Inquiry 2015 Reflection

As part of our school wide inquiry into our practice, this afternoon I presented my final reflection for the year.  This slide show and movie show some of the progress made this year.

Collaboration ... helping solve each others' problems :)

Today was our first inquiry meeting for Term 4 and provided an opportunity for us all to take a "teaching problem" to the meeting and seek advice and suggestions from others.  In my session today there was a vast array of different problems which we brainstormed about and came up with suggestions for.  So, without further ado, the problem I took to todays session was:

My learners are struggling to remember blends (letter combinations which make a sound eg ch or st) are holding learners back in reading & writing.  What sort of independent activities can I create on the iPad to assist learners with practicing these.

Some of the ideas that were contributed from the group include:

• Start off with shorter blends or ones most frequently used first
• Use sound bites that learners can press & hear what the blend/word is
• Chunk the blend and the remaining part of the word and have pictures so learners can put the whole word together (include sound bites)
• Break up words and re-create (with pictures and cues)
• Flash card type activity - beat the clock - repetitive
• Work on blend families eg play/plays/playing/played which also will work on word endings
• Use song - link to You Tube clips focusing on that blend

With these great ideas in mind, tonight I have created an Explain Everything project as a starting point focusing on the "st", "gr" and "ch" blends.  Each project has a short video clip (song) about the blend and then activities using the above ideas.  Some screen shots from the first project are included below.  As always, the plan is to test this first project before creating others - watch this space.

Title Slide - used as a visual on my reading rotation board

create "gr" words

create "st" words

Putting it all together - match the picture with the beginning sound

Term 3 Inquiry Presentation

The year is flying by and once again its time to present to a group of colleagues on my inquiry progress.  I like to mix up my presentations and use alternative ways to present as a way of keeping my skills with different software current as well as giving me different tools to utilise.

My 2015 inquiry ... revisit and review

As part of our ongoing inquiry into our practice, this afternoon we are meeting to discuss where we are at, and giving feedback and support to those in our group.  This term, I'm working with a new inquiry group.  My group, and links to their inquiry blogs are:

Russell  (Principal @ PES)

Ben  (Year 5 teacher)

Chrissie  (Year 2 teacher)

Sandy  (Creative Space teacher)

Willis (Maker Space teacher)

We have been given some focus questions to guide our discussion this afternoon and I've decided to unpack each question on my blog so I'm prepared for our session today.

One of the challenges/barriers my students have is……

Generally speaking learners' have less oral language than you would expect in a "typical" new entrants classroom. While there are many reasons for this, such as them not undergoing as many experiences in their pre-school lives, or speaking their mother language at home, it necessitates the need for us to gift rich vocabulary to the learners. This can be challenging to do in reading as so much time is spent on decoding, allowing little room for this necessary gifting.

To address this in my teaching I have tried…….

Following the professional development with Dr Rebecca Jesson, our team discussed the limitations we have in gifting vocabulary during our guided reading session. I was reminded of the need to 'read to' my learners, with the three texts being the optimum number each day. I've struggled with doing this up to now, due to the inability of my learners to sit still on my mat for even a minute, without calling out and interrupting the flow of the story. As detailed in an earlier post, I'm trialling a solution for this, and trying hard to achieve my target of "three books a day." This 'reading to' allows me opportunities to gift vocabulary, and I've also tried extending a text which the learners have been captivated by into a motivation for writing, allowing for further gifting of rich vocabulary as well as adding to the 'experiences' bank for each learner.

The impact of this so far has been …….

While only early days, I have achieved my target on 9 out of the 10 days tried, and the learners are actually asking "when" we will have story time each day. My star chair remains a huge motivator for learners who seemed unable to sit still in the past, so much so that I plan to extend it into all mat time sessions as an extrinsic motivator. To date, I've extended one of the books into a three day writing session and combined this with a fun out of class experience to support the learning. We unpacked some great vocabulary around the word "big" with a combination of gifted words and words that learners were able to share.

So .... where to next ??? …….

My next challenge is to find a way to continually use this exciting new vocabulary, particularly when learners are working independently. I plan to try and incorporate some of it into my Reading Activity projects, again scaffolding this carefully to ensure its used correctly in context as well as adds to the value of the activity.

