And Action..

I started off the year standing in front of 22 exciting little faces, usually I would be standing in front of 7 year olds but a new year came with a new job, and new faces. I am now teaching a class of 12 year olds. It’s definitely been a change, them getting to know me, me getting to know them, and it’s taken some time. The contact periods I have this week will mostly go towards getting to know these students, and all of the start of the year activities thrown in as well (House BBQs, Sports day, etc).

My action plan relied on the fact the school was a BYOD school and that students would have access to a device whenever the need occurred. This has not become the case. The students are allocated the COWs twice a week in forty five minute slots, and with the difference in all the technologies, I cannot rely on the use of cellphones. I have come to a block. How am I supposed to have students’ using a blog as a way to communicate and reflect on their learning if they don’t have access to a device?

I started with getting the students to write a small recount of what they did during the holidays. The purpose of this was not the content of their story, it was to see if they could identify what they had done well, and if they could identify their next learning steps. It surprised me that children thought that “making my work neater” was something that would improve the standard of their writing. No students could identify how they could improve what they had already had wrote. It also greatly surprised me that students had not much idea how to edit their own work, and that surface features were a bit non existent. Although this isn’t the focus, I am hopeful this will improve as students move through the process of identifying their needs.

Trying to find a platform that would allow students to reflect but continuously add to has been a struggle – either there was no ability to comment, or share their work outside of school (parents) or edit a post to ensure reflection. I have settled on edublog which seems to allow all these features but it is a trial basis.

I have also found it hard to find a consistent set of criteria that students can measure their progress against – it is unlike the literacy learning progressions for younger children, which I have become used to. I have found an eAsstle sheet in ‘kid speak’ that I hope will allow them to see where their learning is heading.

Once we have identified these things then I will introduce self reflection. I am feeling a bit hurried doing this, and I want to make sure that it is done right, however I know there will be a lot of trial and error involved.