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.