How do we learn? Some activities to start your year

I've been talking to teachers about the start of the year. How do we begin? Are there any "getting to know you" activities with a difference?
I thought back to my own experience. As a child, I was often frustrated because I was made to sit in a brightly lit classroom and was made to look at texts that hurt my head (have a read about Irlen). When I became a teacher I became very aware that the environment in my class did not suit all my students. I tried to create dark nooks where children could hide, have coloured paper for writing and so on. I then realised that I was catering for children who were like me but what about the rest?
As part of my learning to learn study I created a questionnaire for my students. I wanted to know what I was missing about their learning preferences. I looked at examples online and thought about what would work for me and my classroom. At first, I created a paper form but as I learned about Google Apps, I created the following:


It became my, "go to" resource, to see how my children preferred to work. What I found interesting, is that many of my Year 5 students have never thoughts about their own learning process. They had never been asked, "hey, does this sitting at a desk stuff actually work for you?"
I found that this worked really well for me most years. However, there are some years that are trickier than others and some ages respond better to this than others. Be prepared to take a step back and reevaluate. One year, my closed in caves and nooks had to become more visible, so I used mosquito nets for my "quiet, leave me alone spaces." You can always introduce these ideas again later in the year as the class has gotten to know you and your methods better.

Another quiz that I asked the children to fill out was the multiple intelligences test. I wanted to see what each child needed help with and what their strengths were. We displayed our results in the classroom, to show that we are all different and that we all have strengths and that we all have something to work on (myself included). Some of the questions were tricky for my Year 5's, so I wouldn't use it with the younger children. There are some great resources that could be used with younger children, just have a look online. I found this lesson plan developed by Eva Hoffman, a little bit easier to use. I found that more of the children in my class were able to understand the visual mind map. Once again don't be surprised if your class struggles with this activity. After all, they have spent their whole schooling life focusing on the things they can't do.
Do continue to use multiple intelligences in your regular programme. When following a particular inquiry, give the students a range of ways to present their findings. The linguists in your class can absolutely write a report if they so wish, but what about your musical students? Can they make a rap and video it? Can your visual/spatial students create a 3D model? I have also found a resource that has sorted different iPad Apps into intelligence groups. I found this useful when coming up with activities that relate to the information I collected about my students. Think about ways to use those students strengths. By using their strengths, you can help to encourage students to work in subject areas they are not confident in.
As part of our learning to learn process, we also looked at what learning looks like in our class. I used a Y chart to brainstorm what learning looks, sounds and feels like in our room. This is a great time to discuss expectations. Does learning have to look like a class full of students with their heads down? Does it sound like silence or does it sound like children excitedly sharing their ideas? Ask the children about how we can all feel valued and safe in this environment? One of my main rules was that you can not stop someone else from learning. So you if you learn by discussing a subject then do not approach a person who is quietly working on their own and clearly wants to be left to it. You will be amazed by what the children will come up with. If you challenge their thinking and question their answers.

The start of each year is a time of possibilities. The children in front of you are full excitement. Use this time to really get to know them on a personal level. But most importantly? Enjoy them!

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

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.

DIY document Cam

I have recently come across this little gem from Kevin Honeycutt.

 I was intrigued by the idea and thought I'd give it all a go.
I use ShowMe and Educreations as part of my maths programme anyway but I liked the potential for manipulation of materials using this technique. I was also able to have multiple children interacting with the same piece of work at the same time. Here is the first lesson my children and I created.

This is my group that really benefits from repetition and materials. Having videos to refer to has been a tool that I have used all year but this is stepping it up a little for me. Video and maths are made for each other. I am able to see where exactly my group stands in terms of using a strategy, if they are ready to move on or if they need more support. I also like the fact that the children can always go back and check to see if they are on the right track. New learning is available to them at all times.

Here is what one of my groups came up with today.

Thank you Kevin for your awesome idea!

Spaces so far - the good, the bad and the ugly

Last week I wrote about my new spaces that I created in my room. Today I thought that I would write about what I'm experiencing so far...

I'm finding that we had a great start at the beginning of last week. However, we have had a disruption to the flow and my kids have come back with some interesting behaviours. What I found on Friday last week and so far this week is quite far from what I had hoped. So here is what I'm thinking we need to do!

• Revisit our rules - what are OUR expectations from both myself and the students? What do the children want from these spaces? How do they expect their peers to act in the different areas we have?
• I think I need to be clear that choices will be given to those who have earned that right. I may need to set up some spaces for kids who may need to go and work on their own if they are not managing themselves. 
• Speaking of Managing self. I will revisit what this is and discuss what managing self means to us. What should we see when people are managing them selves? How can we help those who are having trouble with this? 

So that's the plan to getting back on track. What do you do when your students are having trouble making wise choices?

On a positive note. Our new classroom space has really worked for some of my students. They are focused and are using our different spaces wisely. They are discussing their work, moving around to find the space that best fits the task they are working on and most importantly they are achieving great results. So now I need to make sure that all my kids are using their space to extend themselves. 

