Writing Feedback

This year I started marking the kids writing books the way that I had seen other teachers mark in their rooms.   After a while, I found that it didn't work for me as it wasn't giving enough ownership to the children.  When conferencing with the children I found that they were waiting for me to give them all the answers. They didn't have any responsibility for the errors they had made and were not in charge of making changes.  After rereading, "The Writing Book" by Sheena Cameron, I decided to try the wish and tick system again.   This way of conferencing takes longer but instead of correcting all the mistakes for the children I instead write some things they need to check themselves.  A wish and a tick. One thing they need to fix and one thing I think they did well.  Sometimes, depending on the child, there might be more than one tick or more than one wish.  The wishes and ticks are added only after the children has had a go at correcting their surface features first (once again pushing the, "this is your writing and you're in charge of it," point).  The wishes are always related to our learning goal for the day or to the child's specific goal.  It took a while for the children to get used to this system.  Some still wait for me to fix everything but they are getting there.  For the children who at times have trouble seeing their errors or finding them, I will use a highlighter to show that there is something wrong there that they could fix.  I think the best thing about marking this way was seeing the pride in my kids after they managed to fix an error all by themselves.  Here are some pictures of books to show how I mark.  

Simple iPad Apps and writing

Yesterday some of the teachers at school presented ideas that they learned at uLearn 2014.  Being in the junior school I decided to attend the workshop that focused on creative thinking and the use of iPads in the junior school.
One idea I tried today following our workshop was using QuickVoice App (or any other voice recording app) to record children's ideas. I decided to try this idea on some of my students who have trouble with writing. Some have trouble with verbalising their ideas and others have trouble concentrating or just forget what they were writing about.
These children used the QuickVoice app to record their story after the initial planning stage. All the children went away to a quiet space (cloak room, library corner and our outdoor area) to record their story from beginning to end. Once the children recorded their story, they started to write. The benefit that I found from doing it this way was that the children could replay their story as many times as they wanted. Some of the children who frequently forget what they were writing about finished their stories in a logical sequence because their mind didn't wander. For others it was good practice verbalising their ideas prior to writing and listening to what they sound like when they talk. They saw the gaps in their ideas without my input. The best thing for me was that these kids achieved success and they were really proud of their efforts. They were proud that they stayed on task for such a long time, they were proud that they completed their work all by themselves and they were proud that they got to be creative without having to worry too much about the recording process.
A successful day I think :)

 Planning our

Techsperts

I often hear teachers say that they don't have the technical know-how to teach computer skills. I say that you don't have to be the expert! I was thinking today about how old my students are. They were born in 2008, that's 3 years after Youtube was invented and 12 years after the invention of Google. They were born 7 years after the release of the first iPod and the first iPad was released 2 years after they were born. Our students were born into the world of technology whether we like it or not. They are digital natives!
So why not use their expertise?
I was talking to a parent this week about how children just seem to know how to use computers. There are obviously skills that they need to learn and some take longer than others to pick up. The underlying point is that they pick these skills up much faster than adults. So why do we as teachers need to know exactly what to do on every device and in every situation?
I say that we need to employ computer experts. Mine are about 6 years old (some are 7). I have learned that to teach a new skill I can teach small number of my students when I can. These few children are usually one skill ahead of the class (and sometimes me). Once I'm ready to teach the rest I then have support staff on board to help me if I need them. Sometimes I don't know how to do something and I can go and ask my children how to change a background or if they have figured out something exciting they teach me.
This doesn't have to stop at technology, child stuck on a maths problem? Go find a buddy to help you first. If you still don't understand then come to me.
Don't underestimate the children in your class. They are amazing!

Here are my computer experts:

This is some of the the experts in action:

They were the first to complete the presentations below and then heeled the other children in the class finish theirs.

