EDF4314 Jack Lawicki Multimodal Autobiography

Five things I took out of placement!

Five things I took out of during placement.

1. Cooperative learning: 

It is not only Hattie who realises the benefit of cooperative learning but the students do too! When students were provided the opportunity to reflect and give feedback on their learning and teaching they continuously highlighted that 'working in pairs or groups' was the 'best' part of the lesson because they felt they could teach others and get others to teach them. Based on this I will endeavour to continuously provide opportunities for cooperative learning next year.

2. Improved 'Learning intentions and success criteria': 

Not only making the learning intention explicit but also measurably achievable has a significant impact on students attitudes and motivation to learn. For example a learning intention such as, 'To build upon your understanding of multiplication by using different strategies to problem solve multiplication sums.' and an appropriate success criteria like, 'I can use three different strategies to solve multiplication sums and explain how i have used them.' Plus explanation of why the intention is purposeful and how you have high expectations that all students will improve at multiplication if they master three strategies gets students focused, motivated and appropriately challenged. I was flabbergasted when one child who is often disengaged and not interested started really applying himself at learning multiplication strategies during one maths lesson. A following discussion with him revealed that his motivation was that he understood if her mastered the three strategies he would improve on his multiplication thus wanted to master them.

3. Supportive relationships with colleagues are so important in teaching: 

I don't think I'd survive a week in a school without supportive colleagues around me. When things go wrong it is always good to have people to talk it over with and help you reflect on what you would do next time.

4. People love to share their interests with your class and the kids love hearing from people about their passions: 

I organised for a Monash Professor of Geo-science to talk to my grade over Skype about their Inquiry unit on The Earth. Not only did the kids love his visual and interesting explanations but he really enjoyed speaking to them and sharing his passion. I will definitely attempt to make contact and connections with such passionate experts and my classes.

Some thank you notes to the Professor who Skyped with us.

5. Don't forget your mates outside of work!

I feel like I didn't see anyone outside of placement over the last month. I really don't think that is sustainable into the future for my mental, emotional and social health. I will endeavour to have regular catch up with mates.

Mapping Lesson using Explain Everything

Reflection on my first full week of teaching: Hattie and my students needs

My aims for the week inspired by Hattie

I survived my first full week of teaching! I still had the training wheels on knowing that my mentor was always their for support if everything went really pear shaped. Overall I think I went pretty well! 

Based on Hattie's Visible Learning for Teachers I aimed to focus on two important things:

• making the learning intentions explicit.
• providing a number of opportunities for cooperative learning.

Making the learning intentions explicit! 

I went in with the intention of making each lessons learning intentions and success criteria explicit to the students (See photo). I wrote intentions on a  laminated poster template (until I realised it was becoming hard to clear the whiteboard maker off so I started using a space on the board with movable magnetic headings). I also discussed the importance of the intention and the success criteria used to gauge if we were successful at achieving the intention. This strategy was really effective. 

Generally students became focused on the important aspects of the lesson and those that got off task were easily bought back on the right path by simply asking them to look at our intention. For example in one lesson we focused on pronoun use. Some students got caught up planning their characters in detail when we began planning for our writing. A simple, 'While character development is important when we write remember this session is a short writing session with a focus on the specific skill of using pronouns. Have a look at the intentions and success criteria.' 

The general reply was, 'Oh yeah true!I need to concentrate on that' and students re-focused their work in relation to the intended learning.

Provide cooperative learning opportunities

I also intended to provided plenty of cooperative learning opportunities. Group problem solving activities, peer tutors, sharing of strategies and constructive feedback on peers work. 

I admit to being drawn back to the importance of cooperative learning recently when reading parts of Hattie's work and seeing the high effect cooperative learning had on student achievement. I have become aware, and been a part, of some twitter debate surrounding the usefulness of research like Hattie's work in the real classroom and for all students. Inspired by such debate and my intention to meet the needs of all my students I asked.

What helped my students learn this week in maths!

I asked the students who were in my maths group this week, 'What parts of the lessons  helped you learn the most about decimals?'

As expected the maths games on the computer were a popular answer. 

However,  the students generally agreed that the thing that helped them the most was being able to work with their peers during the activities. 

I asked one student to write her answer down.

 'Working with a partner because they can teach you how they work it out and you can learn from them. You can also teach them your way. If your way doesn't work out you can try using your partners way. It is good working with groups.'

