Thursday Zoom CoL PLG

Today we had our PLG via Zoom as we are still on lockdown under Alert Level 3. 

We were reminded today about the importance of profiling our students by finding out:

• gaps in achievement from time to time
• student voice
• whanau voice
• interventions put in my previous teachers
• student work from previous years (blogs, drives)

Aaron reminded us that profiling is formative and enables us to see areas which we can build on. We were also reminded that the information we collect can be quantitative - narrative approach. From today's meeting, I have added more detail to what I am doing in profiling students. 

Russell Burt challenged us to think about how the lockdown has impacted the way we think about our roles as educators. I responded in our small groups discussions that teaching from home has given me the opportunity to build on my relationship with my students in a more meaningful way. For example at school, there are so many complexities which requires my attention. Teaching from home, I can focus on a student who seeks my help and nothing else can interrupt the time I spend teaching this student. I have also reflected that teaching from home has given our whanau community more insight into the learning and teaching which happens in the classroom. Through the hangouts, the whanau of our students are able to listen in and participate more in their learning activities. 

Student involvement in hangouts

I decided to give my students the opportunity to do the hangout reminders for our hangout. First was Dwyane. She did a wonderful job of it. She used Screencastify to record herself then shared her recording for me to put into the class site. Confidence building activity and a great opportunity for students to take leadership in our hangouts. 

My class hosting our school virtual assembly

My class were assigned to host our virtual assembly for this week. It was a fun project where my students and I collaborated to put our assembly together. As we worked on this project, I kept on thinking about how wonderful it is to be in a digital learning community. Collaboration between the students and I went smoothly as we shared ideas and the students sending in their recordings. 

Enjoy!

Small changes bring about bigger changes

Sharing my love of reading with my students is a great joy. We have always had a bookshelf in our classroom which accommodated a lot of Duffy books. This year I have changed the contents of the bookshelf by putting books I have personally selected. The attention to the bookshelf has changed tremendously. There is always an eagerness amongst the students to read the books on the shelf. 

I introduced each book to the students and explained my rationale for choosing each book. Some of the rationale include authors, topics and historical links in texts in fiction texts, personal connection to texts. 

I have also noticed a shift in enjoyment of SSR. I am still trying to conclude if the shift is mainly among the girls or both genders.