Reflections+-+Jo


 * E-Learning Professional Learning Reflections - Jo**

//What has changed in your teaching practice as a result of professional development this year, such as, conferences, call back days, workshops, sharing sessions, staff meetings, collegial support, 1-1 facilitator time, professional discussions, own investigations, etc.?//

**Date of Reflection: **18.11.10 **New skills and ideas I have learnt: ** I have continued to refine my skills and the students' skills in commenting on other people's blogs in a helpful way. I am continuing to use the CRC method (commend, recommend, comment) with students and today we developed a range of sentence starters for them to use to make commendations. **Examples of how this new learning has been embedded in my teaching/leadership practice: ** Ensuring that students have regular focussed times to comment in pairs (to help the less able readers/writers). Model helpful feedback myself in all comments. Setting aside time to comment myself. **The impact of my new learning on student achievement has been: ** Next Steps: I will put our blog criteria and starters on the menu view of the blog for instant reference. We can award a weekly 'best comment' award to encourage good feedback. Prepare a CRC comments template in word that students can write on and copy into the posting. **Comments: ** Thank you Maria - I will get students to post a comment as self-reflection on each of their own blogs :) ...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

I have learnt to create wiki, blogs, photostory, comiclife, voki, audacity and movie programmes with students. I have used googledocs,and solo taxonomy and other web-based tools. || I use wiki as a means to differentiate the follow up learning experiences for students in numeracy and reading. Students work co-operatively in small groups within the digital learning objects (from Digistore or otherwise) to consolidate learning introduced in guided sessions. Students then reflect on their learning of key strategies/text features/knowledge in a maths journal or in guided follow-up sessions (recorded in modeling books). I also use the class wiki to ensure students have quick access to relevant resources for inquiry, appropriate search engines, thinking tools, mind-mapping tools and plans. Students are taught how to use each of these tools or introduced to a resource as part of the group/class learning experiences. I am using a class blog to motivate students in writing and reading and to encourage a classroom climate of reflective life-long learning. By co-creating criteria for helpful blog comments and developing our own class 'Netiquette', students have begun to read and respond to blogs more constructively. They are making connections with the writer's purpose for writing as well as the content of the text. As writers, they have developed a stronger awareness of their audience and will return to edit and improve their writing more readily. I have used photostory, comiclife, voki and moviemaking software to assist students with sequencing, illustrating, recording and presenting their ideas. I have found these tools work particularly well in supporting reluctant/less able writers to express their ideas. I have particularly used voki as a means of expressing and reflecting on students' learning goals. Students have been more interested in returning to their goals and sharing their goals with others than recording them in other forms. Audacity and Pinnacle have enabled students to mix sound and video creatively to develop and refine their own compositions. I have used the SOLO taxonomy with the class to encourage understanding of what deeper learning/higher level thinking looks like in relation to a learning intention. We focussed strongly on using Solo taxonomy to develop 'fat' questions for inquiry and to understand what the 'making inferences' strategy might look like when reading. SOLO has given us a common language to describe the learning that takes place. || Increased engagement in learning and motivation to write and read. Increase in collaboration and development of a community of learners. Reluctant learners are exhibiting higher self esteem due to feedback from peers and their community - increase in students resilience as a result. ||
 * **Date of Reflection:** 11 November 2011 ||
 * **New skills and ideas I have learnt: **
 * **Examples of how this new learning has been embedded in my teaching/leadership practice: **
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The impact of my new learning on student achievement has been: **
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Next Steps: **
 * Develop CRC feedback into a SOLO rubric for making blog helpful comments with class and suggested sentence starters. Students then keep a record of their comments and self/peer assess using rubric.
 * Critically review students' writing in groups and introduce specific language features of arguments. Perhaps send links to arguments/emails to MPs, ODC or Waitomo News as Letters to Editor?
 * Teach green screen with stills using PhotoEd. in groups to present their argument using graphic image or series of images/comiclife
 * Work with students in groups to develop Hangatiki presentation storyboards into film sequences for green screen. ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Comments: ** ||
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 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">**Date of Reflection:** ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">New skills and ideas I have learnt: ** ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Examples of how this new learning has been embedded in my teaching/leadership practice: ** ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">The impact of my new learning on student achievement has been: ** ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Next Steps: ** ||
 * **<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive;">Comments: ** ||
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