Room 17 Independent Learning

I played around with some basic Ind Learning ideas with room 17 the other week and we had some great results. The children who normally have problems with focusing on a task, where really well behaved and on task for substantial periods of time. The feedback I got from the session included some interesting responses, like, "I was scared to begin with", but the majority of the class were keen to keep working on this idea.

staff posting to the Blog

I have given all teachers a business card with a login that will allow them to add their thoughts to the blog. I have heard some great ideas about possible names and also heard the ideas that teachers are implementing in their classes regarding Independent Learning trials. I hope they start adding ideas soon!

Second Staff Meeting Reflection

Yesterday I exposed myself to the staff...and it was not pretty! I videoed a lesson I took in a senior classroom and focused the camera on the students. I wanted to really see what they were doing while I was "teaching" them. The results were scary. In the 5 minutes the video played I saw yawning, frustrated faces. It was evident that I was selecting the students who I knew could answer the questions and, hence, not slow down the flow, but the rest of the class were not engaged on any meaningful level.

So, what of this? Well, it highlighted several important points. The teacher must understand the needs of the children...not as a whole class, but as individuals. These individuals can be grouped for management purposes, but we need to be thinking about their needs as leaners. I would also encourage teachers to be thinking about ways to lessen their whole class teaching opportunities...not the quality, but the frequency. Having a WALT that we need the whole class to work on, (The use of adjectives for example), should be delivered in ways that reflect the eneds of the students. Rich texts, challenge, examples, modelling, prompting and other best practice techniques should be evident in the lesson. Don't forget about differentiation!