Control vs Choice

Recently I have been thinking about teaching in general. It has changed completely from what I remember happening in my primary classroom. It has even changed in the time that I have been working (that's only 7 years). I have always been a strong believer of moving with the times. If something didn't work I tried a different way. I have always been the type of person who jumped in the deep end and learned as I went. I tried, I experimented, I failed but most importantly I learned. Not everything was easy. Giving away some of the control in my classroom to my children was difficult at first. I have always been taught that I should be in control! Unfortunately I found that this approach was not sustainable for me. I think this also stopped me from giving the best opportunities to my children.
I think Modern Learning requires teachers to let go of some control. Giving ownership to the children teaches them to make choices that are right for their learning, it also teaches them that all choices have consequences (whether they be good or bad consequences depends on the choice made). Letting go of control I found had to be a gradual process. You can not give control over to the children without first teaching them to make good learning choices. Some children will be able to do this instinctively others need to be taught.
Moving year levels has taught me that giving children choice can be done at every year level (obviously with more or less support). My Year 5 student's weren't necessarily better at making good choices than my current Year 2 students. In both cases I had to introduce choices slowly. Giving two options for a particular curriculum area at first. Teaching the children which to use when. With time I was able to give a few more choices. I didn't have seating with my Year 5 students and I still don't with my Year 2s. They have to think about the best place for them to work for a particular task. My little Year 2s can now think about what they are doing and how they need to do it, whether they work on their own or in a group. They seek out experts to help them with tasks. Our philosophy is if someone asks a question then you show instead of just tell. These kids are able to pick the best app for the task. They know how to publish their work on Pages or on the blog depending on how they want to share it. I'm absolutely blown away by them! I didn't think this was possible with Year 2 students at the beginning of the year. Here are some spaces my children like to use for different tasks:

Our quiet working table. Favourite with the kids who don't want to be bothered for a particular task

Where the children like to get together to read books as a group

 

This has become the favourite quiet space for those who need to concentrate on something

Group space when children need some expert advice

The biggest lesson for me was to let my students make the bad choices as well as the good. How do we really learn? As toddlers we didn't learn when mum told us not to touch the hot jug but boy was that lesson painful when we chose not to listen. Same goes for the children in my class. If you chose to stop others from learning because of the choices that you made then there are consequences. You have to catch up on late work in your own time or you lose privileges.
Letting go of control doesn't have to be as scary as it seems to begin with. I think by making small steps at the beginning of the year we can educate our students to be responsible leaders of their own learning.
How do you get your students to take control?

Phonics course

A little while ago I went on a phonics course with some colleagues of mine. Being a Year 5 teacher for majority of my teaching career I didn't have a huge knowledge base of phonics and how they worked. At uni I was not taught about the importance of learning sounds and having a structured programme. Being Russian born and having a very phonetic language structure I found English difficult to learn. Russian letters have one sound, so if you see it, that's how you say it. English has too many sounds for the same letter. For every rule there is a list of exceptions. So I wish that I had been taught to read and write in English using a phonics system and I wish this was taught at uni so that I could pass that on to my students.
We took part in a course run by Yolanda Soryl. She is a primary school teacher who went through the same dilemma as most teachers in NZ. She understood that some children don't instinctively know the sound that letters make and need to be taught the rules and patterns that make up the English letters.
She took us through the importance of learning to distinguish sounds (drum, car, bird) as a toddler and how this knowledge can then translate to distinguishing between letter sounds. We then moved on to learning about the basic structure of teaching children the sounds of letters, progressing to beginning and end wounds of words. We finally ended with middle sounds and letter combinations to make spelling much easier as it became a system rather than a guessing game.
The teaching process for these was repetitive but effective. I found that the students in my class now use the techniques that we learned together (I was learning along with them as it was so new to me also). So overall I think this was a great experience for me and my future students.
Thank you Yolanda for a very stimulating lesson.

Are teachers really the best teachers?

I had the pleasure of observing this in my classroom the other day.

We have been working on rereading our work and checking for errors and then correcting some of those errors independently (refer to earlier post to read about our proofreading wall). The girl on the left had recently figured out how to use a dictionary to proofread and edit her work (with great success). She has now become one of our dictionary experts. When ever the children are stuck or don't remember how to use the dictionary then she is one of our go to people.
While I was working with a group I saw these girls engage in the above learning conversation. Thinking that this is gold I quickly grabbed my phone and started filming. I would have loved to have shown more but because I was trying to be sneaky one of children didn't see my phone on the ground and sat in front of it, thus ending this impromptu filming session. What you don't see, is the girls working together to find a number of words successfully. The little expert scaffolded her buddy, taking her through step by step and then slowly handing over control to let her achieve success independently.
There are times that we teachers just can not give one on one lessons to our students even though they need them. I think having class experts in a great way to give that one on one tuition to those who need it. This approach also helps the experts become proficient at the skill they are using.
In my view it's a win, win!

