Priority Learners

So my main focus this year is on engagement in the classroom.
To be perfectly honest I don't feel that engaging at the moment.  Our classroom feels more like a warzone some days with the behaviours we're coping with and I'm not sure how we're going to remedy it.

However, my main focus is on engagement, so my learning philosophy screams at me that if kids are engaged, they will be focused and the learning will be happening.

Priority learners are always at the forefront of this engagement debate, because engagement doesn't happen for all students in the same way.  Learners are diverse and as such, the strategies we employ to attempt to engage our students will need to be diverse too.

Technological tools have been suggested to improve engagement, but I think they probably only improve engagement if used in targeted ways.

This article suggests some of the ways these tools can be used for engagement.
One of the most difficult groups to engage are often our boys.

I've just finished watching this video about the impact on learning of culture - there is so much learning here!

I want to keep looking at Manaia Kalani and the practical methods of bringing te ao Maori, tikanga and reo into our classroom to improve the achievement of all our learners.

This video is about boys and writing and I think it's probably pretty relevant to my boys - it's hard to engage them all, but a lot of it is about getting to know them.
I'm hoping our blog can help us do that too.