Treasure Maps!

After the talk with my class last week about how they were bored doing the same kinds of tasks all the time, I wanted to change it up for them a bit..

I planned to teach them about orientation and direction (as per our maths overview for term 4), but through a project-based learning model. 

The project..? Making treasure maps!

I intended to do a small bit of this project everyday, finishing on Thursday (as I am not at school on Fridays). However because of testing and practising for the testing, it didn't happen. Instead, we started and finished within a day. We had to move quite quickly through the content, but as it was a range of different 'stuff' for the kids to do, they were far from bored. At times they struggled to keep up with me..

Firstly, I introduced the challenge. 

(To be honest - the kids seemed quite confused at having been given a challenge, it was kinda funny. They are clearly not used to this kind of learning).

We talked through the first few slides from here. We watched the clip on slide 6, then went outside to practice our understanding.


As our practice, I included this game as a physical kinaesthetic activity, and the kids did request more games and they wanted to go outside more. Perfect solution!
If you have ever played Captain's coming, it is the same game, just with changed labels.



After morning tea, we worked through slides 8-12. Slide 12 asks students to record a video of themselves explaining what the directions were to a buddy. This was crazy! All the kids of course needed a quiet space so their voice could be heard, so they spread out through the class, corridor, staff room and stairwell foyer. I gave them only 5 minutes to do this, as we had to work quickly in order to finish within a day. Most managed to complete this, however didn't have time to actually put it onto the slides (it takes a lot of work to do this..).

Next, we worked through slides 13-25. These kids have learnt about measurement/length before, so we did a quick recap so they could remember.

Next - the students formed their own groups and we went outside. I gave them 20 minutes to plan their treasure hunt for the other group.

Although again, this was crazy, with kids everywhere outside, it was preeeeeettty awesome. I did not facilitate any of the groups - they did it themselves. I wondered around, taking snippets of footage and checking in with them.

I gave the Ipad to one of the groups, who after a bit of help went off without me and continued working.
 I LOVE their footage - just them talking within their own group, counting the number of steps together, recording, discussing etc. 

Once they had completed their maps, they gave them to me for safe keeping and went off for lunch.
After lunch, I had set up the 'treasure' (bags of chocolate) and sent off one kid from each group to hide it according to their map. We went outside again, and I swapped the maps between the groups. And off they went!

All the groups except one found their missing treasure by following the steps on the map. The group that didn't, couldn't, because the person who had hid the treasure, didn't hide it where the map said it would be (ugh!). 

Although it was crazy, and rushed, it was a great day of learning - and something I hope the kids remember. Without realising it, as they were so caught up in the 'map' business, they had learnt about orientation, direction and position, they had revised measuring in cm's and what to measure in what unit. What surprised me, and made me most happy, was the teamwork the kids showed. I didn't help any groups beyond correcting their unit of measurement or offering a suggested starting point to one group (e.g. the cone), they did it completely themselves. I love in the videos how you can see and hear them working together. They were patient, they took turns, they discussed, they disagreed and agreed, negotiated, proved, etc.

Because of all the inter-personal learning that was happening, it made this activity much richer than I had even intended it to be.

Watch me teach!

This morning I had my final observation from Paula Were (our literacy PD lady) on writing. To be honest, I was not feeling overly great about it - I was just feeling very tired, have pressure from uni assignments etc etc. Just not excited about it, ya know?

But I decided that whatever will be will be, and tried to just move on with my day.

I wanted to show Paula how I have been using videos in writing as I have found it so effective with our target students. Archana was with Paula (as she is the head of literacy) and the syndicate leader Aireen came to watch as well.

Here is my planning for this lesson.
My goals from previous lessons were 

Teacher goals:

• co-construct SC
• teacher model how to write
• scaffold through prompt
• take a video of lesson as evidence

Firstly, we talked about the WALT and co-constructed the SC. This included me giving them an example sentence 'the girl went down the stairs' and the students recorded their suggestions about how to add detail to make the sentence better to get their head around what 'detail' meant.

Next, I introduced our video prompt.
(0:00-0:20 only)



 I played it once through, and asked the students to record whatever thought they had about the clip.

