Twitter - from Daily 5 to 'Self Directed Learners'

How much has your classroom changed in the last two years?
If it is not obvious to you, your learners and your colleagues that things are changing then you need to get out there and grab yourself some PD. To be specific, some Self-Directed Professional Development.

Get going with Twitter:
Three years ago I found Twitter and a whole new world of PD opened up. This was not what 'Management' decided I needed to learn but was driven by my interests and the needs of our classroom.
I noticed that educators globally kept talking about the same things and one of them was Daily 5 and Reader's Cafe.

Investigating Daily 5:
Always nosy and keen to improve my teaching, I began the investigation.  The books arrived and I was raring to go but ….. two student teachers and 12 weeks later… I began in Term 4 of 2012. We started the process of developing reading muscles, stamina and independence within our own learning.  The class loved it.

All those 'Internet Based' tools come into play when beginning something like this. Pinterest has already gathered up all the resources you would ever need and tweeting or catching up at F2F meetings like educamps and coffee is the way to see things in action.  Make those connections and visit other  classes.


In the first year it all began to click into place and I could see the connections we could make with the work of The Book Whisperer @donalynbooks.  We unpacked genre, tracked our reading with 'Piggy Pyramids', wrote shopping lists of books we wanted to share and did 'Book Speed-Dating'.  Most importantly we have heaps of books around our class and I activelly helped kids find 'Good-fit books' because I knew what they like to read and have read most of the books in our class library!  Daily 5 was our favourite time of the day but that was not the end.  It was only the beginning.



Growing Daily 5 into independence:
To start 2014, my neighbouring teacher, @KeelingAlice, and I were questioning how we could grow the independence of Daily 5 to help develop Independent Learners with aspects of a student led timetable.  We had already successfully applied the approach to our maths programme and the language of independence was being used confidently… start straight away, move away from distractions and know my target.

Independent Learners:
Our class identified the success criteria for an Independent Learner, designed a licence and decided what choices the licence would give them. We started at the beginning of Term 3 with 13 Independent Learners and now at the end of Term 3, the whole class of 27 have their licence.

Does it make a difference?
I am in the process of getting the class to complete a Google Survey to establish their views on the difference 'Choice' makes but a couple of anecdotal observations really showed me how powerful giving students agency and autonomy really is.

I have two boys in my class who in their own way have been a huge challenge.  They were defiant and angry, unco-operative and not willing to be part of our class.  I took the risk of allowing them a Learner Licence earlier than I would have liked.  Their success criteria were much more limited than what was expected of the class.  I didn't make the connection but after a couple of amazing weeks with these boys, I asked what had changed to make learning with them so much more positive and self managing.  They both said it was getting their Learner Licence and having control over their day.

It was Daily 5 that began this journey and allowed us to get to this point where the students know their targets, select the most appropriate learning activity and suggest even more appropriate ones to meet their interests and needs.

Positive Mindset:
My final challenge for this last term was to help improve the attitude of the class. This links closely to the work of Carol Dwek, as sourced via Twitter, and is linked to my focus on Te Reo.

We begin every day with this as a karakia then move into a loud chant.

Hard work brings success.

Success makes me feel good.

I can get better.

I will be adventurous.

I can solve it!

This is a great vocal way to claim the day and has made the class aware of the importance of having a positive mindset.  They identify it as a personal need, include it in their daily targets and then we celebrate evidence of a positive mindset throughout the day. My most negaitve student at the beginning of Term 3 is now constantly referring to and exhibiting a positive mindset, as well as idenifying it in others.

Where to now?
The journey never ends if you are making use of the available contacts and links via Twitter. There is always a next step as the teacher and these are mine:

Begin to use gaming elements to reinforce the success criteria of independence.  Gaming 4 Community

Collaborativelly build a Google Site 'HUB' for our two classes, in which we can embed our 'Flipped' resources, learning links, weekly programme and follow-up tasks for student access from anywhere and anytime.  Google Sites - Amy McCauley


Join Twitter and get some PD:
My best ideas as a teacher over the past three years have all come from amazing teachers on Twitter. I can't imagine what my class might look like if I hadn't had all this brilliant and free PD.

Sign up and start following some of these great teachers. Christchurch Teachers
Don't forget to check in with groups from your local area like http://christchurchednet.blogspot.co.nz because that's your own personal resource and support team!

Scaffolding Independence

My first tasks seem pretty simple in scaffolding independence but it will be interesting to see if they give students more independence and an understanding of the teacher being 'the closest' expert, rather than just the teacher.  It is easly to get trapped into being the only 'expert' but much more learning is done and children take the siklls into daily life if they are empowered to 'do it for themselves'.

