Reflection blog: 23/05/2015
Reading: This half term, I have introduced a new tracking grid to record children's progress against the new Primary curriculum objectives. This will hopefully help me to stay focused during guided groups as to what I am teaching children in reading. As the objectives from the curriculum are quite broad and wooly, it might be necessary to break these down further into more specific aims.
Children's reading comprehension activity has stayed relevant to the writing focus for the week. The guided reading activity conversely, has been based on children's topic work.
Writing: Mapping out the objectives and grammar aspects to be taught each week has worked well this half term. The big write has provided children with an opportunity to apply their grammar concepts into a longer piece of writing. The new assessment sheets have also been positive in providing children with a visual target sheet as well as providing the class teacher with an easy way to monitor progress.
Maths: With a smaller Maths group, it has been easy to continue with guided Maths sessions. This has certainly had a positive impact on children's learning in the class. I must now continue to look for ways of challenging children to move forward with their learning. Some pupils in the class seem to have already reached the end of year expectations.
Topic: During the last Geography topic, it has been useful to have a weekly sub focus. For example, as this unit of learning was based on Planet Earth, the first two weeks were based on volcanoes, follows by mountains, the water cycle and rivers. This has been useful as ICT, the big write and topic sessions link together based around the sub topic.
Saturday 23 May 2015
Saturday 11 April 2015
Is there any evidence for different learning style?
Teachers are often made aware of the VAK theory or Gardener's Theory of Multiple intelligences at 'Teacher school'. Indeed, I've seen teachers organise their classrooms in this manner. As a trainee, I was encouraged to plan lessons that ensure there were activities that linked to different learning styles. Whilst reading Willingham's work (2009) 'Why Don't student's learn?' he makes the strong claim that these theories cannot be neatly linked to classroom practice. Whilst I won't deny that people might have a preferred way of accessing new information, I don't think we have a specific way of learning. I think the work of Carol Dweck would agree with me who stresses 'practice' and hard work as a means to success.
Teachers are often made aware of the VAK theory or Gardener's Theory of Multiple intelligences at 'Teacher school'. Indeed, I've seen teachers organise their classrooms in this manner. As a trainee, I was encouraged to plan lessons that ensure there were activities that linked to different learning styles. Whilst reading Willingham's work (2009) 'Why Don't student's learn?' he makes the strong claim that these theories cannot be neatly linked to classroom practice. Whilst I won't deny that people might have a preferred way of accessing new information, I don't think we have a specific way of learning. I think the work of Carol Dweck would agree with me who stresses 'practice' and hard work as a means to success.
Monday 6 April 2015
I am currently reading the work of Willingham (2009) Why Don't Students like school? This has made me reflect on how I plan and teach guided reading sessions. I have found that teaching reading skills in sessions that involve texts on new concepts difficult when children have little knowledge of the subject background. This is because a lot of the session involves explaining what specific vocabulary and concepts mean rather than using reading skills. So next term, I have thought about only using texts that either link to the overall topic that children are learning or those which cover knowledge that children already have a good understanding of.
Wednesday 1 April 2015
As of April 2015, I thought it useful to keep a diary or blog of experiences and research I have conducted into Education and Primary Teaching.
Classroom Environment
I have aimed to change all displays in the classroom since February 2015. A half termly change over of displays helps to show children that the learning completed in the classroom is valued and celebrated on the wall. At times, I think it might be useful to spend longer in ensuring that learning is completed to a better quality to help raise expectations and learning standards. The front of the classroom still contains working walls for the Literacy and Numeracy. Whilst I think that this helps to raise the profile of the core subjects, I'm not sure how useful it is as a learning tool as children rarely engage with it. I would like to explore further means of using displays as a learning tool rather than to simply celebrate and praise work.
Teaching:
I have continued to reflect upon how writing should be structured and progressively taught over a week. It has made more sense to plan lessons which lead up to an end goal (The Big Write) on Friday. It has been useful to make writing lessons more engaging and fun by including DVD clips and props to discuss and lead up to the writing task. Next half term, I should continue to reflect on how I ensure coverage across all the grammatical areas of learning that need to be covered. Guided groups in writing lessons continues to be a sticking point. As there are thirty children and only one adult working in the room it has been difficult to find the time to support and extend all pupils.
I have continued to find the Abacus learning scheme useful for Maths as this has provided a good coverage for learning concepts. Addressing children misconceptions and errors during starter activities has allowed me to focus on the needs of the class whilst not focusing on too few concepts. My structure for organizing guided groups has worked really well - dividing the class of twenty two children into three groups and ensure that two of these are supported each day.
Reading worked well with three guided sessions and two whole class sessions this half term. Some of the guided group sessions were too large however and Thursday's whole class lessons was not always beneficial to learning. Making Thursday a guided reading day and Friday and session to review the comprehension and complete further reading activities leading into the next week might be an improved way to teach next half term. The independent activities should link closely to the key assessment focuses I am trying to assess.
Maths Leadership:
As a Maths subject leader working within the primary school, I have continued to monitor the different elements teaching each half term. This has included: short term planning, marking, Maths working walls and displays, children's perceptions and whether they know their targets as well as parent perceptions after workshops. The monitoring is useful for me but has had little impact on other teachers' practice. Next term, I shall use an inset to address improvement areas in monitoring and morning meetings with whole staff to drip feed suggestions for further improvement.
Classroom Environment
I have aimed to change all displays in the classroom since February 2015. A half termly change over of displays helps to show children that the learning completed in the classroom is valued and celebrated on the wall. At times, I think it might be useful to spend longer in ensuring that learning is completed to a better quality to help raise expectations and learning standards. The front of the classroom still contains working walls for the Literacy and Numeracy. Whilst I think that this helps to raise the profile of the core subjects, I'm not sure how useful it is as a learning tool as children rarely engage with it. I would like to explore further means of using displays as a learning tool rather than to simply celebrate and praise work.
Teaching:
I have continued to reflect upon how writing should be structured and progressively taught over a week. It has made more sense to plan lessons which lead up to an end goal (The Big Write) on Friday. It has been useful to make writing lessons more engaging and fun by including DVD clips and props to discuss and lead up to the writing task. Next half term, I should continue to reflect on how I ensure coverage across all the grammatical areas of learning that need to be covered. Guided groups in writing lessons continues to be a sticking point. As there are thirty children and only one adult working in the room it has been difficult to find the time to support and extend all pupils.
I have continued to find the Abacus learning scheme useful for Maths as this has provided a good coverage for learning concepts. Addressing children misconceptions and errors during starter activities has allowed me to focus on the needs of the class whilst not focusing on too few concepts. My structure for organizing guided groups has worked really well - dividing the class of twenty two children into three groups and ensure that two of these are supported each day.
Reading worked well with three guided sessions and two whole class sessions this half term. Some of the guided group sessions were too large however and Thursday's whole class lessons was not always beneficial to learning. Making Thursday a guided reading day and Friday and session to review the comprehension and complete further reading activities leading into the next week might be an improved way to teach next half term. The independent activities should link closely to the key assessment focuses I am trying to assess.
Maths Leadership:
As a Maths subject leader working within the primary school, I have continued to monitor the different elements teaching each half term. This has included: short term planning, marking, Maths working walls and displays, children's perceptions and whether they know their targets as well as parent perceptions after workshops. The monitoring is useful for me but has had little impact on other teachers' practice. Next term, I shall use an inset to address improvement areas in monitoring and morning meetings with whole staff to drip feed suggestions for further improvement.
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