We went through the clip again, and I paused at particular parts I wanted to emphasise. 

At these points I would scaffold the students to realise something the hadn't, use particular words (e.g. reflection), make them think deeper about a particular point (e.g the characters feelings).

After we had brainstormed lots of detail about the character, we then formed sentences which would make a paragraph. I wrote the first sentence for this to show students how we can combine ideas from different people and write it TOGETHER (i.e. teacher modelling).

Here is what we wrote together.

After this, I asked the students to go back to our WALT and SC and tick the things they thought we had done - they did this. One student pointed out that although we wrote we should include a simile, we didn't actually include one. I agreed, and said that can be our next steps for next time - making sure we do include one.

After this, the kids watched the rest of the clip (they were interested and hooked into this character and wanted to find out more..) and I went with Paula, Archana and Aireen. We interviewed a couple of the kids to check their understanding of the lesson (did they understand what the aim was? did they know how to achieve it? did they know who/what helped them?). 

After that, Paula, Archana, Aireen and I discussed my lesson and checked it off against a teacher criteria for effective writing practice (I will link this doc here once I receive it).

Things to celebrate about this lesson

• Using a resource that students all could connect and relate to 
• there was a lot of conversation about their own gaming consoles and the games they play
• the character was the same approximate age as the students so they could connect to his daily experiences
• Co-constructing the SC and ensuring students were able to refer back to it and check for themselves if they had achieved it
• Referring back to the WALT throughout the lesson and making sure we only focused on that one aim 
• the students made spelling/punctuation/etc mistakes, but I purposely ignored these as it was not the focus of the lesson
• one student also kept trying to jump ahead to the problem section of the narrative, but I kept him focused that we were only writing about the character
• Getting positive feedback from my peers (sometimes teachers don't celebrate each others success explicitly, which did happen today and was awesome to hear!)

Next Steps

• Have a specific vocabulary in mind that students will learn through the lesson - not just using words they already know
• Ensuring ALL the students are equally actively involved (in the lesson one student did say a lot less than others)

I would love to hear your feedback on this lesson! 

Breakout #7 - Ulearn16

I have been excited about this session ALL WEEK. It is called "A teacher tells how she made her classroom bigger than the TARDIS". Say whaaaaaaaattttt? I know, right? Hence my excitement. 

Here is what the description on the booking sheet says.. 

"Meet a teacher whose uses LEARNZ in her 21st Century teaching and learning programme to extend the walls of her classroom, inspire learners, and make her time and effort go further. During this session, use your device(s) to step your way through a LEARNZ field trip experience with us. Take part in a short web conference as you “walk-the-walk” with us. Then take up the opportunity to register yourself with LEARNZ, set up a class, enrol and take part in a virtual field trip. Get familiar with how you will be supported on your LEARNZ journey. Find out about using LEARNZ to “Connect” people, places, communities, big ideas, the NZ Curriculum, and technology. Find out about the opportunities with LEARNZ to “Collaborate” in your class, syndicate, department, school, or Community of Learners (COL). Find out how you can “Innovate” using LEARNZ and what makes LEARNZ an innovative teaching and learning programme."

I am excited to learn about how to make my classroom bigger than the tardis because trips are so much effort to organise, you have to do it months in advance, get parent permisison and helpers, most of the time you have to pay for it (a major hinderance in low decile schools). It also doesn't allow you to do in-the-moment teaching type field trips. Doing digital field trips also affords you to go overseas, beyond your city, etc etc which wouldn't be possible in an everyday classroom anyways.

This is done through the LEARNZ website. 

Any registered NZ teacher can access this resource for free.

There are two types of virtual field trips available - past and current. The current trips are pre-arranged and the topic decided by LEARNZ and there is a live components to it as well. Once a trip has happened, it is then stored on the website to be accessed in past tense (however you can't view what would have been the 'live' part). 

The next trip is next week (week 1 of term 4). It is about Whats the plan Stan? (a National Civil Defence programme aimed to prepare kids for an emergency)

The description

The video

The planning

Student reading resource - with audio file opportunity. 

