Some Observations ...

As the term comes to a close I am in a position where I am able to reflect on the learning of my colleagues over the term. I have the great task of perusing through people's programs and I now take a totally different view of them. I am able to see the learning that has occurred through evaluations. I am also able to observe the development of teacher understanding and how their prfessional development has led to a change in practice. The movements that are occurring in thinking are small but significant shifts which enable the engagement of students at a much more productive level. I suppose the goal now is how to sustain such significant learning across the school.

An Exciting Time!

It is with great excitement that I make this post about what happened in Learning Support today. It was a combination of differentiation with web2 tools and what I saw as a result was high engagement of the learner!

How did I do it?

I set up both a Voicethread and a Wiki for each of the boys in my group. Understanding that 3 of the boys are reading at the same level, hence reading the same book and one of the boys is reading at a lower level, hence an easier text. Each boy was able to listen to the text and then complete the task that I had created for them on their own wiki. One child who, if given pen and paper, would never have cared about spelling was asking me how to spell each of the unknown words that he wanted to write and then double checking those words he did know but had spelt incorrectly! The boy who reads at a lower level multi tasked in that he listened to the story, returned to the wiki, identified words from the story to complete the task in the wiki, returned to the voicethread to listen again.

At one stage I stood there thinking "OK now what do I do?" !!!

What were the drawbacks of the lesson?

It took a bit of setting up (the voicethread, the Wiki) but really probably no more than would have been given to finding a task out of a text book. It took time to set the computers up and to help the boys navigate the sites - probably about 15mins. But now that they know how to do it next time should be easier.

Does this mean that I would do this type of lesson all of the time?

No I don't think it would suit every lesson and the variety of what is done is just as important.

How does this fit with differentiation?

Now that is easy to answer. Every boy worked at his own pace and was able to complete the work at the level of which he was capable of. I was able to clearly see the responses and the differences between them. It gave me a good indication of what each boy was capable of and how I could further adapt tasks for them in the future.

I'd love to share this learning at one of our meetings! - TMS

Sydney Morning Herald

Last Saturday there was an article in the herald that outlined the importance of oral language within the English curriculum. I believe that differentiation can begin very simply at this level. With all that happens in a school day, term or year we tend to find ourselves rushed in our work and forget about the quality of the oral engagement that is essential for students to have. This engagement allows them to bring another dimension to the text and their writing. We almost treat it incidentally in our classes. As part of my project I am going to look carefully at what the English syllabus and its support documents say about the teaching of oral language. I will also investigate the work of Love and Rielly. My research will include some PENS that I have from PETA as well as some of the texts published by this association.