Today was a beautiful sunny day, compared to the wind and lack of electricity last week. Tragically we were greeted with the news of the death of our DFI colleague and other two other staff members from Devon Intermediate through a car accident. Makaore shared karakia and through this we were able to begin our day as the Term 4 cohort.
My understanding of the Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy continues to deepen and as I listened to Dorothy I realised that I have developed as a teacher in knowing the importance of being visible. Points I noted were - the learner is at the centre; whānau need to be able to access learning quickly. The learning journey has been hidden in the past; for many the learning was like wandering through a maze - for many unable to navigate. If the learning intentions/WALTS are displayed visibly it contributes to a successful learning journey. The learning process needs to be visible - the planning, the process, the outcomes. The last thing I took from this session was the analogy about passwords being like a wire fence or bubble wrap on a building - can see but can't reach your learning.
Our deep dive this morning with Kerry was based on multi modal - an inclusive, differentiated approach to teaching in a digital learning environment. A multi-text database was shared which included themes and links to resources of various text types. This database was later used as a basis to the site building activity.
Certainly the time spent learning google sites was extremely valuable and will improve my confidence and capability as a professional at Coastal Taranaki School. From what I viewed I could see that these sites are a turbocharge of the visible classroom. Learners and whānau don't want surprises, they want to know what's ahead - accessible, available and advance. Visible teaching through sites leads to effective teaching and accelerated learning. Efficiencies of the class site to free up the teacher to work with learners who are more challenged. Student become self-regulated and self-motivated learners.
Sites certainly can be used with my learners - some key things to remember - my home page needs to be fresh and encouraging. It needs to inspire the learner to go in. Think of it like a shop front window. Successful sites include short videos about the learning by the teacher.
I could see the use of jamboard as a wonderful planning tool for teaching, learning and personal life. All these new digital tools and the time to explore features in more familiar apps is certainly improving my confidence and capability in this digital space.
I discovered during the day, that for the past two weeks I had made a copy of the agenda and was wondering why my www's were not visible when Vicki was sharing agenda on the meet! My entries were on the copy on my drive - another learning moment.
Kia ora Marian,
ReplyDeleteAhh that makes so much sense - I was wondering where your WWW comments were. We don't recommend making a copy of the agenda for precisely that reason, as we make changes to it through the day, add additional resources etc, you don't get those on your own copy. You can always add the agenda docs to your drive and file them in a way that make sense to you, without losing that ability for the collaborative docs to be updated.
Vicki
Yes - I know you said that but somehow it didn't register!
DeleteTēnā koe Marian
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your reflection on visible learning. I often think if we could gather all the wonderful things we have on our classroom walls and put them on our site, think how rich and engaging that would be for students. I see lots of potential to showcase students' learning with any photos taken during class of their creations or any snippets of their writing. It doesn’t have to be all of their writing either, it could be just a sentence or two that really stood out. You could just add that as a piece of text.
Armed with a camera, students' creations could be photographed and uploaded to your site to add interest and reinforce learning.
That’s one way you could keep your homepage fresh and it adds another level of sharing too.