Student online independent activities. - with a self-marking function that the kids can see.

There are prizes available for teachers who complete the evaluation.

Even the curriculum links and AO's/KC's are provided!

You don't have to use the full programme - you can pick and choose what you want to do and how much you want to be involved. You can also choose to be a silent listening school or you can choose to be a speaking school, asking questions to other schools and the experts who are running the field trip. 

The LEARNZ team also offer 30 minute introductions to each virtual field trip to help teachers understand the content, ask questions etc. The timetable for that can be found here.

Another awesome feature is that when you register, and type in your school name (hence location), LEARNZ suggests other teachers in your school or your area who are also registered, so you can get help if you are struggling and/or even work together on the trip. How cool!

There were so many different aspects that I almost felt quite overwhelmed, so to help organise my thinking I made a google drawing to simplify it for myself.

This resource was WAAAAAAYYYYY more than I thought it would be - I expected a walk through of the zoo that somebody had recorded sort of thing, maybe some 360 camera footage, but this is just incredible. So much more than I thought it would be. 

Can't wait to try it out - maybe next year! 

(The next one is literally next week, a bit late now...)

Engagement in reading!

This week I have introduced Literacy Circles to my class. They are split up into 5 different groups.

I have not done anything special or different with the planning itself of this programme, I have just used Sheena Cameron's exemplars. What I thought was worth sharing, was how much it has engaged my kids, particularly the boys (who stereotypically, do not enjoy reading).

In my class, it has especially seemed to engage the boys who achieve on the lower end of the spectrum, which is so exciting to see! They have never read chapter books before, and I literally have to take the books off them to get them to stop reading. 

All the kids WANT to read their books. They are so happy to have a change up in their reading programme, (even though they are still doing a comprehension focus on top of the literacy circles so have other work to complete).

I filmed this shortly after explaining the tasks and handing out the books - 

Every kid in the class, either reading, or whom had already finished their allocated chapters.

Today as well, while having 'Managing Self' type time (where students have to finish off certain things, and manage themselves in order to do so), I found more kids reading independently..

I feel so happy that I have provided my students with something exciting, new and different when they are feeling so tired of doing the same sorts of tasks all the time (in preparation for testing). I do believe that we can balance both a time for focusing and preparation for testing, and keeping things interesting for students. 

Better than pictures!

Today I took my target students for writing into the staff room and worked with them as a group.

These students really struggle to write in detail, using powerful words to aid their descriptions to create visualisations in their writing. They have done a lot of writing stories using a picture prompt throughout the past two terms, but unlike their peers they don't usually produce the detail they need to have at this level.

Reflecting on this, I thought to myself maybe they just don't engage with pictures? So how can I, as their teacher, change my own pedagogy to reflect this... videos!

My goal was not to produce great writers in half an hour. My goal was to give the kids something they could write about, that they could check against to see if they had written in the most detail possible. It's hard to do that with a picture, when you have to make up the story yourself - there's nothing to compare to because you have to make the story up.

To introduce the lesson, I played the first bit of this video (note: only up to 1:10).

We talked about our aim - to write in detail about the setting and what happened.

The kids LOVED watching a clip - we were able to pause, discuss, play, replay, go back, start from the beginning, discuss while it played, watch it in silence, etc. Literally, a rewindable learning tool. 

Our discussion was incredible! Yes, a little too noisy, but I didn't care about that because it meant the kids were engaged in their learning. We wrote in detail about each scene in turn, 0:33-0:38, 0:38-0:43, 0:44-1:00, 1:00-1:10.

It helped the students focus to only write about one bit at a time. We were really able to break down the scene and what we could see before moving on. The students really, honestly surprised me with their insight. In one particular part, I was trying to get them to realise that the leaves were orange, not green like they normally would be (without explicitly telling them that of course). Two of the kids came out with 'the leaves are actually orange which means its autumn'. I didn't even know they knew what autumn was! I've never heard them use that word before.. Amazing. We were then able to include the word autumn in our story and the ideas it represented (i.e. a bit cold, leaves falling to the ground, maybe its windy). They were able to make connections with previous learning as well. As Geri sets up his chess pieces, the kids were naming the pieces with the correct terminology (e.g. rook, bishop, king, queen, pawn) and we were able to use these high-interest words in our writing. 

