L.Potter Professional blog.

During my professional development Matt from Manaiakalani has come in once a week to help me with the Ipads and show me how I could use them as a learning tool. I have found this very helpful as I have been able to implement what I have learnt into my classroom teaching.  I also feel like I have become more confident in trying out and experimenting with the things I have learnt from him in my class. We have been learning about how to use EE (Explain Everything). On Explain Everything we have learnt how to draw illustrations and add text, which has allowed me to teach typing and publishing skills as part of my writing lessons.  I have also learnt how students can take pictures and record themselves reading stories. I have incorporated this into my reading programme and used this as a follow-up activity where students have been talking pictures of their story and recorded themselves. I have found this really helpful as I can spend time listening to the students read and work out...

This term I decided I would like to find a way to increase student achievement in reading and look at different ways to improve my students reading while also making it something that they enjoy. At the beginning of this term I incorporated buddy reading into my reading programme. This allows students an opportunity to read with older students and share a book or poem that they have read in our class reading programme. Afterwards my students have been able to talk about the book that they have read to their buddies which has helped build on their understanding and created discussion about the book. Part of our school wide focus this year is increasing students levels in reading and their enjoyment with reading. I have found that this activity has definitely added to this as they are always keen to read and share their learning and what they have read in class with their buddy. As well as increasing their interest in reading, I have also noticed an improvement in their reading, which ha...

Last week I attended an online toolkit course about Hapara. During the workshop we were introduced the basics of Hapara and how to navigate around the system. I found this a really interesting workshop. Although targeted at senior classrooms, I did see areas that I would like to try and use more, in order to see the things that have been placed into the students Google Drive. By using this part of the website I would be able to keep track of which students have completed their work and if they have uploaded it correctly so that they can blog it onto their students blogs. 

Last week an opportunity came up to observe an experienced teacher teach writing in my class.  During the session I learnt about possible ways to structure my writing sessions so that my students could get the best out of the lesson. From observing this lesson I picked out some things that I would like to implement into my own teaching by adapting it to best suit my learners needs. During my writing lessons I picked a topic that the students were interested in and had experience that they could relate to. I then provided them with a short video and some pictures. Afterwards, I used the think, pair and share technique which I found very helpful as it allowed students to discuss and elaborate and share their ideas. I then provided students with a sentence starter (e.g "The bubbles can") and then I wrote the words that the students came up with on the whiteboard. I had the students working in 3 groups based on their writing ability. The two higher writing groups worked independe...

Today I had an opportunity during my BT release to observe the schools reading recovery programme. During my observation I was able to see how the teacher worked with individual students on both reading and writing. Something that I really liked and took away from the observation was how the teacher got the student first to tell her the sentence before they wrote it down. She explained to me by getting them to tell her the sentence aloud they can check to see if it makes sense. When I was watching how the reading session was done in the reading recovery room I noticed how the teacher used the magnetic letters  to introduce new words.  She did this by changing the first letter of each word and keeping the same ending. An example that she used was "pat" and changing the first letter to create the new words "sat", "mat", etc.  After observing this session I have been using more classroom oral talk before writing. When I have used this as part of my writing pr...

Inquiry Question:   “Will a focus on explicit teaching with learning intentions linked to follow up independent tasks lead to accelerated learning”.  The effective use of 1-1 Ipads in the junior classroom for engagement and ubiquitous learning.

  In place of the staff meeting on Monday, we had a Manaikalani workshop, where we looked at one of the key concepts of "CREATE". We were each able to explore and choose two different workshops to attend, or only one if we were running a workshop ourselves. A key quote that was highlighted and I took away from the session was the idea that "creativity fosters wellbeing - and as a result improves learning".  I chose to go along to the smartphone photography  workshop as I really enjoy taking photos and was keen to get some ideas about how I could use this tool inside my classroom. I really enjoyed this workshop as it was very hands-on and we got to experiment taking different photos. Some of the photo ideas we tried were the flashlight effect and the waterproof bag which was probably my favourite one. I was given the  opportunity  to lead a drama workshop. This workshop provided basic drama games that could be used in a junior classroom but also be  ada...

I have been looking at establishing an effective maths programme inside my classroom. During one of my BT meetings, I discussed with my mentor how to organise groups based on my maths data. I have made a chart with all of my students and the specific learning goals that they need to work on. I have started using this as a way to help me plan my maths groups. I have this inside my classroom and will highlight students when they have achieved these learning intentions. During my BT session we also discussed how to do maths planning and some activities that I could try with my class. I have started to implement these into my maths programme, and I have found that my students have been very engaged with these. 

  Professional Development Meeting;  Professional Development Meeting; Over the last two weeks, during my BT meetings, I have been looking at reading sessions and how to set up a good reading programme. During the meeting with my mentor I have looked at specific learning intentions for each of my reading groups. We have also gone over some reading rotation activities that I could try out with my class.  Reading Observation:   Following my BT meeting about reading, I observed a reading session where I watched my mentor teacher go through a session with my class.  I watched how she did the big book and poem and how it was introduced to the class. I noted how she transitioned from a big book to reading rotations. Something that I found interesting and took away from this was how she got each of the reading groups up one at a time and allocated them to a specific table, before giving them an activity to work on. I also noted that while the group that was going to re...

My main focus for this term has been on establishing good classroom management and routines, as well as building good relationships with my students. This has been particularly important, especially during COVID times. Students are slowly coming back to school, some for their first time in a school environment, and some students have found this change challenging. In order to reinforce classroom management, Room 6 created a classroom treaty at the beginning of the year, created visual posters for classroom routines and used role playing. In my classroom I use the phrase “hands on top” where each student is expected to stop what they are doing and reply “that means stop” and put their hands on their heads. This was something that I picked up from my second year placement. I have found that the students have been responsive to it. I have found it especially great when teaching on ipads as the students need to put their hands on their head before stopping.  This means that they a...

This weeks focus has been on Maths Jams. Today in my BT meeting with my mentor I learnt how to administer a Maths Jam. A Jam is a maths assessment in the Junior School. For Term One we test each student on their knowledge and strategy. In todays meeting we looked at how to access the digital  teachers guide version through NZ Maths. My mentor showed me how to administer a Jam and I watched her do one with a student. We then discussed how we would group the student and how to enter the data onto Etap. Something that I found interesting from my meeting with my mentor teacher was how to group students based on mixed ability groupings.     

Today during my BT release I was able to observe how do do a PM Benchmark test. Firstly, I sat down with my mentor and we discussed the process of how to administer the test. Afterwards I watched her complete one test with a student. When the test was completed I then had a discussion with my mentor about the result and where I would group them according to the colour wheel. I then had a go at completing a test myself with my mentors support before completing the rest of my class PM testing. After all the testing was completed and I had placed my students into groups I then sat down with my mento to check that the students had been put into the correct grouping according to the data found.