So I've been trying something new out with writing recently, and it's made a few waves in my mind.
I decided that actually what I was doing with my teaching was giving the children a learning outcome that I thought they should focus on, but they had no idea of what their next steps were, or why they were doing it, or how it would help them. Then I had an epiphany.
I collected in the kids' goal books which had their writing goals in it anyway, and made sure they were showing the correct progress of each kid. Then I gave them back to them and explained it to them.
I gave them a whole lot of story starters, and got them to write me a story - but they had to choose one learning outcome to focus on. After they wrote their stories they had to rate how well they achieved that goal.
1 - I did not achieve my goal.
2 - I tried to achieve my goal but didn't really.
3 - I occasionally achieved my goal.
4 - I mostly achieved my goal.
5 - I always achieved my goal.
The focus was completely on the goal, not the content, and I found that by letting them write whatever they wanted I got a real insight into each child. Some children wrote stories about zombies and pirates, others wrote stories about Candy Island. Some even wrote diary entries about what they had done or were going to do. Children displayed much more emotion in their writing because they were so into the topic. The story starters were invaluable though, children still refer to them ALL THE TIME.
They have each created their own modelling book on book creator on their Ipads. They take photos of their work (if they work in their writing books) or copy and paste it (if they work on their Ipads) into their modelling books. Once they have 3 examples of achieving the goal they are working on they can bring it to me and we can tick off their goal together.
Originally while they were doing this, I was having mini-conferences with groups of children who were working on the same goal. But this requires me to be unavailable to other children who need help or a refresher on their goal, and also requires me to be there to teach the children (as opposed to doing it independently whenever they want to).
Then, while deep in conversation with a colleague about something completely different, another epiphany; my answer:
I am going to (when I find time) make showme's for every goal and put links to them on the writing matrix next to the goals they correspond to. I will then put the writing matrix on Ultranet where all the kids can access it or alternatively email it to each child so they have it on their Ipads.
VOILA: I am avaliable to cater the showme lessons to individual students during writing time if they don't understand something, they are able to be reminded of how to do their goal whenever they don't understand without waiting for me to finish with anyone else, and they can do that at any time of day.
Examples of showmes:
http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=Nf0NDSS
http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=3Qwk4kS
I decided that actually what I was doing with my teaching was giving the children a learning outcome that I thought they should focus on, but they had no idea of what their next steps were, or why they were doing it, or how it would help them. Then I had an epiphany.
I collected in the kids' goal books which had their writing goals in it anyway, and made sure they were showing the correct progress of each kid. Then I gave them back to them and explained it to them.
I gave them a whole lot of story starters, and got them to write me a story - but they had to choose one learning outcome to focus on. After they wrote their stories they had to rate how well they achieved that goal.
1 - I did not achieve my goal.
2 - I tried to achieve my goal but didn't really.
3 - I occasionally achieved my goal.
4 - I mostly achieved my goal.
5 - I always achieved my goal.
The focus was completely on the goal, not the content, and I found that by letting them write whatever they wanted I got a real insight into each child. Some children wrote stories about zombies and pirates, others wrote stories about Candy Island. Some even wrote diary entries about what they had done or were going to do. Children displayed much more emotion in their writing because they were so into the topic. The story starters were invaluable though, children still refer to them ALL THE TIME.
They have each created their own modelling book on book creator on their Ipads. They take photos of their work (if they work in their writing books) or copy and paste it (if they work on their Ipads) into their modelling books. Once they have 3 examples of achieving the goal they are working on they can bring it to me and we can tick off their goal together.
Originally while they were doing this, I was having mini-conferences with groups of children who were working on the same goal. But this requires me to be unavailable to other children who need help or a refresher on their goal, and also requires me to be there to teach the children (as opposed to doing it independently whenever they want to).
Then, while deep in conversation with a colleague about something completely different, another epiphany; my answer:
I am going to (when I find time) make showme's for every goal and put links to them on the writing matrix next to the goals they correspond to. I will then put the writing matrix on Ultranet where all the kids can access it or alternatively email it to each child so they have it on their Ipads.
VOILA: I am avaliable to cater the showme lessons to individual students during writing time if they don't understand something, they are able to be reminded of how to do their goal whenever they don't understand without waiting for me to finish with anyone else, and they can do that at any time of day.
Examples of showmes:
http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=Nf0NDSS
http://www.showme.com/sh/?h=3Qwk4kS
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