Week 2, Term1

As one L.A goes on maternity leaves, another returns so with Amy away, Reid is back. (No news on Amy's baby arrival yet...) Lisa is now teaching in LC4 Monday - Wednesday and Jody is teaching in the space on Thursday's and Friday's.  

Our Thursday looks like our specialist staff running workshops so the children experience music, drama and mandarin for part of the day.

Projects

Students are engaged in authentic learning experiences learning through the design process.  It has involved them identifying some potential problems then working through a process to collaboratively come up with ideas, refine their thinking then create their solution to the problem.

Project Meeting

We plan to run some responsive workshops focussing on 'what is effective communication?' helping the children to understand the art of negotiation.  If any parents have any experience in this area, it would be wonderful to hear some real-life examples from work or tools that businesses use.  We would love to hear from you.

We are hoping to have these solutions 'actioned' and term and are thinking of creative ways in which we can share the learning journey with you.  

Through regular project meetings we are teaching the children how to project manage, essentially building up their skills in self managing and directing their own learning.  

Some of the big dispositions addressed are:

- am I managing my tools and resources,

- am I leading and/or following when appropriate,

- and am I creative/courageous in my thinking.

Students are also learning that they can request a workshop from a learning advisor to support them in their learning.  This means they need to be reflective and proactive in their thinking.

Conferencing :  Next step analyse survey, share with others and iterate new ideas

The four main problems that the children have identified are:

- unhealthy eating

- poor management of devices

- uninspiring gardens/outdoor spaces

- lack of lego and construction learning tools within the school.

At the moment we have children collaboratively writing reports on their research questions and sharing via a number of tools such as google docs or slides.  We have children conducting science investigations, documenting evidence and analysing results to make conclusions to inform their projects.  Some have learnt how to use the go pro to video evidence to share as part of presentations they are creating to persuade and inform their peers.

StudyLadder

New learning tool.

Students have accounts to access this learning website.  www.studyladder.com It has a place in the LC in supporting students develop knowledge and thinking strategies across english, maths and other learning areas.  Tasks can be assigned, and students are being encouraged to reflect on their literacy and numeracy goals then ask for tasks to be set by a L.A.

Children can also access this from home and L.As are able to see successes and blocks on learning challenges and offer extra support.  At this point in time, students are exploring the activities that have been set by the L.As to support them in meeting their independent learning goals.  After a short period to familiarise themselves with the tool we will have children reflecting on their needs and working on more specific skills.

Responsive Workshops

These are a snapshot of some of our responsive workshops that we have run to support children in their learning:

Telling the time (analogue)

Data analysis, interpretation and graphing

Using google slides to research and share our thinking

Compass directions
Using google forms

Maths

We have noticed that statistical thinking is required in most of our projects so we have pre tested the children and are identifying with them what their next learning steps are.  We also talked about, 'if it's not challenging then it probably isn't worth learning' and assessments can be helpful in showing us where our challenge point may be.  Over the next few weeks children will be attending target maths workshops to build up their statistical thinking knowledge and understanding.

Writing Process

As a learning common we have reflected that, at times, our writing lacks depth so we will be exploring 'what makes a good writer' and developing good writing habits. Reid and Lisa will be sharing some skill sessions to help us develop some writing process strategies and some children will be inquiring into what makes a skilled, creative writer.

Art

Last friday, with Jody some students created art pieces to remember the soldiers for ANZAC Day. Cohen created this piece and he enjoyed making, 'the silhouette the most because it was fun doing the outline and cutting it out was challenging too.'

Next week, we will have more children's voice in this blog and with time the students will be authoring and sharing their learning stories on here.  We hope you have a relaxing and safe weekend.

Reid and Lisa