http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/8b82afd6-0fa0-49bb-b6a3-9ac12b3c9ed1/100daysoflearning-what-actually-is-the-world-wide-web/
#100daysoflearning is starting to take off in Room 4 and the children are getting really enthusiastic about having the freedom to post things that interest them and spark learning in others. Edward is really getting into +TED-Ed talks to inspire his peers. Above is one of his many posts using TedEd Talks to engage his audience and learn something that interests him.
Pretty good for a Year 4 student!!
Saturday 31 May 2014
Wednesday 14 May 2014
Room 4's Creative Pledges...
http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/3ab768ab-a14a-4a90-ac94-ea58cd528481/letting-our-creative-juice-flow/
Room 4 did our lesson on CREATIVITY and the responses and ideas that the children came up with were awesome!
Each child then came up with 'I Statements' as pledges to increase their creativity in various areas throughout Term Two... I thought some of their responses were worth sharing and I will keep adding more as they are communicated on our class blog - http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/
I will be more creative in maths by finding more things that are magical in math that I have not found yet like my discovery about triangular numbers. (EMMANUEL)
I want to be more creative with my time and how long I spend on doing a project or doing homework. I really need to time myself for every task so that I can complete all my day’s work on time. I will try not to waste my time, so that my work doesn’t pile up and I don’t freak out at the last minute and still I have time to play and have fun. (AYAAN)
I will be creative by using my imagination more during writing time. I can do this by trying new words and thinking of good vocabulary during grammar time. I will also be creative by coming up with cool games for my drama club. (MOLLY)
I will be creative in Writing by using harder punctuation and using interesting and challenging synonyms that aren't easy for Year 4 National Standard. I will also be creative by using heaps of interesting words in the Dogo News Article statements and my homework tasks. (EDWARD)
Tuesday 13 May 2014
Is too much freedom hindering the creative process?
Today something happened in my class which made me wonder what children think about the idea of being creative and free to explore.
I have recently read the following article on one of my new favourite websites for personal professional development (MINDSHIFT - http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/) and it is food for thought - something that has made me thing about my thoughts on creativity.
http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/on-the-edge-of-chaos-where-creativity-flourishes/
I know as a child I would have put creativity as one of the most important values for any teacher to have because in my mind that is how learning becomes interesting, new and inventive. Creativity still is a driving force for anything I do...it motivates me!
I have a super creative class but sometime I wonder whether they are too scared to unleash their creative juices and let imagination flow because they are in the mindset that there is a right and a wrong way or answer. Despite always encouraging children to have a go and talking a lot about how making mistakes means we are learning, the message possibly is not getting through to them as there is still resistance.
In class today we were doing mind-mapping to classify and categorise our ideas and prior knowledge and understanding about transport; land, sea and air. The children have all completed mind maps before so understand how to create one and what should be on it. Most have the understanding that you are allowed to put anything on it and it is like a 'brain dump of ideas'.
We started the lesson with a large discussion and shared idea of what could be included on a brain dump! I modelled what a possible map could look like and we came up with various ways to organise our ideas into categories. When asked to complete the task many children seemed to hold back and not put deeper ideas on their maps. I of course questioned and prompted ideas and children were given the chance and encouraged to look at other mind-maps to spark interest and share ideas.
The final result was mind-mapping which was very basic and that needs further teaching and questioning to broaden the ideas the children included on the mind map. I am now asking myself if perhaps the children's creativity is stifled by too much freedom. In a very open ended task, could it be that year 4/5 years old are given so much freedom of choice that they are stumped on where to start and what to include? Can our preconceived ideas on what children know and how they process their thoughts be misinterpreted by giving them too many options to convey their thoughts and ideas? and how do we embrace and encourage creativity and imaginative thinking without overwhelming children or being so specific with the task that it negates the purpose of the lesson?
Tomorrow I am going to get children to work in groups to brainstorm and share ideas on what creativity means to them.
- What does it look like, feel like and sound like?
- Who are some examples of creative people?
- What types of creative can people be?
- Is being creative something they value highly in terms of their learning?
- What would a creative teacher look like and it it an important value for a teacher to have?
