A little while ago, the class reflected on whether there was more to being a successful learner than concentrating hard and working hard. They decided that there most definitely was! From this came the idea of ‘learning buddies.’ Students would tell me what learning skills they were good at and which they needed to work on (such as … Continue reading »
Interestingly, when I’ve spoken to the students in Year 6 lately, they’ve told me that they have lots of control in the classroom. I can’t say I agree, though they may well have plenty of control compared to previous years at school. So, to give both myself and the kids in my class a better idea of who had … Continue reading »
It is interesting to ask students what successful learners do – you always get students who say the secret to success is to concentrate hard or work hard. I agree this is important, but is there more to a really great learner than that? I wanted to pose this question to the students in my class to … Continue reading »
I recently visited all 3 Year 6 classes and spoke informally to randomly chosen students. I had decided to do this to get an idea of where the students were at with their learning and what our next steps as teachers were. This is what we came up with after reflecting as a team on the students’ responses: … Continue reading »
I was lucky enough to attend ICOT in January and got some great ideas and food for thought. One such idea that grew as the conference went on was to create a wall of skills and tools I thought the students needed to be great learners. The idea was to add skills/tools as the year proceeded and … Continue reading »
I’ve been so very slack with my blogging so now that I’m back into it, I have an awful lot to share from the past few weeks. So I thought I’d write a series of posts about all the exciting things that have happened this year. Today: A Survey of Year 6. At the very … Continue reading »
“There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.” (Susan Cain) I’ve been wanting to read Susan Cain’s book Quiet for a little while so, when I saw her video on TED talks laziness prevailed and I decided to watch it. The talk really resonated with me as I would consider myself more … Continue reading »
I’ve been asked by a few people lately how I go about conferencing with students. Despite the fact that the word comes up with a wiggly red line when typed into Word, it’s a vital part of my classroom program. It’s much of the difference between well behaved, engaged, self-directed time wasting and ensuring productive … Continue reading »
I was lucky enough to be taken along to the International Conference on Thinking (ICOT) held in Wellington over the summer holidays. I say lucky as there were so many inspiring minds there, both in the education field and beyond, from New Zealand and overseas, from higher education as well as practitioners. I was humbled to hear … Continue reading »
Well, it’s been a lovely summer holiday so far here in New Zealand but the sun isn’t shining all that much today, so it’s a good day to get back into the swing of things. As I’m sure all teachers do, I have been relishing the long break we are lucky enough to get whilst … Continue reading »
