Review of goals

Reviewed the goal I set in week 2 with Muireann and we went through the why, what and how:

The goal was:

My next steps to review are whether or not it is working by questioning the children mentioned above and so look at all of Kevin Knights prompts which are:

Swivel of Maths

Very scarily I swiveled myself during a Maths lesson with the Orange Squares. Here are my so whats;

What I did	So what? Or Why?
Clear LIs were given	Children knew what they were learning
Materials were used	Manipulation of the materials gave a greater depth of understanding
Discussions among the children	They were on task and engaged in their learning
I did a lot of questioning	Prompted their thinking, not giving them the answer
Praise	Created a positive environment so children felt included and able to take risks
Use of modelling book	Easy for me to refer to and for the children to see their learning un-packed
Set out expectations and why the set up was as it was	Great to talk about expectations, but did so in a negative way which could have started the lesson badly for some Ensure stay positive, praise those who sit where expected and do as told
Went round the circle to ask how higher they wrote their numbers to	No purpose Eliminate from the lesson (save 30 seconds!)
Told a child to put down their pen (after all pens were down)	To stop her fiddling BUT she wasn’t distracted so should have ignored the behaviour Although later in the lesson (after 16 minutes) she was drawing again and this was a sign that she was no longer engaged. Make the lessons shorter
Didn’t let some children finish the learning task	Others had finished and were doing nothing Split into 2 groups after warm up
Explaining in detail what their learning was to some	Children working at different rates Split into 2 groups after warm up
Long transition, children waiting to move to the next station	Off task behaviour Trickle children out to the next learning station when sure they have grasped the LI Give whole group the follow up learning task and set them up in a different space Eagle to organise transitions so my next group are ready (however what happens if in the flow and don’t want to stop Ding a bell a couple of minutes before I want the next group so Eagle can start the transition
Setting up took too long, need to maximise teaching time	Have whiteboards, pens and other materials all ready to go before the lesson
LI was to look at building teen numbers and ended up with children imaging 96 and writing it in the place value houses!	Showed great progress through place value Could have stopped the lesson after 13 minutes when we had achieved the LI This means that I do have the time to split them into 2 groups

Here is the video;

More Maths thoughts!

Following on from the post I did recently about my beliefs around learning maths Muireann commented that she'd like to unpack the comment I made about worksheets! So I have given this more thought!

Worksheets have a place BUT only if certain things are happening.

That they (the worksheets) are; 

• purposeful - not just used for happy, busy, good (although we might need that at times!)
• checked over - no point asking children to do something unless it is looked at it and the children are given feedback or feedforward
• taught - again, if a child doesn't know what to do with a worksheet they may be re-enforcing bad habits
• linked to goals - so the children know what they are learning and can see the why of it

Goal setting

I seem to have a lot of goals and so I have put them in one place with the aim of making sure all my smaller, weekly goals that I set with Claire, are feeding into the bigger picture.
So far, so good, but more by luck than judgement!

Writing review end of Term 2, 2016

Looking at my chosen 3, plus the CL comments for our Skippers/Pounamu children has sparked some ideas for writing time.





Whilst punctuation is a surface feature need for child 2 and 3 they also both needs support with structuring their writing. This held true for others too.
To try and help their learning in this I decided to start with a SOLO rubric on punctuation with examples.



The examples are displayed so that the children know what they are aiming for.

As well as working on punctuation, a deeper feature that I want the children to learn is how to structure their writing so it has ideas, order and flow. To help this I focused on writing a recount which the children do all the time...interesting to note that they had no clue what a recount was! Just shows how explicit we need to be when teaching, and that we need to use the language of learning.

This has all just started and Eve is now the writing owl so we will have to see what happens next!

Teaming

A chat with Muireann over the holidays sparked some more thought about teaming and what it means. She asked if there was anything concerning or frustrating me and there was!

During the end of last term I felt somewhat stranded by some of my team and believed that I was left to do the bulk of the planning and direct teaching for some learning areas. I do own some of the actions that led to this situation as I know I find it hard to let go, and even harder to ask for help. With hindsight I should have insisted upon planning together instead of expecting collaboration via a planning doc, and I should have spoken up. I was very much in Pipeline 1, whereas I should have stepped into Pipeline 2.

Using our teaming BPP I should have held the team members accountable for their actions.

My goal (again!) is to speak up when I'm not happy about something and to also speak up when something is going well. Pipeline 2 is not only about holding each other accountable when something is going as expected but also when the good stuff is happening. We don't praise each other enough.

This also links to other areas of PD we've talked about in the past - that of being above or below the line. I am determined to be an above-the-line, pipeline 2 (when needed) team member.

Just posted this and then watched a video Muireann recommended - about above and below the line with this graphic in it. Sums up perfectly how I felt at the end of the term (below the line) and how I'm feeling now (above the line)!

from www.concious.is