Term 4 Final Inquiry Presentation

Looking back, the year in Rm14 started with an overload of reward based management systems. We had The Throne, Teams, The Marble Jar, Brian the Bear. I found that these tools were successful to an extent: Children came to the mat quickly, they tidied their desks quickly, lined up well - but they were making my life too complicated with tallying points, making sure the same team didn't win week after week, nominating people to take Brian the Bear home etc The reward based system also wasn't something I was 100% sold with. I want to see intrinsically motivated children and I don't think constant chocolates is encouraging this. I also could see that many of the kids who i was really trying to target with these rewards were often indifferent to them. My lack of total buy-in also may have been evident to the kids. I also had too many systems running at the same time and for too long a timeframe. The kids possibly also lost interest I can appreciate the usefulness of an extrinsic reward as it DOES work, to an EXTENT. I think it could be useful to have 1 form of simply run reward system for the first term to help entrench routines and expectations. But it would have to be extremely simple and very easily managed. 

 I also had an incredibly useful piece of feedback from Helen King, one of my mentors at PES, who noticed that although I had expectations of classroom behaviour, I was not insisting upon them being met in the classroom. Specifically, I wanted the kids to sit quietly on the mat while I introduced the next stage of the day's learning. Some children were quiet while others were not meeting this expectation. So keen was I to carry on with the lesson, I would talk over them rather than insist on their quiet. This was a major learning for me and guided my classroom management for the rest of the year. This is also the key learning I will take into Term 1 Day 1 next year. 

Through my term 1 inquiry group chats with Russell Burt and Rob Wiseman, I came to see the role that an engaging activity can have in managing behaviour. Consequently I have spent lots of time working on creating engaging and challenging Explain Everything Activities to follow on group reading sessions. My first activities were too complex and not scaffolded enough and didn't encourage learner autonomy. They have come on since then with recorded audio instructions, making full use of digital affordances, repeated slide templates etc.  

What I need to do more of next year is provide more constructive feedback on the finished EE, share good EEs on blogs more and direct the children to them. My data was interesting. kids made more of a shift in the 2nd half of the year better readers made bigger shifts than average readers So what? get routines and expectations down quickly so learning can happen take regular running records of children and act on what i discover record the data beautifully and work with it use EE templates regularly and change up as we shift to a new term.

And finally ... I tried hard to create positive relationships with every child in room 14. Shaking their hand every morning and high fiving them on their way home. For me this felt like the right way to go about forging a classroom environment from which to build good behaviour, engagement and a love of school, and some learning.

Off to the museum: Managing at the museum

Room 14 went to Auckland museum last week. Our timetable was pretty full on, which meant we had 2hrs of self-guided museum time. This was a lot of time. Our team had put together an awesome scavenger hunt booklet which helped engage and guide the children during this time. The class was split into groups of 5/6 and allocated an adult. I took 2 of the most interesting boys who were tired but engaged throughout. I found the best way to help my group was to make the tour as structured as possible with them lining up, boys at the front, in between each stage of our visit and being very aware of their need for a rest or food. I also tried to take a genuine interest in what they were telling me about their experience at the museum and that I was enjoying being with them.

A "Yay Moment"

Ever since watching the Jim Henson's TV series "The Storyteller" as a nerdy 10 year old, I have loved stories and have been wanting to really tell a story to my class since day 1. I read to them everyday after lunch from a picture book and this engages the vast majority but until today I hadn't told them a good, old fashioned story.

I had read the fairy tale "Beauty and the Beast" to my 7 year old son the night before from a book and he really enjoyed it. So I thought why not give it a go with room 14?

I localised it to make it a bit more relevant to the kids (eg. the prince was a successful rugby league player) and it really worked. The whole class was totally engaged, some of the boys had never been so engaged in a story; to the point where the one boy who is rarely capable of sitting still long enough to follow a story was crying out "You see girls, that's what will happen to you!". Eyes were wide, faces looked worried and shocked in the right places. The transformation of prince into beast was greeted with a round of applause.

A few girls recognised the story as "Beauty and the Beast" but this didn't seem to stop them from enjoying it again.

Now, what to read next?

What can I do with the one slow reader in my guided reading groups?

In as couple of my guided reading groups, I have readers who are processing the texts much more slowly than the other readers in the group. Consequently, they are reading much more slowly and finishing texts much later than the others in their group. This is creating a problem in my management of the guided session. Do I cut them off before they have finished? Do we all wait patiently? 

Suggested remedies included:

putting them down a group

• child wont be challenged by the text and therefore may make less progress.

reading the same text before class

• child may see this as a punishment. The child also often arrives late.

having the child become aware of their reading speed 

• could be quite easily achieved as a post reading activity. Would she hear her "slowness"?

encourage a buddy reading time

• easily do-able. Paired with a more fluent reader could enable her quickly to compare speeds. 

End of Term 3 Inquiry

Before entering the classroom on day 1 of being a BT, I had these lofty dreams of creating autonomous, self-regulating children.  3 terms on, I realise that these were indeed lofty dreams that need scaffolding and support strategies and routines to help their realisation.

I have started to implement techniques and tools to try to ensure that the children are able to work successfully, independently from the teacher. These include having audio of instructions embedded in Explain Everything slides, going through follow up activities as a group before-hand, keeping follow-up activities straightforward and replicable and creating expectation where children realise that they need to work independently of the teacher.

I fear that I may have been responsible for encouraging a degree of dependency on the teacher but I have been made aware of this; of how some children will attempt to monopolise their time with me. I feel I am making positive steps away from this and i think that the children are benefitting.
Looking to term 4, i will persist with the strategies I have implemented and more than anything try to discuss "independence" and "autonomy" with the kids so that hopefully they can see where I am coming from and what i want to achieve which is, ultimately, children taking charge of and responsibility for their learning.

Great Expectations ;)

Learning has been non-stop since day 1. Having spent lots of time reflecting on classroom management and ways to engage learners, my major learning to date has been a growing awareness of how I do or don't enforce my expectations in the classroom. I am now making a conscious effort to make my expectations clear to the kids re.work and behaviour. I am hoping this will ensure work gets done and the classroom becomes more in-line with how I would like it to be and I will become more available to push, help or direct kids as need be.  What I need to work on right now is making those expectations clear at the right time.

Term 2 Reflections: What I've Learnt and What I Need To Do

As Term 2 draws to a close I can honestly say that I have spent 11 weeks reflecting on my practice. I have been lucky to get so much support which has been an incredible help to me. My main focus for the term has been in continuing to nail classroom management of this group of children. I feel I have made a lot of progress particularly in realising how I need to be in the classroom so as to be true to myself and be the kind of adult I want the children to be around and thus be the best and most effective influence, role model and authority that I can be to these 28 kids.

I feel I have forged relationships with the children, but I am aware that the balance of that relationship making was weighed in favour of the "interesting" few and to the expense of the angelic majority. I need to redress this in term 3.

I believe the kids know what I expect of them and I must make sure I constantly stick to my guns and enforce these expectations. By doing this I hope that more academic learning can happen in Room 14 and that the kids can be pushed intellectually as a result.

I have also learnt that a LOT of scaffolding is needed to enable the children to work independently of me. However some kids are very able and they need to be given room to fly as well.

I need to push the class more. To really encourage them to do their best and think as much as they can. I need to make the children know that their BEST work is what I expect and I need to ensure that I give them the time and opportunity to do that