My job was not leading them to what I wanted them to say, but encouraging them to push their descriptions further. At first, when I would say "what did you see?", they gave ideas like 'its green', and I would play devils advocate, and probe them more - dark green? light green? neon green? green like what? Of course they could straight away tell me what kind of green it was, but they didn't initially go into detail automatically. As we went along, they got more comfortable and a lot faster at adding this kind of detail automatically.

We were able to have such rich discussions, supported by the video. One student would say something that we could write about, so we would go back to the video and watch it again, and check if that was a detailed description of what happened and what we could see. They would agree with each other, add on to what another person had said, offer more powerful synonyms etc. It was awesome!

Here is what they came up with..
(Make sure you watch up till 1:10 on the clip before reading this, to really grasp whats happening..)

It was a sunny, windy Autumn day. The wind gently blew the leaves off the dark green table onto the dusty ground. 
Boom. He slammed the chessboard onto the table. The sunlight shone down and made the pieces glisten as the man set them up. Pawn, pawn, knight, rook, queen, king. Each piece in the right place.
The wind blew colourful leaves from the gigantic oak trees. The old man in a dark brown suit gently rubbed his hands together. "Hmmm... which piece should I move first.. pawn? knight? rook?" He thought to himself. He reached a wrinkly hand behind himself, grabbing the top of the green wooden chair as he softly sat down.

Are you as impressed as I am? That, from kids who typically forget to even tell you where it was, let alone what season it was in. So stoked with what they came up with in a half hour session!


To finish up, I asked them to watch the clip again as I read our writing aloud. Their task was to judge wether we had written in detail about what had happened, and had given detail about the setting. Each scene was great! They all agreed they had given lots of detail to the story about what the man did and where this happened. They wanted to keep going but alas...lunchtime!

Next, I want to video the kids in the next lesson to show how excited they really were while doing this activity - it was intense! I also want to get the kids to write for themselves, as I was the one dictating the story today. That will help them get in their head it is their writing (not mine), and see their contributions in a physical way.

Science week - the 'share' bit!

To finish off our human body week, we made a video to teach other people about the organs we learnt about. 

Check it out!

I posted this on the class blog and sent it to all the teachers at my school asking them to leave comments in support of my kids. Check it out here.

Science Week - HUMAN BODY (Friday)

Today was our day for filming our Manaiakalani movie, so we didn't really have time to finish our bodies off. I wanted to post about it anyway to complete the weeks worth of reflections about this unit. 

Throughout this week I have been constantly AMAZED by my kids. These are a bunch of 7 and 8 year old rug-rats, who love to dance and play tag, and play silly games on their netbooks and half-jokingly try to eat my lunch sometimes. 

They're just kids.

But this week in particular, they have worked harder than some adults I know. 

The amount of information they have consumed is enough to blow my mind, but the level of deep understanding that (most) of them have now about their bodies is unfathomable. Most of the stuff they learnt this week about their bodies, I didn't even know (as an adult) about my own body.

Every person who came into our class, wether it be another teacher, a visitor or the office lady, these lovelies would almost ambush them trying to teach that person about their body (and they did it using the proper words for the body parts as well - no 'tummy' here!). Even waiting to cross the road after school yesterday, some of my kids were explaining the function of the gall bladder to the teacher on duty. They are so excited about their learning, and obviously are so proud of themselves!

Yesterday while I was 'in the zone' with my body-part assembly line, the kids who weren't helping Archana or I were independently reading and writing about the organs we hadn't had time to cover yet. All on their own, and doing a good job of it too.

Even after I got mad at some of the kids who just didn't even try to do any learning yesterday, and I gave the class a lecture about how hard teachers work and how much it hurts my feelings that they didn't even try, some of the kids stayed after school to help me finish off the bodies and didn't leave till I kicked them out. 

Even at my worst, when I'm feeling stressed and tired and exhausted, they were amazing...

