Scaffolding Learning

The I do , we do, you do is a learning framework that teachers use to promote the slow release of responsibility to the learner in the classroom. I was pleased to find out through my mentor observing me in my lessons that I am starting to now do this scaffolding approach quite naturally. In Jodie’s Explicit Teaching  blog post she describes this approach in more detail. The children understand the approach well and feel supported in their learning when it is used.

Another framework that the class uses which I had heard of but never seen used is the WALT and WILF acronyms:

WALT is WHAT ARE we LEARNING TO do and

WILF is WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR.

I observed my teacher using these in her lessons everyday and realised that it was a great way to keep on track. That is not to say that you don’t follow a teachable moment but it is a great way to reflect at the end of class and say yes they learnt what was intended. Students are also able to self reflect and ask themselves “Am I able to show what my teacher is looking for?”

The following link will take you to a video of a teacher implementing the I do, We do, You do approach.

Week One Done!

I’m happy to say I made it through the first week of prac! I’ve got a lovely school, great class and an enthusiastic mentor. Like Miss Ashley says in her blog post “1 down 2 to go!” I spent much of the time observing and was given very little responsibility. I  hinted that we look at the handbook and revisit what the expectations were for the uni and the following day I was given the opportunity to take a maths lesson. It went really well and I received fantastic feedback. In the lesson I used the interactive whiteboard to assess what the students were retaining.

Following the maths lesson the teacher has given me much more teaching responsibility for the next two weeks. She realised I was confident to write lesson plans and deliver learning experiences. YAY!!! Looking forward to next week and incorporating ICT along the way.

On the hunt

Now that I finally know where I’m heading for prac I can start to focus on what age appropriate ICTs I can use in my context. Due to being placed so late I had no opportunity to find out what ICT the school has available so I look forward to finding out on Monday. I started rolling through other students posts to find recommendations and I found a post by Miss Brauer and she was discussing the software Powtoon. Powtoon is used to create animated videos and presentations. I thought this may be useful for a grade two class as it will (as the Powtoon slogan states) captivate, engage and explain concepts to students. This tool will be useful in appealing to visual and audial learners. It will also help me to ensure these videos or presentations are relevant to the students in the class by relating it to them, their interests and what they bring to the class. Powtoon is easy to navigate and boasts that you can have a video created in just 5 mins. I might need to practice to have them created that quickly.

Word clouds

After reading back over fellow pre-service teachers blog posts, a post by Mrs Kelly caught my eye. What drew me in was her image. It was like a word cloud in a fantastic footprint shape. The words in the cloud were relevant to talking about digital footprint and they were arranged in various sizes into the shape of a foot print. I started to investigate how I too could create a word cloud into any shape I choose, as I see this as a valuable tool to use whilst out on prac.

I initially tried Wordle but due to having Windows 1o I found that I couldn’t use it without Java. So I then tried Tagul and hey presto, I created my own word cloud! I really think I will be using this word cloud generator on prac for brainstorming and to appeal to visual learners.

NAPLAN ROOKIE

Today my first born is sitting his first NAPLAN test. Fortunately he attends a school that is not overly focussed on NAPLAN and there does not seem to be too much added pressure on his performance. I say added pressure because the pressure he is putting on himself is enough. My son has always been very academically driven and just naturally competitive.

HE IS ANXIOUS! To say the least… I tried to calm his nerves by putting into perspective the relevance of the test. I told him that how well he does in NAPLAN is not going to stop him from becoming the scientist he wants to be when he grows up. I then read him this letter another teacher had written to her students in preparation for NAPLAN. This letter was fantastic and after listening to it my son went into school saying “I’m just going to do my best mum”. Perfect!!!

The further I get into my degree, the more I learn about national testing, the more I disagree with it. I truly believe Australian schools need a educational revolution.

 

Cyber Safe

As part of the week 10 learning path we were told to briefly outline our knowledge and experience with digital citizenship and the safe, responsible, and ethical use of ICT in your personal and professional lives. I feel that my own knowledge of this is only at a sound level. As a teacher I am aware that we are not to post photo’s of children whereby the child can be identified. So this means no faces in photo’s and no identifiable names like school name or location. I have never personally experienced cyber bullying but I have witnessed a mentor in a previous prac educate her grade 3 class about cyber bullying. She used an online clip which she located on a Queensland government website.

After participating in the short quiz I was surprised to find I was wrong on a questions that said is it true or false that cyber bullying is the most common form of bullying taking place in secondary schools. I thought for sure that with online interactions and the increase in the use of social media that this statement would be true but actually recent research confirms that offline bullying is still the most common form of bullying (eg face-to-face name‐calling) in both primary and secondary schools. It does state however that cyberbullying will become more prevalent in the future.

An important factor in helping students that have being bullied is education but it is important to understand not to just educate the person being bullied but it is important to stop the bullying and educate the perpetrator as well. I feel that I will benefit from researching ways to effectively educate students on the safe use of cyber space and hope that I will know enough to model the appropriate use myself.