Checking for Understanding

They say a picture paints a thousand words and this is a great wee graphic that speaks volumes. It came through on twitter from @impactwales Some great tools to encourage understanding and reflection in your learning setting.

Modern Learning Considerations

An interesting graphic to help consider aspects of collaborative practice and the impact it can have on aspects of learning. Here is the link to the graphic.

35 Educational Online Resources to Inspire Inquiry and Thinking

This simply has to be good thing and worth checking out, even if you find just one thing. Start clicking.

21st Century Learning

I have been reading a lot recently about learning in the future and how this might look and be a little different to how we currently practice. This article reaffirms that New Zealand classes are well along the track to making changes towards learning for the 21st Century. It does however, bring up a few aspects that are worth considering that are focussed on teaching rather than classroom space.

Handwriting - Resources for staff

Teaching Handwriting

The teaching of handwriting is has been the subject of many discussions.

• How often should it be taught? 
• How should it be taught? 
• What is important about the teaching of handwriting? 
• What is the purpose of teaching handwriting?

For many years we have been offered good voice recognition software. Many hours are needed to perfect touch typing, far more than what can be provided with the time and resources have at school.

Here are some links to interesting and informative readings and blog post to help us consider this.

• A debate tool providing arguments both for and against the teaching of handwriting. 
• A blogpost from a NZ teacher providing a wealth of tools and information about the teaching of handwriting.
• An article from the Guardian asking, "Is the Pen Mightier Than the Sword?" 
• An article from the NY Times asking "What's Lost as Handwriting Fades?"
• Business Insider, 'Here's why writing things out by hand makes you smarter"
• It is also worth looking in Twitter and Pinterest for ideas on teaching handwriting.

Touch typing tools

The flip side of teaching handwriting is ensuring that we are equipping our children to live in a digital world. Can we provide links in our blogs to touch typing tools that children can use at home as part of their home learning?

• BBC Dance Mat Typing
• Typing Club
• Keyboarding Games for Kids

Voice Activation Software

Voice activation software is great for children with a learning disability, giving them the space they need to get their thoughts and ideas down quickly. Smart phones have voice capability that allow users to dictate messages, emails and texts.

Feedback Tool

Love the resources from Ewan McIntosh via No Tosh

This is a great visual about giving feedback, great for senior students or teachers for a range of situations.

Making Collaborative Practice Work

This is a case study of Wildwood IB World Magnet School. Teachers there believe teacher collaboration fosters a supportive professional culture, lessens conflict between teachers and provides students with school-wide best practices.

The reading provides a video, overview, explains how it's done and gives links to further reading.

Two More Great Maths Sites

Back from the lead teacher's maths meeting and just had to share two amazing maths sites with you all.

Jo Boalar hails from Stanford University and is a maths guru. Her work dovetails beautifully with what is being published her by Dr Bobbi Hunter and others. Her website is youcubed.org

Another great site that has fabulous resources for the teaching of rich mathematical tasks is nrich - enriching mathematics.

Modern, Innovative Learning and Practice

This is a great post from Derek Wenmouth from CORE. It examines what is the most important thing about MLEs and that is the practice. Does an MLE suit all learners, turning the question on it's head we consider does a traditional classroom suit all learners? The answer is simply "it depends". Derek poses some great questions to consider when reflecting on practice and moving forward with modern learning environments and practices. By visiting this page you can browse through categories to find other thoughtful blog posts on MLE and other topics of interest.

Relationships are the Heart of Great Teaching

If I were to sum up teaching in one word it would be relationships. They are at the centre of all learning for both children and adults. This is a heartwarming TED talk by Rita Pierson who shares her passion for teaching and the important role we have as educators.

When thinking about modern, innovative learning we need to consider relationships and how can what we are doing enhance the relationships were are building.

• Why are we changing groups every three weeks?
• How can flexible groupings be used to strengthen relationships?
• Will some children work better with a particular teacher?
• Does the child need to see things from a different perspective to make the learning clearer?
• Would the child be best with their 'home room' teacher and not move elsewhere?

Research to Support Modern, Innovative Learning Spaces

When our school started the master planning process over a year ago we were on the hunt for research to support the move to modern, collaborative spaces. This link provides a great synopsis of research published in 2006 and whilst nearly 10 years old is still very relevant. It is well worth a read but in a nutshell discusses;

• Impact on learning
• Spaces due for an overhaul
• Power of active learning
• Facilitating focus
• Flexibility
• Comfort
• Decenteredness
• Community

Mathematics: Criticism and Clarity

Teachers are now wearing the brunt of the revelations in the report recently commented on by Hekia Parata and released by the NZ Initiative. Once again it is the teachers' practice that is in the spotlight. Having been involved in ALiM and currently working with the Maths team at UCPlus as a lead teacher in mathematics the comments of Kelvin Smythe ring true. You can read his report here.