Giving kids the gift of independence

I know I've said this before, but being with Year 2s I'm always amazed by how quickly they pick up new skills.  The progress they make and the milestones they reach almost daily is so rewarding.  There are somethings that go outside the conventional curriculum that I thought would be worth teaching.  A little while ago I heard someone say that through teaching they don't prepare their students for the year level ahead, they prepare them for life.  I decided that this is a motto that I should live by.  I though about the skills that children (and adults) need no matter what path they choose... independence came to mind. Having the skills to independently solve problems when something goes wrong or just working through a process independently (just giving it a go) before asking for help.

Considering that I'm teaching Year 2s I couldn't just hand over the reigns completely but I could start giving them these skills in small steps. There are the usual put your book bag where it needs to go and put away your reading book, but that wasn't enough for me.  I decided to get them to start proofreading their writing. I don't mean just look at it and say yes I'm done. No I mean really proof read!

I sat down with my children and asked them about the things that I usually correct in their books.  We came up with the following list: spelling, fullstops, capital letters, adding missing words and asking questions to get the kids to add more writing. I then asked them, "which of these things could you try checking yourselves?" We came up with another list that then went on our wall. This is how the Proofreading Wall came to be.  The idea behind it is that the children can go somewhere quiet to read over their work and go through our checklist.  While they were there they could see other children who were working on the same step and swap books to read each other's work.  This is our wall in action:

At first (and on the odd occasion now) I had to remind my kids to read over their work.  In general though my students diligently check their work without me. They check their spelling words in dictionaries (another skill I had to teach them, and they picked it up really quickly), they add full stops and capital letters.  My expectation of them now is that they do not come to see me for a conference until they have gone to the Proofreading Wall and read their story with a buddy.  The results I'm seeing in their writing is pretty impressive.  They are not waiting for me to give them all the answers. Those who know how to use a dictionary teach the others. Those who understand full stops and capital letters coach their buddy.  They are being true collaborative learners.

This proved to me that we cannot underestimate our students. I went in with the mindset that if my senior had trouble doing this then how could my little people. Well guess what? I was wrong! They can do it, and they can do it well! If they can't, then it's because they haven't learnt how to do it yet.

David Anderson PD Learning Talk

Today we revisited some PD that we did at the beginning of the year at our syndicate meeting.
At the beginning of the year we had David Anderson come to school to talk about professional conversations. We discussed the importance of relationships in a working environment and the culture of learning conversations. Today we discussed some of these aspects again.

We discussed Learning Talk in some detail as a team.
The aim is to create a culture where professional conversations make learning the core purpose. David Anderson spoke about the purpose parrot. To ask your self what the purpose of the lesson, conversation or process. If you can't answer that question then maybe you shouldn't do it. If something you are about to do doesn't have a purpose then what's the point?
So here is where we started talking about our appraisal process. What is the purpose of this process? We have been talking about how we can make this process more meaningful to learning. How are the conversations that we are having during our appraisals going to effect the learning experiences of our students. Because at the end of the day the point of our appraisals is to raise student achievement.
One change that I think that is working well in our school is the constantly evolving goal document for teachers. It is a working document. We have made it a requirement to take some time out every term to collect evidence of how we are achieving our goals or what we are doing in order to achieve our goal. This has made me think about what I'm doing much more regularly. I have become more reflective. I have also started thinking about my parrot of purpose.
How is this effecting my students achievement? Is this really going to make an impact on student learning? What is this idea going to add to my teaching?

At the end of the day I don't want my student to just survive. I want them to thrive, to contribute and to be critical thinkers. So how am I going to make it happen? What are the steps that I'm taking that make that a reality?

Modeling Books

This year I have started using modelling books slightly differently in my classroom. I have always used them for both literacy and numeracy what is different now is that they are now an observation record as well as a modelling book. What I started doing is always bringing my post.it notes to the mat area with me. As I'm teaching I make notes on who is doing what. It can be anything from who found what difficult to who was able to figure something with ease.
I found that in a very busy classroom it is difficult to remember who did what, when and where. This has helped keep my observations in one place. I also have dated evidence of what I saw. This has also been a very useful strategy to use with my Teacher Aide. She makes notes on how her group went so I know exactly what I need to catch up on and vice versa. This helps with my end of day or end of week reflections. I know where my students need to head next. I also include a CLOZE plan for reading at the back of the book. I keep some writing progressions in the writing book and stage appropriate profile sheet in the maths books.
Here are some examples of what you would see in my class:

 Reading with WALT, SC and observation notes.

 Reading level on the inside cover of each modelling book.

 Reading modelling books

 Writing: Looking at instructional writing.

 Writing instructions together.