I have recently read the following article on one of my new favourite websites for personal professional development (MINDSHIFT - http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/) and it is food for thought - something that has made me thing about my thoughts on creativity.
http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/on-the-edge-of-chaos-where-creativity-flourishes/
I know as a child I would have put creativity as one of the most important values for any teacher to have because in my mind that is how learning becomes interesting, new and inventive. Creativity still is a driving force for anything I do...it motivates me!
I have a super creative class but sometime I wonder whether they are too scared to unleash their creative juices and let imagination flow because they are in the mindset that there is a right and a wrong way or answer. Despite always encouraging children to have a go and talking a lot about how making mistakes means we are learning, the message possibly is not getting through to them as there is still resistance.
In class today we were doing mind-mapping to classify and categorise our ideas and prior knowledge and understanding about transport; land, sea and air. The children have all completed mind maps before so understand how to create one and what should be on it. Most have the understanding that you are allowed to put anything on it and it is like a 'brain dump of ideas'.
We started the lesson with a large discussion and shared idea of what could be included on a brain dump! I modelled what a possible map could look like and we came up with various ways to organise our ideas into categories. When asked to complete the task many children seemed to hold back and not put deeper ideas on their maps. I of course questioned and prompted ideas and children were given the chance and encouraged to look at other mind-maps to spark interest and share ideas.
The final result was mind-mapping which was very basic and that needs further teaching and questioning to broaden the ideas the children included on the mind map. I am now asking myself if perhaps the children's creativity is stifled by too much freedom. In a very open ended task, could it be that year 4/5 years old are given so much freedom of choice that they are stumped on where to start and what to include? Can our preconceived ideas on what children know and how they process their thoughts be misinterpreted by giving them too many options to convey their thoughts and ideas? and how do we embrace and encourage creativity and imaginative thinking without overwhelming children or being so specific with the task that it negates the purpose of the lesson?
Tomorrow I am going to get children to work in groups to brainstorm and share ideas on what creativity means to them.
- What does it look like, feel like and sound like?
- Who are some examples of creative people?
- What types of creative can people be?
- Is being creative something they value highly in terms of their learning?
- What would a creative teacher look like and it it an important value for a teacher to have?
Monday 12 May 2014
Challenge set... #100daysoflearning has begun!
The kids are excited and we are already getting #100daysoflearning posts on our class blog!
I would love feedback or to know if other teachers are interested in doing something similar... plus my students would love for you to join in on their inspired discussions on their blogs! I have told them that the best ones will feature on my personal blog which is pretty big incentive!
http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/3ab768ab-a14a-4a90-ac94-ea58cd528481/room-4s-100daysoflearning-challenge/ - read about the challenge that I set for my Year 4 and 5 class.
I would love feedback or to know if other teachers are interested in doing something similar... plus my students would love for you to join in on their inspired discussions on their blogs! I have told them that the best ones will feature on my personal blog which is pretty big incentive!
http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/3ab768ab-a14a-4a90-ac94-ea58cd528481/room-4s-100daysoflearning-challenge/ - read about the challenge that I set for my Year 4 and 5 class.
Saturday 10 May 2014
#100daysoflearning
This coming week I am going to introduce a new concept to my class to promote use of the blog and them leading their learning based on personal interests, passions, hobbies and curiosities.
On Facebook lately I have seen friends photograph pictures of things that make them smile or brighten their day. They then use the hashtag #100daysofhappy to group their posts. http://100happydays.com/ The premise behind this is to cherish the smaller things in life that often pass us by. To look for and recognise the things that put a smile on your face, make you laugh, brighten your day or make you thankful for what you have.
I love the concept behind it and therefore am going to steal the idea and introduce #100daysoflearning to my class. They will then use the tag feature on our blog to group together things that make them think, get them wondering, interest them, spark curiosity and make them engage in things that are happening in the world around them.
As they find a video, photograph, quote, picture, news article etc they can post this on the blog and include key questions for others to think about. I really want to encourage my students to spark wonder in each other and learn to question 'why?' and 'how?' a little more than they normally do.
