Reading ... from planning to completion

Earlier this term I was asked to present to teachers in the cluster that may be moving to 1:1 iPads next year.  During this presentation I briefly described how I planned my reading lessons and what they looked like in the classroom.  Following this session I've created a screen cast of the process I follow in reading in my classroom.

Film Festival 2015: A Whole New World

Once again its time for the annual Manaiakalani Film Festival  and once again I've contributed a class movie.  As with last year I experienced some challenges but I wanted to ensure:

• All learners in the classroom were included in the movie
• The 'message' of the movie was applicable for my five year old learners
• The learners had a chance to experience being "real actors" - yes that mean't dressing up and doing things again and again - the same as real actors have to do!

If you viewed my movie last year, you'll know that I used the green room quite a bit and had success with green screening - the learners were fascinated with being in this room and what was achieved as a result of using the green screen.  So again this year I have used green screen, but decided to challenge myself and try new things - the results may be obvious in the movie.  

Learning from lessons of last year, I used a voice over (again, voiced by my learners) rather than trying to incorporate speech into the movie - I discovered with five year olds it was too hard to have lines recited correctly at the same time the rest of the cast were quiet and doing the right thing.

My movie features in the evening showcase (something I'm quite proud of) and I look forward to seeing the results on the big screen.  More than that, I look forward to the reactions of my learners as they see themselves on the big screen - that experience is after all, what its all about!

Room 19 presents .... "A Whole New World"

Scaffolding individual learning ... using QR codes

Once again I've used QR codes as a way of learners having some choice in their learning.  Our team wide inquiry topic is "What animals need to survive?", which was supported by our trip to the zoo in week 3.

Using You Tube clips which are age appropriate for my learners, I've created an inquiry topic board and once again used QR codes so learners are able to have some choice about which animals they are exploring.

The first time I unpacked this as a class last week the learners were very excited.  We watched one clip (all clips are around 2 minutes long) and then had a rich discussion around what we had seen in the video clip and what they learnt.  Learners then had some time to go away and learn about animals of their choice.  Initially I buddied children together (mixed ability groupings) so that learners were able to discuss their animal with a critical friend and then bring the information they had learnt back to a whole class sharing session to round out the lesson.

In order to minimise the noise in the classroom, some learners were able to work outside.

Although I've used QR codes with my class throughout the year, this was to link to Tiny Tap activities I'd created and this was the first time they had some choice in the inquiry area.  The learners were extremely engaged and keen to explore and share.

I'm now being constantly asked when we can have another lesson with the QR Codes!  It's great that the learners are able to turn this enthusiasm into learning and I look forward to sharing some of that on my blog over the coming weeks!

ULearn15 ... an opportunity to share

I really enjoyed the opportunity to share my learning journey to date with conference participants at ULearn15.  After being inspired earlier in the day with the opening Keynote and breakout sessions, I was glad of the time and effort I'd put into my own presentation.  I still find it amazing that I get so much enjoyment out of sharing with others, and despite not being a fan of public speaking in the past have embraced the Learn, Create, SHARE mantel of Manaiakalani and continue to get immense satisfaction through sharing my journey.

The value of Explain Everything highlighted @mrsbnz #ulearn15

— Marnel van der Spuy (@1MvdS) October 7, 2015

@SamHocking1 @steve_katene @mrsBnz Ha! 😁Explain Everything is a very handy iPad app & easy to use for as #ulearn15

— Marnel van der Spuy (@1MvdS) October 7, 2015

Slides from my presentation are included here (note that my presentation was a Keynote, so some links will not autoload, and fonts may appear slightly differently):

The importance of reading to ...

At our recent team professional development session with Dr Rebecca Jesson, I was reminded of the importance of reading to my learners.  Often in our busy day I struggle to find time to do this, and have yet to achieve the recommended three books a day.  One of the reasons for this is the inability of some of my learners to sit quietly and listen to the story - they feel the need to continually interrupt or jiggle around on the mat.

I set myself a challenge of achieving three books a day with my learners and discussed with other teachers in my team how they achieve this.  One suggestion was to read a story with the learners while they are eating their lunch.  I also decided that as many of my learners arrive late to class and this can be quite disruptive, to trial reading a book at the beginning of the day while waiting for these latecomers to arrive.

My final challenge was how to have them engage with the reading without the constant calling out - and again, based on a recommendation from another teacher, we're trialling the "star chair".  This is a reward for an individual learner that sits and listens to the story without calling out or wriggling around on the mat.  Not only does the individual get to sit on the chair for the next story, but they get to choose which book we read next (from a range that I have pre-selected and have available).

