Alyssia Hunter

DeveloperNotebookMSU

This is why I haven’t blogged in so long! I’m looking forward to doing some serious reflection on my regular teaching soon!

Its a good time of year. The children are so used to everything, and they’re very easy to get along with and teach. We’re all on the same page. I wonder if there are ways to reach this point faster. There is a definate path a class goes through each year with their teacher. It would be really good if we could just speed through to the good bits.

Displays
Targets for children
Goals for teacher
Regular contact with parents
Differentiated daily plans
Resources organised in advance
Fun lessons
Books marked well
Behaviour management system
Regular homework cycle
Technology use facilitates learning
Happy teacher, happy students

All of the above is going fine, I just wish I didn’t have to do so much exam preparation, and that I could do more fun things with them. I think perhaps after next year, I will change year groups. 3 years in one year group is the recommended time, isn’t it?

Lets hope the movie/play we’ve made for assembly goes well!

Things are so busy. Its actually quite a challenge to fit in all of my ideas into a year! Lets see what my checklist tells me.

Displays – all complete and looking good. I’ve definately re-established my mindfulness of them now!
Targets for children – doing well, but need to make sure the students continue to pay attention to them
Goals for teacher – I’ve almost acheived all of them! Time for more!
Regular contact with parents – conferences went well. Need to keep in touch with them more, especially during lead up to SATs.
Differentiated daily plans – I think this is coming quite naturally to me now, which is a huge shock! But I need to keep this on my checklist to make sure I don’t slack off!
Resources organised in advance – very good. I’ve had time to do this lately.
Fun lessons – they liked making the websites for the museum, and they’re enjoying maths a lot more these days.
Books marked well – good
Behaviour management system – I’ve made some slight changes, but need to really be more strict with some students- they are developing year 6 attitude.
Regular homework cycle – good
Technology use facilitates learning – I think I could use edu20 a bit more, but its hard since everything we have is on paper now. I need to work on this one.
Happy teacher, happy students – yes

I’m thinking of having the students make a video for their “Quests” literacy unit and for our assembly. We’ll see how that goes. I’m aiming to improve my video editing skills.

Overall, things are busy but I need to stay conscious of those things I need to improve, and my goals. My netvibes sticky note is helping with that!

Displays – some new plans coming along – though quite slowly. I think its probably best only to take a display down when the new one is ready to go up.
Targets for children – going very well – especially with S&L and Reading
Goals for teacher – still numerous, but only slowly getting through them – not much I can do about that though- too busy
Regular contact with parents – could’ve been better last term, perhaps, but I’m sure the conferences will still go fine. I’ve had zero complaints or problems this term.
Differentiated daily plans – differentiation is happening, but i still think it could be better managed in my maths lessons. Perhaps the lower group could be doing mental maths quietly, while i start work with the extension group and go through what they have to do etc.
Resources organised in advance – that’s going ok since I’m using the T.A’s better recently, but sometimes I’m just too busy to think far in advance. Not a problem here.
Fun lessons – the children love the S&L lessons and reading.
Books marked well – fine
Behaviour management system – Paul mentioned having a table point system, which I think could be a nice change.
Regular homework cycle – fine
Technology use facilitates learning – using edu20 a bit more recently, and its working out well
Happy teacher, happy students – yes!

So for next time, hopefully I will have started a better way of introducing my differentiated maths lessons; and introduced a new behaviour management system.

Ideas: I’m going to have the children do S&L homework on Wetoku and tools like that. I’ll also have them do guided reading tasks using web20 tools and put them in our wiki on edu20. I think that will decrease my workload and make it more interesting for the students.

I’ve come up with a checklist to make sure I don’t slip behind in any elements of my teaching. I’m quite concerned that, over time, I will gradually neglect some aspects, which would not be good at all. So here is my first list, made from the top of my head, and kind of ordered from the things I find hardest to get to, down to the easiest things. Hopefully I will edit this as I go.

My checklist for reflections
Displays
Targets for children
Goals for teacher
Regular contact with parents
Differentiated daily plans
Resources organised in advance
Fun lessons
Books marked well
Behaviour management system
Regular homework cycle
Technology use facilitates learning
Happy teacher, happy students

I’m glad that my team leader was not approving of my maths books last week. It really made me look at my teaching in a different way. Even just that small detail that he noticed, made me realise that I need to reflect a lot more.

I’ve decided that I could blog once a month, each time on a different aspect of my teaching. I’m so glad that I can follow Parker Palmer’s advice and try to be as open and honest as I can. I like the idea that I can let others see clearly who I am and how I work – mistakes and all. I think its a really healthy way to grow and learn, especially for new teachers.

