Teaching Journey

This weeks goal is about making a global connection. Over the last year and a half I have been working on building global connections for both my class and myself professionally. I think making connections is a very important part of learning today. Students who make connections with others locally or on the other side of the world are gaining so much from the experience.

I believe there are many benefits for both students and teachers who make global connections.

Students…

• learn about cultures from all around the world
• have an audience for their work, which gives it a purpose
• gain feedback on their work
• feel the satisfaction of knowing their work is important enough to be viewed by so many people
• begin to see that we are all connected no matter where we might be in the world
• learn so much from the conversations that are started
• develop communication skills

Teachers…

• develop a personal learning network and learn from other teachers
• share their ideas with others
• receive feedback
• see the students connect with people in such a positive way
• use the connections to make lessons deeper
• promote a learning community by supporting each other through commenting on class blogs

I know there are many more reasons and I would love you to add your ideas. Please leave a comment if you have any other reasons why making global connections are so beneficial.

I have already made quite a few global connections.
I use Twitter daily to connect with my personal learning network. A group of amazing educators or people involved in education who provide discussion and support in all areas of my teaching. My teaching has changed so much over the last year and half thanks to Twitter. I have tried so many new ideas, always with the knowledge that if I get stuck I can talk to my PLN. I also try to be part of some of the chats that happen on Twitter. One of the chats I try not to miss is the #D5chat that happens Saturdays 11am (Melbourne time). It is a chat based around the Daily 5 and CAFE literacy strategies.

I also use this blog to connect with anyone interested in reading my thoughts. It is a great place to reflect on my teaching, with the goal to always improve.

My students have also made lots of global connections. We have our own class blog which you can find at: Kids Speak . We use the blog to record the learning that we are doing in class. The comments that we receive from interested people make the blog worthwhile. The students receive feedback on their work and often the comments will lead to a dialogue where more learning occurs. If a comment is received from a person who is overseas my students are particularly excited.

To enhance the connections made through the blog I have signed my class up for Quad Blogging. It is a fantastic project where four schools take it in turns to be the focus blog for the week, while the other schools visit it and leave comments. I am hoping that my Quad this year will be as enthusiastic about the project as I am. You can find out more about Quad Blogging here: Quad Blogging .

My students also connect with the world through Skype. We have had a few Skype sessions now, including one to a person living in India and one to a school in the Northern Territory in Australia. Through Skype we have been able to learn a lot about other cultures and prove that the boundaries between us and the world really are getting smaller!

Another simple connection that we have made is a link to a school in Canada. Over the summer holidays I noticed a teacher in Canada was doing a unit on Australia and wanted to make a connection with someone in Australia. I volunteered to answer her classes questions and since then our classes have been emailing each other. It would be great to one day be able to Skype with that school too.

I hope to keep developing the connections that my class and I have made and hopefully sustain them. I think the connections that can be sustained and developed are the ones that are the most powerful.

Sometimes things come along that perfectly fit with what you are doing. Goal 6 is one of those. My school is involved in a project called Performance and Development Culture. One aspect of this project looks at developing the school through improving professional learning. It encourages the use of individual or group learning plans that focus on a goal that teachers wish to work towards.

Today was a closure day for my school and one of the main focuses was on developing a group learning plan based around a goal that each level wanted to work on. My level (Grade 3/4, Age 8-9) decided to focus on developing our use of open ended questions in Maths. We have decided to use at least two open ended questions in our maths planning each week.

Our level goal fits perfectly with Goal 6 of the 30 goals challenge as Goal 6 asks us to create a lesson that will inspire your students to explore a question that has no answer or has several answers. This is exactly what my level hopes to do through our use of open ended questions in Maths.

We know that our goal must be measurable and we want to ensure that our use of open ended questions positively impacts on student outcomes. We decided to create a pre and post test to assess the effect of using open ended questions. The test consists of a set of closed questions and a set of open ended questions both based around the same content. We are going to give the closed questions one day and the open questions the next day and see how the students went with both sets of questions.

For example:
Day One
Write a number that has a 5 in the hundreds place, a 3 in the tens place and a 7 in the ones place.

Day Two
Write as many numbers as you can that have an 8 in the hundreds place.

Next to each question we will also have a smiley face that the students can draw the mouth on to show how they felt about the question. They will also colour the smiley face either; green for feeling happy/confident, yellow for feeling okay/slightly unsure or red for feeling sad/worried about the question.

This will help us gather some data on how the students went with the open ended questions and how they felt about doing them. We are hoping that the second time we give the test we will see an increase in the students who are able to complete the open ended questions and also more students colouring the smiley face green.

