Daily 5, Hashtag Fails and Twitter Debates

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

Thoughts on a Quality Literacy Programme

Day 22 of #28daysofwriting.  It is the home stretch and I am amazed how writing each day has just become part of ‘what I do’.   I hope you enjoy my post on ideas for changes to my literacy programme.

I did some reflecting last week on my literacy programme.  I had to think about the teacher aide time I had and how I would use that effectively.  I had to think about how the iPads that I am setting up will change the programme and today I was trying to plan.  It was a challenge.

With the basics, a bit of handwriting - focusing on letter formation families and then Phonics - a non negotiable at our school and then modelled writing or shared writing I feel like it doesn't leave a lot of time.  I am going to join my reading and writing blocks together and create Literacy - because reading and writing don’t happen in isolation.

The first half will have the must do’s in it.  Setting the class up to go and work independently.  Then in this second block I will see my reading groups.  I don’t know if I am going to be able to include a reading activity or response to text because it will chew into their writing time.

With my iPads I also want to have students using Poptropica as a reading game.  I will set the student with challenges based an adventure each week or two from the game.  These challenges will help me to double check their comprehension skills.  I also want them to use this game as a motivation for writing, and see each student keep an adventure journal.  The great thing about Poptropica is that it is based on spoken text so the students will naturally have a reason to learn and use speech punctuation.  

I have other reading and writing apps I want to try in writing though.  And I really want to look into Daily 5 for the class.  

So as you can see I have the bones of my new programme but I can't quite see how everything will fit.  Between using new ideas and practices in my literacy teaching and the change in year level which has caught me out a few times over the last few weeks.

I know I want a Literacy programme that allows student to use their literacy learning in fun and relevant ways.  I want them to be excited about learning.  I want technology to help engage and excite them (and hide the learning behind a whole lot of fun).  I want to cover those basics that are needed in a junior programme.  But I feel like I haven’t found the best way to use the time yet.  

Maybe this is an ongoing battle.  Maybe this is part of the problem of being a perfectionist.  I just want to do the best I can for these learners and it gets frustrating when I don't feel like I have it right.

Teaching can be a lonely job at times and often when we do talk we talk about snippets of our practice. We talk about big ideas.  But often we fail to talk about the connecting ideas like timetabling, transitioning and how we manage the whole literacy programme so that it builds and supports the planned learning.

So I am going to risk sounding stupid tonight and say I don’t know the right answer and I would love some help.  I’m also pretty sure that there are others out there too who would benefit from this kind of discussion as well.

So my challenge to all #28daysofwriting authors is to make one of your next few posts about the best practice you have seen in literacy and how it is tied together in a overall daily programme.  Lets also tag it in Twitter as #BestLitPrac and see how much we can learn from each other.

I hope you have enjoyed the post and I hope you join in the discussion for #bestlitprac so we can improve outcomes for all our students.