Sally Avern's Professional Journey

Shifts in own practice and student practice: Comments from my lesson plan attached: It has become easier for my to go back and think about what skills they used in the investigation/ experience after the unit. I can plan for lots of things, but sometimes it changes based on what the students know/are interested etc. Updating this reflectively lets me see where we tend to go naturally, as well as what we are often missing. This way I can go and do a one off for that. Or refer back to something we have done in a different way. This lesson worked well using the small groups. The students were encouraged to use the sentence frames when talking with a small group and then we fed back to the large group without the pressure of talking frames. The one that worked the best was, I have seen that when... I think that the language of the frame was just easier. We did this part in largish groups, but I did it a little differently this time. Showed them all the steps myself- without ...

Mana Atua Matrix Our matrix is effective in that it is referred to often in lessons and changed at least once a week to ensure we are keeping up with the abilities of the students. The matrix is moveable so that we can have it in different places around the room when needed. This means the different lessons/ conversations don't always need to be in the same place, and I can move them around the room, depending on what the students are doing where. Making it more flexible. Classroom environment Ruma Wha is designed with flexible spaces in mind, so the students are able to hide away from noise, work independently (without anyone able to disturb you), work collaboratively, outside, in the shade, in the sun.... basically, how ever they please. The desks help them to ensure they have their own space. A place they can leave their belongings and no one else can touch it. The walls are very helpful for the students to refer to activities and learning we have done previously. ...

My current improvement goal as a professional has been to assist students better determine their own goals. So far this year we have discussed goals and a few things I had seen as a fail. We made some goal cards, one for reading/writing and maths. Setting our goals at the start of the year and aligning them with things from the Ao's and progressions.   With 3 different types of goals and using the LLI's, then translating to the Asttle marks. It was all a little bit complicated.  I have been thinking about how to better integrate the whole process and make it simpler. Turns out I was already on the right track. As the students are aware that they need to have goals now and we are always discussing next steps- when I asked them (without any prompting or warning that this would be a question) whether they had a literacy or a maths goal. 13 out of 15 could articulate both a literacy and a maths goal that they thought was appropriate for them. The maths goal for all was tim...

Capabilitties of successful learners and science thinking. You need capabilitites to be critical, informed and reflective. science thinking with evidence --> The thinking scale is a key element of this program. questions are placed on the scale so that they align with the students level and not age. students a full curriculum level below they can do the yr 4 text instead. Use the scale to measure with progress also. Looking for trends in data. What are the kids improving in? Is it linked to the work the teachers are doing? What are we doing to shift kids? How can we take this into Pd further. Good for comparing the individual report compared to the sort of capabilities etc, by looking at the item report. Why are we doing this? What are our hunches? What is our specific intended outcome. What are our assumptions before we go into the data. Are we looking at this with confirmation bias? Good Links: https://scienceonline.tki.org.nz/

What is happening? Using quick writes and fluency for my writing target students is great, but what can I do that will see more accelerated progress in all of my target students across the 3 subjects. If I look critically at what I am currently doing. It is nothing. I am trying some things. But it is not targeted and not enough.  I am seeing shift in my students based on data but I need to push them.  So: what can I do? Writing: Making sure I am sticking to my plan from my TAI. Ensure I am using the quick writes that work for the needs of my students. The quick sentence practice to get fluency at the stage is where they are at. (See TAI for this). Maths: To meet the needs of my target maths learners I am going to do 15 mins of SPRING into Maths for them at the start of every lesson.  While the other students are doing their warm up. I can do SPRING. It is a wonderful resource that is proven to boost learning in the area needed. So why am I not using it?  Th...

It takes 1 generation to lose a language and 3 to get it back. The secret to revitalisation is intergenerational language use.  (As a school teacher, what is my role in this step?- to assist the students to be more comfortable to use and learn it- they might be generation number 1?) MY JOURNEY- Focus on yourself and build from there. Support system: teachers and students at school. 25 year goal: have my students confidently speaking bilingually. TE REO MEANS TO ME- future of the students identity marker toanga identity revival UNESCO standards for judging a languages level of use: all of them come out as close to extinction. The language will never be 'lost' because it is written down- but it will be extinct soon if we can't get more than 2% of Nz using it. Just Korero More, just use what we have: DO NOT WORRY ABOUT PARTICLES OR SCREWING UP- Just give it a go. 5 Key elements of Language Planning: 1:Value --> give it Mana, what is your group in to? How...

Focus Inquiry: I have chosen 3 disengaged boys in my class to focus my inquiry on. My evidence says: These gentlemen choose to do the bare minimum in most projects and do not see the need to learn lots of things we do in school. We are focusing our Inquiries on Science currently and I think this will be a great place for me to start to make change that can filter into my other subjects. All three of these boys really dislike working on things they think are not useful. They all hate talking in videos that are put online. I have asked them how they would like to present their work and they chose powtoon.  I wanted to see if they could make a decent powtoon in a short amount of time so, asked them to begin by just showing me they could do that. They completed a powtoon quite quickly and were eager to show it to me. They have all expressed interest in being able to choose some things we look into. They are all very adept at technology have have given me very detailed and ...