Day 9 - Sharing Reading

 Our final day! This professional development has been such a huge part of 2023, PD that I personally have gained so much from.

Today was all about sharing. Dorothy talking about the importance of blogging inspired me to make sure my blogs for 2024 are ready to go from the get-go. We have had a bit of a mare this year with blogs not working correctly, which in turn meant we lost our mo-jo with them. The major takeaway for me today: Get the blogs and blogging sorted for 2024!

Georgie's session on effective descriptive feedback was very useful. The prompts provided allowed for a simple, easy-to-use structure. 

Sharing and engaging with whanau around literacy was thought-provoking. We find by the time students are at Year 7/8 many parents have 'checked out' in some ways, certainly compared to parents in the junior/middle school. I think this will be another of my goals that I will get the ball rolling with, which lends itself to being a part of the participation in reading communities required in the new curriculum.

Thanks, ladies. This professional development would be one of the most effective that I have been involved in, in a very long time. 

Over and out.

Day 8 - Creating in Reading

I don't think of myself as a particularly creative person as a rule, so today's session put me in the role of the student who might feel a bit awkward being presented with these tasks. I actually really enjoyed all the create tasks,  though I seem to take a while to complete tasks :) 

What I appreciated most about today was the wealth of resources ie websites, AI, teacher-created
resources with which we were shared. I can spend so long searching for these types of things and these are a godsend.

At the start of the day, when looking at the why,  this really hit home. I think my create tasks need some work, particularly for those boys who struggle to read, and engage. Point taken.

I really like that participating in reading communities is in the curriculum refresh. While this happens haphazardly, to have it in print makes me accountable. The mention of this sent my mind into overdrive...now to find the time to fit it all in!

Creating the Te Marama poem with visual effects was the first task of the day and one that I thoroughly enjoyed. I have no doubt I will be using this in class in the near future. 

Learning about 'tight' and 'loose' creative options was excellent, along with short creative responses to text. Mine is pictured below, in response to Iris and Dog Star (School Journal Level 3, May 2019)

Hard to believe we only have one session to go! See you in 2 weeks.

RPI - Day 7: Thinking

I am blogging very late for Day 7, as I was sick on the day, and quite a while after. Yes, I attended, however, it has meant rereading the slides, rechecking resources, and completing tasks at a later date that could have been done on the day. 

 Never mind, c'est la vie.

I learned a lot from Day 7 on thinking. I appreciate how our learning in this course is all coming together now, and I am able to understand the bigger picture. The resources shared throughout this course have been invaluable, and Day 7 was no different. I have had another look at the Cybersmart Challenges that Dorothy shared, as well as all the links provided by Naomi and Georgie on Critical Analysis, and the Analysing Texts links that Georgie shared. 

 

The Levels of Thinking laid out bare like that was beneficial. While I would like to think I include all three levels of thinking, to have them listed and explained in the way they were definitely makes me think more consciously about them, and the coverage of them.

The critical thinking work I had planned for this week (Last week was production week, and the week prior my class was all way on camps) has had to change. The theme I had planned on doing this week was based on racism. With the addition of 2 new students in my class, I made the call that this week wasn't the right time to work through the planned work. Back to the drawing board on that one.

I am looking forward to tomorrow's session. Having read the agenda notes in advance it looks like lots of fun!

Day 6: Vocabulary (and decoding)

I have been looking forward to this particular session on vocabulary, and pleasingly I got a lot from it. 

It was interesting hearing Dorothy speak about her preferred apps for vocabulary, those being Wordwall, vocabulary.com, and Quizlet. The only one of these that I am familiar with as of recently, is Wordwall. I find this really effective as a follow-up activity when planning The Code.  I did learn that I need to explore Google more, as I have no idea about Smartchips.

I did get a lot from the session about tier 2 and 3 words and appreciated the resources to use and adapt. It is always very useful to try these activities ourselves, and appreciate the time to do so. 

