Anita's Teaching as Inquiry Blog

  Using audio function in Explain Everything, opened up some great opportunities for teachers.  The power of voice record to support learners to build their vocabulary and provide as a scaffold to generate talk. Dr Jannie van Hees talks about gifting language. This shows how we can use the audio function in EE to scaffold discussion. This was another hit at my Create Workshop Search Results Web results

Inquiry Question: Build assessment capable learners, especially Māori Boys to increase their oral language capability to improve their writing                                             How am I going to implement this? Gift language as a scaffold for talking and writing Model picture talk Context related to interests Value high expectations of talk Use multimodel features in my learning design to support writing Scaffold writing frameworks Use Stonefields high leverage practises to enable assessment capable learners Use School Talk to support the learning Student learning: I want to see these learners showing confidence in speaking, and transferring their talk into writing. I want to see learners using their gift of language into their writing. Broaden their ideas and extend their vocabulary. Teaching hypotheses I felt it was important to...

I nspiration from Chalkboard a way to guide and inspire reluctant children to write, by unlocking the vocabulary and  building on this in my learning design.                                  

Another way to scaffold learners to talk about what they are learning and how the Success Criteria can support this process. This has been a great tool to support my writers. 

Supporting our Maori learners with whole body learning and knowing what to do when they are stuck. This scaffold has particularly been for a specific Maori leaner to support with when he is stuck in writing. This has been helpful and supporting him to take ownership of his writing. 

                                                           These statistics show that in my teaching practise I am reducing the level of complexity in language of understanding of what and how we are are learning in writing. Another reflection is to slow down the pace especially in building knowledge on a specific writing genre. This notion will take me cross curricular when planning my learning design. 

Using digital tools, interactive Big Three and the Success Criteria all in support for understanding what we are learning and how.

  Passionate learners collaborated, discussed and worked their way through the learning process to find out why hand dryers are more sustainable than paper towels. The dialogue, researching and note taking lead to writing not only factual information but a proposal to look into how to reduce the amount of paper towels and be more environmentally friendly. The initial discussion was set up through a Smarie Collaborative Learning Experience guiding learners to talk about and negotiate a process and way forward.       The incidental teaching lead to the principal passing through and giving us figures of how much is spent on paper towels through out the year.                                 Learners compared this with how many paper towels are used in a week across the school. Learners presented their proposal with confidence and passion. There was certainly a WOW factor in th...

A group of passionate learners collaborated to write a proposal for what are some more sustainable options for our Friday Cafe. This is where our FOSS (Friends and families of Stonefields School) sell food and drink to raise money for the school. At the moment we are fundraising for shade in our school. To keep us safe from the sun!! When I asked the learners how they felt about this writing process it was enlightening to hear what they said... 'Oh it wasn't really like writing, we got to type instead' 'loved presenting to our teachers and parents, felt nervous but was kind of proud.' I liked writing this way, because we could collaborate with each other and it was cool to type it out'. 'I liked how you could be on the slide with us Mrs Unka and give us feedback'. 'It was so fun, we were a good team, writing is fun.' This student voices tells me that there is not only one way of following the writing process, le...

quick write  quick write  quick write  quick write quick write  quick write  quick write  quick write milage  milage  milage  milage  milage  milage  milage  milage  milage  milage  milage  milage spark interest  spark interest  spark interest  spark interest  spark interest  spark interest spark interest A way of putting a competitive edge on writing, healthy competition on self to write as much as you can in an allocated time. Be creative and crazy by writing about some abstract topics of current topics. Student Voice.... 'I love it, it helps me to write faster '  'I like the topics, they are fun' 'It is like a competition' 'I like writing about funny things'

When I listen to this learner she is struggling with remembering the vocabulary, the high frequency words, and the strategies to sounding out tricky words. The support structures put in place have been through a digital lens. Explain Everything is helping to create these resources  to support. 

How will learners know what they are learning? Do they know why they are learning this? Where is would they learn best. In Breakthrough learners talked about where they were in the learning process when designing their spaces                 Stonefields School Learning process, created into an interactive digital copy or learners to manipulate and use for discussing their learning journey.     Now the next step: This becomes a part of how we learn in writing. talk about the learning progressions from the graduate profile using School Talk. Look at how it links to the learning process. This will enable learners to talk about what, why and where they are learning?