Creating Trusting Classroom Communities

This week we had PD on Maths where Sue Pine showed us the various pedagogical approaches that engage learners and lead to desirable outcomes.

One of the things that really struck me was to have a trusting classroom community where everyone had the right to share their opinion and to be heard with respect. Such a culture was very important because it encourages students to share their ideas, thoughts and reflections freely in the classroom. In such a climate, learning relationships develop and students learn from each other. They can take risks and ask questions to clarify their ideas. It is important that in developing such an environment, care needs to be taken to avoid dependency. Classroom relationships should allow all students to take intellectual risks.

I have been working on developing such classroom environment this week. It was a hard task to start with. I had to constantly remind students of their etiquette in class. I had to  encourage students to listen patiently and then provide valuable feedback to their peers. And most importantly I had to teach my students how to contribute and clarify their ideas and how they should respond. Sometimes I got ideas that were quite unexpected. I had to model how to evaluate ideas and how to voice thoughtful judgement. This became very tricky when I have students with limited language capabilities. But by having a positive attitude I can already see that my students are developing confidence to learn and make sense of mathematics. They are beginning to use the language of mathematics to respond and share the strategies they had used to work out their problems. But this is just the beginning! Lots more needs to be done and I cannot wait to see my students expressing their ideas freely. I want to see them confidently face not only mathematical challenges but all learning in class and share and assess the validity of their new ideas.

Can Meditation Really Slow Aging...

This weekend I came across an article that explained how meditation can help you live longer. It was very interesting to know that one of the scientist, a Nobel Prize Winner, Blackburn, claims to have evidences where women who were stressed have shorter talomeres. Talomeres are the repeating DNA motifs in individual. A person with shorter talomeres is more prone to the risk of heart diseases, diabetes and hypertension. This study was very useful because prior to this genes were seen as the important factor determining telomere length.  Blackburn wanted to study if environmental factors influence talomeres. She studied 50 women who were in stressful circumstances. The results were crystal clear. Feeling stressed doesn’t just damage our health but also ages us. When these women were shown ways to relax mainly through meditation, the results were amazing. All women showed increase in the length of talomeres just after 3 months.

We have got a society with scattered attention, particularly when people are highly stressed and do not have the resources to just be present where ever they are. Contemplative traditions like meditation promote presence of mind and longevity.

The read strengthened my belief in meditation. Medication acts like a band aid that can relieve you by hiding bruises. The solution to all mental and psychological pains is within us and the answer is Meditation.

Academically Productive Talk in Classrooms

This weekend my professional reading was an article on 'Academically Productive Talk: Supporting Students' learning in Mathematics' by Suzanne H. Chapin and Catherine O'Connor.
The article has great ideas on how to make a Learning environment for academically productive talk that will support both Language Development and Learning in class. It emphasis on the fact that all classroom talk needs to be respectful where each person's ideas are taken seriously and no one is ridiculed or insulted. The article also explains the 5 Discourse- Based Instructional tools that help in student learning. I have summarised these 5 tools in the presentation below.

Teaching Times tables

It was just a great week of teaching Maths!

The ethos of Learn Create Share is very much a part of all my lessons. This week when I was teaching multiplication tables a student asked me “Why do we need to learn them?” I demonstrated various examples from everyday life about how knowing our tables can help us solve problems faster. We solved problems  using blocks, counters and other equipment. As we went through the lessons during the week, most students had learnt their times tables up to 5. I was feeling good!

Suddenly I heard some students pose multiplication problems to each other! They went “There are four friends and they have four chocolates each. How many chocolates did they have altogether?” I was just thrilled to hear this. Then they decided to make a word problem game out for it. They wrote their problems on a square piece of cardboard and had an illustrated description of their problem at the back of the card. When they had finished they came to me and said “ This is our Create and Share bit for learning times tables.”

My heart melted. I felt truly satisfied to see these students understand the whole concept of timetables which is usually a very abstract idea to start with. I praised them heaps for their effort. Suddenly the idea got viral and everyone wanted to make little booklets of multiplication problems. At the end of the week each student took a booklet home to share with their family. 

 

 

 

Just Fantastic!

I come from the Manaiakalani cluster of schools. For years together this cluster has been promoting Education through modern devices mainly computers.  The vision is to widen the horizon of learning for the 21^st century student by making net books and computers available to our young students. The project allows free internet at home for students so that their learning does not stop outside school hours. It is not easy… especially if the average income of our families is below 20,000 per annum. It is always hard for our parents to lease a net book for their children.

Presently, in our school we have 1:1 net books for students who are year 5 upwards.

I teach a year 4 class and we have about 10 net books to work on.

Recently during our whanau conference one of the mothers came to me and said that she would like her child to have a net book and that she was very willing to pay for it. I was amazed to hear this. I just could not hold my excitement.  Here I was meeting a parent who was happy to invest in her child’s education. All I have to say is:

The awareness of investing in education is happening and this happening will definitely lead to better education and better society.

Holidays !

I would like you to have a little think of when you had a holiday that was one of your best ones in the past few years. My summer holiday of 2014 was just fabulous. Not just because I went with my family to the Gold Coast but also because I could do some of the things that I wanted to do for ages. 

Painting is my passion but I had lost it for years together. I remember as a child when I was in my Primary and Secondary school, I used to paint a picture after my Final exams. In my days of schooling we had to sit an exam at the end of the year for each subject and were promoted to another class only if we had passed them. It required a lot of burning of the back because it was an expectation in the family for every child to pass with good grades. So holidays after the final exams were always very special. It was in each holiday, after my exams that I had painted a picture. My Mum is a very creative lady and had encouraged me to keep my hobby alive for years together. She still has kept a collection of my paintings very safely in a folder. Some of them hang around the walls of her house even though they look old and aged. Painting has always been my way of winding down. I found this lost solace these holidays when I painted.

The name of my painting is ‘Creation’ and measures 300 cms x 45 cms

In the Ayurvedas and as in many cultures there is a belief that human beings are made of 5 elements. They are Water, Earth, Fire, Air and Ether. Ether is referred to the Sky as it is full of sounds. When all these elements come together in equal proportions, creation happens. This was the theme of my painting.

The five elements are represented by the 5 circles, green for Earth, yellow ochre for Fire, blue for Water and white for Air. The big gold circle with the symbol of ‘Aum’ represents sound or Ether. The middle of the painting shows the mixing of all the elements. And then the Creation happens which is depicted in the top three quarters of the panel.  The colours of the creation are gold and red and silver because creation in it’s purest form is beautiful.  

Each day as look at it, I feel spiritually connected. In some way I feel that the painting represents the new beginning for me as I am able to connect to the passion that was left behind years ago.

Thank you for reading this post!