Scaffolding Twitter

After our first experience with Twitter this year, I have had a clear indication that there needs to be some explicit teaching and scaffolding take place before we can use the tool effectivelly.

Possible ideas for using Twitter in the classroom:

1.  Summarise and or sell a book.

2.  Pass-it-on story with 140 characters per person or team.

3.  Share target for the day or week.

4.  Share success with a target.

5.  Summarise the key facts.

6.  Make connections with other classes.

7.  Develop a character or setting.

8.  Experiment with connectives to link to the next section of a story.

9.  Celebrate success.

10. Teacher / student ask a Quiz question - to be answered during the day.

11. Share learning for the day.

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

Stepping into Daily 5

A challenge has been set!  
My colleague and I have been asked to present a Daily 5 workshop at a cluster PD day and with two others from our learning team investigating the use of Daily 5 in their classroom for 2014, I thought it might be a good idea have a think about how and why it works.

Students think....
It is great because we read and don't do lots of worksheets.
We are all reading all the time.
Our buddies help us when we get stuck.
I know lots of strategies for when I get stuck.
It is quiet during Daily 5 time because we are all reading.
We get started straight away and build stamina in our reading.

Wild Readers!

The next book by Donalyn Miller, author of The Book Whisperer, is Reading in the Wild. It focuses on developing lifelong and independent readers who have internalized the skills and strategies and read for pleasure.

My challenge over the summer break is to look at how her approach would fit together with the approach of Daily 5 and Reader's Cafe as I have found these to sit well with the concepts contained in the Book Whisperer.

Research shows that reading for pleasure results in greater academic and financial success so we as teachers need to develop students with a lifelong love for reading or WILD readers.

Key characteristics seen in a WILD reader:
Finds time to read for pleasure
Models writing on the books being read
Participates in a reading community - real life or on-line
Has a preference within genres

Classrooms must be organised to encourage the reading habits of WILD readers and eliminate the counterfeit activities such as crosswords, reports and dioramas that guarantee that kids will avoid reading.

In summary....

So what happened?

• Learners are writing from home for fun - including my previous 'non-writers'
• Writing levels are improving  

                  T1     T3

Below         15      6

At               6      12

Above        4        5

• Learners are writing constructive rather than just social comments for one-another
• Learners are aware of the succcess criteria and are using them to comment
• Learners are improving their work using constructive comments
• Learners ask for the opportunity to blog or comment
• Relationships have been developed between schools due to blog commenting

What next steps?

• Continue with individual student blogs
• Always establish a blog buddy class outside the school
• Reinforce the use of constructive comments rather than social
• Spread individual student blogging throught out the school
• Students use AKO approach and help other classes by giving constructive comments

Learning for a purpose - make it authentic!

Mmm - let's take a risk!  Lets jump out of the teacher comfort zone.


In the process of gathering up lots of resources on persuasive writing including the True Story of the Wolf.... (thanks Pinterest) I stopped to think.  That is sometimes an important thing to do! Both think and STOP!

Part of the discussion on MLE sessions on Monday was that we as teachers tend to take over half of the inquiry process, dumping them in at the half way stage.  Well, with this approact to writing it would just be a series of 'Interesting' activities that had no connection to anything the kids were passionate about.  These activities would all be determined by the teacher.

My learners would have a need to be persuasive if they had something they wanted to have happen.  On my plan I have written in the initial writing sample and ID personal targets then it says.... Find out something they are passionate about that they want to make happen.

Of course I have one idea in mind.  Something they keep moaning about every time we cross the road to get to the hall.  We need a Zebra Crossing outside of school.  I wonder if that is what they will hook in to?

As a team we will then have to look at what we need to gather, who to contact, who to persuasde and how to persuade them?  If will really be an inquiry because I don't know - yet!