 Writing books including targeted writing group.

 Maths books

Wall displays

Last week I decided update one of my wall displays. I had a brilliant idea at about 5 o'clock (which soon turned into 6:30). We are making connections with New Zealand by looking at the New Zealand natural environment. I decided to make an interactive display for the children to go up to, touch and explore. Here is what I came up with:

So far the response from the children has been good.  They enjoyed reading the books, solving the Weka mazes and the New Zealand map puzzle. I am wondering though how long this will last. How often should we update our walls and displays to keep our classrooms fresh and exciting? How do we balance that with the time we have left?

Aha moment!

Today I decided to experiment with my class. I have found that when I work with my reluctant writers that I don't get the results that I know I can get. I have been thinking about what I'm doing wrong when I teach, how can I get them to discuss their writing in detail and to just open up to me a little. Usually what I get is my group looking back at me waiting for me to give them all the answers. This leads to a lot of waiting at time. I ask questions, I encourage, we draw pictures but they are not making the progress that I was hoping to see. These children usually do a better job when an adult is not near by. This made me think that I was the problem. Are these children feeling like I might be judging their abilities or is there just too much pressure to get things right?
This lead to today's experiment. I partnered up my reluctant writers with some of my good spellers. Rather I asked them to choose a coach out of the people on the mat. What I saw was very impressive. Some of my shy students came out of their shells. They were discussing their writing and getting some good ideas down on paper. Obviously they didn't feel as much pressure when working with their peers. I recorded two of my boys working together (the video is below). I'll give you some details about the two. They boy who is receiving help is not confident when communicating in English and at times he can be very shy with me. He didn't have any problem talking to his coach (who, as you will see, took his job very seriously). Today was the first time that I could read his story with out him reading it back to me. Most of his words were spelt correctly and it all made sense. YEY!!!!
Over all I'm happy with the result and I think all parties learned a lot from the experience. Will definitely be doing this on a regular basis.

Power of positive reinforcement

I have just read Kimberley Rivett's (@krivett1) about Celebrating Everyday! This inspired me to look at what I do in my classroom. It can be too easy to be bogged down by all the things that need to be done or focus on the kids who just don't seem to be understanding. We end up thinking, "What am I doing wrong?" These are all very important parts of teachings as we need to evaluate our approach and adjust strategies that don't suit some students.
I started thinking about what I do to let kids know that they're doing something right. As a child I remember one teacher speaking to my mum about my lack of achievement or her perception of it and how that made me feel. I remember another who never seemed to say anything positive to us kids. I vowed to try to be aware of the power of my words. One of the things that I try to do in my class is bring up the self esteem of my little ones. What I found worrying with some of my kiddies is that they have already started displaying avoidance tactics or talking themselves down when something gets tricky.
One of my tactics is to ask the children to think of something they are proud of from the day. It can be anything! I've had responses that ranged from, "I'm proud of my self because I said a compliment to a person and made them happy!" others say something along the lines of, "I wrote a longer story today!" We all need to have things we are proud of.
Many teachers get their students to give themselves a pat on the back but I also like to give the children a high five when they have done something awesome. My high fives are usually followed by, "Wow! (insert compliment here) I'm so proud of you!" Being proud of yourself is one thing but knowing that someone else has noticed and is proud of you too can really make your day.
At the moment I'm teaching my class about giving compliments to each other. I can't notice all the great things that are happening in my class so I'm trying to teach my kids to notice for me. Yesterday one of my boys came up to me and said, "Mrs Tauroa I'm really really impressed by (Name). He has been working really hard and every time I looked his way we was focused. I'm proud of him!" I thought how cool!
So those are some of the things that are happening in my room to create a positive environment. What are some things that happen in yours?

Assessment with Juniors

There is one thing I didn't anticipate when I came to the Junior syndicate. That was how very different assessment would be. Some aspects are the same such as looking at a writing sample or completing a running record. The differences I found were my analysis of the data I'm recording. After teaching Year 5 for six years I instinctively knew where my kids were: their stages, where they fit on the writing matrix etc. Now I feel really unsure. Have I made the right choice? Is this child really a 1A or are they actually a 1P. I'm getting better at evaluating some data but moderation is definitely something I will need to do a lot this year.
The other thing that I'm finding tricky is the amount of verbal testing that needs to happen. With the senior kids you could give them a test, mark it and see where each child fit. You can't do that with 6 year olds. My maths testing has taken me weeks to complete and to analyse. Same goes for reading, because giving a class of six year olds independent tasks at the beginning of the year is just not going to work.
So now my task is to work on my time management in order to keep up with the assessment that I need to do. Up wards and onwards, have writing to mark.

