Day 23 of #28daysofwriting and I am feeling a bit apprehensive about whether I am going to be able to write over the next few nights. We have Parent / Teacher / Student goal setting meetings… untill 8pm both nights. So I think I will have to try and write between my appointments! But I am still enjoying this, big thanks to Tom Barrett for starting this up.
Today was a cool day… That's the only way to describe it. Tonight's post will be a bit all over the show but it will reflect my last 24 hours.
I woke up this morning and checked my twitter account. Nothing, nada, zip, zero. I put myself out there and tried to set up a hashtag for best literacy practice (#BestLitPrac) and nothing came of it. Yea it was only 12 hours but you know what its like. Big dreams of seeing people rally around something you have created… Oh well - I think I did a post on your great ideas not being as great as you think!
Later I was quietly having breakfast when a couple of tweets came through about boys in education. Hmmm interesting I thought as I watched a few comments being made. Then I thought I’d throw my two cents worth in, play devil's advocate. The ensuing debate went around the cognitive, social and cultural differences between boys and girls. How personalised learning came into play, whether or not boys classes were the go… it was great. It's open debate and discussion like this that forces you to examine your practice, reflect on what you believe, how it links to pedagogy and best practice and pushes you to a ‘where to next’ point. So thank you to those people involved.
So by this time I'm at school and getting a much needed coffee since I missed my morning run.
Then class time. The day runs through and I trial a few changes to my literacy programme that I talked about in my post last night. A few things worked but overall it didn't flow like I wanted it too. I think I may have lost my mojo.
Lunchtime comes around and I am having a discussion with my principal about literacy programmes, trying to fit in the cool stuff and the must haves. Mentioned that I want to get the Daily 5 going too… Then it hit me. I shot off and quickly googled Daily 5 and double checked my idea will work.
Sure enough, for some reason the idea was there all along. In my brain I had been seeing Daily 5 as a support tool to my programme. How wrong I was. The Daily 5 will provide the structure for my programme and the cool stuff, and the must dos will fit into it. I whipped up a revised Literacy Tumble.
No more groups trudging through a group timetable. Now students have choice and responsibility - all that good 21st Century skill stuff that you know you want in a programme. They will be responsible for providing evidence, a big mind shift for them and this will take some time to get right.
Student will be given focus areas. Areas where I know they need a little push. Areas that tie into their learning goals.
I am excited. After a few weeks of feeling pretty frustrated and bored by my own programme I think I have found what I want for this year group. Talking to some of the other teachers about it got them excited (Daily 5 is something we have played around with but never quite nailed) and they were excited to develop some ‘check up’ resources to ensure student could show and share their learning.
I hope you enjoyed my post. The Daily 5 programme I whipped up is completely in concept stage and would love any ideas and feedback about it. What other great activities do you use in your Daily 5’s?
This post relates to the following New Zealand Registered Teacher Criteria:
4. demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of personal professional practice
5. show leadership that contributes to effective teaching and learning
6. conceptualise, plan and implement an appropriate learning programme
8. demonstrate in practice their knowledge and understanding of how ākonga learn
9. respond effectively to the diverse language and cultural experiences, and the varied strengths, interests and needs of individuals and groups of ākonga
No comments:
Post a Comment