Then they left comments on Monday and Tuesday's blog posts...

Just. 

These are some incredible kids.

There is no other way to describe it.

And I am so lucky to have them.

P.s. expect to see a movie next week as we finish off the 'share' part of Manaiakalani's learn-create-share learning pedagogy.

Science Week - HUMAN BODY (Thursday)

Today we really focused on trying to create our models of the body. 

I am kind of embarrassed to say this, but there was a lot of colouring happening...

(I promise I don't normally do colouring!)

The end goal was to have something that kinda looks like this - 

Each organ has a 'flap' underneath it for students to write the function of each organ. 

For example - 

In the planning, this meant that each kid needed each organ, twice (essentially). This was a bit of a nightmare as it meant A LOT of paper, A LOT of cutting, A LOT of laminating, A LOT of rubbish covering the classroom floor. It also meant all night on Wednesday Archana and I were working cutting and prepping the bodies ready for today, which was a mission!

But, we did it! 

Here are two of my lovelies showing off one finished body, as well as the app Anatomy 4D we used to look at the heart in detail. We posed for this photo for Paula (the lady who recommended the app, so she could go and share what we had done with her peers - go us!)

These two photos are screenshots from a video, hence the questionable quality, but they show the kind of 'flap' notion. The organs are layered in the order they are anatomically - ribcage protecting lungs, heart inside of that, pancreas and liver sort of in front of stomach/kidneys, bladder underneath intestines, etc. So for Falakika (above) to show the lungs to talk about them, she had to move the ribcage out the way! Hiria (below) had to lift the skull to show off the brain.

One of my new lovelies who doesn't speak a lot of English became my little helper for the day, helping me organise everybody's body parts, matching the flap and the writing piece, taping the lungs to the trachea, taping the ribcage together, etc etc. She got so talkative (Yes, in English!) and was having a great time helping me and being the expert for once (instead of being the one not knowing what was going on).

It was so weird for it to be normal to call across the class things like "have you written on your organs yet?", "who has a spare kidney?", "if you have finished cutting up your body parts come here please", "you need three lungs!", "have you got your brain with you?" etc etc.  So weird, but at the same time, so awesome that the kids were on board and knew exactly what I was talking about all the time. 

It was a VEEEEEEEERRRY stressful day, but, we got there in the end!

Science Week - HUMAN BODY! (Wednesday)

Today we kept reading and learning about the human body. 

As the kids were begging to learn about kidneys yesterday (I know right?!), we started with kidneys and the bladder. 

Archana and I took a group each to read through with and discuss. As it randomly happened, Archana's group was all boys and mine all girls. 

With my group, we discussed how the kidneys produce urine which then goes into the bladder, which then comes out the vagina (yes, we used that word!). Not one of the kids laughed or even smirked at the word vagina or the idea of peeing, they were so mature about all, it was so surprising. Archana told me later in the day she had a similar in-depth conversation with the boys about their privates and how they pee and were equally mature about it. It's stuff like this that makes me forget they are only 7 or 8 years old! I have the best kids!

Again, they went away and documented the new words and the function of each organ. 

Over the next couple hours, both Archana and I took small groups and taught them about the lungs and the liver as well. The kids worked throughout the day to record their learning.

We learnt soooo many new words again today - check out our running total!

The other thing we did today was begin colouring in our organs. Our last two goals for the week were to build a model of the body, and use it to explain the organs' functions. To do this, we needed to colour in organs, laminate them, cut them, write the organs function on them and then arrange them on a body. Lots of work to do!

Reading fleuntly

This term Archana and I are really trying to accelerate our students in all learning areas. In our class, we have a group, of about 8 students, who are very low in their reading abilities (level 15-ish, for year 4's). We have really been pushing these students to read fluently, read everyday, multiple books a way. We have modelled to reading fluently with shared books and had other students read fluently to the class as well, to show that kids can do it too!

Some of these students have made HUUUUUGE progress in the past month alone. They not only can read more fluently, but they have a better attitude towards reading and learning in general.

Check 'em out!

Cordez and Denzel reading 'Storytellers' together. You can hear that Cordez still hesitates and copies/repeats from Denzel a bit, but for him to even be comfortable to read aloud at this level is awesome!

