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...

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...

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...

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...

Today I did a lesson that Susan had already given us to teach. I was going to try and modify it but I decided starting with the basics and working from there was a good idea. My plan was this: Science -WAL about how scientists communicate using diagrams. -Develop our research and note taking skills. Communicating in science 1: New double page Date and underline Me & N, Th, W. 2: Draw an ant, label anything you know. TPS. Did you learn from each other already? What did we notice, think or wonder from these pics? Add to the slideshow. 3: Look at diagrams of ant and add some things to yours. Feel free to do a second drawing if you wish, or add to he one you have already. (Mention Austin’s butterfly- not first try.) What did we notice, think or wonder from these pics? 4: Watch the videos and look for the any answers to your questions on notice, think or wonder page. Collect information to help answer questions. I decided it was rea...

Same teacher that helped me with critical 3 principles: This includes the steps that they take to produce the work. Think about the actions they need to take to get us there. When designing tasks: separate the ideas, give visuals that are relevant. use audio, make it rewindable. Don't retro fit. Don't adapt what you are doing already. .... Design from the edges instead of the middle.  That way it will meet them all.  It's a bit like multi-model.  Let them choose from the options. Use these to connect to the curriculum... How to differentiate the learning for my learners, they don't have the life experience.  think about giving them the life experience and letting the students experience the things we are doing. What preloading experience am I giving my students? What do you need to effectively do UDL? KNOW YOUR STUDENTS!! Check out these learner maps so you can Choose storybird because the art work helps motivate... Use Unsplash to...

-use a visual timer Accountable Talk - make them use evidence to justify. -Leave a card at the table to remind them to use evidence (This encourages the others to ask questions for evidence and to listen to each other).    -why do we want them to do this- helping them to see evidence means they can see the reason why we do this. *card to model very useful *student was asking the student instead of teacher- creates deeper discussion and control with students Grouping -mixed ability is better  -more high achievers means that everyone does worse -change the groups as often as possible -group many different ways -organsie the classroom to account for mixed grouping (MLE) Remember the organising serves the purpose, not the other way around Managing Time -use a visual timer -students at 8 years has the same time monitoring patterns as a grown up Managing Linguistic Diversity -stepping outside comfort zone is important for teachers -why do we make them do ...