Using a DLO to capture learning

Sometimes lessons don't go as planned - the reality of teaching!  I had a recent writing lesson where the progress exceeded my expectations but as a result, the learning wasn't easily able to be captured.  The intention had been to create a small group story and have the learners contribute to the story, and locate the high frequency words which formed part of the story.  However, all learners were able to successfully craft their own story and wrote these on their small whiteboards.  I then had some great progress which I wanted to capture - without the learners having to copy it into their writing books - Explain Everything again was the solution.

The learners were able to not only take a photograph of their story as a record of this learning, but then read their story using the record feature so their voice was also captured.

I also was able to post their learning onto their own personal blogs as a record for the future.  While we are not using these blogs in class yet (it is my intention to do this later this year), because I have access to the blogs of all learners in my classroom, I'm able to occasionally add artefacts to their blogs to document their learning journey - I'm looking forward to reviewing the blogs of some of my learners in 8 years time when they are in Year 7 & 8 of the school, and more importantly, they will be able to go back and see how their learning journey at Pt England begun - visible learning!

Links to the learners blogs are available here and here

Using my H.O.T. template ... small beginnings

As I've documented in my blog earlier this term, my inquiry is focusing on creating Explain Everything projects to encourage Higher Order Thinking with my five year olds.

I've created a template which I want my learners to use with a variety of books and I want to see if continued use of the same generic template can encourage greater HOT and, if over a period of time I see improvement through its continued use.

Today we used my "Wanted" template for the first time as a whole class.  We read a shared Big Book and unpacked the four characters in the book.  I carefully scaffolded the activity with the learners and we completed the activity as a whole class, drawing on ideas from everyone.  Then there was the opportunity for learners to do it individually.

There was varying levels of success with the activity - some learners did really well with the drawing and writing but needed support with the recording.  Other learners' struggled more with the drawing and writing components but did an impressive job with their orally recorded explanation.   I now have a completed project for each learner and I will be able to compare progress over the next four weeks - it is my intention to complete the activity at least once a week until the end of term.  The beauty of it being an Explain Everything project is that I can add it to an existing project as an extra for my higher level reading groups!

Here is a small selection of some of the results from today's first effort - it is important to note that many of these learners have been at school less than a month!

This is Mr Bear and he makes me feel sleepy because he told the boy to go to sleep.

The bear made me laugh because it was silly.

The bear is scary and he made me so sleepy. (Why did he make you sleepy?)  Cos he was scaring me.

Using the first of my 'SOLO' Explain Everything templates

Today I tried using one of my SOLO Explain Everything templates which we created during our inquiry session yesterday, as an additional activity with one of my reading groups.

They had read "Hedgehog is Hungry" (a Red level PM Reader book) the previous day and taken it home to read with whanau overnight.  Before we did our guided reading session for the day I introduced the template.  We talked about some of the things we'd learnt about hedgehogs in our book and the learners came up with some great ideas, including hedgehogs were spiky, hungry and ate worms.  I showed the group how to use the template and unpacked what the word "describe means".

I then asked the learners to select their favourite picture from the story.  Using this template which I'd shared to each learner in the group using Teacher Dashboard,  they all easily took a photo of their favourite picture from the story.  We took turns recording our ideas about the pictures and once each learner had finished we listened to the recordings as a whole group.  We talked about how many ideas each learner had included in their description.  I plan to use these icons to assist them in working up to including at least three ideas in each description they complete.

Unpacking what they achieved today

Here are two samples of what the learners achieved today - the first time we used the template.

The hedgehog is waiting and he is eating the worm and then <undecipherable>.  
(One idea)

This is hedgehog and it ... This is hedgehog and he eats worms and he's hungry.
(One idea with a little elaboration).

Referring back to the SOLO taxonomy diagram, this activity would fall into the unistructural category with one main idea.  

It is hoped that as learners become more familiar with this activity and more comfortable with recording their ideas, that they will add additional ideas and move further along the above diagram.  I always like to blog about my very first attempt with an activity as it provides a value starting marker from which to compare after a few weeks of additional learning.  

The beauty of Explain Everything templates like this one is that they can be added or combined with other projects and can be used with any book that the learner is reading.  

Explain Everything ... powerful learning again!

During this week I introduced Explain Everything to my learners during our maths lessons.  First we started with inserting a photo - learners had already had plenty of opportunities to practice this over the first two weeks of school, so were easily scaffolded into taking a photo and resizing it into the Explain Everything screen.  We moved onto multiple photos in the same project by creating a new slide.

