Checking up with Students' Progress

After a quick visit to Sue today, it was sooooo valuable. Sue, you are truely an amazing teacher!!!! I trialled the "timer" idea and gave one of my boys a timer and told him he was in charge of it and after every 15 minutes when the timer went off, we had to consider what we had each achieved in that time. This was a great way to "break up" long periods of independent learning, and also refocus the students back to doing tasks they had planned, if they had become distracted. So simple, but so effective!!! I haven't been getting the kids to reflect on their own achievements during the week. We've done this as a class and they all want to be more "in charge" of planning their weeks, however getting them to reflect on themselves and the week is so important. Will start putting this into the FIP's. Thanks Sue.

ideas and feedback from the Victorian teachers

what we saw today reinforces best practice.
I was impressed with how well the students can articulate learning - it was easy for them to speak about it
There was a real sense of purpose in the classes.
What was seen today was: kids who can articulate their learning, students who were ontask, children explaining the trust cards, etc...no-one mucking around!
Open and flexible spaces - going from private to public teaching. This is beginnign to happen in Australia, but seen here today.
What is the next small step in having student input into curriculum content?
name suggestion - Open Air Learning!

Athletic Champs

Well done to Nathan and Ben on their performance in the athletic sports. Our champions received trophies for their outstanding ability in running and high jump.

Goals for next year - Writing

Catering for diverse needs - this is our major focus of next year when it comes to grouping and teaching. We are still weak in this aspect and has significant 5/15 numbers of teacher still in the little to some evident quadrants. There was major shift in the other quandrants and we need to celebrate this.

Workshops and independent tasks.

This term our workshops have been running better because the rest of the class were set up better with their work. I made sure they had specific and explicit instructions of what to do when I am with a group. Although it is still their choice of WHAT to do, they are more clear of HOW to do it, e.g quality. Having the children choose their workshops, based on their area of interest or specific need meant they were excited about going to the workshops, as well as doing their independent tasks. A happy little literacy block...yay!

Booklets

My class use a booklet to track their personal priorities during the day - we set it up in the morning, with them setting a specific achievement goal for the day, and then listing their due dates, other commitments, groups they'll be in and other priorities. It sounds like a lot but it's quite easy to manage as they generally know ahead of time what they plan to do. I was wondering if/how others record what the children are working on during the day.

:)

Independence and time management

I find that prioritising and time management can be very hard for some of the children in my class (especially since some lack a sense of time and anything longer than 5 minutes may as well be hours). For these kids I help to list ‘must dos’ in priority order. However, they will usually only get through one task (and only in the last 5 minutes of the session) and never have any time to get to choose ‘can dos’. They recognise that they are missing out on getting to choose, but can’t plan ahead enough to complete their work. The only way I’ve found to work is to have them working close to me so they think I’m keeping tabs on them.

What are some strategies you have with helping children manage their time and work independently?

Requests...

I'd love to see some copies of things like Kiri's (and others) timetables, "Where's Wally" sheets, and other templates used on here as inspiration.

Unprompted comments from children in room 21

The following comments were made by children when I asked them to explain how Karawhiua works in their room.

It makes it fun
It makes us think harder.
We get on with things and actually do rather than just talking.
Everyone gets on with work, so it is quieter

In the hour I was in the class, Toby completed 2 workshops with different groups and 2 running records whilst the other children all completed their work without needing to see him for clarification.

The power of managing the classroom in this way is very evident. I have a wondering about how much all the teachers are aware of what we mean when we say Karawhiua? It is important that everyone understands what we are and are not talking about.

Feedback and thoughts needed...

Hi Team! I would love your feedback and thoughts on how the Learning Reports (online and paper systems) would work during Karawhiua. Where do you see it fitting into your timetables. How can Karawhiua influence the way the LR's impact on our students' learning?

Other management ideas

Timetables, Where's Wally recording sheets etc, to help MANAGE the Karawhiua time in classes

Quality work

Here is an idea from Kiri about how the children monitor their own Quality Work. They use this list, co-created by them, to check that work is up to standard. It is backed up by other posters around the class which explain key points....like compound sentences, similes and interesting word choices for example.

