Sally Avern's Professional Journey

Had originally thought I knew how to elicite discussions but not all of my students can describe prior expereinces, or why they something. I need to ensure they know their experience from OUTSIDE of school is valuable for their learning. Look at the Inquiry project Elicitation of Ideas  to look at the steps we want to work on. When we come along information that they don't have- we can say --> If a scienitist was here they would tell us.... Then adjust our ideas. Seeing the difference between the beginning and end of a lesson vs unit. Was interesting to see NS: -Ensure we have annotated our plan so that it is visible that it is a work in progress. -make sure I am meeting my learning intention for science. -reflections at the end of my lessons- frame my lessons using this (page 111 of CLASSROOM TALK: Understanding dialogue, pedagogy and practice) -not be so worried about students eliciting their responses during the activating prior knowledge stage, this is perha...

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. ...

Current Understanding or Dialogic Teaching: -giving students opportunities to use structured talk -ensuring students have the skills to discuss their own ideas -helping them to understand each others ideas and build on them -use talk moves -eliminate the hands up/ teacher-response-teacher scenario (IRE) --> -helps students engage with the content fully, engage with each other, engage with their own ideas, be more metacognitive -if it is not taught, they will be in a sea of useless discussion perhaps? -helps the teacher draw out misunderstandings, and students build schema, engage with prior knowledge "The person doing the talking, does the learning" Video on productive talk... clarififction of understanding of ideas, (I don't understand- please explain...)  referring to the data, using accountable talk starters, Teacher didn't rephrase, why do they agree?, not just I have the same idea- add to it. "Can I add to that, isn't a new idea, it...

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...

Rumaki = Immersion The plan for Park Estate School: TEACHERS Beginning in a week, have rumaki for the fist 5 mins of morning tea everyday.  (starting with baby steps).  For those 5 mins we will have to try and ONLY use te reo. That means if we can't say it- we need to try and work out how. GOAL: To have everyone using some te reo in conversation during kai te wa at P.E.S.  Giving it a go being the focus. Not fluent or perfect, but to remove the fear of trying. REWARDS: There will be biscuits available during rumaki time in the staffroom. Once rumaki is over, the biscuits disappear- hopefully this will entice some attendance- f we need to extend it to 10 mins, great. RESOURCES :  I have already made some labels/ sentences I know we will be needing to start with, then soon we can add/change them as we get better.  I will also bring in the phrase book. BUY IN: Hopefully the staff at P.E.S value the identity and language of our Maori tamariki enoug...

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...

referred to your writing from previously- would have been better if I had of focused on a particular piece of writing so that I could have used that to mention the types of information. The model used was from this week, I thought that they would have read it by then already but they hadn't, needed to use something they were familiar with.  I made the contextual load high because they didn't know the paper. If I used the model that we used for their writing previously and planned information to add, it would have been easier to discuss the way of the revising and then could have used the model/ more effectively.  Showing them the types of information to add. I wish I had of made/ used an incomplete chart of conjunctions for this group and then added the last column later. This is where the differentiation would have really helped. This kids got the how, which was great. But they didn't understand the why or when. I am not going to be able to say later- go and add more...

What is happening and why? After scanning my students for what their needs were I found out that I needed to facilitate Literacy learning in a group of Ell students. They are just below the expected level in all 3 main curriculum strands and so I needed to find out what it was that they were struggling with. By looking at the assessment data that I have gathered it confiremed they are all still just under, but that the effort put in is not the problem. I though perhaps for one of them it may have been lazyness- in the last few weeks though I had changed a few things to make them a bit clearer and made instructions more explicit for everyone in class. This has changed the attitude of some of my students. They are now excited to do things and help others- although this is a positive, it debunks my theory for those couple of students. I know the work is al their level as I can see them do it with a little explanation. But they are struggling to get things complete.  To help focu...

What is happening? I am trying very hard to make kaupapa and Māori knowledge important in my classroom. I incorporate a whakatauki in our learning to integrate into our reading program and to underpin our class culture. We use kupu, nga tau, and the students and I try hard to weave both reo and kaupapa into our teaching and learning. Part of this though is thinking about whose knowledge is important, and thinking of my students as cultural beings. Not just as Māori, but as members of our community. Dr Anne Milne, asks, is their cultural identity embedded into every aspect of the school day, no matter the subject, etc? It needs to be "modelled by those in leadership roles". In my class I am in a leadership role, and I am trying to embed cultural identity into everything.  But I am on the outside. I want to use more opportunities to find out and learn. There is one incredibly obvious step I can take, although it could be perhaps seen as a 'token' effort. I need to...

One of my goals this year is to gather and use formative assessment data in a more effective manner. I had thought about how, as a teacher I was using this data to plan and implement my teaching sessions, although Michelle pointed out that I needed to work on how I was going to help my students use this to set goals. I had already thought about how to make sure the students could use a goal sheet to refer to next steps but had not thought about how to help them assess their own work. The next step should be to ensure they are able to independently decide if they have met their goals. I knew that this is linked strongly with feedback and feedforward because the ability to be focused on the specific goals means your feedback and feedforward is focused on specific criteria as well. Consequently,  success criteria has been a massive focus this year for everything learning area. Today during reading the students were having trouble talking about why they thought something was or was...

Here is my Literature Review: Implications of Peer Feedback Information gathered through a recent survey revealed whanau want; more homework for students, easier communication between school and home about day to day learning, as well as more visible learning intentions and artefacts. The main concern for our community leaders (principals, head teachers and facilitators of the Manaiakalani program) is raising achievement across all curriculum areas. Our staff indicated that improved quality of work over time needed to be addressed also. The Manaaiakalani program assists our community in facilitating 1:1 chromebooks in the senior school. In order to meet these needs I propose looking into using peer feedback on blogs to increase writing achievement. Personally,  writing has historically been the hardest thing to teach and starting here will help boost achievement the most, then we will be able to take these reviewing skills across the curric...