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. 

RPI - Day 3 Text Selection

Another big day learning about text selection (but not as big as last week's on data). 

It is the littlest of things that got my attention today. Dorothy's tip on taking a photo on my phone and being able to paste it straight into a doc was mind-blowing for me! Who knew...and how does one even know this is doable without being shown? Fabulous!

Following up on students reading for enjoyment seems obvious, but I had never thought of conferencing/tracking/accountability. I have used reading logs in the past, mainly home-based, however, I will be putting some thought into this, and integrating this into my reading programme.

Coverage of text types was another aspect that was discussed that I need to track more purposefully, as I'm not sure in my head counts? I also intend to make sure I do paired and shared reading on a more regular cycle.

What I continue to struggle with is the time it takes me to find suitable resources/texts/activities. I spend so much time searching for just the right text/activity/image. We are meant to work smarter, not harder, but this for me is my sticking point as it takes me SUCH a long time to get everything together as I would like it.

Analysis of my class reading achievement data

With my achievement data mostly entered, a conversation ensued with my mentor teacher about the patterns and analysis of the data. I have the whole range in my Year 7 and 8 class, with reading ages from 5 yrs through to adult readers reading at 15+ years.

While there are a few anomalies within the class, ie reading age of 12-13 years, but Stanine 1 on a PAT, there is also a clear-cut small group of boys reading at between 8 and 10 years. This group has struggled to make progress in reading over their school years. Currently, I am introducing the class to reciprocal reading with mixed-ability groups, which also presents its own challenges. 

When I can see the chance for continuity in the timetable, I will also be working through the programme 'Key into Comprehension', which has been a successful tool in previous years with this level of reading abilities. 

The taskboard that I am about to design will be designed with the Kea reading group in mind, along with the results of their reader profile survey.