Kordell reading 'Two Homes'. You can see and hear that he is still unfamiliar with some of the words, even after reading this book several times. What I was impressed with was how when he got caught on a new word, he (mostly) would start the sentence again to try and clear his head and get the word right a second time. Another thing I noticed about his reading (and this is a new thing as well!), is that he is looking at the pictures for clues. In one part, he doesn't know the words 'hot chocolate', but looks at the picture of them drinking from mugs in the cafe, so he says 'cups of tea'. Although not the right word, its a strategy he can use to help him figure out hard words! Kordell has shown a massive shift in his attitude towards reading. All year whenever he is asked to read, he instantly shut down and would say "but I can't read". He has slowly been changing this mindset.. Go boy go!

This is Lopiseni reading about seals. He stumbles every so often, but for him to be reading this fluently from a LEVEL 2 SCHOOL JOURNAL blows my socks off. Everytime he read with either Archana or myself, he would try his very best. He wanted to get better. He loves to read with his friends in a group, as he is shy to read aloud, but look at him go!

The biggest shift has been in Wikitoria. Here she reads sooo fluently from a level 2 school journal. This girl was reading level 14 books a month ago, with too many pauses and hesitations and misread words than you could count.

She has worked incredibly hard!

Archana and I are so proud of out students, and we will keep pushing them to read more fluently and at harder levels as well. With this much progress in one month's targeted teaching, imagine how far they can go with another 5 weeks of the term left!

Anne's observation (Term 3)

This morning I had my observation with Anne Sinclair from Manaiakalani. She discussed with myself and Archana during her last visit, that she wanted to see something a bit different.. It seems that every person she went to observe was doing maths or reading! And fair enough too..

So myself and Archana decided to do inquiry on this fine Monday morning, which for this week was Fire Safety. 

You can view the plan here.

My own focus, was trying to include the 'share' part of the Manaiakalanai 'Learn, Create, Share' pedagogy within the learning time frame. I find that a lot of the time, the learn happens, the create begins and is never really finished, so nothing gets shared. Or if it does, it happens on a Friday during Managing Self time, when I am not there..

I also wanted to ensure I had something digital to hook in the students and to use as an example. 

One such example was this rap I included.

The lesson went fine, and I made sure we recorded the students create (the rap/song/poem/poster) they created, and then I shared these using the data projector for the whole class to review.

You can view Anne's written feedback, and our discussion around the PTC's here.
But here are some highlights..

You are really well organised, so not fumbling around for resources, but having everything at your fingertips to get started.

The class went off to their groups without any problems and got onto the task with enthusiasm and interest. I loved the way they talk to each other about what they are doing, which is also clarifying their understanding. They are working well in their groups so good on  you for the work you are doing in fostering this collaborative practice.

With 2 of you in your class you can both move around and really extend their thinking, pushing them to think more deeply. I like the way you probe and prod their responses to get them to think beyond the surface features.

Time permitted you to show the work the learners had done on the screen  and the class were so excited to have their work displayed and heard. By taking shots of the poems, raps and posters meant that their important learning was captured, shared and enjoyed and an indicator of their understanding. It was great to hear/see their understanding through the catchy words in the raps and the poems, which was evidence for formative and summative assessment. The posters also had strong messages and the learners were able to explain the dangers in the home through their visuals.

And here are some short clips of my students sharing their poem/song/raps

Integration success!

Today Anne Sinclair from Manaiakalani came to observe Archana and I. 

We chose to do an integrated literacy and numeracy lesson around fruit kebabs.

First students watched a video about how to make a fruit kebab. 

Then they had to tell us (the teachers) how to make the fruit kebab - the aim was to speak in full sentences, use text connectives like 'next, first, then, after', and use specific verbs. 

It was hilarious! The kids loved having the control over us and telling us what to do. They started off with things like 'pick it up', 'put it on', etc. So we played along and were silly with them, doing the wrong things, in the wrong order etc. Then Archana and I role played being on the phone to each other, and explaining the process to each other. We used the phone example because students would understand that we can't see each other and can't physically help each other, you can only use words, so you have to be careful and specific about what you say. We followed on with a sequencing activity, then introduced our maths focus, where students had to find out how many pieces of each type of fruit we would need, for the whole class to make a kebab each. 

