Day 2 - Know Your Learners as Readers

 What did I learn today? 

I focussed on the impact sharing has on success and how that sharing relates to tbe Manaiakalani pedagodgy. Having others respond to what we, as learners are doing is so motivating.  I am keen to share the experiences of students of the past that have gone on to greater success, although I wonder if this would be relevant to my learners in Hokitika were league is not as strongly featured in our local culture.

I also realise that having had new students coming into the room after week four, and absent students, means I am going to have to go back to ensure that they are inclued in the reading survey results. At the moment it looks quite a daunting prospect, but I need to start small instead of trying to run before I can walk.

Mining initial data, in a meaningful way to give a baseline, is initiallly going to be time consuming. The workbook appears to be the worthwhile place to keep all this data. I can see that regualr updating would be needed and that is why the linked examples of students work and self reflection would be great for reporting. This challenge will need to to be faced along side managing the wider classroom. 

This image caught my eye around the purpose of assessment and the data it brings:

Certainly for our Year 3's up it would be a worthwhile exercise to look at the information that can be gained from the standaridised testing.  As a cohort we could then look at the Curriculum, Learning Progresssions, and PaCT over Years 3-6  and to assess what we already have related to learning intentions.

My intention will be to do one group, focusing on an individual each day. I am sure with additonal practise I will get faster at this. I can see the benefits of using student interest to drive learning will deliver better results. However in a class with such diverse learning levels accessing text to cover the range looks like a challenge. Tha leads to the question what will be best, ability or mixed ablity groups? I ask this because my lower readers are those students targeted to actively participate in group conversations. Generally they are reluctant to offer opinions or will jsut say 'I agree with ...' , without being able to justify their position. I get the feeling it is said just because hopefull it lets the teacher move on. My very lowest readers are on one to one teaching if I have ability groups. 

I guess this is where planning with the end in mind links. Using the students own interests will help with this. Knowing that interest will help me with most of my learners. However I will still ahave a core at the lower  Level 1, finding a text they can access and looks like what their peers are reading is going to be challenging.  I also have students in multiple groups.The electronic Workbook is an item that caught my interest. Having all the data in one place would be more powerful that looking at information in isolation. I will be implimenting the sharing of, and co construction of learning intentions and success criteria with my learners. Whilst these have always been there in the background it has not been as explicit as I would now like.  

Definitely I need to visibly share the learning intentions with my readers. In the short tern this will mean going back group slide decks although to make is easier I will probably just use a template, changing only what is necessary.