Tech Tips Tuesday

Pair Programming

I have been further dabbling with code and programming in my classroom using Scratch. My students got on board and are enjoying trying it out and creating new things. They've taken to it quickly and have found ways to add complexity to their designs.

This week I wanted to have my students working with a partner on their programming. This was in part for the benefits of learning together, and in part due to the limited number of computers. I found this amazing video about Pair Programming at Code.org, that explains the process so well, and in terms the students can understand. We watched it through before I gave my students their task.


Their task in this lesson was to create an animated greeting card for Christmas. I admit, my idea for this was not entirely unique, but rather inspired by the Ted Talk by Mitch Resnick: Let's teach kids to code. Mitch Resnick went looking for a Mother's Day card for his mum on Scratch and found a whole collection students had created. I thought I would carry that across to Christmas.

Students enjoyed working in this way to solve problems and create something new. They changed "drivers" often, allowing each to have an opportunity to work the mouse for some parts of the process. It was great to see the collaboration, and watch the knowledge spread across the class between pairs. Someone would call out in frustration "Ugh! I can't get my penguin to talk!" and within moments someone from another pair was helping them out. They learn together.

A Fresh Start #2

Our first day was a lot of fun and productive. My teaching partner and I designed the day around creating a sense of belonging in our unit and generating enthusiasm for the year ahead.
Our school has a big emphasis on team teaching. It is expected that the students in each level will share the teachers for that grade. Teachers should develop a relationship with all the students in their grade. Each teacher has a "home class" for the purpose of administration but teachers share the teaching - sometimes teaching the whole group, sometimes teaching differentiated groups based on student needs.
We spent the first half of the day as a big group and didn't tell students their classes until after recess. In this big group we had a couple of mixers so students could catch up on what they did during the summer holidays and get to know each other a little better. We went through a few administrative details: allergies, sick notes, late notes, toilets, drink bottles, lining up, emergency procedures etc.
Then we shared our vision for the students for the year. We told them about the Quality Teaching Model and the focus teachers will have on it this year. We then shared 6 Quality Learning Goals that we would like to see the students working on. We chose:

• Take charge (of your learning and behaviour)
• Get connected
• Be creative
• Stay active
• Exercise your mind
• Share your knowledge

We then asked students to work in small groups to brainstorm their ideal classroom, teacher and classmate. We ran out of time to take this further, but will revisit it again tomorrow to discuss plans for the year and a classroom agreement ('rules').
After recess we broke into our two home classes. Students had brought in all their stationery, so we spent some time labelling and sorting books. Then students made name labels for their tote-trays. This gave them some time to get organised and gain a sense of their "home class". While students worked I popped around and got a photo of every student to use for portfolios, art activities etc.
Before lunch the two classes met up again to consider options for a class name. Students voted and we are now known as "The Funky Fours".
In the afternoon students created a self-portrait in the style of Andy Warhol's Four Marilyns. We modelled our lesson on the work of students at Edleston Primary School in Crewe. It was a fun end to a great day.

Professional Learning Teams

Last night my hubby and I watched an ad on TV introducing the new contestants in the Australian Biggest Loser - couples. We were pondering what sort of team would be more successful - married couple, mother/daughter, co-workers, teammates, sisters? While we probably won't watch the whole season, we will be interested to see what made the winning combo.

Discussion around teams has also featured at my work this week as we are preparing for a new school year. My school has a collaborative focus and every teacher works in a number of professional learning teams (PLTs) throughout the year.

Types of Teams

We have grade level teams where teachers plan, teach, assess and moderate together. These teams are meeting continually throughout the week, both formally and informally.

We have P-2 and 3-6 teams for administration, professional learning and growth. These teams meet every 1-2 weeks and consist of about 12 people.

We have committees that work on school focus areas for the year - this year these areas are Enrichment, Curriculum, Sustainability and The Arts. These teams work together on a range of projects including policy development, school curriculum, whole school events, writing applications for grants etc. Every staff member is expected to select one of these committees to contribute to. There are also committees that don't fit into the focus area for the year, and these people meet together to consider the school's needs in ICT, PE/Health, etc. Involvement in these committees is voluntary.

This year we are trialling a Budget committee. Each year level sends one member to talk through the spending interests of the teams for English, Maths and Integrated Inquiry.

And then, throughout the year, there are teams that get together to prepare for special school events.

Getting Started

As a whole school staff, we spent about an hour this week working out an agreement for how these groups will function this year. We used our School Values acronym to guide us.

