Day 5: Digital Fluency Intensive

Today we discussed Visible Sites for Learning which is really important when it comes to teaching digitally.  Dorothy emphasised the importance of whanau having access to their child's learning at all times.  She also talked about how there should be "no surprises" in learning for children... that it should be accessible, available and laid out in advance - which works to save lots of future conflict by talking about what's coming next for our students.

Clarelle Carruthers visited today and talked about MultiModal Learning which involves taking different modes of communication and giving children access to them to learn with.  She expressed that engagement starts with us and how we need to motivate our learners to want to engage with the curriculum.  It is through having choice that students are empowered, with their interests driving their learning.   

For the second part of the day, we were very busy creating Google Sites in age level groups.  Gerhard walked us through a quick sandpit in it and emphasised the importance of drafting out our Google site beforehand so that we have a clear direction of where are headed.  Using the Garden With Science curriculum resource, we drafted out a plan for a Google site.  This involved thinking of buttons we wanted on our site and the subpages/content to go along with it.  Our group first wrote down all our ideas and then colour-coded it for different headings.  Then, we drew out our own draft together for a potential site.

Following that, we created our own individual drafts which we then turned into our very own Google site which was super fun and engaging.  Looking forward to working on this site more and creating other Google sites!

https://sites.google.com/ptengland.school.nz/inquiry-rm-13/home

Inquiry Update: Playing and Writing

For my inquiry focus I have been looking deeper at the different ways to incorporate play-based learning in the classroom and what it does to improve oral language.  In an effort to get the students talking more, we tried using fairytales to increase engagement.  This term we dove into the story of The Gingerbread Man where we read the book, watched the movie, did pieces of writing on it while majoring on the language of the story, illustrated pictures related to it, reenacted the play... and even made gingerbread men!  As we set-up up a felt board with the characters, we would often find students practising and using their language during free play time which was encouraging to see.  

In an effort to do less-structured play based learning, I also experimented with building out of cardboard boxes with the students.  However, it was done in a way that was very casual during their play time in the afternoons where I would pose questions like "Hmm, I think I will make something out of this cardboard.  What should I make?"  The response from the students was overwhelming and at one point we had to split into little groups because they were so enthusiastic about creating.  With one group of students, we made a house and it was interesting to see the ideas / language that came out of it.  For instance, one boy took a flat piece of cardboard and placed it over the window and we were able to talk about how that was called a "shutter".  The following day, we all wrote about what had been built and we used the house as a prop and labelled it with the key words like "chimney" "tall swinging door" "triangle window" and "shutter".  On another day, I began to construct a castle with a few students and it led to us looking up what castles look like and finding pictures of castles on Google.  After that, they decided that they needed a "pointy" roof for their castle!  

While all these experiences were amazing for the students, my mentor teacher and I had this epiphany that "play" was more of a side activity than being a motivation in our classrooms.  After reading about experiences in other classrooms, we decided that we were almost doing our writing in a way that was not motivating enough for our students.  A usual day would look like us front-loading our students with a topic for the day and then having them write about it - followed by play.  We have taken a few weeks and done it differently... playing first and then writing.  As the students played, we would continue with our reading groups and students would take pictures on the iPads of their play with/of others.  During a quick morning tea, we would revisit the play on the iPads and front-load them for writing.  What a difference this has made in the classroom and here's a few highlights I've noticed from trying this specific intervention in the classroom:

When given the chance to play and create on their own terms, students have more motivation than being instructed to "create". 

Playing is a catalyst for writing; student engagement and willingness to draw detailed pictures / write their own stories increased.

Every story was different and it gave them more independence in their writing.

Having students taking pictures was also a motivating factor which gave them more purpose in their play.

In the term to come, I plan to dive into more open-ended play where students have less restriction and more options with play such as sensory stations, small world areas, and construction areas.  As play is about finding out what their interests are, I aim to use that to inspire their writing and give them individuality in the process.  Increasingly, I have also seen how much play is linked to storytelling, so I will aim to engage them in more stories and try to have them record on the iPads their own stories in their writing.