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. 

Changes on the horizon!

Feeling inspired by the amazing speakers I listened to last week during the "It's a Learners World" conference, I decided to make some changes to my class. The furniture was rearranged, bits and pieces bought, assembled and placed around the room. So far I have only seen amazing things from my kids. The first step I implemented was create a few spaces in my class that the kids could go to get away and work on their own. Firstly I put some mosquito nets up. These are now our CAVE spaces. When they go in, they have to work independently.

Our couch became our Mountain Top/Campfire space. The couch is in front of the interactive white board. I thought that this way the children can share their work with each other using the IWB (so far we found out that we can fit 10 kids on the couch).

The back of the couch doubles as a sitting space also.

We also have some round tables set up as Campfire spaces. There we work in a group. Another big success was our sandpit space. This is our practical working area. We have already used this to demonstrate how magma seeps through tectonic plates.

My class has really enjoyed our new spaces. On a number of occasions this week they were so engrossed in what they were doing that they didn't rush of on the bell. This is what I observed earlier in the week. 

Exciting!!! 

It's a learners world: mapping a new landscape

This has once again been a holiday where professional development has been at the top of the list. These holidays I'm attending the Leaning Network" It's a learners world" conference. I'm feeling inspired once again and I think I'm going to give this blogging thing another go. I've just learned about mobile blogging via e-mail. Maybe this is the way that I can blog from anywhere any time.
So far during the conference I have enjoyed a number of speakers. Some I have seen before others I have not seen before. Over all there is an underlying message behind what every speak was saying. We have to change!
We have been used to teaching in a TTWWADI (That's the way we've always done it) kind of way. Not to say that every classroom in the country has been subjected to this way of thinking but we are still driven by our misconceptions of what teaching and learning should look like. Some of these misconceptions are based on how we were taught through our own classroom experience or the expectations around us. As Lee Crocket said this morning, "If we do not change the way we teach, then we prepare our kids not for their futures but for our past!" Can teachers really carry on this way?
The challenge I set myself is to question why I am doing what I'm doing. What is the purpose of the lesson I'm preparing? How will this lesson challenge, inspire and extend my students?
My focus for this term is to work with my new classroom set up and to use my new spaces to let go of some of the control I have over my students learning. I endeavour to start giving my students more responsibility for their own learning, so that they can start shaping their world.
I leave you with an image of my classroom. I used mosquito nets to create some spaces in my room.

Edublogs nomination

http://elearningr14.blogspot.co.nz/

I have a teacher who I have the pleasure of working with at my school.  She is full of ideas and reflective practice. I really enjoy following her professional blog to get ideas and use it to reflect on what I'm doing also.  That's why I would like to nomintae this blog for Best Teacher Blog 2012.

Inspiring!

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

Spread the word

I have just attended the ULearn 2012 conference in Auckland. I have come away from this full of passion for my job and what I do. There was a buzz in the air the minute I walked into the conference centre. I was among MY kind of people. I was in a room full of teachers who were willing to give up their holidays to learn and to develop professionally, but I think we have walked away with so much more.
This was my first ULearn. I was expecting to walk in find some new resources to use in my classroom and to listen to some interesting speakers. I walked away with a spring in my step. I had a new found love for my job. Yes the keynote presenters were interesting but they were also inspiring and passionate. I was able to talk to people who were on the same wave length as me. I was able to meet people who make a difference everyday and who LOVE doing what they do. This was infectious. Every person in the conference loved what they did and this made me want to spread the word about the people who rarely get mentioned by the media.
Stuff.co.nz asked their readers to contribute by writing a short piece about why they love teaching. I decided that I would comply and write something that would hopefully help people see who actually teaches their children. NOT what is usually portrayed in the media.
Most of the people on the front line are passionate, for them teaching is life.
Here is the link to the article that will hopefully help the wider public see that teachers are AMAZING and they have our future in their hands. Appreciate them!

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff-nation/7803356/Why-do-you-love-teaching-The-power-to-empower