Catholic Character Review

I had my observation today and I am very pleased with the outcome. The children in my class were engaged with the lesson and the feedback I was given was wonderful.
The challenges that I am finding in my RE programme the level of the strands being taught. This is my first year teaching the Year 4 programme and I have found it to be very abstract and in some ways unclear  and difficult to understand for some of my younger Year 3 children.
Next steps: It is ok to stay on 1 lesson over 2 days, focus on importance of prayer in the classroom.

Children working collaboratively on one document.

I trialled out getting children to work in buddies on one document. They had to work together to find different parts of a story and use the highlight or text colour tool in the doc to help them. They were very enthusiastic about the task and I had children asking to do more. Only problem was the children who get withdrawn from the class ( guitar lessons, enrichment programmes) they miss out or come in half way during the task. From this task I found out what children need to more teaching on about eg similes and adjectives. Link for working collaboratively.

Teaching Inquiry

Goal: 

By the end of 2014, I am successfully inquiring into my practice with using GAFE and how it impacts and supports my children with their learning.

Evidence:

Observation of other teachers/ students, asking for feedback, reflections, PLG minutes

Professional Development notes. Professional learning Blog

What progress have you made so far?

-Getting familiar with some google apps: drive, docs, spreadsheets, presentations, draw.

-My weekly planning, since the start of the year is all in my drive ( spreadsheets). Knew nothing about google drive until the beginning of the year.

Term 2 Reading and math’s Planning has been linked onto my Weekly Plan also.

- Becoming familiar with Hapara Dashboard and sharing files with the class or certain groups.

-Have set up a Professional Learning blog (PLB) with evidence of learning. 

-Attended all PLG group meetings. Here we have discussed positives and any issues that have risen. See google docs link.

-Resources shared

What difficulties have you faced?

-Tried to set up Professional Learning through google sites. This was very difficult and had to switch to a blog.

-Lots of different bits of information in different areas. Issue has been resolved by keeping information in just the school account.

-Google Chrome not working properly on my computer. Will log that as an ICT issue. This has been resolved now, I had an app installed which was causing the problems, once this app was uninstalled chrome was working fine.

-Having different logins and emails. My PLB is under a different account from my class blog. Couldn't find it for a while. Issue has been resolved by setting up different web browser window logins.

-Some children have got chromebooks but are not allowed to bring them in yet. 1-1 device/student ratios would make my lessons more fluid.

- Which is the best device to use? Ipads are not good for spreadsheets and drawings.

-Time: It’s all very exciting and there’s so much potential, I need to manage my time effectively so it doesn’t go into personal life.

Where to from here?

-        Keep postings onto blog regular. Goal: 3/4 in depth postings a term.

-        Managing my accounts effectively so I’m not double handling ( adding authors to blog to eliminate changing account user.) Still don’t know if this will solve that problem. This issue has been resolved by having different user accounts when using chrome. I have an account for my class email ( where I go when writing up my blog) for my personal stuff and my teaching account ( for everything else)

-        Continue with using GAFE, in order for it to become natural I need to use it more and then it will be automatic.