Today's meeting this afternoon was great - we have an amazing group that covers different levels/areas throughout the school and its great to hear their challenges and what they are doing to make a difference in the lives of our tamariki in other areas and higher up the school. We were reminded (during our inquiry group and also earlier before we split into these smaller groups) that we are an innovative school and have 'broken new ground' on this journey into the whole school using 1:1 devices. I've been privileged to be part of the journey in the junior school and personally really enjoy the ability to continually try things so my learners get the best from me as a teacher. Having 1:1 devices makes learning more engaging, repetitive and visible in my classroom and my ongoing challenge is to continually ensure it is utilised to its fullest potential.

Enhancing the Literacy Experience

As part of our ongoing Professional Development we have been looking at reading with Dr Rebecca Jesson.  As mentioned in this previous blog post, my aim has been to ensure I'm reading to my learners 2 - 3 times a day.   An additional aim is to unpack some rich vocabulary with the learners and this often comes from our shared book experiences or from our whole class writing.  While ideally it would be great to embed this into guided reading sessions also, this can often inhibit the guided reading session which has a focus on decoding and allows minimal opportunities to gift new language which my learners need.

Last week after reading Bubble Trouble, we talked about the language in the book and what happened to the bubbles which the two friends in the story were competing to create.  This lead into our writing session and we wrote a story about bubbles being transparent - a word I gifted my learners.  Our whole class story for the day was:

"When we blow bubbles they are transparent because we can see through them."

I later added the word "transparent" to our growing vocabulary wall for learners to refer back to.

The learners were really engaged with book the book and the concept so I extended this into writing for a second day, with a plan to extend it into a third day and have the learners experience blowing bubbles and then free-write about the experience.  This idea came from something that occurs in a colleagues classroom, with a story/idea being built on over the week and vocabulary gifted to the learners that they are able to find and use in their own stories during the free writing session.  Our second day story was:

"The gigantic bubble floated away in the sky."

On the third day we went outside and had fun blowing bubbles.  It was really interesting to see the learners using some of the gifted vocabulary to describe what was happening to the bubbles.  Of course, what I was most interested in was what the learners would be able to write and what vocabulary they would choose to reuse.  A selection of the stories created include:

"The bubbles went up in the sky and I like bubbles."
"I like the bubbles.  The bubbles went up in the sky."
"We blow the small bubbles and we blow the big bubbles.  We blow the big bubbles and the bubbles float."

While it is only early days, for the first time I've attempted this I was really pleased to see how it progressed and how each day took the concepts and ideas a step further.  My next challenge is to find picture books to read to my learners which extend our inquiry topic so I'm able to combine my writing and inquiry curriculum areas as this will help cover more of the inquiry topic in my limited learning time.  I often find it is a struggle to incorporate all the ideas from our rich Professional Development into my programme and I'm sure this will occur more naturally as I move from being a beginning teacher into being more experienced.  I definitely enjoy the challenge of trying new things and love the sharing of ideas that comes about from our PD sessions, particularly at a team level as I find these even more applicable in my classroom.

My Inquiry ... where to next ?

At our first inquiry meeting this term we discussed with our new group where we were at with our inquiry and what plans we had for the direction of our inquiry.  We've received a significant amount of professional development over the last term, and this will continue this term.  The challenge is to integrate all this new learning into my inquiry to ensure acceleration in reading and activities that encourage higher order thinking.

As detailed in my post yesterday, I'm currently implementing activities in my reading rotation which ask the learner to re-engage with the text from a previous day, as I'm no longer able to see each learner every day (I still try to see my lower groups each day).  The initial activities I have created are more word work, recall and comprehension type activities but it is my intention to extend these as the term progresses to include activities which require aspects of higher order thinking.   The challenge with this is to have them generic enough that they work across a range of texts whilst still being engaging and challenging across a range of reading levels (Red - Blue).  This seems to be my next step.

I have found that as learners move up the reading rocket in the classroom, they are able to independently complete activities at a more complex level and spend more engaged on these.  This continues to motivate me in trying new things, while ensuring the learning is personalised and engaging for all.  

So I can't see all my reading groups each day ..... now what ?

Last year, team teaching with Michelle, we were able to see all our reading groups each day, and I believe that impacted their learning immensely.  To date this year I've been able to see all my groups every day on most occasions.  However, as each learner progresses at a different rate, I've had to increase the number of groups I have and now with eight reading groups (maximum of three learners per group) its impossible to see them all each day and give them the attention they deserve.

The question I've been mulling around for the last week is how can I have the other learners engaged in purposeful activities during reading time on the day I'm not seeing them?  I currently have engagement in a variety of activities, including the Explain Everything activity they complete as a follow up to the text they read during their guided reading session.  Ideally, I'd like the learner to reconnect with this text on the second day.