Also, I think I will ask my team leader to check up on me once a term – on any aspect he thinks suitable. That way, I can look at my teaching through more than just my own eyes.

This should be very interesting

I just had my team leader come in and look at my students’ work, as he does every year. Last year it was ok, but this year, the marking seems to have worsened! Only in maths, however. As one of my goals for this year, I wanted to improve my ICT use; and my maths lessons, because I’m not used to teaching that subject. I thought I was doing ok with my activities I’ve been organising, and my IT incorporation, but I guess I’ve been so distracted by those things that my target setting in particular has gone down.

I wonder if there’s a tool that teachers could use to self reflect. I think if I don’t find one, I’ll make one myself, because I should’ve been able to notice this fault in my teaching much earlier, before anyone had to tell me about it. Perhaps my goals were distracting me from the more basic things. I will have to analyse that more closely though.

I want to become better at teaching, and I think in some ways I have, but I need a way of making sure that I still do the basics well.

I’ll be back with my new strategy, and analyse how it has gone.

“Tomorrow is a new day, with no mistakes” Anne of Green Gables!!!

reflection2 (Part one)

reflection3 (Part two)

This is a reflection on what I’ve learned from the first section of my course in Educational Technology.

Here are some goals I have developed after my first month of learning:

Hello there, now Prensky says that it’s time for educators to raise their heads above the daily grind and observe the new landscape of technology that’s emerging. This is what I intend to do now, along with planning how I can work towards enhancing and increasing my technology use in education.

I’m going to use the analogy of Harry Potter. Harry is an ordinary muggle until he receives an invitation in the mail. After this point, his world changes dramatically. He meets many extraordinary people, and discovers talents that he never knew existed. There can be no doubt that our world too, is changing rapidly. How does this affect our teaching? It makes it an exciting time of exploration and discovery. Students have had ready access to information written by the wizards of the world. They’ve had a chance to play and experiment with technology during lessons. This has been an exciting learning experience, however, I wonder what will come next! It is my hope that all the time spent fixing errors that were not supposed to happen will disappear, although with the number of new technologies that continually appear, I doubt this will happen. But I’ve heard about the lap top schools, the tablet notebooks and even globally connected learning communities that are emerging somewhere in the www. How will my students learn in my classroom once these new things arrive? I could then take my students anywhere in the world in a much more literal sense. Other classes will be looking to learn the same things, and we could combine what we learn. My students will not only be interacting with each other, but with politicians, sports players, radio presenters, astronauts, and many other children! Clearly, these are just speculations- I can’t even imagine how my teaching will change! I think Prensky understands this- he says that our young people generally have a much better idea of what the future is bringing than we do. So I sense that my classroom will become more student centred. Additionally, Ohler (2005/2006) explains that the digitally literate student will BE the wizard- constructing and participating in, rather than just receiving information.

How will I begin teaching in this new way? Of course I have to start from where I am now, then embark on the journey to my future classroom. Currently at my school, we have new SMART boards, and we communicate with students and parents through our school website. I used a SMART board at uni, so I’m very comfortable using it, and trying to make lessons as interactive as possible. My students have emailed, podcasted, vodcasted, and have done a variety of internet based assignments. I intend to continue these practices, while adding a reflective blogging component to my class, and utilising edu20.org for homework and more effective communication. My students will be increasingly creating online, by using online resources. I may also ask permission from the head for students to use their phones in some of my lessons. This way, they could take photos of our mould growing experiment, among other things. These short term goals will get me part of the way to Hogwarts.

How can I go ALL the way to teaching my students to be digitally literate and prepared for the 21st century? First of all, I can harness and build on the skills my students already have, and I can collaborate more closely with the school’s ICT integration specialist. Secondly, I must do what all teachers know best: use standards. The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) has developed standards to aim for. I have chosen some realistic ones to aim for. I hope to achieve each one at least once a year, up until the year 2012. My goals at the moment extend until the year 2012 in alignment with my school’s Technology plan. This states that by 2012, all students will have access to a laptop in class. In addition to these, I must also remember the wealth of ideas and resources that I have access to via Twitter, Classroom20 and the rest of the internet! How fortunate that I have all these resources to ensure that I implement this technology in a way that will enhance student learning! With all this, I can help my students collaborate with each other, and across the world, in order to construct their own learning experiences. They will evaluate which information sources are best for their purpose, while using safe, legal and ethical technology etiquette. Finally, I hope to see my students growing into reflective, life long learners equipped with the skills required for their future.

And I mustn’t forget: professional development plans are continual. I must return to this and evaluate my progress, thereby continuing the spiral of reflection, planning and development.