Really enjoyed today's session. I enjoyed the intensive descriptions of how things are done (eg how to teach a rich task) and appreciate the sharing of ideas regarding where to find rich tasks/investigation problems. My goal now will be to translate/adjust them for my own class.
In particular I like the look of IXL and Mathigon for basic facts practise, and Polypad for the digital manipulatives. There are a few students in my class who struggle with basic facts retention, so it would be great to have something else to try.
In terms of my own practise, the Taking Stock document was a good way for me to think about and reflect how I do things. While I do offer independent activities, these are often on a rotation (eg Number Boggle this week, Number of the Day the week after). There isn't necessarily a targeted approach happening here (unless I adjust the Number of the Day activity to include something that they need to work on). So I need to rethink this and try to offer more relevant activities. The students also have a choice board that they can choose games from - I have given each group different games, and they are targeted at what the group needs - but again I need to rethink how effective these games are, and how I can monitor their learning. Some games do not offer monitoring/ a report afterwards, so I need to decide if they are worthwhile.
I tend to rely on nzmaths for planning, whether it's number or strand (and this is a whole school approach). We are fortunate at our kura that there are many unit plans/resources available in te reo Māori that we can use.
Groupings are another area where I would probably make some changes. I know that certain children don't work well together (and this can create disruption for the whole class) so I will need to do this carefully, but I also think some students would be a positive influence on other students who are still struggling with some concepts. I take on board what was said though - do this for maybe one day a week first (eg rich task Thursdays), and get an idea of which groupings work best.
Mānawatia a Matariki :)
Kia ora Lynda,
ReplyDeleteThanks again for sharing your thinking around Day 3 - planning your programme. I'm so pleased to hear that the resources shared have hit the mark, particularly around the rich tasks. If you do manage to get these translated, I'd love to be able to share them more widely (if that's ok).
I'm glad that the apps shared will also be useful for you, and might hit what your learners need in terms of building up their basic facts and knowledge gaps. I'll be interested to hear how you go with your groupings, I know getting the personalities right can be a challenge at times and I admire your efforts to get this right for your learners.
Hope you have a lovely holiday,
Georgie