPMG session, I changed my focus from STEM to Reading. This was because my student's achievement was low in ALL academic areas- My group and I discussed that If they could read at a higher level this would benefit other curriculum areas. 

My new inquiry is 'How can I increase critical thinking in Reading?' 

The tool I want to look into creating would be a framework or a rubric that would help my year 5-6 students think critically about what they are reading. 

What I want to look into to help me with this? 

- Blooms taxonomy 

- Comprehension strategies (Effective literacy practices) 

- Sheena Cameron strategies and framework. 

Connecting my Inquiry to the design thinking process 

After looking at Rebecca Jenson's Manaiakalani Inquiry slide I can see that I am planning, trying and innovating. The design thinking framework is helping me create prototypes to support my problem. 

I am in the process of organizing an observation of another Year 5-6 class at a Manaiakalani School. This will help me think about the level of year 5-6 and compare it to what my students are doing.- this will furthermore support my inquiry. 

Class On Air Term 1 Reflection

This term I have been working with Manaiakalani and Google taking part in Manaiakalani google class on air. The experience has been allowed me to reflect on my practice and notice what I am actually doing when I am teaching. I think how we think a lesson goes to how it actually goes watching it back differs. I learned that at times I miss key teaching moments as I am distracted by other students - Working in smaller groups helps minimize this as it is hard to know what 28 students are all thinking and what they are gaining from the lesson. My lessons have had a science/ technology type focus. Science is one of my weaker curriculum areas as I don't have much experience teaching it. This term we have been given P.D by Susan heeps, this has helped me immensely. Next term I am going to focus on Literacy and reading. My inquiry this year is how can I increase critical thinking in Reading- so the knowledge and skills that I develop in my inquiry can add to my class on air episodes. 

So what next term?

- Camera angles (Light reflection- blackout class windows to ensure that the quality of the footage is easy to see) 

- Sound- Use the plugin mic and my phone ( ensure the phone is facing the speaker) 

- Create: What are students going to create next term to demonstrate their understanding and learning?

- Will observe at another school. See what other year 5-6 students are doing. 

- How are we using the digital tools to enhance our learning ( Modelling book, working collaboratively on docs) 

-  Look at Bloom's taxonomy, Reading comprehensions.

- Smaller groups (Science was a whole class and was great when starting out my science journey but now I need to target specific needs). 

- Key learning and teaching focus- develop critical thinking.
- Making cross the curriculum connections. 

Science PD

Susan discussed the importance of planned talk. It needs to be specific to be effective. 

Need the talk to drive the learning as you don't want the kids to just be doing an activity (which is what I think is happening in my class currently). 

Points for Reading as a Staff: 

Accountable talk - Question Cards- (Getting more Student to Student talk) 

Managing Talk through grouping- Mixed ability grouping is the most effective, can group students through interests of languages. (Some need for ability grouping) 

Managing Time- Show them a clock, how did we tell time in the past?

Cultural Diversity and managing Linguistics-  Adaptability of learners (Example; text messages being restrictive originally- students created a 'txt' language to fit more characters into their text messages) 

Setting Clear Expectations- Self-check/ 

Managing to speak, listening, writing, reading- Oral language is KEY to critical thinking. Explicitly showing them 'how' to talk. 

Knowing your learners- How important this is.


Science Task:

Susan taught us how to get our students to think critically and ask more questions during science sessions. We looked at discussion questions. We each choose two and then completed the learning task with that question in mind. This was helpful as it focused our thinking and we could think deeper about our question.

Next steps:
I'm going to print out question cards and use them in my next science lesson.