After Anne left, we also then made real kebabs!

Here is Anne's feedback - 

The class are really responsive to both of you as co-teachers and you have set a really inclusive atmosphere. It is a happy and comfortable classroom, where there is evidence of respect and wanting to learn. After the roll the learners went quickly to their tables and listened/viewed the video through headphones and their chromebooks (as data projector broken). You are very relaxed Ashley and it shows in the way you interact with the learners. You know them well and you and Archana are working as a pair, so they are getting two sets of ideas, two sets of instructions, two sets of explanations, two sets of directions and two sets of feedback and support. I like the way you made the create real and then did a role play with the learners, pretending you did not know how to make a fruit kebab. The pretend conversation on the phone was such a good motivation to make them think more deeply on giving instructions. They were so excited to give you the directions.

Getting them to talk to each other and run through the steps with a partner also consolidated the learning for them and when they explained to you it was fun making the connections with real descriptive words - stab the fruit, grab a stick, what kind of stick, stick on the pointy top, poke it on the pointy top. After the class tried giving the instructions you then gave the class a role play by you and Archana giving an example of using clear instructions. You used a recipe and followed the steps. The children were interested in your role play and they took notice of the process.  

The follow up of the instructions were clear and easy to understand. By asking the class to repeat the steps and adding to their knowledge base in a way that they could both hear and see what it would look like, was helpful to their learning. It was great to see you using drama to reinforce and interest the learners in so many skills and to integrate literacy and maths in such a creative way. I could see how engaged the learners were, but there was one small boy who looked lost so wondered what was going on with him.

Introducing the next task was quickly achieved and you were very well organised and planned so the children could get started.  Setting up the task to involve them immediately in understanding the steps was novel and engaging. They all became involved and really enjoyed the competitive nature of the task.  Ashley by moving around the class and checking in with them you were able to evaluate where the learners were in their understanding and those who were struggling. The learners work well together and by setting time limits you are getting through lot more teaching and learning. It is important to keep the pace and energy of the lesson up, as I noticed a lot of post weekend tired learners (who may also have been hungry, as they were looking at the food longingly).  Mixing the lesson up constantly and trying different approaches also helps with the management of the learning and behaviour and gives urgency in the learning.

When they came back to the mat for the next instruction they were very excited, so be clear as to what you wanted them to do and how to respond. If you give a general instruction you will get a general response so be very explicit in your instructions. Taking the lesson into maths was a great extension and it was real and authentic in the context. Some of the learners had trouble visualising what the numbers were and it took a while to elicit the answer from the whole class.  Good to split the class into smaller groups to do the discussion and this worked well. By getting them to calculate the quantities by drawing or using words or numbers of how many of the ingredients the whole class will need to make the kebabs for each person gave them permission to try different strategies. I liked the way you gave them choice as to the strategies the learners would use to work this out.  It was interesting to watch the thinking and to see the prompts you and Archana used to trigger ideas.

The learners then explained their strategy and it was great to see such in-depth thinking happening, where they had to justify their thinking. I liked the way they were struggling, but keeping on as they came up with new ideas from new information. Giving them the locus of control was an important part of your teaching and the learners responded really well to having the ‘power’. With 2 of you in the class you were able to get through so much more and connect with all the learners, so they experienced success. The different approaches also gave rise to discussion after and the chance for the learners to see more than one way of solving a problem. I like the way you and Archana do reflection-in-action and decide on teaching strategies on the ‘fly’ . So  - perhaps, maybe, shall we, is common language between the 2 of you as you co-teach. Talking aloud helps the students to see it is ok to talk about their learning.

Thank you both for giving me such an interesting morning with authentic use of integration, motivation, ‘create’, role play, instruction, direction, reflection, problem solving, teaching and learning! Kite pai!

Anne Sinclair (Professional Supervisor MDTA)

June 20th, 2016