The Learning Journey

So here we are well into the school year and three months into life in a brand spanking new campus. I have the awesome job of running a new campus and teaching the little people in Grade Two. So much has happened and my heart is full. I couldn't be happier. 

We are five classes strong and growing a very special community of people. This year we are focused on developing a strong culture for the years ahead. One that will stand the test of time. Our community matters and we know that the partnership between home and school is vital for laying a strong foundation of future growth. Together we impact eternity.

We are pioneering and cultivating the plans and purposes of God in a barren stretch of scrubby land bordered with lush green sugar cane fields on one side and a ridge of tall scraggly trees on the other. We are flanked by the Translink railway line and regularly hear it rumbling past in the distance. This large parcel of swampy land will one day be a P- 12 school. Currently we are Prep to Year Three campus and housed in one classroom block of nine classrooms, three of which are devoted to Child Care purposes. 

We are about to kick off the next step in our learning journey with the 'Genius Hour, a time given during the school day to allow students the opportunity to engage with the curriculum and learn about topics that personally interest them. Students are naturally curious about the world around them and the Genius Hour fosters this childish wonder and love of learning. It is an opportunity to engage with content at a personal level with passion and purpose. 

The 'Genius Hour' outcomes are to develop a passion for learning through self-manifested and self-directed learning opportunities. Students in the junior primary years need support to develop and refine their research skills, primarily accessing appropriate information and then sorting it out efficiently. I have therefore divided the learning into five segments or steps to help guide learning.

The learning journey is what it is all about!

    1. Wondering - Students should begin to wonder about the topic being studied. What interests them? What would they like to find out? Students then formulate a question after thoughtful discussion. 

   2.  Finding Out – Students make sense of ideas important to them. This is where research begins and students record interesting facts. Encourage students to record their findings – in a notebook, ipad, journal (No worksheets). Refine the finding out to a particular area of interest. 

    3. Reflecting – During the reflection stage, students should be encouraged to ask the question, ‘What is it that interests me the most? At this stage students should reflect and refine learning to analyse findings, evaluate information gathered, make decisions about where the learning is taking them and engage in problem solving processes.

   4.  Designing – How would the student like to present their learning? Students create a product that demonstrates their learning.

    5. Presenting – At the presentation stage, students have the opportunity to show case their learning journey and present the final product to the class.

 An Overview

Wondering  Complete a ‘What I know now, What I want to know’ chart. What do I already know about this topic, what do I really want to know?

Finding Out Begin answering the big question and recording interesting facts for the specific area/topic being explored.

Reflecting Reflect and refine ideas gathered; –      Analyse and Evaluate… What will work? What do I do next?, How will my product look? What do I want others to know? –      Problem Solve… What are the problems?, How do I solve them? –      Make Decisions… What do I do now? What will I create?

Designing Begin creating a product that demonstrates the students learning. i.e an ebook, podcast, poster etc.

Presenting Present Learning to peers

Hope for tomorrow ~

I am often reminding my students to think carefully about their decisions as each decision has consequences - good and bad! This works particularly well with managing classroom behaviour.

In an effort to assist my students to make good choices in the classroom we have a behaviour chart that encourages students to work towards making great behaviour choices. This chart works really well as students are required to physically move their peg up or down the chart. Students have a specially marked peg with their name on it and they get to move their peg up or down the chart depending on the choices they make throughout the day or week. Demonstrating good choices and considerate behaviour allows students to move their peg up the chart while inappropriate or unthoughtful behaviour choices requires the student to move their peg down the chart.

At the beginning of the week every child begins on the read to learn card in the middle of the chart and if they have had to move it down, may move it back up to this card the next day so that each child has a fresh start every day - they learn from yesterday and try again next time. There is always hope for tomorrow. If the peg has moved upwards then students keep on moving their peg until the end of the week and do not need to go back to ready to learn each day. However if they fail to make good choices then their peg may get moved back. If students reach the top of the chart by the end of the week, an 'Outstanding Behaviour' note is sent home to parents to notify them of their child's efforts. Children may choose from various rewards for their effort. Notes are also sent home should a student find themselves at the bottom of the chart. It is not often that I need to send a note home for inappropriate behaviour and if it has happened it is very rare to have to do so again. Once is enough! Children love making great choices and encouragement to do so makes all the difference.

