Manaiakalani Outreach Wananga Sharing time

Spreading the Word

Today I had the opportunity to attend part of the 2nd annual Wananga with our Manaiakalani Principals, Outreach Principals, Researchers and School Leaders.
It is so exciting to hear the successes and pedagogy of Manaiakalani Glen Innes are going to be duplicated in even more areas of NZ.

I had the opportunity to share my Inquiry :

Questions

Will using fine-grained assessments improve teacher capacity for setting appropriate goals for students who fail to register on standardised tests?

As we head into testing and data collecting time - it's a good time to reflect on the information our assessments give us. A fail or not achieved results tells us what they can't do , we need to know what they can do to help plan our next teaching steps and to have baseline data.

We need to be able to identify the fine grained progress of all our students even ones with complex learning needs.

Lets celebrate progress no matter how small! Every step is a move in the right direction!

Working Noise levels

Recently I have been asked about how to help students understand about appropriate  working noise levels in the classroom.

Some of these visual charts may be helpful when teaching your students about appropriate noise levels in the classroom.

While oral language is a priority in our classrooms,  noisy chitter chat can be distracting for our learners.

Noise levels can be a problem with open-plan classrooms, especially the high noise levels coming from the other classes sharing the same space. This is particularly problematic when a class is trying to engage in critical listening activities where it is essential that the children can hear the new concepts they are being taught.

We must remember that during the learning situation in a classroom, the student is submitted to two different types of stimuli: the main one that is the teacher's voice or main student sharing and that is the one the student must direct all his attention to; and the secondary one that is the competitive noise and that the student must be able to neglect it in order to allow the main message not to be distorted. This can be a challenge for everyone but particularly for students with processing or communication difficulties. 

If you would like a copy or some help please get in touch.

Supporting our Colleagues - Sharing

What am I learning ?

We have been focusing on how we can share our Learning Intentions with our students.
Students with special learning needs often need visual representation to help them remember their goals and targets or the strategies they need to learning.
Check out some of the examples from my fabulous colleagues at Sommerville.

Managing self

Our students need to learn a range of skills and abilities to help them to do well in life. A very important key competency is managing their own behaviour.
Some of our students struggle with managing themselves when something goes wrong. We need to teach them some strategies to cope.
Here are a few visual strategies we use with our students.
We personalise these to suit the individual needs of each student.
The student needs to be taught how to use these strategies before they are upset and need them.

Please feel free to contact me if you would like copies or some ideas.

Language is a vital part of communication

How can we support oral learning and development:

ERO publishes evaluation reports - there report on language say:

  giving greater attention to oral language learning of new entrants within a rich curriculum
  developing formal expectations for monitoring oral language progress or development across               Years 1 to 3 and beyond, across all key learning areas
 taking a formalised approach to identifying students’ oral language strengths (including       capabilities in languages other than English), needs and concerns, rather than relying on           informal observation and ‘gut feeling’
 systematically planning for interventions, where particular concerns or needs for oral language learning and development are identified
  teachers building on the advantage linguistically diverse learners bring to language learning
 building and strengthening teacher capability to support oral language teaching and learning.



What can we be doing in our classrooms daily to support our students? 

Leading Change - What are our priorities?

I had the opportunity to listen to Bek Galloway present on "Leading my team".
Bex talked about having a clear vision and purpose then everything you do should then work towards that goal.

She has a great visual that resonates with me.  
I think all teachers need to take stock of our class programmes and visions to ensure we are doing what we need to do.

As term four begins and we are all reflecting we need to think about our students needs.

What parts of my programme , plans do we need to Start, Stop, Limit and Continue for my vision to be a priority.

I think as a teacher all the demands placed on us sometimes distract us from our key task - Educating our students to the best  of our ability to ensure they achieve the most they possibly can !