Charlotte Verity Professional Learning (School Based)

 Focus: Start of day - setting a positive tone, use of Te Reo, inclusion of all students, student voice provision, interoception) Observation document and next steps saved here  .

It was a pleasure to have Rob in to observe this lesson, and provide useful tips on how to improve student engagement. Problem:  Seth had 15 pieces of lego in his tower, and Shikani had 32 pieces of lego, and Zac had 23 pieces of lego. Who had the most? Who had the least? How do you know? Draw, build or make it to prove it. Goals for the session: * Teach/develop the collaborative inquiry skill of justifying e.g. ‘How do you know?’ ‘Can you prove it?’ * Explore knowledge of number size, specifically, students' ability to identify and order numbers to 100 * Differentiation provided through an enabler and extender. Enabler: Seth had 2 pieces of lego in his tower, and Shikani had 12 pieces of lego, and Zac had 8 pieces of lego. Who had the most? Who had the least? How do you know? Extender: Can you prove it another way?  * Children to work in pairs and use varied ways to justify their learning (e.g. materials, by drawing, through an equation etc) My professional goals (areas for ...

I was interested to learn from Rowena's expertise in reading instruction for shared reading (whole class) and a guided session with a level 18 reading group. The group’s current focuses: read-on and re-read; prediction; chunking/blending unfamiliar words. I asked Rowena to give feedback on how I could improve my use of prompting, modelling and questioning in the guided session. Notes from Rowena: * I linked to students' prior knowledge by scanning pictures and discussing the story with the group before reading. * We discussed the text features, and made predictions through-out reading. * Factual and inferential questions were asked. * Reading on and re-reading was modelled as a strategy for unfamiliar words. Full notes: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/0BxdNc5F9bYO1ek1CeG1DR19BUXc Suggestions (my next steps): * Use a modelling board / book with cloze exercises to help children choose the best word, e.g. Dad picked up a brush/broom/bucket. Dr...

Progress to date One student may achieve the standard for After One Year at school. The other children are working at a 1B level. However, the group have made huge personal steps: * All students now plan and start their stories independently. * 2 of the students include initial and end sounds in words. 3 children consistently use initial, middle and end sounds * 4 students write and re-read their stories independently. 3 make corrections as they re-read.  * 3 of the children include conjunctions, and consistently write 3 or more sentences.  What remains challenging? Letter formation causes 2 students to work very slowly (and they see writing as physically taxing). Developing letter formation causes two other children to have problems when re-reading their work. The group would benefit from correct high frequency word spelling, and could add more details to their responses.  My next steps as a teacher * Continue to offer writing experience activities in rea...

Background: observing colleague with 4 students, who have been at school for two terms. Modelling focused on using sound words (roar, crash etc) and the picture book, Demolition , as stimulus. My colleague was interested in helping the children add detail to stories and use think alouds . Students all used sound words, used finger spaces, were actively re-reading and sounding out words. Some children also added detail. There was a positive climate; colleague praising students' effort throughout; writing was truly  co-constructed  between students and teacher ( kids encouraged to have a go!). There was explicit teaching, repeated throughout modelling e.g. stretching out words 'like chewing gum' and modelling knowing/looking words. Strengths colleague demonstrated / Next steps for me: * Clear reading-writing links made by teacher, often using questions, 'What would our readers want to know?' 'How should we read it?' * Model varied starts for sent...

My Questions For Observation *How can I use this to help my more advanced writers? *How is teacher  and / or peer feedback provided? Writing Modelling Book Lesson Outline Students were sharing facts about space, in preparation for writing factual reports about space (stimulus / ignition).   The teacher revisited yesterday's modelling, on putting facts in order. Students had a reason for writing  and the specific teaching of genre was woven in according to this purpose. Clear WALT (learning objective) in modelling book. Independent writers were given feedback the day prior, and sent off to continue with their work. Modelling for First Focus Group Teacher Focus Group 1 The teacher ran a focused group with target writers (WALT: use our picture plan to write), creating a modelled/shared piece of writing. Teacher and students discussed  facts related to the picture plan. The teacher used questioning and probing to help students think of further i...

My visit to Somerfield School was both inspiring and grounding. I meet with Year 1-2 teachers, and had these questions in mind: * How is writing planned for student needs?  What routines are in place?  How is differentiation provided? How do teachers collaborate? Using assessment to plan groups, one teacher withdrew an extension group. Two other teachers worked collaboratively in one space; one doing shared / modelled writing while a second teacher took two focus groups (one after the other) on specific skills. Students had clear success criteria for writing, annotated in each book. The criteria were also displayed in the room. Children were encouraged to work on just one goal at a time. Questions and next steps for my team/myself: * Would we benefit from using this model of teacher collaboration (2 teachers in one space) in future? * How does our success criteria compare? Is it displayed in room? Am I referencing in feedback conversations? * Can ...

I have been undertaking this course by part time study this year, and have loved the learning involved!  Talking with teachers and leaders from other schools has been refreshing and reassuring...many of us have gone through the highs and challenges of working collaboratively. The  collaboration strategies  others have shared have been really helpful, along with my learning e.g. * Identify your partner's strengths and values (e.g. using the Hermann brain model) * Identify and clear on your own values, strengths and challenges * Identify shared goals, e.g., for my colleague and I this year, that has been wellbeing and behaviour * Use humour  * Don't sweat the small stuff - choose what matters most and discuss that first * Establish and stick to tight meeting times e.g. 15min daily catchups * Establish clear and agreed strategies for behaviour management, including special measures / strategies for those with additional needs * Keep a dot point journal of...

24.08.2015 Paulette observed  a reading session in my Year 3-4 class. The session involved: * Revision of our Reading WALT (Learning Objective) with whole class * Modelling of the Tic Tac Toe spelling activities, which I left on display for students to reference during the session * Teacher guided reading session on questioning (small group) * Independent Daily 5 Reading tasks, set up for student groups (differentiated according to students' current reading skills and next steps) Observations (things to keep doing) Next steps for my practise Use of questioning to encourage student sharing and comprehension Clear modelling on asking questions in reading, e.g. "How can you change that comment into a question?"; "Use our question words - What, Where, When, How..." "Do you know why..."  and "Prove it to me / Find the evidence for..." to allow students to show comprehension Explicit feedback e.g. "You are saying the wo...