Blogging with Juniors

I have finally managed to set up individual blogs for my Year 2 class. As I've said before my Year 2 children seem to be so enthusiastic about everything we do. They love to show what they can do and so I thought that for some of my kiddies blogging is the way to go.
I have some children who are not particularly confident when it comes to writing but they feel more comfortable writing on the computer. The purpose of this is to start to develop an enjoyment of writing in my reluctant writers. They all know that I have to approve their writing before it goes on the web. I think this way they have the safety net of me checking their writing before it goes up online. None of these children have had an individual blog before so having the responsibility is also exciting.

We started by discussing how writing online is like publishing your work on the wall right away. It is your best work. We also discussed some rules about making comments and what to write and what not to write. I think at the moment they are being quite cautious so we will see what the future brings.

Please have a read of what they are writing so far and leave us a comment: http://kidblog.org/room9pvs/

One step at a time

I'm loving my new Junior school teacher role. I am enjoying the children. I find their enthusiasm and engagement refreshing. On the other hand I am finding it quite a challenge. I have not felt this way since I was a beginning teacher. The classroom is not the problem. I have a few strategies up my sleeve and can adapt to sticky situations quickly (not that there have been too many). What I am finding difficult is tracking down resources and adapting to a new team. I'm finding that the expectations of me as a teacher are quite different. I also have a new team leader so I have to learn how she likes things done (everyone has a way that they like things to be done). The children are also in need of a lot more direction. They are still very dependent on me to do certain things. So with all these things in mind, the to do list becomes quite long and slightly overwhelming.
So after following some advice, from my role model, I have decided to take things one step at a time. I need to focus on one curriculum area at a time and set up each one well before moving on to the next. I guess I need to remember that trying to do everything at the same time will result in me doing many things poorly rather than slowly building up do doing many things well. Step one... finish resorting my reading groups after finishing my final running records and analysing data for effective reporting and teaching. Step two... maths!
Watch this space.

First Attempt In Learning

I have just read a blog post by @traintheteacher about being someone's worst teacher. I would have to agree with this thinking. Our failures are the best lessons! We don't want to put ourselves into that situation again and so we take all we can from it and try to adapt. How many times have we as teachers tried something in the classroom that was a disaster? I think we have those moments often but we are constantly reflecting and wondering how we can make the next attempt a success.
These are things that we are doing on a regular basis. So why is the word failure such a negative?
We try and get our students to make mistakes and learn from them. I don't know how many times I have told my students that mistakes are a great thing, as long as you learn from them.  I think we have put so much pressure on ourselves to get everything right that we stress when things don't go according to plan. I think it's time we took a leaf out of our own book and relax about our failures and looked at them as lessons rather than a personal criticism. I have recently heard +Anne Kenneally  @annekenn talk about the word fail and I have decided to take on her philosophy.

First
Attempt
In
Learning

Let's celebrate our First Attempts In Learning, share them with each other and learn from them!

New Year, New Beginnings

This post should have been written a few months ago.  Very excited to announce that I am now the teacher of a Junior class. After teaching Year 5s for 6 years I decided that it was time for a new challenge. I asked to be moved to a different year level to challenge myself.
I must say ... So far so good.
It has been quite a wake up call. In the days before school started I was really questioning my choice. While looking at planning of other teachers and the things that we were going to do in the beginning of the year I though, "what have I gotten my self into?!"
I have had to adjust significantly and I think I took some of the skills my 9 year olds knew for granted. I realised very quickly that my little ones have never had to write the full date on anything. It took us most of our handwriting lesson to write it at the top of our page. Some of our learning intentions consisted of learning to copy of the board. Counting on fingers is the norm for many here.
The prospect of all this was terrifying to begin with, but so far I am loving it.  There have been times when my patience has been tested of course. Mostly because what I have set for the children they just weren't ready for or the children had displayed behaviour that I haven't had to deal with in Senior classes. For majority of the time I have not had to lower my expectations. These kids have stepped up BIG TIME!
It seems to me that my little 6 year olds are so willing to please that they will do anything in their power to make that happen. There have been times when all I have had to do was mention an expectation or behaviour and it was done. It is still early days so lets just hope that I can keep this up.

Over all, my first impressions of being a junior teacher are great!