These ideas have come directly from @heymilly and can be seen in her presentation on BYOD.

http://heymilly.blogspot.co.nz/2014/05/byod-in-classroom.html

Developing Experts:

We have a class that values AKO, where we see ourselves as all being teachers.  This really takes the 'stress' of as you are not the only one who knows.  The class bubbles will just make this explicit to both our class and our buddy class also.  They will be placed in our central 'cloak-bay' so it can be developed as a shared space and the expertise can be seen as a shared resource.

Developing 'What to do if…' charts:  While we need to identify further areas as a class that we need to develop these in, I have begun by creating two.  These are the two that drive me most crazy as the students struggle to manage themselves on these.

Moving independence on with and from Daily 5

Alice @keelingalice and I @kiwiallana have taken up the challenge for our Action Research Project.

We plan to investigate the impact of building independent learning behaviours as an extension of the explicit Daily 5 approach that models clear expectations and establishes routines based on goal-setting, with student choice.

We will investigate if this does in fact in turn produce independent  learners whose learning goals and successes are relevant and clear and can be confidently articulated.

We believe Daily 5 approach gives students the opportunity to develop and exercise agency and independence in their learning.

Through the explicit teaching of expectations and routines, learners are able to make informed and empowered choices about their learning and next learning steps.

Research Summary:

We have read widely over a range of teacher resource books, recognised blogs and ministry of education publications we the express purpose of looking at how to develop independence in learning to progress from the implementation of daily 5 - literacy.

There were some key points that emerged:

1. Co-constructing scaffolding charts and developing ‘Student Experts’ allows for greater independence along with gradual release to independence.

• http://heymilly.blogspot.co.nz/2014/05/byod-in-classroom.html,
• Daily 5, The (Second Edition): Fostering Literacy in the Elementary Grades
• Cameron S. Dempsey L. ‘The Writing Book’ S&L Publishing 2013

2. Expectations being taught explicitly through collaborative construction, modeling and muscle memory activities  - supported by current brain research.

• Boushey, G. and Joan Moser. J.  (2014) Daily 5, The (Second Edition): Fostering Literacy in the Elementary Grades. Stenhouse Publishers

3. Specific learning Language is taught  and used across the curriculum - making connections and generalising their learning.

• Cameron S. Dempsey L. ‘The Writing Book’ S&L Publishing 2013
• Boushey, G. and Joan Moser. J.  (2014) Daily 5, The (Second Edition): Fostering Literacy in the Elementary Grades. Stenhouse Publishers
• Boushey, G. and Joan Moser. J.  (2009) The CAFE Book: Engaging All Students in Daily Literary Assessment and Instruction. Stenhouse Publishers

4. Questioning helps to unpack student understanding and develops deeper thinking

• https://sites.google.com/site/teachermrheath/home/teacher-math

Research Question:

How can range of scaffolding tools be used to help develop independence in learning?

Action:

• Gather Student information about what to do do when you get stuck.
• Co-constructing  ‘How To’ charts.
• Develop ‘Experts’ display and use AKO.

This is the action I have chosen to being the journey with.  Alice has decided to focus on the explicit teaching of 'Leaning Language' to enable students to be articulate in taking about and knowing the next steps in their learning.

Reading List: 

Boushey, G. and Joan Moser. J.  (2006) The Daily 5. Stenhouse Publishers

Boushey, G. and Joan Moser. J.  (2014) Daily 5, The (Second Edition): Fostering Literacy in the Elementary Grades. Stenhouse Publishers

Boushey, G. and Joan Moser. J.  (2009) The CAFE Book: Engaging All Students in Daily Literary Assessment and Instruction. Stenhouse Publishers

Cameron S. Dempsey L. (2013) The Writing Book, S&L Publishing

Absolum, M. (2006). Clarity in the Classroom: Using Formative Assessment. Auckland: Hodder Education.

nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz. Why is learning to learn so important? / Issue 21: May 2012

Gibbs, R. and Poskitt, J. (2010). Student Engagement in the Middle Years of Schooling (Years 7–10): A Literature Review. Report to the Ministry of Education. Available at http://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/ schooling/student-engagement-in-the-middle-years-of-schooling-years-7-10-a-literature-review/introduction

Unboxed: A journal of adult learning in schools. Issue 10, Spring 2013

Mindsets and Student Agency, Eduardo Briceño

Website List:

http://keycompetencies.tki.org.nz/

http://www.the2sisters.com/

https://sites.google.com/site/teachermrheath/home/teacher-math

http://heymilly.blogspot.co.nz/2014/05/byod-in-classroom.html