I love it when a plan comes together

I love it when a plan comes together....................my previous post about "desperate times calls for desperate  measures" was a plan that did not come together. This is the evidence of my reluctant learner after 3 and a half hours of maths. To be honest, it was an intermittent 3 and a half hours with toilet breaks, water breaks, blowing nose breaks etc.

I had to come with a plan B and fast. My plan B is to always make plan A work, so my learner was given a laptop today and he chose to start a new standard. We went over 

expectations for the standard, 

criteria for achievement 

subject-specific terminology needed for the standard

a few "Cheats" and

did a few examples together to build his confidence in the subject.

Hopefully, my learner will spread his maths wings and fly.

Desperate times call for desperate measures

I did not think that I would have to acquaint myself with the photocopying machine or laminator (pictured below in case you too have forgotten).......
     

......and I cannot say the "good old days" because teachers and learners and in fact, society has moved on. So what has caused me to resort to these desperate measures? 

Recently I formalised my goal setting where I aim to increase participation by using the Key Competency "Managing self" and it is going fairly well with most of my learners engaging, participating and progressing fairly well. Going fairly well does not sit well with me and goes against one of our school values of being EXCELLENT. A few ......and by that I mean one or two, ok maybe up to three learners have minimal "managing self" skills and are ill-disciplined when learning online and using digital technology responsibly, another school value. 

In a desperate bid to get them engaging and actively participating with their learning, I have resorted to laminating resources specially for them which I hope only lasts a day. I am saddened that I had to resort to that option but desperate times call for desperate measures. 

L1 Algebra Rewindable learning

As promised in my previous post, I could not wait to get started on a rewindable learning resource to help familiarise students with expectations and academic success for particular achievement standards. This is my attempt at L1 Algebra worth 3 Numeracy credits and I eagerly await my new arrivals to see if this has the desired effect.

Teacher Reflection and Action - Term 2

These are my reflections after being at my school for a term.

STUDENT ENGAGEMENT - the majority of my learners in all classes sat their formative and  summative assessments before the due date as they felt confident enough about expectations for each standard and had provided sufficient evidence of their learning journey.

ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT -  my learners academic achievement was above national achievement data for each standard taught during the term

WHANAU ENGAGEMENT - participation in learning conversations at our Home School Partnership (HSP) evening increased from 52% the previous year in term 1 to 71% in 2019 in term 1.

I ended the term on a high and was eager to continue the trend in term 2.

With the transition of students to completely different courses and teachers in term 2, I am finding that it is taking longer for my learners to settle into new routines which seemed to work so well the previous term. I realised that rolling enrolments started much later in term 1 compared to term 2, so my learners who had previously had more time to adjust to classroom routines and expectations as a group, now had to contend with new enrolments much earlier in the term. The rest of the class were not ready to self-manage (one of the 5 key competencies) to an acceptable standard when I devoted time to those who had enrolled  late so early in the new term.

I had 2 options:

Option 1 - suggest that the school delay late enrolments till after week 4 to give me and my students time to set up sound working relationships. This is not even worth voicing to our Senior Leadership Team as it goes against our kaupapa; I had to come up with a more viable option which brings me to.....

Option 2 - invest time into creating REWINDABLE learning resources for students where they can hear me explaining or outlining expectations, success criteria and strategies needed for the various standards which will save me spreading myself too thinly and make settling in more manageable for learners and me.

I promise to post a rewindable resource soon and look forward to getting your feedback to help me improve.