Things that resonate with me from both the article and the report are these:

• The need to include rich mathematical tasks in our teaching on a regular basis so children can be actively involved in problem solving.
• These tasks need to be challenging and supported by a range of hands on materials.
• Groups working should be mixed so those involved can learn from each other.
• More credence should be given to basic facts when moving children through the maths stages as the knowledge is needed to work effectively at the next mathematical stage.
• Basic facts need to be taught with the stages so understanding forms the basis of the learning.
• When the knowledge is learned it needs to recalled quickly.
• Teachers trusting their ability to teach maths and not being fully reliant on a 'programme' that delivers a daily scripted dose of learning.

The Importance of Feedback and Other Interventions

I have always believed that effective feedback is the teaching strategy that makes the most difference to learners. When asking for feedback about my teaching from my past students they often commented on this being a strength of my teaching, stately simply, "you let us know our next step or what we need to do to make it better."

There is often debate as to whether this should be written or verbal. The age of the learner and their ability to read written feedback certainly impacts this decision. The quality of the feedback is important and I reflect on this considering the work of Dweck et al when working with students. Praising effort and hard work is critical whilst given the student an indication of next steps is also crucial.

Feedback is central focus of the original article. It outlines ways of giving feedback and the writer shares their school's policy. Links to other readings related to feedback are also given. What is of interest is the graph that is also provided and the information that is linked to evidenced based interventions.

The graph from the site simply illustrates the effect of a number of interventions. It plots them on a graph considering their cost and the impact they have on student achievement. What I particularly like is that you can click on a strategy and go to a synopsis of the research that led to the placement of that strategy on the graph. For example, I had always believed that homework isn't very effective for improving student outcomes of students. When you look at the research you see that this is indeed the case and it summarises where and when homework is effective. The website where you find this information is found here.

You can visit the source used to place these interventions on the graph at the Education Endowment Foundation. It is very useful to select an intervention and then be able to connect to the research that led the author to place it on the graph. Great access to a wealth of information about solid interventions you can try in the classroom.

Formative Assessment

We know that one of the best ways to improve student outcomes is to provide quality feedback. It is also essential we give students the tools to clarify their understanding.

Love this link to a post on one of my favourite education sites, Edutopia.


This page provides a download to a list to keep in your planning folder as a reference to pop in reflection and revision ideas when planning your week.

Edutopia

This website is a fantastic source of inspiring readings and thought provoking articles. Well worth taking some time to browse or following their twitter feeds.

This is what took me there today.

What does it mean to be a great teacher? Of course credentials, knowledge, critical thinking and all other faculties of intelligence are important. However, a great teacher should be much more than credentials, experience and intelligence.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

Maths and Gifted Education - get children talking

These are two topics that I am very passionate about. What I love about this article is it confirms the approach being used by Australasian schools. I have had the benefit of many hours of maths learning this year and key to this learning is teaching children about mathematical concepts through inquiry and talk.

Children who 'get maths' need to be challenged to think mathematically and rich mathematical tasks that are open ended and lead to a discussion of pure mathematics do this. We need to get our bright children talking and discovering mathematical ideas rather than keeping them busy with pages of problems or websites and games.

Sources for these activities include:
nzmaths.co.nz/problem-solving
blackdouglas.com.au
Otago Maths Problem Solving Resources
Think Boards
Andrew Jeffrey Resources www.andrewjeffrey.co.uk
Number Sense
Open Ended Maths Activities, SullivanP., & Lilburn, P. (2004)
Figure it Out Resources

Dysgraphia

I love information presented in a clear concise way. This graphic appeals not only for the key information it gives parents and teachers about dysgraphia but also the solutions. This is a condition sometimes effecting gifted children that leads to being identified as'twice exceptional.' Of course it is a learning condition that can affect all learners and impact their progress.

Maths Talk Time

We recently held a Parent Talk Time on maths. This was talking about how number is taught in schools today. Here is a copy of the power point that was shared.

Parent Talk Time - Maths by cmrhowison

Open ended thinking and creativity

I have been thinking a lot lately about open ended problems, particularly in regards to mathematics and getting children talking about their thinking.

I love this simple illustration about the importance of open ended questions in other areas too.

Being An Effective Teacher

An Ethical Island is a great website providing infographics for teachers. Here is just one that I loved but there are tonnes more and the site is well worth exploring.

Check it out!

Here is a website that provides links to sites where you can (or teach children to) create your own infographics.

http://anethicalisland.wordpress.com/