I hope that this professional learning goal that my team has developed will improve my teaching. I will let you know how we go.

Goal 5 is about feeding yourself inspiration. The idea is to gather quotes, songs, images and videos that can help inspire you to be a great educator. I have selected a few of the most influential quotes that I gathered. I could have listed hundreds more, but then I’d be here all year!

I created this short video with some of the inspiring quotes that I have found:

Dr Seuss’ stories have always been important to me. I believe almost any quote from Dr Seuss is inspirational!

The following story was posted on Twitter recently and it really resonated with me:

What Teachers Make

Adapted from a poem by Taylor Mali

The dinner guests were sitting around the table discussing life. One man, a CEO of a large company, decided to explain the problem with education. He argued, “What’s a kid going to learn from someone who decided his best option in life was to become a teacher?”
He reminded the other dinner guests what they say about teachers: “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.” To stress his point he said to another guest, “You’re a teacher, Bonnie. Be honest. What do you make?”
Bonnie, who had a reputation for honesty and frankness replied,
“You want to know what I make?” She paused for a second, then began…
“Well, I make kids work harder than they ever thought they could. I make a C+ feel like an Order of Australia. I make kids sit through 40 minutes of class time when their parents can’t make them sit for 5 without an iPod, Game Cube or movie rental… You want to know what I make?”
She paused again and looked at each and every person at the table.
“I make kids wonder. I make them question. I make them criticize. I make them apologize and mean it. I make them have respect and take responsibility for their actions. I teach them to write and then I make them write. I make them read, read, read. I make them show all their work in maths.
“I make my students from other countries learn everything they need to know in English while preserving their unique cultural identity. I make my classroom a place where all my students feel safe. I make my students stand to sing the National Anthem, because we live in Australia.
“Finally, I make them understand that if they use the gifts they were given, work hard, and follow their hearts, they can succeed in life.
Bonnie paused one last time and then continued, “Then, when people try to judge me by what I make, I can hold my head up high and pay no attention because they are ignorant.
“You want to know what I make? I MAKE A DIFFERENCE. What do you make?”
THERE IS MUCH TRUTH IN THIS STATEMENT: “Teachers make every other profession.”

The following is a prayer that I like to reflect on:

Lord, let me be just what they need.

If they need someone to trust, let me be trustworthy.

If they need sympathy, let me sympathise.

If they need love, (and they do need love), let me love, in full measure.

Let me not anger easily Lord, but let me be just.

Permit my justice to be tempered in your mercy.

When I stand before them, Lord, let me look strong and good and honest and loving.

And let me be as strong and good and honest and loving as I look to them.

Help me to counsel the anxious, crack the covering of the shy, temper the

rambunctious with a gentle attitude.

Permit me to teach only the truth.

Help me to inspire them so that learning will not cease at the classroom door.

Let the lessons they learn make their lives fruitful and happy.

And, Lord, let me bring them to You.

Teach them through me to love You.

Finally, permit me to learn the lessons they teach.

Amen.

(Author: Charman Kinzelman)

The story below highlights how one small action can make a huge difference:

Once upon a time there was a wise man

who used to go to the ocean to do his writing.

He had a habit of walking on the beach

before he began his work.

One day he was walking along the shore.

As he looked down the beach, he saw a

human figure moving like a dancer.

He smiled to himself to think of someone

who would dance to the day.

So he began to walk faster to catch up.

As he got closer, he saw that it was a young man

and he wasn’t dancing, but instead he was reaching

down to the shore, picking up something

and very gently throwing it into the ocean.

When he got closer he called out,

“Good morning! What are you doing?”

The young man paused, looked up and replied,

“Throwing starfish in the ocean.”

He then asked, “Why are you throwing starfish in the ocean.”

He answered, “The sun is up and the tide is going out.

And if I don’t throw them in they’ll die.”

“But, young man, don’t you realize that the beach is vast

and there are starfish all along it.

You can’t possibly make a difference!”

The young man listened politely.

Then bent down, picked up another starfish

and threw it into the ocean, past the breaking waves

and said – “It made a difference to that one!”

By Loren Eisley

Goal four asks us to reveal their strengths. This means talking to a student or colleague and sharing with them traits that you admire about them.

I had a student that lacked confidence. He didn’t dare answer any questions in case he was wrong and was so afraid to speak in class I wondered when I would hear him speak. He rarely smiled and just looked scared most of the time.

I quickly realised that he was that one student who I knew I had to continually talk to and make him feel like he had something to offer the class. I would highlight all the things he did well and if he struggled to understand a task we would work together until he understood.