Unused resource

All teachers have an amazing resource in their classrooms. At times I find this is a resource to be neglected in some classrooms by the daily grind of trying to get through the content that needs to be covered by a certain point on the term. What am I talking about? KIDS!!!
Children are far more powerful at teaching each other than some people realise.
The other day I came cross some of the children in my maths class having a learning discussion about the strategy they had just learned. After discussing what they learned they realised that some people in their class were still having trouble. I asked them how they could tackle this problem and what they needed for me to provide to make the solution possible.
I came back to this group a little while later and found them having a great discussion about their learning. They were using materials in ways I hadn't thought of and at the end of the day every single person in the group understood how the strategy worked and when to use it. I could see right away who didn't understand the strategy we were covering and could ask questions to guide the children in the right direction. From there they explored the strategy further. I found that maths was the easiest subject area to apply this too to begin with but I'm working on applying this to reading also.
Here are snippets of the discussions I heard:

There is huge benefit in putting children into groups of mixed ability and getting them to teach each other especially because they will have different strengths, different view points about the same subject and different ways of thinking about the same problem. I found that it made the children who understood the problem think about it in different ways to make the children they were teaching understand what they were talking about.
So try it. Stand back and watch what happens when the children are left to teach each other. Its fascinating!

Starting the movie process

There's no point going to conference if you're not going to use all the ideas. I find that if I don't use my new knowledge right away I loose it. So I decided to start using some of the movie making know how I learned from Helen King during ULearn 2012. After teaching two of my math groups I asked the children to "Assume That I'm an Idiot" (thanks Glenn Capelli for that one). I asked my children to create educational videos to teach me how the strategies work. To be completely honest I underestimated how valuable this tool is. Some of the children who hardly say boo during group discussion were putting on their best teacher voices to tell me all about their maths strategy. I was able to watch these video creations and with in minutes I could see who needed more help and who was ready for something a little more challenging. BRILLIANT! Easy and quick assessment that uses the children's strengths (if they want to write, they can write or if they want to act/draw/sing/dance...they can). I have also started something similar with our reading programme. I have explained to my class that hey need to make sure they really understand the reading strategies we are covering curing our group sessions as they will be making videos to teach other groups about how the strategies work. I must say I've never had such attentive listeners during teaching sessions. We'll see what they come up with once we have finished but for now here are some photos of some of the children beginning to put their videos together. If this is only day two, imagine what I can achieve by the end of the term?! Starting the Movie process on PhotoPeach

Authentic Learning

When I was a kid I remember learning about stuff but never really connecting the learning to real life. Some of the topics we learned about didn't really seem real.
I must say that I work in an amazing school! We had decided to teach the children about their contributions to the world around them. So to teach the children about charity we had the Auckland rescue Helicopter fly into school, we will be having the flying simulator in at school so the children can learn how to fly, we will also be going to visit the helicopter hanger and that's all just this term.
I have never seen the children so excited and motivated to learn and so willing to put so much effort into helping others.
We are planning a big fundraising event for our charity of choice (Rescue Helicopter) and the ideas that the children are coming up with are fantastic. They have been writing about their experiences of seeing the helicopter fly into the school, they have been researching different items you can hire for fundraising, they have been enquiring about the costs, they have been reading about the Trust and they have been waving money collection buckets to raise funds for this charity.
This is real topic study! This has soaked through every subject area in our class and the learning that the children are gaining is phenomenal.

Genius

One of my colleagues  mentioned this quote to me,
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” 
― Albert Einstein

It really made me think!

I  think that every child has something that they are great at. They are not always the best writers or mathematicians or readers (which is what we test in school) but they can be amazing singers, painters, dancers, problem solvers, lateral thinkers and more.
Do we make these children feel valued?

Google what.....?

Today I decided to sit down to set up the kids folders in Google Apps. Going by Jacqui's advice I got the kids in the ICT suite and got the kids into their buddy groups. From there the children took turns to set up their folders in their Google accounts.
Now I thought I was doing a good thing using a time when the kids had a computer between the two of them where they could watch a buddy do it and then try it them selves.

Boy was I wrong...
Mrs Tauroa mine won't work... Mrs Tauroa I can't sign in... Mrs Tauroa my password doesn't work... Mrs Tauroa... Mrs Tauroa...
After we finally had everyone signed in I went on to explain how to set up collections. Going through everything step by step would be the logical thing to do right? Well not if some of the kids aren't listening.  
I had a student teacher with me so it didn't go as badly as it would have.

I shared this with Jacqui and told her how I got on even though I worked with groups, as it turn out Jacqui meant that I probably should have worked with a group at a time but not in the same day. She meant with one group a month...

After this experience.. and others like it I have realised that I have a tendency to jump straight into the deep end. Maybe that's why experiment so much, that's how I learn.
I did the same thing with Space Day last year. I planned it, thought hard about what I wanted to do and after having loads of second thoughts..... did it anyway.
Even though some of the experiments don't go so well I still learn heaps from each one.
So what did I learn from this experience?

Set the kids independent work and have a SMALL group with me working on setting up their accounts.
So that's what I'll do next year...
On the positive side everyone in my class is all set to go for our technology filled week.