I explored extending my Explain Everything projects so they were larger and took them longer to complete.  However I wasn't totally happy with this approach as the learners enjoy (and stay more engaged) through the variety of things they do during a normal reading rotation.   Combined with this, the learners that are quicker on completing their follow up activity could potentially complete it all on the day they saw me and would therefore have no need to engage with the text on the second day.

Last week I trialled a second reading activity which was slightly more generic.  I created a range of single page stand alone slides, focusing on comprehension, retell, word work, letter identification and pictorial representations (things that I've identified my learners need more work on).  A new feature of Explain Everything (v 2.71) allows me to insert whichever of these stand alone activities I want to focus on for the week into a new project with the touch of a button.  I'm able to create a second project quickly for individuals or groups to complete using their existing text, which I can add to the existing reading rotation.  The ease with which I can add slides from my existing bank ensures its not time consuming, but enables the personalisation which I value.  Importantly - all the instructions on the slides are verbal as well as written, so learners can listen to what they need to do, fostering independence.

Locate words in your text starting with each letter

Identify the words starting with the letter b

Match the capital letter with the lower case letter

As I review the work completed this week I'm excited that learners have definitely reconnected with the text on a second day.  Interestingly, despite scaffolding "retell" by demonstrating and modelling, most learners have not retold the story by summarising what happened, but instead read the entire book to their iPad.  I can't see this as a bad thing at all - I can hear what words they are struggling over, and while I need to provide further instruction and demonstration on retelling, the way they have completed the activity has provided valuable reading practice for individual learners as well as provided me with information for follow up lessons.

For this week I have kept several of the existing slides and introduced a few new slides, thereby ensuring learners can practice from the known as well as be engaged with new activities.  I have plans to add to my bank of slides as the needs of my learners change.

Term 2 Inquiry Summary

As part of our ongoing Professional Development at Pt England, this afternoon we present our inquiry progress to other staff at the school.

To me, this term was more about input than output - we received professional development around reading pedagogy and I combined this with ongoing research for my dissertation.  I've consolidated many of the things I introduced to my class in Term 1 and look forward to being more innovative in Term 3, drawing on the PD from this term.

More Reading PD

I love reading and its definitely my favourite curriculum area to teach.  It's no surprise therefore, that when we were given some choice in our inquiry topic this year that I would choose something to do with reading!

Today the junior teachers participated in our second session around the Gwenneth Phillips style of teaching reading, which forms the backbone of how we teach reading at Pt England School.  For me, hearing and seeing other teachers who have been teaching using this style for some time, demonstrate their practice was extremely purposeful.  I can also see the huge benefits of using the same prompts throughout the school so that learners become accustomed to them and progress can be built on in subsequent years.

While today's session focussed mostly on levels above where my learners are currently reading (Blue - Gold) there were plenty of take away messages embedded throughout the session and it reinforced again the importance of the micro teaching groups.

• fluency - the importance of this was emphasised by teachers that are reading recovery trained - something I need to remember to practice during my guided reading lessons with learners at red level and above
• focus on one prompt for a week or two - this allows the learners to really understand this prompt as well as embedding it as a habit in my teaching
• Explain Everything is a terrific way of reinforcing the word work that occurs during a guided reading session - I'm constantly reminded how this makes the follow up activity more personalised to the needs of the individual or small group - I could see links between many of the activities I've created and the word work demonstrations today

Where to from here?

Again I can see areas where I'm not quite using the prompts correctly and need to be more precise with the language in order to ensure it lines up with the school wide reading pedagogy.  Definitely focusing on a prompt for a number of days/weeks will assist in getting the precise language correct and embedded in my pedagogy.  We have prompt cards as well as a rich powerpoint resource which will shortly be supported by teacher exemplars which will help to improve my practice.

This PD indirectly relates to my inquiry for the year and as I continue with that, I'll be building on the successes of the micro group guided reading sessions.  Already, in the month since our previous PD on the Gwenneth Phillips  methods I can see the phrases and language becoming more of my "teacher speak" and I look forward to continuing to work on this in the coming weeks and months.  Anything that makes me a better teacher of reading I will embrace wholeheartedly, as I'm passionate about reading and believe that it is so essential to learning in other areas

. 

Detouring my Inquiry

Today we have the opportunity to share where we were at with our personal teaching inquiry and what goals and intentions we had for the term.  It was a great opportunity to refocus our objectives and plan where we are heading as well as hear the ideas of others.