Maths was an area that I knew he enjoyed and felt more confident in. He had some really strong mathematical understandings and I slowly encouraged him to share these. When finally he shared something with the whole class I was so excited. He smiled a cheeky smile that said ‘I did it!’, and that made my day.

He was also an amazing artist. He would draw little pictures at the bottom of his page to avoid writing. I told him how great his pictures were and he looked shocked. The class quickly worked out how good he was at drawing and were often asking him to draw for them and to share his drawings. I made sure I included lots of activities that involved drawing.

As his reading level improved his confidence grew. He knew he could attempt tasks on his own and felt empowered by this. Other staff started to come up to me and say how happy he looked and that they would actually see him laughing. I was so happy to see his attitude towards school changing!

I continued to encourage and support him over the year and was asked to teach him for a second year as we had seen so much progress. I knew that I had to keep encouraging him so that he didn’t lose the small amount of confidence he had gained.

The following year we saw drastic improvements in his reading and writing and he became more and more confident. At the end of the second year I was sad to see him move on to a new class and a new teacher but I knew that he was going with a positive attitude and a smile.

Goal 3 of the 30 goals challenge asks us to interview a learner about his/her learning style or habits. I decided to use the information I gathered from my 3/4 class.

My class are doing a unit that focuses on learning about how they learn. One of the activities looks at their preferred intelligence based on Howard Gardner’s approach. They completed a survey with a variety of questions based around each intelligence. Some students came out with equal results for more than one intelligence.

The results were:
Naturalist = 5 students
Mathematical-Logical = 7 students
Verbal-Linguistic = 2 students
Musical-Rhythmic = 2 students
Visual-Spatial = 7 students
Bodily-Kinesthetic = 6 students
Interpersonal = 3 students
Intrapersonal = 2 students

After we gathered the results each student had the chance to share with the class how they felt about how they had scored. Most students said they expected the results they got and they thought it really reflected how they learn and what they like to learn about. Some students were surprised. One student came out with high scores in the Intrapersonal intelligence and had no idea he would. I reflected on this and I was not actually surprised. He is a student that will often pick working by himself over working in a group and does have some difficulty in listening to other people’s point of view. This activity gave the students an opportunity to reflect on how they learn best even if it’s not what they first thought.

These results made me stop and think about how often I cater for all the intelligences. Visual-Spatial and Mathematial-Logical were the two intelligences that scored the highest in my class, probably because most of my students love art and maths. This result has made me think that when I am planning I do need to include activities and opportunities for students to express themselves visually. I do include visual tasks but I think it is good to reflect on how powerful these tasks can be and to include them more often. The results also made me aware that I need to continue making connections with mathematics in all areas of the curriculum. All of the multiple intelligences are important and it will be essential that I include opportunities for my students to experience all of the learning styles.

As part of our unit my students will be further researching the multiple intelligences and exploring their preferred learning styles as well as looking at some of the intelligences that they might like to know more about.

Below are some examples of my students ‘Wordles’ that they created to visually represent their preferred multiple intelligences:

Goal number two asks me to think about a magical teaching moment when I have reached a learner and made a difference.
*I have made up the name of the student.

My magical teaching moment is the story of a boy called Henry. I taught him for two years and worked through a lot of learning difficulties. Henry had a background other than English and struggled to control his behaviour. He was disengaged and wanted to do whatever he liked to do not what the class was doing. He had problems socialising with his peers and was often upset because it was all too hard.

Over the two years Henry remained one of my most challenging students, however the change I saw in him made it all worth while. Gradually Henry was able to attempt the tasks that the rest of the class were doing. His behaviour settled and his learning increased. Henry enjoyed Maths and that was one area that I tried to tap into his enthusiasm and show him that if he worked hard he could understand what I was trying to teach him.

Literacy took a lot longer. Henry made some progress but still required a lot of support. Henry needed the most support with writing. He had no intrinsic motivation for writing and the concentration it took to form letters correctly made writing tiring and boring.

Apart from the excitement that I had in helping Henry succeed in learning one of the most magical moments in this story was when I wanted to get a better picture of Henry’s comprehension when reading. I didn’t want him to have to write so I gave him an iPod and asked him to retell the story orally using Voice Memos. The results were amazing. Henry was able to retell the story from start to finish with expression and humour. He made the story more interesting than it was originally with his voices for the different characters and the excitement in which he told parts of the story.

I was so amazed at what Henry could do, that as soon as it was recess I ran around playing the recording for anyone who would listen. Everyone was so excited. I showed my principal and he said lets get 8 more iPods, that was a response I wasn’t expecting but it showed the power of what Henry had done.

