Great to see everyone in the cluster again today! A very informative session from Suzie Vesper, with a HEAP of really cool Web 2 tools to use in the classroom. It was a good reminder of what is out there for our use to engage our kids and get them excited about their learning.
Our school wide ICT goals for this term are to have implemented into our classes the regular use of a blog as part of our written language programme and to keep posting new links for our kids to use on our school wiki. We really need to have these basics functioning fully before we can introduce some more of the fantastic tools out there for us. We will have a new focus for next term once these goals are met.
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Term 2 Roundup
Kia ora,
How re-affirmimg to get such wonderful feedback from the Education Review Office team from their recent audit of our school. In particular, it was great to hear that our students are very much engaged in learning as highlighted by their ability to describe what they already know and then what they need to do to learn more. It is also highlighted but the excitement they show in their voices when communicating their thoughts and ideas.
Their understanding and practical application of the Inquiry Intersection is an integral part of the motivation and engagement that they are showing for learning with much of what they are doing clearly understood and self driven. The teachers are now beginning to truly take on the role of facilitators of learning where they guide our children into their own learning pathways rather than direct them into areas they believe are more appropriate.
My stocktake would suggest that a concentration on more in depth questioning may enhance the process even further. The development of deeper questions based on SOLO taxonomy is a direction I feel we need to take. Beyond this, I also feel we still need to do something more with what we discover.
Kia kaha whanau
How re-affirmimg to get such wonderful feedback from the Education Review Office team from their recent audit of our school. In particular, it was great to hear that our students are very much engaged in learning as highlighted by their ability to describe what they already know and then what they need to do to learn more. It is also highlighted but the excitement they show in their voices when communicating their thoughts and ideas.
Their understanding and practical application of the Inquiry Intersection is an integral part of the motivation and engagement that they are showing for learning with much of what they are doing clearly understood and self driven. The teachers are now beginning to truly take on the role of facilitators of learning where they guide our children into their own learning pathways rather than direct them into areas they believe are more appropriate.
My stocktake would suggest that a concentration on more in depth questioning may enhance the process even further. The development of deeper questions based on SOLO taxonomy is a direction I feel we need to take. Beyond this, I also feel we still need to do something more with what we discover.
Kia kaha whanau
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Inquiry intersection for room3
This term has been a very good one for Room 3 as the topic has allowed us as a class to move around the intersection and talk about it as we now have separate walls for each off road. This actual physical space has made the intersection mean more to the children and I will use the same idea next term. However, I will need to find more wall space as it is very cramped this term with such an interesting and engaging topic.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Room 4 Term 2
This term our focus was to stick to a time table to ensure we completed the entire process. It has not only been beneficial for the children but mainly for myself to keep on track. The children have been especially excited and interested in this terms topic. I am still directing the inquiry and I have found it tough to foucus on one question as the children are always asking more. It has been great to have a libray full of books to do with the topic because I have been able to direct the children to those books to find answers to their other questions. This has worked well. We have also used writing as a way of exploring other questions. Our focus has been on rain, clouds, and thunder storms and I have found that because the children already had a great knowledge base to start from that we have been able to ask deeper questions and find truley new information.
Thursday, June 4, 2009
Survivor!
Room 5 has been rocking with inquiry this term. We have really looked at the intersection and the kids seem to have a greater knowledge of where we have been, where we are at and where we are going. Our focus has once again been on questioning skills mostly as the children are still not quite there with the 'ask' part of our model. Having the work presented on the wall has been very effective as the children often refer to each section of the process and can discuss what has been going on. Adding the science component and working with the rest of the Junior School has been fantastic. The children have enjoyed finding information through scientific investigation and this has lent itself very nicely to explanation writing which is what we are working on for story writing. We have been using SOLO to assess ourselves as we go through the intersection and it seems to be working as a class. I am not sure if the kids fully understand SOLO yet so will still need to keep working on this each term. Next term i would like to focus mostly on Understand as it is probably an area of the model we haven't looked at in depth. I am very proud of what Room 5 has achieved this term and can't wait to see how this continues as the year goes on. Rock on Room 5!!!
Friday, May 15, 2009
The Year to Date
Kia ora Everyone,
Apologies for not checking in sooner but with one thing or another time has just seemed to slip by. First and foremost I have to congratulate my two staff members, Amanda and Fiona, who presented our Inquiry model, the Poroutawhao Inquiry Intersection, at the Learning at Schools Conference in Rotorua back in term 1. The feedback from this to date has been outstanding and this truly represented the fact that we have taken our school to the next level in terms of Inquiry development and implentation in our school. We are now confident enough in what we are doing to share with others. Ka pai tera!
Last term I was also thrilled to be able to analyse our second set of data, based on our Term 3, 2008, Inquiry unit. This data was based on assessments taken against our Inquiry matrix, showed that the vast majority of our students, 92% in fact, were Inquiring at or above an age appropriate level.
This year it was awesome to introduce the revised inquiry assessment matrix with features being the inclusion of SOLO taxonomy within the indicators and the creation of a bank of Level 5 indicators. To date, this has been well received.
Recently I once again took the time to rove through the classrooms and talk to students about Inquiry and was thrilled to hear comments such as, "you learn so much", its makes our work so interesting", and "I always know where I am". The feeddback that I got proved to me that our children are more engaged in learning through inquiry and are therefore far more motivated. They are also far more able to describe their learning, ie what they know now and what they need to know or do to enhance learning from there.
All in all, a very rosy picture in terms of Inquiry in our school.
Apologies for not checking in sooner but with one thing or another time has just seemed to slip by. First and foremost I have to congratulate my two staff members, Amanda and Fiona, who presented our Inquiry model, the Poroutawhao Inquiry Intersection, at the Learning at Schools Conference in Rotorua back in term 1. The feedback from this to date has been outstanding and this truly represented the fact that we have taken our school to the next level in terms of Inquiry development and implentation in our school. We are now confident enough in what we are doing to share with others. Ka pai tera!
Last term I was also thrilled to be able to analyse our second set of data, based on our Term 3, 2008, Inquiry unit. This data was based on assessments taken against our Inquiry matrix, showed that the vast majority of our students, 92% in fact, were Inquiring at or above an age appropriate level.
This year it was awesome to introduce the revised inquiry assessment matrix with features being the inclusion of SOLO taxonomy within the indicators and the creation of a bank of Level 5 indicators. To date, this has been well received.
Recently I once again took the time to rove through the classrooms and talk to students about Inquiry and was thrilled to hear comments such as, "you learn so much", its makes our work so interesting", and "I always know where I am". The feeddback that I got proved to me that our children are more engaged in learning through inquiry and are therefore far more motivated. They are also far more able to describe their learning, ie what they know now and what they need to know or do to enhance learning from there.
All in all, a very rosy picture in terms of Inquiry in our school.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Room 3 - Term 1 2009
We have been sharing with room 4 a guest speaker from the police and talking about traditional tales that explore the idea of telling lies, and making wrong choices. Using the "good character.com" and making the "right choices" a book from the police we have discusssed good and bad choices with reference to SOLO and HATS. We have not yet got to the intersection.
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