Quality work

Here is one idea that Sue has. The children have access to these sheets whenever they need them. They are used in pair conferences and to check that quality work has been done.

Questions for Kiri - What do you think?

Thanks for letting me investigate the Karawhiua process that happens in your room. You have done so much with it in such a small amount of time!

I was wondering what your view was of Maths interchange in a classroom that uses Karawhiua as its teaching model? Is there still a place for this or could/should we look at not having maths interchange anymore? What are the teaching implications of this and what about the effect this would have on the Special Needs team?

Questions for Marama - what do you think?

Thanks for letting me observe what was going on in your class today. I am really excited about the workshop sessions that you are running. The kids I spoke to seemed really tuned into the system as well. My question for you, and you might like to the kids to feed into this answer, is around the idea of Quality Work. How do you know that that the work the children are doing IS Quality Work?

Workshops - Garrick from Rm 8

Workshops are good because you get to learn different things, things that you don't normally learn about...like extreme weather! I got to learn about this because you add your name to the list to learn about two different topics and I chose Extreme Weather and "Just Like New".

Right now I am off to work on my Mihi, which Marama added to the list as an option - you work on this when you are not with the teacher.

I like workshops because normally classes don't do workshops.

Workshops - Livvy from Rm 8

Each Monday we have got to go up to the Whiteboard and add our names to a workshop. These are groups that we pick to do things in, like reading, spelling and writing. Marama gets us down to the mat and she writes on the little board things that we have to do if we are not in a workshop. Most of these things are work that has to be finished by the end of the week.

My thoughts about this are.....I think it is quite good because you get to choose things that we are interested in or things we are not very good at and it is also really good because you get time to work with Marama without anyone interrupting. (the workshops run for 20 minutes with a 10 minute gap in between so she can help other people).

Observations of Karawhiua

Today I am heading out to classes, (Rooms 18 and 8), to check out what they are doing to manage the timetables for Karawhiua in their classrooms. I am hoping to get some excellent ideas to share back with other teachers.

Spreading the News

Emma and Caitlin worked on this news presentation during our Learning Leaders Project during Term 4 of 2008. The idea was to take a field of interest and work out a way to share their thoughts and ideas with an audience, so that they could "Make A Difference".

While most of the children choose to focus their attention on school based projects, (such as writing and art competitions or teaching younger students a skill), these two students used their time to research about the quality of Christchurch's drinking water. Their work was inspired by recent news articles about the damage residents are causing to the Avon River.

Again it was great helping out the students in any way that I could, but these two needed little help from me! They were so interested in their topics, that they chose to work during their free time to gather the information they needed. They contacted the City Council and spoke to experts about the problem at hand as well as researched using the library and internet to gather the facts they needed to back up their points.

In 2007 Kiri Anngow spent a lot of time working with the children to create a short movie about safety in and around our school. This opportunity ingnited the imaginations of several students who banded together in 2008 to create a zombie movie! They used the skills learnt previously and independently created "The Zombie Premise"

As a teacher, it was incredible to see the passion and excitement that these students brought to their learning. During their Karawhiua time the children negotiated with me to find time to write the script, (using Googledocs) create 3D graphics of props (using Googles SketchUp), write the musical score and theme music, (using Garageband), and film the scenes using equipment they brought from home.

I really enjoyed helping the students create this movie, but what was obvious was how little help they needed from me. This was really an exercise in letting the students' passion develop. Other children, who had not been involved with Kiri's class, also caught the bug and where keen to be involved in the making of the movie.

The student's, obviously proud of their creations, invited the school to watch their premier during the scond to last week of school. The Village was packed and after two showings the audience was finally satisfied!

How does Karawhiua help our learning?

Some of the students investigated this question as part of their Inquiry last year. These are their results:
Wilson said, "It helps us out so much, because you have the freedom to choose what you want to focus on. Even though we need to complete other learning in the classroom, we choose when we want to do this. I find it lets me focus more of my time on the stuff I want to learn about."

Molly’s and Asher’s answer was that it helps us learn to manage our time and you get more choice in what you want to learn.