Manaiakalani new learning

This term i have been workingalongside Donna to create a class site for next year . After viewing and working with Gemma and Shanna's class I really saw the positives of using a class site .So in the time with Donna i have begun to create a site for next year.

Sharing our learning

At the Kotare assembly we were able to share our learning around our science experiments. This assembly was totally run by the students who had made videos using explain everything and movie maker. I was so proud of the students who were so enthusiastic about their learning the school was so engaged in their learning also. We has really positive feedback from the school some students said that they would like to do science like our class and feedback from parents who said it was an amazing assemble and you could really see the students involved and enjoying their learning they could also see the positive impact and use of devices to display learn create share in our learning

Learning a new Karakia

A shcool karakia that we have learnt. This was new learning for me as it was unknown in the beginning i have had to practise on my own to be fluent and be able to join in with the school. WHAKATAKA TE HAU Whakataka te hau, ki te uru Whakataka te hau, ki te tonga Kia makinakina, ki uta Kia mataratara, ki tai E hi ake ana, te atakura He tio, he huka, he hauhu Tihei mauri ora!

Story Hui

In the story Hui I talked about my learning and explicit teaching in Reading Recovery. I discussed with my first lot of students I found that they had a sound understanding of the questions they were being asked in reading recovery I was able to use higher level prompts to encourage problem solving in reading and writing. I found that with my new students they had a lower level of processing and understanding so I had to take my prompts back and do more modelling of what I was asking for them to be able to understand what I was asking this made me reflect on the amount of scaffolding I was giving and that the scaffolding has to be appropriate to the specific learner for me to be able to develop problem solving in reading and writing.

Incorporating Te Reo into the classroom

This term i have been able to incorperate more Te Reo into my teaching practise using these classroom displays was really useful and the students were also able to use and respond to them. I have a group of experts in the class that we regularly go to for help and who take on leadership roles in the class.

Reading Recovery training

This year I trained in reading recovery. It has been a year full of new learning, developing my professional practice and explicit teaching of reading and writing. In the beginning of the year it was all about learning how to deliver the reading recovery intervention, it involved a lot of theory the book "literacy lessons designed for individuals' by Marie Clay became my go to source of information i have found this book so valuable in my professional practice not only in reading recovery but in my classroom teaching of literacy as well. It has helped to develop my explicit teaching and how to guide students who struggle in reading and writing. I believe my professional practice has definitely developed throughout my time training. Even though it was daunting i found the teaching behind the scree also very valuable as i received constructive feedback on my teaching and i have been able to become a more effective teacher both in reading recovery and in the classroom. I did struggle this term not having the time needed to deliver the intervention as planned and juggling the responsibilities of a classroom teacher as well as a reading recovery teacher. I am very happy that i was able to complete my training as it enabled me to strengthen my teaching, helped me to reflect and gain new knowledge which i can now apply and utilize in the classroom.

Growth Mindset

20/9 We attended a growth Mindset Workshop. For me this workshop was one of the most powerful and I was able to reflect and take away a lot of things talked about and apply them to my practise. One of the most significant things i took was the importance of deliberate an purposeful practise. There is no point in practising things that you already know how to do it does not make your brain grow of become any more intelligent. the most powerful practise is to practise doing things you cannot do. Another thing that i have applied to my teaching and classroom culture is embracing challenge, overcoming obstacles , and asking how to improve. These stuck out at me because I often seen students give up when things become hard , even the most capable students are not willing to push themselves in their learning they will settle for producing mediocre quality work for their own standards and they will often become upset when they are challenged in their learning or questioned. As a teacher something that i really value is high expectations of my learners i will challenge my learners to better themselves. This term i have made a point of stopping the whole class if someone is struggling in or giving up in their learning.We have discussions about the importance of perseverance and how it is okay to make mistakes. I hope that this is beginning to change some of their midsets.

connecting with learners

At the end of Term 3 I asked the class what they were interested in learning about . A majority of the answers were science and experiments. This term we had a science focus which I then linked with writing procedures. From the very beginning all of the students were engaged and involved in their learning they were inquiring, asking questions, problem solving and working collaboratively. Because the students were interested and passionate about their learning the level of learning was higher. The learning provided opportunities for students who may sometimes not have the confidence to lead the take on more responsibility in their learning it also provided opportunities for extension of the students to excel in this area. We have had some awesome learning happening this term. We were able to share this learning at our assembly .

Differentiated learning

This term the focus for math was geometry.We were able to have a lot of fun with our learning and it provided opportunities for hands on learning. For a class with a large cohort of boys this really promoted engagement and allowed them with the opportunity to be creative, use problem solving and construct. For one of the tasks we had been reading the 91 storey treehouse. The class were then asked to design their own building they could be as creative as they liked they were given grid paper and had to design and draw on their grid paper using 2d shapes they then had to label what 3d shapes they would need to construct their buildings. The made a prototype using 3d shapes in this process there was lots of problem solving going on they had to choose what shapes fit together and what 3d shapes they needed to make their building. I found it interesting that many students did not know how to cope when things got too hard and they were unable to figure things out . At this point we talked about having a growth mindset and embracing challenges. The final stage of the process was the students were then able to create their buildings out of cardboard boxes