I couldn't believe the difference this star chair made when I implemented it last week - immediately every learner was engaged and focused on listening to the story - it made such a difference that even my Teacher Aide wondered what was going on when she entered the classroom and saw everyone totally still, silent and listening to the story.  While its early days, I successfully read three books a day three times last week - it is from these books that we're able to discuss the rich vocabulary in some of the stories as a whole class and introduce the learners to new experiences and ideas - we've had some rich discussions already and I look forward to this continuing!

Once again I'm reminded of the value of professional development as a way to enhance the learning for all in our classrooms as well as refocus us and ensure our pedagogy is the best it can be!

Capturing the Prior Knowledge

Last weekend I enjoyed the EduCampAKL unconference.  It was great to share some of the things I'd been doing but also network and get new ideas to use in the classroom.

One of these ideas was the use of Thinglink - a way of presenting many ideas in one space.  I'm able to Chromecast my laptop on the TV in my classroom so that learners can see their ideas are added and valued.

The first activity we did last week was to answer the question "How do I get the things I want?"  I took a photo of the class as they were sitting on the mat and then we added an idea to each learner (some learners had to leave for lessons outside of the class).

The next day we completed a new ThingLink and explored "Where does milk come from?"  It was really interesting to see what prior knowledge the learners had and this gave me a starting point with my teaching!  Importantly, the use of Thinglink means we're able to go back at the end of a unit and see how much progress we've made and what new knowledge we have!

I'm excited to see in how many other ways we can use this tool in the future!

My Learning Environment ... one term on!

As one of my beginning teacher goals, at the beginning of Term 2 I changed the look of my classroom.  As the term draws to a close its time to reflect on how it has worked and how my learners responded to the changes.

• visibility of the whole classroom from my teaching station - this has enabled me to be much more responsive to behaviours (both positive and negative) and avoid them getting out of control
• a range of working spaces available (rugs, chairs, couches) which allows learners to choose where they are most comfortable.  I've worked hard with my learners so they understand that its a privilege (rather than a right) for them to choose where they can work and that their behaviour has to be appropriate for their choice.   I've found learners are more engaged when they are comfortable and learners than struggle to sit at desks for prolonged periods of time are also more productive when choosing their own working space.
• noise levels - by spreading out around the classroom I find noise levels are manageable, despite learners having individual devices which require them to listen to things (eg books, verbal instructions) - even in this cold month, where going outside is not possible, learners are able to listen to books without it being too disruptive for others
• learning spaces - the new layout has created different distinct learning spaces which has made keeping equipment together easier and rotation transitions more fluid.  My learners know which spaces are available and what can be done in each space.  I've also noticed that tidying up is much more streamlined as a result of this.

I'm really happy with how the new environment has worked this term and actually struggle to find any negatives or anything I'm particularly wanting to change as we finish this term and head into the next - more of the same in Term 3.

It worked last year ...

..... why not try it again this year :)

Often I struggle for "new" ideas and ways to help my learners with their needs.  Last week I was browsing back through my blog, specifically around writing and I remembered that we'd used Explain Everything for learners to record their story prior to writing it.  This enabled them to take the time to locate words around the classroom, write them down, and have a way to refer back and remember what comes next in their story.   Many of the learners in my class are beginning independent writing, so I decided I'd try this again this year to see if I can achieve the same success.

Similar to what Michelle and I did last year, I've scaffolded this again in small groups of learners and found its again been a great help.  While the sentences being created are still quite short, it does help learners craft their sentence, particularly those learners who have English as a second language.  They are able to continually record until they are happy with the sentence and then play back their recording as they locate the words to write.

As I've scaffolded this with the learners, I've encouraged them to take a photo of what they are writing about first (if possible).  This helps them locate the project in Explain Everything, rather than them just saving a white screen.   

As my learners start to craft more complex sentences, or multiple sentences, I'm hoping the use of Explain Everything will help with their writing and enable them to build on a simple sentence, turning it into a multi sentence story.

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!

Term 2 and a new Learning Environment

In the last week of the holidays I made additional changes to my classroom to make it more inviting for the learners and more appropriate for a 1:1 iPad environment.  We now have a couple of couches that learners can use for reading, or working with their iPads.  I've moved away from a U shape with the desks and created additional space by removing one of these.  This enabled me to add some mats to add colour to the floor and create cosy spaces for playing with manipulative equipment.

When I compare the before and after photos I can see a difference but the real test will be what the learners think, and more importantly how the new space works from a teaching and learning point of view, which I intend to blog about in future weeks.   As with testing anything new, I'm prepared to make changes or modifications if needed, to ensure that the environment is both welcoming and effective as a teaching and learning space.

How the learning space looked before the holidays:

How the space looks now:

The response to the new look from the learners as they arrived today was great - they all noticed immediately that things have changed and were keen to explore and try out the new couches and mats!  I look forward to seeing if the results as they move around the space are as positive.

 

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.

Introducing the stylus

As I discovered last year, the stylus is an important part of using the iPad, as the learners are able to get more precision and it definitely helps with writing on the iPad.  Again, all styluses are labelled with learners name and a corresponding label on the stylus holder.  I carefully scaffolded the importance of looking after the stylus with the learners and we had a whole class session today using it for the first time.

One of our achievement objectives in maths is numeral identification, as learners are able to count to 10 but not identify each number by sight.  I created a Bingo board using Explain Everything and learners used their stylus to cross off the numbers as they were called out.  We will continue to use this as a warm up over the coming days to reinforce number identification.

Later in the day we again used the stylus to help us with writing our name.  Using a name card prompt, learners opened a blank Explain Everything project and used their stylus to write their name.  This activity gave the learners an opportunity to again use the stylus, which reinforced the messages from earlier in the day.

The power of Explain Everything

Its hard to believe this is the third week of school and my New Entrants class has doubled from the 5 learners that started on the first day to 10 learners.  Over the past two weeks I've scaffolded the use of the iPads with all the learners and we've focused on taking photos to celebrate our learning and the 'kawa of care' that Pt England embraces around the use of digital devices.  

As with last year, Explain Everything will be the app of choice and this year I am wanting the Explain Everything activities to extend beyond a cut up sentence or practicing of high frequency words.  I would like purposeful activities and tasks which are rewindable and recordable, and encourage higher order thinking, which in turn will help with engagement.  Having said that, my learners are only five years old and I understand the need for careful scaffolding to ensure they understand the activities and how to use Explain Everything correctly to get the maximum learning benefits.

Earlier this week I used Explain Everything for the first time during our reading lessons with the learners who had been at school since the beginning of the year.  The activity follows on from the guided reading session, and each group was carefully scaffolded at teaching table.  We completed the activity first as a group and then once independently at the teaching table, before they took their iPads and books to another table and did the activity for a third time independently.  It was amazing to see the engagement and willingness to complete the activity again and again.  Even learners who are harder to behaviourally engage in the classroom were motivated and completed the project with minimal assistance from their teacher aide.

An example of an Explain Everything project from this week.
Learners use their book to help them put the sentence together.

What the completed project looks like.  Learners then record and read the
sentence so I can hear how they are doing away from the teaching table.

Additionally, one of the great things about Explain Everything, is it links to the learners individual Google Drive and using Hapara Teacher Dashboard I'm able to review their work later in the day and see how they went about completing the activity.

A screenshot of my Teacher Dashboard from last year.

This post appears as my contribution to the Auckland University's Top of the Class blog this week.

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)

Nearly Day 1: 2015

Tonight is the eve of the start of my second year of teaching and the first year with my own class!  I'm hugely excited about meeting my learners tomorrow and introducing them to school at Pt England!

I've been working behind the scenes preparing my Class Blog and Site for 2015 and these are now live!  Part of the great thing about being a Google School is most of the work can be completed from home so I could also enjoy some family time!  I wanted to personalise both my blog and site appropriately for my five year old learners and their families.  I admit to spending ages deliberating around what to call my blog for 2015.  In the end, the majority of my class are starting school for the first time, so they are effectively launching their learning journey - hence Launchpad i-19, (the i to signify the iPads we use for learning and Room 19 is our class number!)

Already its been a busy start to 2015 as I attended Summer School at Auckland University and have now submitted two assignments for this paper.  We also had Professional Development for all junior teachers as the school launches the 1:1 iPad program in the junior school.  It's been immensely satisfying to be involved in the whole process and assist in preparing the devices for the learners.  I hope to take the time to document the Apple Configurator/Meraki process over the coming weeks so others can learn from our experiences.

For now, as I finish off the last few things before the official first day of 2015, I can't wait!  I'm ready to launch into teaching for 2015 ... follow my journey!