Hands on learning in Mathematics ~

Hands on learning during mathematics activities offers students opportunity to manipulate objects and make connections with abstract ideas. It is a very powerful tool for teaching while also instilling a love of learning, in particular a love of math related activities. This assists in establishing essential cognitive pathways and enhances development for academic sucess. Students essentially construct their own mathematical understanding in authentic and meaningful ways. Using concrete materials allows students to do this purposefully and intentionally.

As a young learner myself, I consistently found math tasks threatening and disempowering. My neural pathways were blocked from tension, anxiety and worry over the learning of math concepts and nothing could bypass this blockage in my thought processes. It was only much later in life that I realised I was in fact a good problem solver and could systematically apply learning in relevant and methodical ways, eventually discovering a new found confidence and awe of the math experience. As a teacher of young children I take personal responsibility in ensuring that these early experiences are above all fun, but also sufficiently challenging and highly rewarding. My desire is that every student discover how fun mathematics can really be ... in non threatening and highly encouraging learning environments.

Here we are measuring the area of a variety of different shapes. 

Students in their formative years of learning depend heavily on concrete materials for cognitive development. When students engage in this type of learning they are building and consolidating knowledge and retaining learning of the fundamentals in a more educationally sound manner. Working together with peers helps students articulate what they are learning as they share and consolidate concepts being taught. Talking about learning helps embed new concepts in the newly forming brain path ways, building better connections and understanding for long term academic success.

'A teacher affects eternity, he can never tell where his influence stops' - Henry Adams

Digging into learning ~

This term we have been researching dinosaurs and fossils as part of our explorations on our changing world. I found this great fossil kit (Dig it out) at the Taronga Zoo. The children had great fun taking turns to unearth the fossil buried inside. I also hid some small plastic dinosaurs in the school yard sandpit for students to discover, so much fun! They were delighted to find the dinosaurs buried all over the place as they experimented with being an archaeologist, setting students off on their own path of discovery. 

This certainly encouraged students to go further and dig deeper with their learning. Everybody was very keen to share their findings with a buddy or the whole class. Which proved helped when it was time to do our individual speeches on our favourite dinosaur. Instead of being hesitant to stand up in front of their peers, students were eager to share their knowledge with the class.

As part of this unit of study we implemented higher order thinking skills into a blooms and multiple intelligence matrix to offer opportunity to extend thinking and learning for all students. Children needed to accrue a certain number of points (for each activity) over a seven week period before completing a culminating task. The more complex tasks were allocated higher points, taking longer to complete and included a number of steps that students needed to carefully work through. This allowed for autonomy and independence to bloom and grow - great skills for Grade Ones to develop early in their learning journey.

Students loved worked with a buddy as they researched and gathered information from a variety of sources. The iPads were a great learning tool, which were made a whole lot easier for the children to use (and access information) with suitable websites being pre saved to the home screen prior to use. 

A fossil is a creature that died a long time ago. It's body turned into rock.

There is nothing better as a teacher than seeing students fully engaged and excited about learning. I found myself expectant and eager for 'Project Hour' each week as I watched students immersed in 'hands on' learning opportunities. Watching the excitement light up their faces as they called me to check out 'this and that' was so very satisfying. We ALL learnt a lot!

Educating the next generation ~

A teacher's job is to take a bunch of live wires and see that they are well-grounded.  

~ D. Martin

Education in its broadest sense is about nurturing and cultivating the next generation of young people. Formally it is the process of imparting knowledge, developing skills and dispensing values in academic disciplines ... informally it is the harnessing and shaping of limitless potential. This is what I get to do every day of the school week (The awe of this role does not escape me). Yes, in the day to day craziness of a week, it can seem chaotic (very chaotic!! ... I currently teach Grade One ... patience is indeed a virtue!). However, there are moments in the day (priceless moments) that centre me, moments that bring me back to the very reason I chose this profession - a desire to educate small minds and inspire little people to believe that anything truly is possible!

'Teachers are expected to reach unattainable goals with inadequate tools.  The miracle is that at times they accomplish this impossible task.'  ~ Haim G. Ginott

Welcome to 'Tales from the Classroom' ... with Ms Ed.ju.kayt ~ Ms Educate, in case you didn't already guess ...
 ~ an ordinary teacher who tries to keep extra ordinary live wires well grounded!!

'A good teacher is like a candle - it consumes itself to light the way for others.'  

~ Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, translated from Turkish