DFI week 9

 This week we have reviewed our learning from the term and taken the google educator exam. It has been great having the time put aside to reflect on the learning that has taken place and how I have already put much of it into practice.

I have noticed how the conversations in my class have shifted to include language around coding when talking of instructional writing, about how we could use many different methods to show our understanding and our devices are one of those, and of how my students are really valuing the opportunity to share their work over a number of different formats at the end of each day while also giving very constructive feedback to their peers.

I am grateful for the opportunity to have put much of this learning into practice in a supported playful environment over the past 8 weeks. It has meant I have retained much more and it has been easier to integrate much of it into my daily practices. 

I hope there is further training to participate in over the coming years, or perhaps even refresher courses. I feel it would be very valuable to check back in 6 months or a years time. I look forward to further accessing the toolkits available through Manaiakalani over time, especially having access to archived toolkits over school holiday periods.

It was fun to work through and complete the book creator certified author qualification too. This will be a great resource to add to my classroom.

 

DFI week 8

This weeks final DFI focused on computational thinking. This is such an important skill for our tamariki to practice and master. It is my favourite Albert Einstein Quote: “Genius is making complex ideas simple, not making simple ideas complex.” that I believe embodies this idea very well. 

I found the resources around teaching this thinking really exciting. Especially the TKI resources. I look forward to exploring these further in the weeks to come with my students.

Scratch was an interesting tool to explore, and I can see how simplifying the coding experience would make it far more accessible for younger students in particular, but also for older students new to coding. It is a very logical program to use and I look forward to getting my students to work in this program in the coming weeks and months.

I enjoyed exploring the online coding options and games too. I have a variety that I intend to use in my classroom, either on my promethean board as a whole class discussion activity, or on iPads for individual work. I have included snips of some of these below.

  

 

PaCT tool exploration

 We explored how to make teacher judgements today using the PaCT tool. Reviewing what we have already covered reminded us that we need to remember to look at what we are taking away from each lesson.

Take aways:

1. It is important to view the illustrations provided to get a really good idea of what the big ideas really mean for each set/ signpost.

2. If you think a student(s) is displaying evidence at one signpost then read the descriptions above and below to double check the level of sophistication fits.

3. The illustrations are also really great ideas for teaching a big idea.

4. You don’t need to review each student for each set. You would group students to think about where they are to decide your deliberate acts of teaching for the next steps, one aspect at a time.

5. We will rotate our specific focus each term on reading this year as we familiarise ourselves with these learning progressions. It would be impossible to be thinking about all the aspects for R, W and M constantly!

6. As always we would use OTJ from a number of evidence sources to decide where students are.

7. The focus should be less about where students are in terms of giving them a ‘level’ and more about “What do I need to teach, and them to learn next”. 

We took a sample of students work and then looked at each aspect and used the blurb and the illustrations to help us place a student on a sign post. 

A good discussion happened at the end of the hui regarding E-asttle v's PACT tool for end of year assessments. Below are some of the things we took away from this lesson. 

We have noticed ...

...with practice I will get faster at this and more confident with making judgements

…need to change year levels of some students, classes have been set up with names to use now, look at notifications

… writing LPF is good to use. Want to use instead of asstle this year as doubling up. Maybe can for yr1-2??

...… would be really valuable to go to experts on staff to moderate with my tricky judgements

… PaCT tool - taken lots away. Talking with others about what our kids are doing at different levels, useful to collaborate

… Feel confident with it and I want to finish putting them in

… just get it in! You know more than you think you do with your first sense.  Calm the farm a bit - you can’t teach it all

… after so long thinking about it, procrastinating and not doing it. Getting stuff in has been beneficial. SO many opportunities to double check and triple check, so it’s robust and thorough. 

DFI week 7

 

Today's learning was based around devices, and managing them in the classroom context in a way that promotes the manaiakalani values and pedagogy. I found it very interesting to view familiar sites and slide decks on a chromebook, and see how differently they display.

Explain everything was a really good app to explore today. It was great to finally get a chance to use a working form of this program as it is not functioning in my classroom at the moment. I can see a huge variety of ways to use this within my classroom, and ways to use this without it adding a large quantity of work to my planning. It will be a fantastic addition in the toolbox for my students when recording and sharing their understanding and mahi.

It has been so valuable to have this learning from manaiakalani during our lockdown period. My students and their whanau have provided feedback to myself and the school how they felt connected, supported, and confident to find the learning both for the day and previous days content. I felt confident in providing rewindable content over the time period for students and whanau. Its good to know that i can hide the tab on my website so it doesn't clutter up the page, but is still available for future use if there happens to be a need for it.

DFI week 6

Today we looked at different websites primarily set up for student access to learning. We then gave feedback to each person in our bubble, and used the feedback given to us to set goals around the development of our own class sites. It was incredibly valuable to have the time and support to take these goals and implement the necessary actions straight away. I have learnt how to create and embed a feedback and query form on my class site, inset a banner with important single sentence information parents or students may need, and have taken the time to better organise the pages within the site while adding space for student voice.

Screen snips of before I started todays editing:

Screen snips of after I finished todays editing: