Graduation

On Friday the 29th of April I Graduated from my undergraduate degree. It was a wonderful day. Standing on the stage I felt proud of my self and my achievement. It was also a time to remember all the people who have supported me on my journey to becoming a teacher and all those who continue to support me as I grow as a teaching professional.

A huge thank you to my mentor teacher, the children who have inspired and challenged me and most of all my wonderful and amazing Family. 

Inquiry reflection term 1 2016

After One term focusing on my teaching inquiry in vocabulary development I have more questions then answers. It has been interesting this term to see the different vocabulary needs of different groups. I will continue to look into this next term and see if I can engage learners in a wider range of vocabulary development activities.

Below is my inquiry presentation with what I have found out so far and some questions and ideas for what next.

Sharing Our Learning

Share is an important part of what we do in Manaiakalani schools. Having a real authentic audience is important for me as a teacher and for my learners.

Sharing my learning

Sharing my learning is important to me because it allows me to consolidate my thinking and gain feedback from other people all around the world. One place I share my learning is right here on my blog. Sharing here allows me to share my successes, get feedback to help me learn and collect all my learning in one place.

My learners Sharing their learning

 

When my learners share their learning they engage with a wider audience then just their teacher and their peers. Their learning can be seen by people all around the world. I have seen blogging support the engagement of learners and encourage them to complete work.

Here is an example of how my learners share their learning:

Benjamin's Reading activity 

The Impossible Bridge

We read the book to make the bridge.

Report

Problem...The problem is that if the bridge is strong for the car that go on it.

What we did… What we did was made a bridge if it was strong with a car on it. And it was made out of cardboard ice-block sticks.

What we found out...What we found out was that the bridge was not strong it bent.                              

     Report    

Problem...The problem is if the bridge is strong for the car to go on the bridge.

What we did...we cut the paper in half then we fold one of the paper back and front then we put the paper that was folded on a table then we get the paper that is  not folded then you put it on top of the paper is folded back and front and the car when on it and it didn't fall down.

What we found out...It was strong.

This example shows how Ben has read a book about bridges and then taken this learning and used it to build his own bridges and create reports on these bridges. The groups of boys completing this task maintaining engagement in the task and work together a communicating and working together. 

Current Events Site

Site link

You are welcome to use this site to lead learner. 

Creating a current events site has been an exciting and challenging experience. Over the last couple of  Friday MDTA days we have been creating a google site. The learning from this for me is two fold.

Site Building

I have been learning about google sites. I have been working in HTML to build and edit the the site layout and style. During this experience I found myself problem solving and making changes in the HTML. It was interesting looking at the different problems deciding the best way to fix them.

Critical thinking

The second part of this site development was thinking about the different perspectives that come out of the topic I had Chosen topic "Tuatara arriving at Kelly Tarlton's." It was interesting considering the different way to get children think critically about topic and provoke different points of view. 

I am excited to share my site and teach my lesson to my learners.
I look forward to post a reflection on my lesson next term. 

A visit to Stonefields School

Today on our MDTA day we were privileged to be able to attend the Manaiakalani School Leaders Study Tour of Stonefields School. It was inspiring listening to Sarah Martin, the principal, discussing the schools learning process and how the School has a detailed language of learning the all children from year 0 to year 8 understand and use. It was even more inspiring discussing the children's learning with them and hearing this language from them.

This is the image the represents the Stonefields School learning process.

This image come from the school website to read about this learning process visit Stonefield Schools website.

During the day I attended workshops that discussed the Nuts and bolts of how things work at Stonefields School and a discussion on Modern learning environments. It was interesting listening to the leadership team at Stonefields discussing how they do thing and why and how their building support the learning. Throughout the day I was inspired by the builds, the people and the pedagogy of the school.

Now I have to take what I have observed and consider what this means for me in my class? I also need to consider how own non-purpose build space lends itself to modern learning practices and if we can use the space better?

Create to Learn

Do you Remember when you were at preschool and everything you created was special to those around you?  Why does this change as we get older?

Today during our MDTA day we discuss creativity and how we can provide opportunities for our learners to create to learn.

I believe that creativity is a part of human nature. People love to create and creating is a great way to learn. It is interesting to consider how creativity is viewed in education and think about how we can promote the creativity of our learners. Sir Ken Robinson has some strong view on this and listening to him has given me a lot to consider, click on his name to view his ted talk entitled Do school kill creativity?

I believe that in our ever change world where new things a constantly being developed creativity is important to success. I aim, along with my co-teachers, to encourage creativity in my learners. Below are some examples of the things our learners have created.

Jarreka

Toby

Eden

Click on the names under the images to see the learners' blog. 

I believe that it is important that as educators we don't forget to provide opportunities for learners be creative and to create to learn.

My 2016 Inquiry into Practice

This year PES (Pt England School) has a school wide inquiry focus on formative practice in reading/writing to improve students achievement. 

 After meeting with Juanita Garden (AP at Pt England School) to discuss the challenges for my learners in reading and writing I decided to focus my inquiry on how to scaffold vocabulary development and word decoding skills for struggling reader? I choose this focus because I had noticed that my learners often struggle with the same word multiple times in and across text as well as struggling to decode unknown or tricky words. 


 Below is a presentation that outline the problem of my learners, my inquiry focus and the first steps I will take in my inquiry. 




This is an exciting learning experience for me and if you have any advice I would love to hear it so please leave a comment.