Maths Inquiry

At a Pasifika Conference held last year in Wellington, I heard about Bobby Maths and how it is being used in the classroom.
As part of our Maths Inquiry the school wide focus has been on problem solving where the children are given a problem and they are to work in small groups to solve this particular problem. We have started using " Talk Moves" in our sessions whereby the children are the ones who are doing most of the talking/ solving through collaboration with their peers. See below for examples of the different Talk Moves.

I have also watched some examples of the teaching in action in a video clip found on the nzmaths site. Check out the link here Maths Inquiry Communities

Emily's blog

I have been very impressed with Emily's enthusiasm when it comes to blogging. She loves the fact that her learning can be seen by her parents.
Check out the link here on Emily's blog to see more. Here are a few examples of her posts.

Cultural Dinner

Had a wonderful time meeting new parents of other ethnicities at the cultural dinner. This occasion allowed parents to get to know one another, as this does not always happen automatically within the school.

Catholic Education Conference

Conference Notes

Had a wonderful time in Wellington to attend the Catholic Education Conference.

We spent the first day at Ahmsbury School finding out how the Modern Learning Environment is working. It was great to see the ways that reporting was done to parents and how National Standards are tracked.

Here were the workshops that were attended.

Driving Pasifika Achievement though effective Self review.
This workshop has established wonderful partnerships with the parents.
Oral Language has been a big focus and ensuring children are getting the opportunities to discuss what they are learning.

The board and senior leadership team shared some insights into how they strengthen faith, develop pride and seek excellence.

Prayer, Music and Being Maori.

This session gfave an introduction to prayer- karakia and music and hymns. Some aspects of Maori spirituality were addressed and what is is like to be Maori and Catholic.

How do you teach RE in the 21st Century.

What are the different ways that RE is taught: Traditional ( activity sheets handed out, teacher provides all knowledge), Blended (use of traditional methods and digital technology), Digital Medium ( Mostly done in an online environment, student driven, work is shared online)

This particular workshop confirmed how I was teaching RE in the classroom mainly through Digital Medium. I do like to use the activity sheets as follow up activities also, it seemed the presenter felt like this didn't give students the sense of ownership of what they were learning or build on their understanding and knowledge of faith.

New ways of planning using our sites page.

Ou google sites page is proving to be quite successful, as the children are getting familiar with how to get onto it.
What I also like is the way we are now planning. We all have the same named groups for reading and maths and as there are 4 groups in each, we plan for 1 of the groups each week as opposed to the 4 we were usually doing each week.
I found this to be wonderful as it means that I have more time up my sleeve to plan for other areas that I don't usually get round to doing like art or music.
All the children have access to the sites page which is great. It has been a real time saver.

Pepeha using tellagami

The children have been reciting their pepeha sing an app called tellagami. This app is great as it encourages children to speak but with an avatar in place of the actual person.

Assessment and Tracking

I have created an online means of tracking children's assessment information. At the end of the year I will print them off and use them as pass on lists for next years teacher.

Issues I have had is finding the time to enter the data. Have had to use my Teacher Aide to help with this.

A helpful hint

At the Raising achievement for pasifika learners seminar, I got a great tip posting videos to your blog via your blogger email address.

In your blogger account you need to got to
- Settings
-then mobile and email
-then you need to add a secret word after taiw.( secret word)@ blogger.com. See below.

When you have entered your word, save it and then you can email directly to your blog.

Raising achievement for our Pasifka Learners through digital tools.

Today's breakfast seminar was about how to raise achievement for our Pasifka Learners through the use of digital tools. Today we got to trial some apps that will encourage children to talk more. It was recommended for those children that are very shy.This is my Samoan Mihi.
I would like to use this with one of my PI students that is very shy and quiet. She is a motivated student but her results are very low in Literacy and Maths. When she talks, her words are not very clear, so hopefully this will give her the practise of articulating her words clearly and confidently.

GAFE

Had some full on days getting some helpful hints from the Google Apps for Education conference.

See notes on this link.

Link to notes

I found the Holly Clark an inspiring speaker. She had a very interesting presentation on how we can make our children's learning more visual and manageable.

Kahoot and Socrative were some helpful tools to show the children's thinking and learning.

I cant wait to trial these out with the children on the first week of school.

Inquiry 2015

Goal: 

By the end of 2015, I am successfully inquiring into my practice with the use of digital tools and how this aids my Unrelenting focus students in raising their achievement levels.

Evidence:

What have I done so far?

- Identified my Unrelenting students and the areas that need improvement.

Steps that need to be undertaken in order to be successful:

- children need to be able to log into their accounts often to get the practice.

-start getting familiar with the use of google docs ( giving work titles, adding images, changing fonts)

-

What tools can I use? What for?

Writing: Google Docs

Oral Language: Tellagami

Maths: Maths Whizz

What difficulties have you faced?

Number of devices, ratios not one to one.

Google Sites

I am dreading the use of Google sites, as previously I have had trouble getting one set up.
Our team set one up for our planning to go on to. We had a look at Pt England school and class sites and they look really great. The children have access to them, the individual groups for reading and maths are set up, I can see how this has great potential for children to continue their learning outside of the classroom also.

Click here for the link to our class sites page
Middle School Sites page