A learners photo, resized on the Explain Everything screen

Similar to last year, my learners are not able to recognise the numbers 1 - 10, despite many being able to count to 10!  We therefore need to spend significant time on recognising these numbers and I introduced the number ordering to 10 project with a small group.  We completed it several times as a whole group before I had them work on it individually, while still at the teaching table.

Towards the end of the lesson I introduced the recording feature so I could capture how the learners were doing.  Again, this was highly scaffolded and they are definitely not ready to do this independently yet, but it is great to have my first recorded work example from a learner!

Exploring the school .... with iPads

I have more confidence this year with the iPads than I think I had last year.   I'm sure this is because I made many mistakes (learning opportunities) last year and really understand the importance of routines and expectations this year.

On Friday we had our first outdoors photo session, after several inside, and I was totally impressed at the care and attention that the learners paid to both their iPads and the task at hand.  Having the safety video to use as a reference point (and the terminology - hug hold) really helped and I didn't have to remind anyone of how to care for their device during the 45 minute session.

Rather than sticking to "colours" for the learners to find and photograph, I gave them more scope to explore and think about something unusual they could use by including:

• A tree (very specific to start with)
• Something blue (again, pretty specific but with a little more scope for creativity)
• Something that is moving 
• Something that makes a noise

I was really impressed with the differences in photos that were produced and these gave us talking points for back at the classroom.  For example, photos taken of the cows in the adjoining paddock gave me an opportunity to focus on how to take a photo through the fence without seeing the fence in the photo.  Photos with fingers or other people on the side, gave me an opportunity to discuss how we can avoid this and ensure that what we want to see is in our photo.  This will all help in class when we use photographs to document, create and share our learning.

Photo by Whare (Something moving)

Photo by Hendrix (Something Blue)

Day 1 ...

I remember when I started "planning" for Day 1 in January having a "what did I do last year" moment?   I was lucky enough to have a mentor teacher and we discussed and talked about what we did last year, and I used this as the basis for this years plan.  Thanks to my blog, this won't be a problem for the future as I unpack what worked well today and what needed tweaking to be achievable for my learners!

Room 19 started with three learners today and I had an amazing day.  We started with a few tears with one child a little upset to farewell Mum on his first day at school, but he soon settled into the class and all three boys happily talked with me throughout the day.  Having only three learners I was able to spend time with them all as we completed our activities for the day.

• Alphabet and alphabet activities - we went over the whole alphabet today and then specifically focused on the first letter of each learners name with some colouring.  I was careful to model the colouring, although despite discussing what colour trees were we still ended up with a blue one!  The learners took much longer on the colouring than I had anticipated.  As they were finished we turned their pages over and I wrote their name on the back and encouraged them to copy over (or under) my writing - this gave me an idea of where they were at.
• Reading - I hadn't planned to do reading today but with only three learners it gave me an opportunity to group them together and introduce reading on day 1.  All the learners were really keen to take their books home and read to their whanau.  I was able to use my reading planning from Tuesday today and shows the importance of being planned for any eventuality.
• Reading Activities - we unpacked two of our reading rotation activities today - jigsaws and blocks - this gave me an opportunity to have conversations with each learner and learn something of their backgrounds.
• Maths - after morning tea we moved onto some maths activities, working on counting to 5 and then 10.  Again, an opportunity to assess where each learner is at before the more formal JAM testing shortly.  Having a workbook with numbers 1 - 10 to start working on was extremely advantageous.
• After lunch we were all pretty tired - we made some creations using the polydron and had a story before it was time to pack up and get ready for going home.  We also took our very first class photo!

Taking time to explore the school, include frequent water and toilet stops and explaining and reinforcing routines helped the day speed by.  These things will all continue to occur as our class grows over the coming weeks.  The learners are intrigued by the computers in the room and I look forward to unpacking the iPads with them over the coming days in a carefully scaffolded way.  

As I reflect on today, having name tags for learners to hang their bags on already prepared was a huge hit with both learners and their whanau.   Being prepared for the whole week and ready to launch into learning benefited everyone and allows for the best possible start for everyone.  Maths booklets, colouring activities and a selection of books to read to the learners all helped to make my day flow and ensured I had additional activities to integrate with the curriculum learning - bring on Day 2!