Hattie and my students needs

While I feel that I am not well read or experienced enough to provide a quality contribution to the Hattie discussion I do feel that his work is helping me as a student-teacher to decide what I should include in my classroom. There is a lot of theories, strategies, suggestions and goobly gook to get our head around as student teachers. It is easy to miss the important things like making sure we provide opportunities for cooperative learning.

Hattie' work has given me a little guidance about what to include in my lessons and it turns out cooperative learning assists the students I am currently working with learn.

A changing understanding of teachers work: 2009-2012

I started my Education degree thinking that teachers came to school ten minutes before class and spontaneously thought up a fun activity related to the topic of their choice. I thought those really well prepared experienced teachers might have made notes about what they came up with this time last year and rehashed what worked. I thought that when the bell rang the teacher would jump in their Camry and return home.

I understood that teachers needed to know their students and the content they teach and that was about it.

I was in for a shock over the course of my education degree but one I have come to be really impressed by.

The existence of a curriculum was the first big one, 'So there is actually a document we need to look at?

And there are strategies to teach this content! 

How do we plan to fit it all in?

Is there enough hours in the year? 

Oh integrating topics! That is smart! But wait what about...' 

Assessment was the next, 'So we have to actually base our judgment of students understanding of this content on evidence?' 

And then it got really crazy. 

'This assessment doesn't necessarily have to be tests! 

Photos, work samples, film, interviews and so on! We can use this data to inform our planning! 

We can pinpoint students needs and even differentiate groups based on it! 

We can benefit enormously by considering all this in collaboration with our peers!

All that is going to take time!'

The value of Professional Development came a little later. Then the realisation of the importance of connecting to the wider community. 

I went from thinking I'd be rocking up at eight fifty winging the day full of lessons and doing the same thing year after year to realising the career path I had chosen requires a whole lot more. The hours planning, collaborating, considering assessment evidence, re-planning, continually perfecting your practice through professional development and the list goes on. The holidays are not even worth all of that!..... but knowing that you are becoming the best professional teacher you can be and knowing that putting in all those hours will ultimately impact on your students lives, even if it is in a minuscule way, is totally worth it!

Augmented Reality Apps in the classroom: Aurasma

Aurasma- This app is amazing. A little tricky to describe but I will give it a go.

Aurasma sort of works like the QR scanner but using the real world as trigger items rather than bar-codes.

Think Minority Report!

Basically you can take photos of things and then assign media, like video, text, audio, or animations to these photos. Someone can come along with their mobile device and view the real world object you have assigned triggers to through the Aurasma viewer and the media will be triggered.

Does that make sense?

For example you could be on an Aurasma tour of Paris and view the Eiffel tower through Aurasma. A video explaining the history of the tower might pop up.

Some schools are using it as a way to enhance tours of their school. Teachers can use it to get students on an interactive walk through of student resources they have around the room. Students can use it to assign video to diaramas or posters they have made and then other students/parents can tour a class full of projects and trigger explanations of the work they are viewing.

The possibilities are endless so just check it out for free!!!

www.aurasma.com/

Use Video Tutorials in your classroom as a way to personalise learning

Use video tutorials in your classroom as a way to personalise learning 

• Make video tutorials of topics for your students. 
• Have students make videos to document their learning or to teach their peers. 

Videos can include recorded whiteboard visuals, voice recording, computer screen visual, a video of yourself or a combination of these.

Sites, Programs and Apps to make video tutorials

Educreations- is a website and ipad app. The great thing about Educreations is that it has a whiteboard type screen on which you can scribble, write, or type while recording your voice. Perfect for making videos in which you would like to model work. 

http://www.educreations.com/

Show me and Explain Everything are other apps which can be used in this way but only on ipads.

Jing- video your computer screen while recording your voice. Perfect for teaching students a skill or demonstrating searching for something on the web. 
http://www.techsmith.com/jing.html

Present me- allows for split screen of you at your laptop and a slide presentation. These can be toggled between to make them a single screen.   

The free account option allows you to make 3 videos per month of up to 15 minutes each.
http://present.me/tour

How can video tutorials be used by the teacher?  

As support for students: Previously prepared video explanations of concepts you are working on in class can be made available to students who would like to revisit explanations you have given during explicit instruction sessions. 

I wish I had the time to go over content with students every time they request but often I might already be explaining or assisting other students when they ask me something that requires a detailed explanation. Rather than making them wait sending students to a video may be enough clarification. Once I am freed up I will check with the student if they require some face to face assistance. 

As extension tasks/lessons: Students who get the concept quickly can view the next tutorial, when you might be occupied assisting others, meaning they do not have to wait for you to have the time to give needed explanations before moving on with their work. 

How can they be used by the students?