I feel the need for a detour in my inquiry.  I still am really happy with the progress I made with regards to scaffolding reading follow up activities and trying to encourage higher order thinking in my learners, particularly with using the Wanted Poster.  However, I now feel I have two distinct groups in my classroom when considering my inquiry:

• learners who had started school and completed several weeks of scaffolding and using the Wanted poster and additional Explain Everything templates
• learners who are new to my classroom or through being absent missed many of the scaffolding and independent sessions using the templates

As I was waiting for my turn to share this afternoon I considered the "where to now" question and how I could make this work with the two distinct groups.  I still think my inquiry focus is applicable to both groups, however, I think that they will need to take two different roads of discovery - divergent roads that may meet again at some time in the future?

So how is this going to look?  I think the pathway for my new learners is obvious - I need to fully scaffold these learners using the same path that my more experienced group has already taken - the road that has already been travelled!  So with this group of travellers, we'll begin the journey of using the Wanted Poster in a highly scaffolded way and work with this for the remainder of the term.

The pathway for the more experienced travellers is still a work in progress.  However, I want to use the learning they have already done using the Wanted Poster so am intending to add this project on to their Explain Everything activities at least twice a week - they will be able to complete this poster independently based on the books they have read during the guided reading session, while still completing word work and comprehension activities.  This also adds a creative element to each follow up activity and allows me to see their progress when compared to their early independent attempts.  

Additionally, I'm currently working on a new template to scaffold with this group of travellers (in much the same way I did with the Wanted Poster) for the remainder of the term to further extend and capture their ideas.

I'm enthusiastic about this slight detour in my inquiry - I believe teaching involves constant changing to meet the needs of learners - and I'm excited to see where these two different travelling paths will end.

 

My Inquiry continues ...

... with a Magenta and Red theme!

To assist our with our inquiry this term, we are receiving Professional Development on Literacy Strategies based on the Gwenneth Phillips "First Chance" programme.  This compliments my inquiry question nicely, as my learners are unable to achieve higher order thinking with reading, unless they have the grounding and strategies which are at the grass roots of learning to read.

Currently, all my learners are working at Magenta and Red levels so it was an easy decision to base my inquiry focus on these levels for the term - not at all suggesting they will all still be at Magenta and Red by the end of the term, but you always need to start somewhere!  Many of the techniques and strategies outlined by the programme and reiterated during todays session I already implement in my specific guided reading teaching sessions.  These include:

• Small group teaching - ideally groups of three learners
• Orientation of the text - set the learners up to succeed by ensuring the vocabulary used in a text is introduced before the session
• The use of magnetic letters and whiteboards to follow up each session with word work

As I participated in my session today, and on the drive home I was thinking about the things I could do to further improve my teaching and ensure my learners are understanding the prompts that are recommended and embedding their learning for the future.  Some of the immediate changes I want to implement in my classroom are:

• the "drum" effect - for one to one pointing, ensure learners are using a drum type effect - this will ensure crisp pointing and prevent the sliding of fingers that I have noticed is creeping in with some of my learners
• use a wall display near my teaching desk and reinforce "what I say I must see, what I see I must say" with every group every day
• gifting mistakes by including the correct word in my question to them 
• continuing to have high frequency words as a part of my follow up activities - provide letters to a word and have the learners sequence and orientate the letters again independently using Explain Everything on the same word they have done at the teaching table.  This will provide repetition and reinforce the learning they have done at the teaching table.

I wasn't lucky enough to attend the original professional development that many of my fellow teachers were involved in some years ago.  It is therefore great to have these sessions to draw on their understandings and knowledge and use this to benefit my learners.

My Own Class for a Term ... time to step back and reflect!

I vividly remember finishing my teaching degree at the University of Canterbury and being so over the word "reflect" that I never wanted to hear it again - let alone use it!  I find it somewhat humorous that I have become SO reflective in my practice that I do it, at times, without even realising I'm doing it.  I don't think I fully appreciated the value of reflection until I finished my degree and was out in the "real world" teaching.  Now, I find myself constantly reflecting and thinking about lessons - how they went, how I could improve on them, what my learners thought, were they engaged? Not only am I constantly reflecting, but some of my best ideas have come from reflections!

So, with that said, and four months into having my own class, a time to reflect and think about the year to date in terms of my teaching and my own personal growth as a teacher.