To make myself practice what I preach, I have decided to do a similar thing on this blog. I am hereby declaring that I will post at least 2 short reflective posts each week. I am a very reflective person naturally, however like most some of the things I think 'wow, I must do that' or ' that is an amazing idea' sometimes can get pushed to the back of my mind in the chaos that is everyday life. Those ideas will now be posted on here! Video links, websites, links to other amazing blog posts that have inspired me, summaries of discussions or staff meetings...be prepared...you will hear about it!
Hopefully this will go down a treat on Monday - keep you posted!
Flippin' Out Over TedEd
Ted Talks have always been something that I have been really interested in watching and using as a form of professional development. It seems ridiculous not to tap into such an amazing resource which brings professionals, experts and free professional development to your living room.
And then it happened... they made Ted Talks even better by establishing Ted Ed http://ed.ted.com/
Ted Ed is a free educational website for teachers and learners which is used to engage and motivate students in a broad range of curriculum areas. This global initiative incorporates quality video lessons with series of comprehension and learning discussions to fully engage students via ICT.
The videos are created by top educators and animators to deliver content to students in an interesting manner which also targets their thinking at a child friendly level. My class personally love Ted Ed talks and are becoming more in tune with the notion of flipped learning. This is something I am introducing more this term in large using Ted Ed talks as a basis for discussion and collaboration.
Flipping Lessons - this was a new term to me and I believe it has the power to change education and empower students by strengthening home and school links.
Dr Stuart Middleton explains flipped classrooms really well here on the Cognition website http://cognitioneducation.com/blog/another-flipping-change-flipped-classroom
On Ted Ed you can take a lesson that another educator has created and flip it to suit your class. This simply means copying the format of the lesson but tailoring it to suit your learners needs; altering questions, adding further reference sites, including follow up tasks or discussion topics for different groups within your classroom. This is such a powerful means of differentiation and targeted learning and teachers would be crazy not to utilise the amazing resources and lessons that are already being made by talented and cutting edge educators from around the world!
Flipping lessons can also be taken to the new level which is something I am hoping to do on a more regular basis within my classroom. Why do we so often use the class time for watching, observing and doing the ground work of knowledge learning and front loading? Because this is what we have always done it is natural that this is how lessons are generally formatted in a classroom situation. However, contact time with the teacher and fellow peers is so limited that if we could take the front loading and initial learning stages and get children doing this at home as part of their homework or non-contact learning time, then we could facilitate higher order learning and discussions during class sessions.
http://ed.ted.com/lessons/let-s-use-video-to-reinvent-education-salman-khan is worth a watch. This is able using ICT websites and tools (in this particular case, Khan Academy) to flip tradition learning on its side and change how children think and learn at home and in class.
Collaboration it the key and I really think that the notion of a FLIPPED classroom is the key to collaboration!
And then it happened... they made Ted Talks even better by establishing Ted Ed http://ed.ted.com/
Ted Ed is a free educational website for teachers and learners which is used to engage and motivate students in a broad range of curriculum areas. This global initiative incorporates quality video lessons with series of comprehension and learning discussions to fully engage students via ICT.
The videos are created by top educators and animators to deliver content to students in an interesting manner which also targets their thinking at a child friendly level. My class personally love Ted Ed talks and are becoming more in tune with the notion of flipped learning. This is something I am introducing more this term in large using Ted Ed talks as a basis for discussion and collaboration.
Flipping Lessons - this was a new term to me and I believe it has the power to change education and empower students by strengthening home and school links.
Dr Stuart Middleton explains flipped classrooms really well here on the Cognition website http://cognitioneducation.com/blog/another-flipping-change-flipped-classroom
On Ted Ed you can take a lesson that another educator has created and flip it to suit your class. This simply means copying the format of the lesson but tailoring it to suit your learners needs; altering questions, adding further reference sites, including follow up tasks or discussion topics for different groups within your classroom. This is such a powerful means of differentiation and targeted learning and teachers would be crazy not to utilise the amazing resources and lessons that are already being made by talented and cutting edge educators from around the world!