Students can make video tutorials demonstrating their learning or to teach other students in the class. If one student gets a numeracy concept quickly while you are working with others that student could produce a video tutorial which can be shared with the rest of the class at the conclusion of the lesson. I am working towards collecting quality student made tutorials to use as tutorials for students to view when they need to revisit a concept.

I am not suggesting we replace what we do with video tutorials but that we can incorporate videos into our teaching practice. Also there is potential for making students learning more personalised with video tutorials. Students who need to revisit explanations can do so on their own if such explanations are digitally available and those who want to move on to new concepts at a faster pace can also do this. 

ANZAC DAY: Children's literature

There is some fantastic Anzac Day literature appropriate for young readers.

For the slightly older primary to middle secondary (and even adults will love it) there is:

Gallipoli The Landing: Z Beach True Comic  by Hugh Dolan & Mal Gardiner. It is a new release and is available online and at news agencies.

http://www.zbeach.com.au/

Hugh spoke to Jon Faine on ABC774's The Conversation Hour last week about the comic. The audio is well worth a listen and could definitely be used in the classroom.

http://www.abc.net.au/local/audio/2012/04/19/3481446.htm?site=melbourne&microsite=faine&section=latest&date=(none)

612ABC Brisbane has also identified some great children's literature to use as a base to explore Anzac Day.

http://blogs.abc.net.au/queensland/2012/04/krista-bells-recommendations-for-anzac-day-childrens-books.html

Author Jackie French has tackled the subject in a book called "A Day To Remember" - The Story of Anzac Day".


http://blogs.abc.net.au/queensland/2012/04/a-new-book-explains-anzac-day-to-children.html

Hope your school and local libraries have copies.

'Advice you wish you'd been given as a pre-service teacher.'

The elemchatarchive has some great resources for preservice teachers (like myself) from the April 14th 2012 chat 'Advice you wish you'd been given as a pre-service teacher.'

http://elemchatarchive.wikispaces.com/2012.04.14+Resources

A transcript of the twitter feed can also be located at

http://elemchatarchive.wikispaces.com/2012.04.14+Advice+for+Pre-Service+Teachers

Thanks to all the contributors for helping us preservice teachers out!

Heads Down Thumbs Up/Seven Up: a classic game with great teaching potential

We all loved the game 'Heads Down, Thumbs Up' as kids. Or 'Seven up' as it is called in the USA. This simple game is still a favourite with students today. A way to incorporate learning into this classic game was suggested to me today by some university colleagues.

You run the game the normal way. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Up_(game)

The difference is that the students selected to be the taggers who walk around pushing players thumbs down hold up signs and the players tagged guess who tagged them by referring to the sign. For example in a game for young students the signs might contain sight words, like 'it' or 'the.' If student A was a tagger holding up 'the' then the tagged students would say, 'I think 'the' tagged me.' The teacher would ask,"give an example of the word 'the' in a sentence"... If the student is able to give an example and if they guess the correct tagger they become a tagger.

The game can be used with older students in units of work when they are working with concepts. For example in a unit of work on the government the word 'democracy' might be a sign. Students would explain the concept, such as democracy, held by the person who tagged them.

Get students thinking about their Human Footprint

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/human-footprint/consumption-interactive.html

This site gets you thinking about your consumption in a interactive way.

Find out things like:

•  how many eggs you will eat in your life time?
•  how this number compares to other countries (U.S.A, U.K., JAPAN).
• what this means in terms of impact over your life time.
• and have a 'look behind the scenes' to see what it really involves.

A great interactive site to get students thinking about our impact on the globe over a lifetime.

Stone Soup: A recipe for cooperation

Group work can be great. It can also end in disaster. The other day I sat watching a group of students do research together on a shared computer. They argued over who had controlled and which sites to look at. This got the whole group off task and worrying about the laptop politics rather than the research. Sound familiar?

Starting a lesson with the fable The Stone Soup could assist in getting students to work cooperatively.

The Stone Soup story usually goes something like this:

"Some travellers come to a village, carrying nothing more than an empty cooking pot. Upon their arrival, the villagers are unwilling to share any of their food stores with the hungry travellers. Then the travellers go to a stream and fill the pot with water, drop a large stone in it, and place it over a fire. One of the villagers becomes curious and asks what they are doing. The travellers answer that they are making "stone soup", which tastes wonderful, although it still needs a little bit of garnish to improve the flavour, which they are missing. The villager does not mind parting with a few carrots to help them out, so that gets added to the soup. Another villager walks by, inquiring about the pot, and the travellers again mention their stone soup which has not reached its full potential yet. The villager hands them a little bit of seasoning to help them out. More and more villagers walk by, each adding another ingredient. Finally, a delicious and nourishing pot of soup is enjoyed by all."Retrieved from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stone_soup 

Fables have been used for centuries to teach practical lessons. The Stone Soup's message about the benefits reaped from working cooperatively could definitely have a place in my classroom.