The Highlights

Planning - I'm feeling more and more confident with planning each week - I have my routines sorted and find myself monitoring and checking the progress of my learners.  My groupings in the classroom are fluid and I continually change my groups to fit the needs and learning stages of my learners.  As a side effect of this, I see that different friendships are developing as learners work with different peers when groupings change - I think this is a good thing and helps with the general cohesion of the class.

Classroom Environment - Deciding to change the learning space to suit a more digital environment has reaped rewards.  The learners choose different spaces to work and I find some of my more behaviourally challenging learners settle more quickly when given the independence to choose their working space.  I find it easier to monitor what learners are doing with the distinct learning spaces.  Importantly, I enjoy walking into my class each day and I feel it is more inviting for my five year old learners.

1:1 iPads - I definitely think I've continued on from where I left off last year.  I've been strong with my routines (continually having to reinforce these with new learners arriving) and continue to be consistent to ensure that learners understand how to use their iPad within the boundaries of Room 19.  Again, I've tried things - not always successful - and seek to continually find ways to ensure the learners are engaged in what they are doing.  Once again, repetition is important, and the iPad is a great way to ensure repetition in activities to reinforce learning (eg high frequency words).

Inquiry 2015 - Investigating higher order thinking in literacy with five year olds was a challenge and I wondered at times if I'd attempted to inquire into something that was going to be "too difficult"!  By breaking down what I wanted to achieve in the first term I surprised even myself with the tasks I created and my learners responses to them - I'm excited to be continuing to explore this area into Term 2 and see what is possible!

Digital Enhancement & Research dissertation - It seems somewhat comical that something that is taking up a significant portion of my spare time could be a highlight!  I found the Summer School paper, Digital Enhancement, to be thought provoking and particularly useful and applicable to our digital learning environment.  Once again, it was great to work with my MDTA colleagues - we have some of THE best discussions and are always extremely supportive of each other.  Further to this,  I was inspired by the willingness of teachers to assist in my research project and while it is still early days, I'm excited by what I have seen to date.  Having said that, I won't be sad to complete my Honours at the end of the year and take a break from study for a while!

The Challenges

I choose to see challenges not as failures, but as opportunities for me to grow as a teacher, learn from things that may not be successful, and be a better teacher as a result.  Like every learner in my classroom, I'm constantly learning, and will continue to do so.  The things I've found particularly challenging this year have been:

Managing Behaviours - I didn't fully comprehend how time consuming this could be, or how much I would doubt myself when I seemed to take one step forward and three steps back!  That said, when I reflect on the behaviours that some of my learners presented in the first weeks of school and compare them to where they are now, its been an encouraging journey.  It is great to be able to draw on the expertise of my mentor teacher, Michelle George.  While we are no longer team teaching, she covers my release one day a week so I'm able to discuss individual learners with her and she understands where I'm coming from and can provide ideas and suggestions to try out.  As I move into Term 2 I can see the importance of continuing to reward and reinforce the behaviours that are acceptable in Room 19 as well as continually seek ideas from other, more experienced teachers that I could try with my learners.  I also think its important to continually reflect on how far my learners have come - particularly on the days that don't go so well.  Teaching can be hard work - I'm dealing with unique individuals, with unique personalities and some days its just not going to be perfect!

Managing 200+ iPads - This has been a challenge over the first few months of this year and I struggled for many hours to identify and iron out some issues we had - and quite a few times I was very close to giving up!  I've really enjoyed the learning I have done around Meraki and Apple Configurator over the past 15 months - and will happily accept the "geek" nickname I've picked up from a certain fellow teacher at Pt England - I enjoy technology challenges and I'm now glad I didn't let this one get the better of me.  I know that there will always be new learning in this area and that thought is super exciting (here's hoping its not as "time intensive" as it was last term!)

Work/Study/Family balance - The demands of completing a dissertation while teaching full time continue to impact on my work-study-family balance.  It is a topic of conversation that continually arises during my PRT meetings with Michelle.  This year I have found it slightly easier to chip away at my assignments and dissertation but there is always more to be completed.  I'm trialling a new time management system this term as a way of having one day off each weekend, while still being up to date with my planning, assessments and assignments - so far so good (but it is only week 3!)

I'm a great believer in having goals, even if they are known only to yourself - something to work towards and pat yourself on the back when they are achieved.  As is required by my PRT portfolio, every term I have goals and things that I (or my mentor) think I need to work on in an effort to improve my teaching pedagogy and practice.  Having said that, some goals I don't mind making public:

• Complete my research dissertation
• Continue to reflect and modify my behaviour management to suit the ever-changing needs of the learners in my class
• Continue to innovate with the iPads in order to ensure continued engagement and projects which allow visible, repetitive learning
• Share my knowledge with other teachers/educators (blog, Manaiakalani Toolkits, ULearn)
• Fulfil the requirements to become a Fully Registered Teacher - just three terms to go!