Flipping lessons can also be taken to the new level which is something I am hoping to do on a more regular basis within my classroom. Why do we so often use the class time for watching, observing and doing the ground work of knowledge learning and front loading? Because this is what we have always done it is natural that this is how lessons are generally formatted in a classroom situation. However, contact time with the teacher and fellow peers is so limited that if we could take the front loading and initial learning stages and get children doing this at home as part of their homework or non-contact learning time, then we could facilitate higher order learning and discussions during class sessions.
http://ed.ted.com/lessons/let-s-use-video-to-reinvent-education-salman-khan is worth a watch. This is able using ICT websites and tools (in this particular case, Khan Academy) to flip tradition learning on its side and change how children think and learn at home and in class.
Collaboration it the key and I really think that the notion of a FLIPPED classroom is the key to collaboration!
Planning for Collaborative Teaching Approach...
So blogging in Room 4 has been ticking along nicely and children are so motivated by what we are doing in class with ICT.
The students in most curriculum areas are highly engaged and the blog is used as a carrot which motivates then even further. The boys in particular are highly engaged in writing because they know that their end product and even the process will be able to be shared digitally with a real audience.
We have done lots of talking in Room 4 about making connections between our learning and real life contexts... so much of what I remember learning as a child seemed to have little purpose because back in the 80's (yikes), learning happened in the classroom and was more traditional and predetermined than it is today.
Lately I have been doing a lot of thinking about what is important to me about education and looking at ways to redefine what my syndicate is teaching to better fit the modern learning approaches that we are trialling this year. Looking at the very impressive timetable for term two... we are only teaching literacy in our own classes but have managed to incorporate a collaborative and student led model in conceptual studies, maths, languages, music, thinking skills, the arts, PE and aspects of ICT. This is really empowering for students.
LITERACY https://docs.google.com/document/d/18YZ5nwVW5bw3GkIxI2ovoePlop5tXmeOIc8JrNtOpn0/edit?usp=sharing
CONCEPT
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hDUdb97irlCtOB4I5mDyID3bvEjw4mm19cQ3KiHbu3g/edit?usp=sharing
READING
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AYe4Z1xrB_WENGDh357YOEKLQdDpBsdQrDd5UzBb9GA/edit?usp=sharing
The planning for our topic and writing models are attached below. I have tried hard to make these planning models user friendly and the contents of them should actually be useful to teachers as a way of tracking and formatively assessing student learning. They are working documents and the process we are going through is a new learning curve, however the team seem really happy with the planning this term...will reflect further down the line to see what worked and what didn't.
http://dmlcentral.net/blog/howard-rheingold/co-inventing-curriculum #mindshift
The students in most curriculum areas are highly engaged and the blog is used as a carrot which motivates then even further. The boys in particular are highly engaged in writing because they know that their end product and even the process will be able to be shared digitally with a real audience.
We have done lots of talking in Room 4 about making connections between our learning and real life contexts... so much of what I remember learning as a child seemed to have little purpose because back in the 80's (yikes), learning happened in the classroom and was more traditional and predetermined than it is today.
Lately I have been doing a lot of thinking about what is important to me about education and looking at ways to redefine what my syndicate is teaching to better fit the modern learning approaches that we are trialling this year. Looking at the very impressive timetable for term two... we are only teaching literacy in our own classes but have managed to incorporate a collaborative and student led model in conceptual studies, maths, languages, music, thinking skills, the arts, PE and aspects of ICT. This is really empowering for students.
LITERACY https://docs.google.com/document/d/18YZ5nwVW5bw3GkIxI2ovoePlop5tXmeOIc8JrNtOpn0/edit?usp=sharing
CONCEPT
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1hDUdb97irlCtOB4I5mDyID3bvEjw4mm19cQ3KiHbu3g/edit?usp=sharing
READING
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1AYe4Z1xrB_WENGDh357YOEKLQdDpBsdQrDd5UzBb9GA/edit?usp=sharing
The planning for our topic and writing models are attached below. I have tried hard to make these planning models user friendly and the contents of them should actually be useful to teachers as a way of tracking and formatively assessing student learning. They are working documents and the process we are going through is a new learning curve, however the team seem really happy with the planning this term...will reflect further down the line to see what worked and what didn't.
http://dmlcentral.net/blog/howard-rheingold/co-inventing-curriculum #mindshift
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