2018 - what an exciting year!
This year is giving me the opportunity to mash my traditional teaching and learning with progressive technology as a Manaiakalani Pilot teacher. We are lucky enough to have two facilitators come into our classroom once a week, to work with us on the Manaiakalani programme. This began with Cybersafety and has now progressed into Blogging - a cool space where kids can share their learning. I've run blogging with kids before but didn't have the knowledge of how to break the process down so that it was manageable for the kids and myself (being the only teacher in the room at the time!). Now that I've seen some great ways of using templates to support the kids, along with our class landing page, I'm better able to cater for the blogging. It's fun!
Google Docs
Now that I've seen the way some of the templates can be used to scaffold the kids, I'm excited about what this could mean for my inquiry. My focus this year is on blending our Manaiakalani learning with our school learning around understanding the NZ Curriculum and meshing that with our learner pathways and OTJ indicators to create focused learning for the kids with organization that's manageable for me, the classroom teacher. I've seen the way Google Docs have been used by our Manaiakalani facilitators to support our learners in the process and have seen how it helps our less able writers. I'm interested in how I can use Google Docs to support them in their general writing programme, particularly with blogging as the impetus to motivate them.
Writing
Providing kids with a good model and some language to help them with their writing is a big part of why I think Google Docs will help. Reading Learning in the Fast Lane today, I came across the idea of a concept map. I'm not sure how much it will help, but I'm unpacking the idea of it now as I go, along with the work I'm doing around learner pathways and the NZ Curriculum. We've used the curriculum for a long time, but maybe don't unpack it enough, so this has been an interesting part of the process.
NZ Curriculum and OTJ's and Learning Pathways
The schoolwide goal that I'm working on is unpacking the NZ Curriculum, but I wanted to do this in a way that was meaningful for me. Teaching is a profession with so much paperwork and for me, being able to digitize things so I'm a bit more ahead of the game is vital. I want to enjoy my teaching, not put hours into "perfect" planning. I also see how motivating online work can be for our kids and how it has the ability to personalize and accelerate the learning of students that already possess self-directed skills. Meshing the OTJ sheets we use (created from the NZ Curriculum) with the full NZ Curriculum and our Learning Pathways has helped me to see the progressions a bit better. What I noticed though, was that we aren't achieving the same degree of success that our PR1ME maths is.... and then it hit me.... we're not breaking it down enough.
So although I'd started digitizing our pathways with great resources to support, I came across something in 'Learning in the Fast Lane' that explains about concept maps. So enter the next aspect of my learning. Check them out below.
There's still a way to go before they're ready... but one thing the teacher shared in Learning in the Fast Lane, was that the kids know where they're going next - what they're learning today.... based on what's next on the concept map on the wall. Mine aren't created quite the same way as hers, but it will evolve, and in the meantime, it's really helping me see the links between all the documentation we are attempting to incorporate in what we're doing.
Update to follow!
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