Reflecting on changes in my future oriented teaching practice
Blog Two
Lynne Green
Nov2017 Bombay
3/4/17
Theme 1: Personalising learning
Now that I have a full time role in the Learning Support area of the school, I am confronted with students and their learning needs hour by hour. There is no one independently capable of making any learning journey decisions. I think they have been so conditioned to sitting passively in the background that they are not able to critically think for themselves. They certainly haven’t been asked for opinions or their views. I see the look of surprise and fear when I do ask them. Silencing the wide mouth frogs has been the first job. We have then had to learn to be ok with the silence as we wait for those slow processors to offer their valuable idea or answer. Our hour of power has become quite different. It is upon this reflection that I would like to say that I now try and personalise the learning in Maths. I have worked the lessons around the pathway of the learner. I present the area of learning briefly to the class and then I have tried to design a variety of learning opportunities for the students to use. I have gamification activities, board game type activities, and one to one conferencing with me, collaborative worksheets. I will assess where each student is on the pathway and group them with another student or work with them individually.
I was both daunted and excited by the changes. I was excited because I really wanted these learning support students to enjoy coming to class and for them to develop a love for a subject which they have struggled with for so long. I was daunted by the possible mayhem it could cause because the students have not made personal choices in their learning up to this point. At first I gave everyone an opportunity to experience each type of learning activity so that the week following they could choose. This worked very well and I felt like it went so well and was so enjoyable. The students would get into the flow so easily that the time just flew by.
I saw the students come into their lesson with smiling faces and they would go straight to the activity. There was no milling around waiting to be directed. I was so pleased to see more independence and self-direction from these students. I had a couple of conferences with whanau in the last week and they have expressed the positive change in their tamariki’s attitude to maths. The experience for me was a mixture of delight and exhaustion. Some students would move on quicker than others, so at times I found myself having a number of hats on and going from different students for different needs. I think that I need to use the learner profile folders a lot more efficiently and get the students to find their own gamification sites for what they want to learn and then for them to set their own targets rather than me telling them, they tell me. I have improved my teaching practice because there is no ‘up the front chalk and talk’ but this wonderful opportunity of one to one or very small group teaching and discussion. It has given the students more courage to ask questions or to say that they really don’t understand. I feel like personalising their learning has empowered my learning support students to feel success and to feel like they can achieve. It gives them the courage and confidence to actually set themselves realistic goals and now believe that they can reach them.
Blog Two
Lynne Green
Nov2017 Bombay
3/4/17
Theme 1: Personalising learning
Now that I have a full time role in the Learning Support area of the school, I am confronted with students and their learning needs hour by hour. There is no one independently capable of making any learning journey decisions. I think they have been so conditioned to sitting passively in the background that they are not able to critically think for themselves. They certainly haven’t been asked for opinions or their views. I see the look of surprise and fear when I do ask them. Silencing the wide mouth frogs has been the first job. We have then had to learn to be ok with the silence as we wait for those slow processors to offer their valuable idea or answer. Our hour of power has become quite different. It is upon this reflection that I would like to say that I now try and personalise the learning in Maths. I have worked the lessons around the pathway of the learner. I present the area of learning briefly to the class and then I have tried to design a variety of learning opportunities for the students to use. I have gamification activities, board game type activities, and one to one conferencing with me, collaborative worksheets. I will assess where each student is on the pathway and group them with another student or work with them individually.
I was both daunted and excited by the changes. I was excited because I really wanted these learning support students to enjoy coming to class and for them to develop a love for a subject which they have struggled with for so long. I was daunted by the possible mayhem it could cause because the students have not made personal choices in their learning up to this point. At first I gave everyone an opportunity to experience each type of learning activity so that the week following they could choose. This worked very well and I felt like it went so well and was so enjoyable. The students would get into the flow so easily that the time just flew by.
I saw the students come into their lesson with smiling faces and they would go straight to the activity. There was no milling around waiting to be directed. I was so pleased to see more independence and self-direction from these students. I had a couple of conferences with whanau in the last week and they have expressed the positive change in their tamariki’s attitude to maths. The experience for me was a mixture of delight and exhaustion. Some students would move on quicker than others, so at times I found myself having a number of hats on and going from different students for different needs. I think that I need to use the learner profile folders a lot more efficiently and get the students to find their own gamification sites for what they want to learn and then for them to set their own targets rather than me telling them, they tell me. I have improved my teaching practice because there is no ‘up the front chalk and talk’ but this wonderful opportunity of one to one or very small group teaching and discussion. It has given the students more courage to ask questions or to say that they really don’t understand. I feel like personalising their learning has empowered my learning support students to feel success and to feel like they can achieve. It gives them the courage and confidence to actually set themselves realistic goals and now believe that they can reach them.
This approach seems so perfect for this group of students. I can see that it will create a lot more work for you as you get it set up, but it will be worth it later and hopefully will become easier. I'd love to see what you're doing first hand.
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