Reflecting on my First Term of Inquiry

As we wrap up Term 1 with a Teacher Only Day, I've been reflecting on the progress I have made with my Inquiry.  I've been asked to make a small presentation to the whole staff which I will present this morning.

  Google Presentation.

I'm really happy with the observable progress from my learners, and in particular their ability to make a choice and use a "because" to explain why they made that choice.  I will be continuing to use my Wanted Template in Term 2 and plan to add it as an additional slide to many of the existing Explain Everything reading templates.  Most learners are able to complete the activity independently now and locate words in their book to support their drawing.

Some of the things that have worked particularly well this term, and came about as a result of my inquiry and university paper are:

• using icons to scaffold learners into knowing what to do on Explain Everything projects
• using oral language to capture learners ideas and thinking
• using the same activity template multiple times, and gradually decreasing the scaffolding that is provided

The following small video was created to show some examples of the oral language and the progress made over the four weeks we've used the templates to date.

HOT Presentation from Team 1 PES on Vimeo.

I have some "next steps" which I have outlined in my presentation.  I'm looking forward to creating a new template to use in Term 2, and am particularly keen to incorporate some of the relational and extended abstract concepts from SOLO taxonomy into the template.

Pushing forward with H.O.T. activities

The weeks of the term are flying by and with only a few weeks until the first break I'm realising how valuable time is in the classroom and how hard it is to cram everything into a learning week.  With three new learners arriving this week I took the opportunity to reinforce the routines I'd already implemented with the rest of my learners as well as introduce my new learners to the iPads in a much smaller group.  This gave me a great opportunity for the rest of the class to work on a second Wanted activity.

Much like the first week, we did it together first as a whole class, but this week rather than support the learners with their recording, I left them to work on this independently while I worked with the new learners.  Some did try to tell me they were finished before they'd recorded - this is where I really love Explain Everything as you can tell immediately that they haven't recorded.  I uploaded all the projects to listen to and look at later - thank you Hapara Teacher Dashboard - I can do that from the comfort of home!

Already, I'm noticing a definitely improvement in both the drawing skills, writing on lines and the oral language many of the learners are using - and that is only on the second opportunity to use the template.  I can see the benefits already of adding this template to existing Explain Everything reading projects next term!

The bear was hungry and he stole my, he stole my fish.

The bear made me laugh when he gave the white bear the fish and the black bear the fish.

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.  

Using SOLO taxonomy to create Explain Everything projects

Our whole staff professional development this week looked at SOLO taxonomy and how we can encourage higher order thinking in our learners.

My professional inquiry group met this afternoon to discuss and create an Explain Everything project to incorporate the different levels of the SOLO structure.  As a group we unpacked how this could look for our learners and explored some examples of SOLO HOT maps and graphic organisers.  While many of these look great, I am aware that my learners are unable to write yet, and don't want to have this as a limiting factor for what they are able to achieve.

Our group focused on describe (unistructural and multistructural level) and compare/contrast (extended abstract) activities during our session today.  We decided that rather than using one specific book we would create our projects as 'templates' so that we could use them over a range of different titles.  I've chosen to use oral language in my describe activity:

For my compare/contrast activity, my template is blank however I will need to add photos to at least one side of the Venn diagram to assist my five year olds.   The plan is for them to find similarities in photos (either those I provide, or a combination of provided photos & some they take) and to move common things to the overlapping segment of the circles.  I liken this activity to my recent creation for the title "Brave Father Mouse" where I asked learners to compare what is in their lunch box to what a mouse eats.

Our inquiry group have used the images of SOLO on the projects so learners start to identify with these as they complete activities over the year.  I also plan to include key vocabulary (eg describe, compare, contrast) on my wall in the classroom under these icons and focus on unpacking these words, one at a time, with my learners.  

Following this session, I can see that my Wanted Poster idea which I'd previously created also links to SOLO and encourages higher order thinking!

I'm looking forward to trialling at least one of these activities with my learners this week as an additional follow up to reading and will blog the results!

It is great to work with other teachers with similar inquiry topics and unpack and discuss our ideas - the power of collaboration!  The other teachers in my inquiry group are (with links to their blogs):

Laura

Susan

Jody