Sharon's morphology session was also excellent. I will be taking the time to look through the shared resources before our next session, but I did think the Matrix Maker, with the Latin root words all there looked very appropriate for my students who are graduating from Years 7 and 8 of The Code. I am on the lookout for resourcing this group, and I believe that will come in handy.

'Morphemes have meanings, phonemes do not.'

When asked to reflect on what we want to plan for and achieve in the coming weeks, this took a bit of thought and prioritising as there is so much I want to, and will, implement. Baby steps! So the word wall, and accompanying game (yet to be dreamt up) is my immediate priority. As well, of course, fitting everything into a very hectic timetable!

Changes to my literacy timetabling

While again, the reading programme in my class has not gone to plan, which seems to be a theme this term,  I have had time to reflect and decide on how I would like my literacy to look.

Until now, my reading and writing have had different blocks allocated. This term this has been due to the fact we have been doing speeches, however in the near future (next week) I will be combining the two as was in the example timetables. This means swapping maths out of the first (and only) 90 minute block and timetabling literacy into that spot Monday-Thursday.

Secondly, I will be giving the students more empowerment, allowing them to make choices. While I do plan for this usually, it isn't consistent. 

I also created a tracking sheet, digitally, for the class to access. The feedback from this is that they have a great deal of pleasure from completing and linking their work. This will definitely be something I continue with, consistently!

I have discussed this with my mentor teacher, and she is looking forward to seeing this plan in action to see how it goes.

Sharon

 RPI - Day 5 - Planning a reading programme

This was definitely a well-timed session, with Term 3 fatigue kicking in. I'm not sure my brain would have managed previous sessions today! With lots of listening and time to explore, I appreciated that for sure. 

Today has given me a lot to think about and reflect on. What I am doing well, what needs some minor tweaking, and what needs changing up. 

In the Teacher Timetabling session, I appreciated the examples of the trackers. I have used a variety of trackers in the past, although not consistently. I know I need to give the students more choices. While they have a choice in what order they complete tasks, they don't necessarily have a choice, at least not consistently, as in a must-do/can-do scenario. So I will be looking at reintroducing this. I used this system in Lockdown, and as someone brought up, it can create issues in rushing through the must-dos to get to the can-dos.  The statement that stuck with me from this session was that independent activities should provide collaborative tasks/have choice/empowerment. 

Digital reading Apps - I really enjoyed having time to browse through the suggested apps. I looked at Literacy Planet as I was unfamiliar with this one, and as well as having time to set up my class, I was able to have a look around the sight. 

Read like a writer, write like a reader.

I found this session to be very enlightening. I was quite impressed with my own writing (no I did not want to share it) which was simply formed from a series of prompts. The prompts made it very easy to visualise the scene, I found, and I liked there was a structure to fall back on if I needed it. Again, a wonderful set of resources to provide guidance with our planning and teaching, as well as for our learners. 

Skill Builder: Inferring

Again very helpful resources and discussion. Fair to say I will be using most of them!

I am looking forward to the homework. I know what I need to do, and look forward to implementing these changes and trying out new strategies.

 RPI - Day 4: Guided Reading

I have been really looking forward to today's session on guided reading, to check that I am following best practices in my own programme.

To start the day we were shown the Guided Reading Model, which I have not seen before. I appreciate the structure that the model gives, and how the learning we experienced today followed around the steps involved. 

In terms of my own learning, I need a skills session on Google Sheets! I intend to get on to this tomorrow as I need to keep up with the tasks assigned to us, filling in the workbook, without struggling with the technology. So that is my goal before the next RPI day, to upskill myself and complete all that is meant to be completed in my workbook. 

I got a lot out of today's session, but my biggest takeaways are:

1. The Guided Reading model and of course all the information to accompany this.

2. Observations. Access to the varied observation templates available, especially the fluency rubric. Fabulous.

3. Teaching blocks (5 minute blocks) Did I get that right?? That will be a big change in approach for me.

4. The Skill Builder session as well as the Consolidation and Independent follow-up - access to these recourses makes my day :) There are some very clever teachers out there, who I am very grateful to for sharing resources. 

Thank you, ladies. I found this very worthwhile.