Class on Air lesson on Reading

I just released my fifth lesson for this year on class on Air. 
The lesson was to support students with making connections to self - which was to help them relate with what they read to their own personal experiences. Kutai Fritters by Charlene Mataio was a great choice of text as children could make cultural connections with it too. Students could read the text fluently as they were already familiar with the difficult words and the phrases that they were to find in the text.  I had videos of tides and rock pools for students who did not have much experience about the sea. This helped them greatly in comprehending text and also kept the motivation to read alive till the very end.

The follow up task was to write a recount about 'The Best Day Ever'. I chose this because the text was a great exemplar for them to follow. We discussed what made the text so interesting and students tried to use all the features like the dialogue, descriptive language, detail, punctuation etc. in their stories.

All students gave feedback to each other at the end of their writing. This was very powerful as they could decide the next steps for their peers and this discussion will hopefully remind them about using features of a good recount when they write.

Watch me teach by clicking the link below

https://sites.google.com/a/manaiakalani.org/onair/sharma-5

At the end of the lesson we made some fritters and enjoyed them on this wet winter afternoon.

Staff Meeting - AFL and self regulated learner

Just finished running a series of Staff meetings with Michelle (DP) this week.

The meetings were based on Assessment for Learning and the importance of planning rich tasks that will encourage students to be self - regulated learner.
The feedback that we got was very encouraging as teachers found the meetings extremely engaging.
They participated very enthusiastically and both Michelle and I could not agree less on the fact that encouraging a discourse to clarify teachers understandings helps all teachers to move forward with their teaching.

Promoting Ako in class

At the beginning of the Term I asked my students what they needed to do to be smart confident learners. Most of the students were very hesitant to answer this questions in front of everyone. So I made a google form to find out their honest answers.

Their answers matched my hunch as most students were very shy to ask questions about their learning.

Have a look at what they had to say...

Write your name	Am I a confident learner?	What is it that stops me from learning?	How can I overcome my shortcomings?	What will I practice doing this term
LU	Yes	sometimes I am scared to ask question	by not be shy when I ask question	to ask more questions
MF	no	scared to share my work because i think its always wrong and not learning from my mistakes	I will try to share my work and don't be shy to talk about my learning	share my work and get feedback on my work
HM	sometimes yes	Scared to share my work in front of the class.	Share my opinion and ignore people who laugh at me	Be confident and get feedback from my Teacher or my buddies
DR	Sometimes yes	I am shy when I read my story in front of the hole class	By doing my best and not being shy in front of thew hole class	becoming a good writer and read heaps of books and spell words and share my stories
DP	sometimes yes	I am shy to tell my answers sometimes	By learning from my mistakes	share my work to others and get feedback from them
LF	sometimes Yes	I am scared to ask questions in front of the class	I will ask questions to Clarify my understanding	I will ask more questions if I get stuck
KA	No	scared to ask Question	if something comes to my head I will try and share it	get feedback from my teacher and my mates on my work
LLP	No	getting distracted and not focussing on learning	by people laughing at me when I show my work i will ignore people laughing at and i will carry on with my learning	Share my work with my friend and I will ask for help when I get stuck
ML	no.	I am shy	I will try getting feedback from others	get feedback to my teacher and from my classmates
SL	no	when i am shy	I will try and shore my work	showing my work
RB	No	I am scared to talk in front of people	By getting feedback and learning my mistakes.	ask question when I get stuck
JW	Sometimes	sometimes i'm scared to share my work	By learning my mistacks	Share my work with others and get feedback
HT	No	Sometimes	By learning from my mistake	By asking questions when I get stuck
MV	Yes	scared to ask questions
TD	I am not sure	I play up when other people play up	by not being scared	I will do what ever I learned at from school and learn from others
MM	Yes	spelling	I will try to learn my spelling	I will practice my spelling and ask my mates to test me on my spelling words
MT	NO	scared to ask questions	By asking questions my friends when I get stuck	I will not be scared to ask questions
MT	No	I do not ask questions when I do my work	I am scared to share my opinions but will try	To ask more questions
MR	sometimes	i am scared when i share my work	I will try to share my ideas	I will share my work
GN	nop	i dont no i jast like to play game	reding	No sure

So how will I support my learners to be confident learners?

I will encourage them to participate more in class discourses to clarify their understanding about their learning. I will focus more on 'Ako' so that students feel encouraged when teaching/helping each other with their learning. I will also model and show them that I am a learner too who learns from them or from my co- teachers.

Self Regulated Learning

One of the things that I want my students to do was to write well. Most of the students in my class write a simple story that needs detail, dialogue and other conventions of a good writer. If they focus on one aspect they tend to forget the other and so it has till now been a tedious task of proof reading, checking and reminding of what good writers do. I wanted them to be more self regulated when learning and producing their writing.

So today I started by asking them to brainstorm ideas about everything that makes a good writer. We needed a lot of reminding and talking before we could remember all the things that we had learnt to be good at writing. This is what they said in their first attempt of brainstorm.

Sharing ideas

During sharing time I realised that some students did not understand the aspects very clearly. They needed to be shown how to achieve each of the goals, e.g. - If the aspect was - 'Good writers plan their stories before writing' - I asked them questions like - What does this look like? What do we do when we plan our stories? Do we use planning/graphic organisers? Do we write specific words that we will use in our stories...etc. can you remember when you planned for your writing? What did you do when you were planning?

It was a great to see students discuss each task in their groups and clarify their understanding with each other.

Create

At the end of our discussion I asked students to create something that would remind them and their peers about their goals. This is what they came up with...