Accelerate the reading progress of your akonga using culturally responsive practices and digital technologies

I had the great opportunity to attend a break out at U lear 2016 on "Accelerating the reading progress of your Akonga using culturally responsive practices and digital technologies"
This was hosted by Takanini School. Some of the aspects talked about in the session are listed below:

• Relationships: Between teacher and student, whanau and community, School: These are important in being able to accelerate student progress.
• Always referring back to the SC-agency as a learner: Using the SC as referral point. This is how children know how they will achieve their learning intention, 
• Using a familier context when teaching then a new strategy: students having background knowledge on, accessing prior knowledge-Using realistic contexts in learning that children can relate to such as their cultural backgrounds. 
• Choosing text that build on from each other: Bikes, bike race etc.
• Learning focussed conversations : talking about their learning, and making learning visible. 
• Growth mindset, learning pit
• Explain everything: recording, making a video etc, screen cast to help with fluency.  
• working things out together: choices working together or individually.

What really caught me during this session is when the presenters talked about "Growth mindset and the learning pit". These are two aspects that I refer to in my classroom setting. 

The children in my class know that for them to get to the top of the mountain they must first encounter struggles and challenges in their learning. And for deep learning to happen, we will encounter mistakes and failures, but it it through this growth mindset that we grow in our learning. 

I also like when the presenters talked about being culturally responsive. This to me means being able to bring the cultural knowledge that the children have into their learning and embracing this. 

It also means using a student-centered approach to teaching in which the students' unique cultural strengths are identified and nurtured to promote student achievement and a sense of well-being about the student's cultural place in the world.

It also means creating bonds with the children-building good relationships with them in order for the children to be in that Zone or proximal development.

I liked the theory the presenters talked about which was on careful scaffolding" I do, we do, two do, you do". This is where the teacher models, then they do it together, then they do it in pairs, and then individually. This gets children talking, communicating, and sharing their ideas and knowledge and also creating new knowledge. This I would most def. try and implement with my Target group in reading, writing and maths,

Digital Tools for knowing your learner

I had the great opportunity to attend a U learn breakout on "Digital Tools for knowing your learner".
To begin with the presenters introduced themselves and go us to do a task using an online app called "Answer Garden". The question that we had was "What are 3 words that come to mind when you hear the word assessment".
We as a group collaborated out thoughts and ideas using Answer garden. I was really amazed and very excited about this new app as this was the first time that I can come across it and for all of in to be able to use our own devices and collate our ideas together on this one page was amazing and very exciting. I had the mindset of a student: I felt really engaged as well as excited not only to share my ideas but also being able to see my idea pop up on the projected screen when I wrote my answer.  I was also very engaged in finding out what other teachers would put down.  This is a tool that I will most def. implement in my classroom as I can see that the children would be very engaged and very responsive.

Some of the Questions that also come up during this breakout were:

• What is my actual purpose here?-Why am I using these tools in my classroom. What is the reason behind it.
• Am I asking the right questions? How do I structure these questions so that I get the answers that I need:  Asking of rich key questions. 

We also went through a range of other app which I also found fascinating. One was using Kahoot! This app can be used not only on iPads and netbooks but also on phones which is just wonderful!

There are many purposes of this tool. You can use it for reading, writing, maths, inquiry and many ore. 

I have the great pleasure of using this in many forms in my classroom. 

In the first week back at school to have fun with the children as well as engage the children I did quiz with them. These were quiz based on learning as well as general knowledge questions and building relationships with the children after a 2 week break. 

I found that the children were very excited and engaged. They stimulated and had an adeline rush just because they knew that the timer was on and they had only 20seconds to answer a question. 

I found that in regards to my classroom climate it had a great team nature to it. The children worked well in their teams, they were all cheering, suing positive praise for the teams that got the correct answer. It was just a great atmosphere to be in seeing that the children were engaging and having fun with their learning as thats what learning is all about. Through participation and engagement is how we learn.

We also looked at using google forms and how this can be used to gather data as well as can be used for reading and writing.  This is a great tool I find even for Inquiry.

Below is an example of two types of forms that can be used to gather information/data. Google forms

Google Form Quiz - uLearn          Quiz- Maths
These forms can also be used for spelling.


One other App that the presenters talked about that REALLY took my fancy and just can't wait to implement in my classroom was Socrative tool. This app is very popular in schools not only in New Zealand by also around the world in regards to using is for writing. You can insert a picture prompt and students can work collaboratively and write about the picture prompt. You can print off the students work also to share with the class.


Im really looking forward to implementing more of these tools during Term 4.