The Q&A Format in the classroom

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/

We all love abc's Q&A. I think it's format could easily be used in the literacy classroom. Q&A has more adaptability than a traditional debate because students who have core arguments which are in opposition can agree on some aspects of the issue.

Questions from the class would be essential and maybe the conversation could be mediated by an unbiased student.

This would be a fantastic way to end a unit of work or explore a current issue.True democracy!

Kids Q&A- I think it has potential to be a new show on ABC. Can I host?

How my Basketball debut made me think about some students I know.

I played my first game of Basketball last week.
I had no idea what I was doing.
My mates said, 'Just defend you'll be fine.'

So I stayed in defence and gave away my full allocation of fouls before half time...Its five yeah? The umpire (or is it referee) said, 'That is five fouls number 9?'He waited for me to move but I just stood in there not having a clue what he was talking about. The other team said, 'Keep him on we don't mind.'

I got the ball soon after and was called for travelling.

My team yelled at me to move up the court not just to stay in the 'D' so I ran to the other end as we attacked. Then the ref got me in trouble for something like staying in a circle too long. I have no idea.

Anyway by the end of the game I had a little bit of an idea what was going on but my confidence was down, the ref clearly didn't like me and although my teammates supported me massively I felt like a failure.

The whole experience reminded me of the kids in some classes I have observed.

They don't know or understand some rules. They don't know or understand some strategies or practices others take for granted. Such as working in a team or the teachers vocabulary.   When you are doing something for the first time it can be exciting, cause anxiety and make you reluctant to have another try. I think we can all learn from my attempt at playing Basketball. Think about some of the children you come across who don't know what a classroom foul is, who cant do the skills like dribbling, and who have no idea about the time limits in the D.

Maybe we need to teach students the simple classroom practices and strategies we take for granted... I know I need to and I wish someone had taught me them before I hit the court.

Add some mime improvisation games to your classroom

Thinking the work of David Armand could be added to the classroom with a little bit of scaffolding.

Teacher Time Ticket

Here is another great idea from Jo Lange.

Do you find yourself spending more time with certain students due to them demanding attention more often or maybe because they need some extra support?

It is easy to forget the quieter students in your class. A smart way to overcome this is by handing out Teacher Time Tickets when you recognise that you might not have had that important one on one exchange with a student for a while. You might not have the time in that exact moment so they can hold on to the ticket to remind you to cash it in at a later (more convenient) time.

Sticky Notes- a great way to make a students day!

I was also introduced to a great way to communicate with students and acknowledge their progression on Friday by Jo Lange at the AEU Vic Branch Student Teacher Conference.

When you see that a student is applying themselves, working hard on something or for any reason write them a quick not on a sticky note and quietly place it on their work or table.

What a great way to make a students day! Can't wait to use it!

Fist to Five- gauging student's prior knowledge & receiving feedback.

Went to the AEU Student Teacher Conference yesterday. The keynote speaker was Glen Pearsall who gave us some great practical tips. One of these was Fist to Five which can be used to gauge students prior knowledge and to get feedback from students. It involves students raising their hand and signalling a ranking by the number of digits they hold up. A closed fist is the lowest ranking and showing five digits is the highest ranking.

To gauge prior knowledge fist to five can be used by asking the class to rank their understanding of a topic. This is especially helpful when starting or returning to a unit of work. For example you could ask, 'Rank your knowledge on the Titanic from fist to five. Fist being I have no knowledge and five being that I could be given an honorary PhD for my work on Captain Smith.' A digital photo of fist to five could be taken as a record. This could be used to decide what level the lesson is pitched or how you might structure groups. At the conclusion of the lesson, or unit, fist to five could be repeated and compared to the first photo as a way for students to reflect on their learning. It also provides you with feedback on how the student feels they are progressing.

Fist to five can also be used to get feedback from students on your performance. Ask questions like, 'Rank how engaging you think the activity was,' or, 'Rank how well you understand the instructions.'

I am looking forward to using fist to five during my teaching placements. Any advice or feedback on my understanding of the concept would be greatly appreciated.

Glen Pearsall has a few books full of great ideas like fist to five. These include And Gladly Teach, and Classroom Dynamics.