Henry achieved a lot in two years and made a smooth transition into the next year. He still had a long way to go with his learning but his behaviour was no longer a problem and he had made some very close friends.

These holidays I have spent quite a lot of time getting ready for the new school year. There are lots of new ideas and strategies that I want to try so I need to be organised. I’ve almost finished setting up my classroom, I’ve only got a few finishing touches to go and I’m ready for the students to start.

This year I want the students to be part of making most of the displays. I am starting the Daily 5 and love the idea of icharts that the students create. I want them to have ownership over how the classroom looks and allow them to feel connected to what ‘we’ have created rather than just looking at the wall and seeing something ‘I’ have created.

There are a few things I needed to make myself in preparation for the students starting. I want to create a class full of independent learners and thinkers so I wanted to make displays that involve tools that will help them become more independent.

Below is a display that I will use to help the students know the expectations of each activity. I will select either a tick or a cross depending on whether the particular action is required. I got this idea from a blog a while ago, but can’t recall which one. It is very bright in my classroom so some of the photos have some glare.

When creating the CAFE Menu (used for Daily 5) I decided to create posters for all of the strategies as it is the first time I am using the program and I feel more comfortable knowing that I can grab the strategy card when I need to introduce it. Next year I might look at having the students create the strategy cards as the Sisters suggest. Before the students start I will take down the strategies and introduce them one at a time throughout the year. Each owl has a student’s name so they can note which strategy they are working on.

Another part of the Daily 5 that I will need are the reading boxes for each student. I bought these ones for $2.99 pk/5 at Ikea and added the name labels. The boxes are just cardboard but if they break over the year they are fairly inexpensive to replace.

I also created an early finishers display, so that the students who do happen to finish their work early know exactly what to go on with and don’t waste time. I wanted the activities to still be relevant and interesting.

In my class I like to have a focus on thinking strategies and will refer to the display below quite often. The hats are hung using velcro dots so they are easily accessible and the yellow habits of mind will hopefully be prompts for everything we do.

Our inquiry topic for Term 1 is “Learning to Learn”. In this unit we will be exploring Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences so I wanted to make a display that we could refer to when exploring this.

This year one of my professional goals is to keep up to date with my blog. This blog started as part of the Vic pln course run by the State Library of Victoria. In the course we started a blog as a way to reflect on each of the units which were mostly based around web 2.0 tools.

This year I am doing the 30 goals challenge and I hope to reflect on each through the blog. I am hoping that this will keep me on track with regular posts.

I recently changed the theme of my blog and with it I hope to be re-energised!

The 30 Goals Challenge is back for 2012 and I have decided to try and complete all 30 goals. I am not sure if I will be able to keep up with the time frame of two goals per week but I will attempt to.

The first goal is to create a “Me Manifesto”. A manifesto is a declaration of principles and intentions. The idea is to publicly declare your ideals about teaching and learning. I decided to create a Glog (my very first attempt at Glogster) to depict my “Me Manifesto”.

I have grown up with gaming. My family have always had the latest game console. I always liked Nintendo the best. My brother preferred Playstation. I liked Mario and all the games related to his adventures. When Nintendo released Super Mario All Stars on Wii I was so excited and bought it the day it came out. The game has so many memories associated with it, as does Donkey Kong, another Nintendo game rereleased for Wii. I am up to date with most games but I would never play most of them. I stick to fun, family style games. I prefer Wii, DS and Apple Apps.

I think gaming can have an important role in education. I know all my students have gaming consoles at home and they are at times more familiar with using iPhones and iPads than I am. We often have chats about certain app based games when my students see my iPad or iPhone. Gaming is a way to engage students, in particular, boys. I think if we can tap into some positive elements from games we will help our students learn.

I have used a website called Kerpoof with my students and have encouraged its use amongst my level (yr 1/2). Kerpoof is owned by Disney and offers lots of activities such as ‘Spell a Picture’, ‘Make a Movie’ and ‘Draw a Picture’. These activities encourage literacy skills and very effective lessons can be created around the program. The reason I think this site fits into this topic of ‘gaming’, is because throughout the site you earn coins and the students can spend coins on items to improve the site. I was amazed at how effective this was in motivating students. They were instantly engaged and wanted to earn as many coins as possible. They also talked about what to spend their coins on so they could make wise choices.

I recently came across this blog post written by Lynette Barr on her ‘Educator’s Guide To Innovation’ blog. Lynette provides some well thought out activities based on Mario Kart. It is definitely worth looking at!