F-friendliness

R-respect

I- inclusivity

E-everyone cooperates

N-never give up attitude

D-diversity

S-support

We then moved into our P-2 and 3-6 PLTs to discuss and vote on areas we would like to develop further in the next 6 months. This will form the basis of our school-based Professional Development during this time.

Later in the day we moved into our grade level teams to begin planning and programming using the school's Integrated Inquiry curriculum and the ideas from the Quality Teaching Model.

Benefits of Teaming

As you can see, we have a lot of teams and committees, which for an outsider can seem overwhelming. When joining our school, the principal makes it very clear that you need to be a team person. So what good comes from all of this teaming?

• Teachers sharing ideas and learning from one another
• Interest and involvement in projects
• Everyone has a voice and can play a part
• Many leadership opportunities
• Talents of teachers are explored and used
• Good ideas become great ideas through collaboration
• Friendly and supportive environment
• Improved opportunities and outcomes for students
• Shared workload so everyone is able to achieve more

Final Thoughts

Teaming doesn't happen overnight. It takes commitment from everyone on staff. It takes a vision and goals toward this end. The physical layout of a school and it's classrooms plays a part in the success of teaming as well. Our open-plan classroom arrangement lends itself to team teaching where closed, single classrooms do not.

The Challenges of Teaching

Given the title of this blog, I often have visitors who come looking for a list or explanation of the challenges of teaching. While I do talk about the challenges that I face as a teacher, I'd like to present something a little more accessible for people who arrive here via those searches!

The Challenge of Behaviour Management - This is possibly one of the most significant challenges I faced as a beginning teacher. I still find it a constant challenge as I get to know the intricacies of each child and work towards bringing out their best. Here are some posts on behaviour management.

The Challenge of Planning and Programming - This is one of my favourite parts of teaching. I love creating new learning experiences and nutting out a plan. I like having some things planned out to the letter and having other things that are fluid and generally flexible. There are many factors to consider when programming a unit of work and it helps to start out with some sort of template to guide your planning. You can see examples of some of my programs here.

The Challenge of Assessment - This challenge relates to the planning and programming phase, but takes it a step further. Teachers are constantly storing away information about the children they teach in order to improve learning opportunities for their classes. When it comes time for report writing assessment helps teachers to give a more accurate overview of student performance and helps to determine grades with a greater level of objectiveness. The challenge is in selecting assessment tools which allow students to best present what they know and teachers to best access this data. Click here for a more detailed post about assessment.

The Challenge of Communication with Parents -Children learn so much more effectively when there is effective communication between school and home. In past years I have used Newsletters, My Classes, blogging and email to update parents about what is happening in the classroom. It also helps to involve the school community in special activities and invite parents to assist with reading or other roles in the class. The beginning of a school year is a particularly good time to start building this relationship. For more details on communicating with parents check out Link4Learning.

The Challenge of Differentiation - Classes are made up of students with differing interests, abilities, skills and knowledge. For this reason, one-size-DOES-NOT-fit-all. Teachers face the challenge of meeting the variety of needs they are confronted with. I try to do this through the lessons I prepare and consider this in planning and programming. For examples, look at some of the things we have been doing in class in our Friday Fun posts.

The Challenge of Technology - This varies from teacher to teacher, school to school. In some schools the challenge is learning how to use the technologies available. In others it may be learning how to teach using minimal technologies. Whatever the situation, teachers ask themselves "What are the tools I can be using to most effectively teach my students what they need to know?" Every Tuesday I share Tech Tips that you can try out in your classroom.

The Challenge of Teaming - The job of teaching can be made easier through cooperation and collaboration amongst teachers. So much can be learnt from considering the perspectives of others and building on ideas together. Effective teaming leads to better results for both students and teachers. The challenges are in establishing an effective team and working towards its continued success through regular productive interaction. Read more here.

Please leave your comments about the challenges you face as a teacher.

Classroom Chats #1 Reflections of Beginning Teachers

Classroom Chats is a new feature of the Teaching Challenges Blog. Here teachers chat about the challenges they face in the classroom and the successes they experience. In this episode I chat with Bec and Kym, two beginning teachers, as they reflect on their teaching in the past year.

Bec has previous experience with relief teaching, teaching in a school library, and in 2007 shared a year 2 class with another teacher. This year she had her own class with all the related challenges.

Kym is Early Childhood trained and did her Internship at our school in 2007. In term one of this year she directed a pre-school room in a childcare setting. She joined Bec and I in Year 1 at the beginning of second term. She had the challenge of joining a school partway through the year and taking on a difficult class in her first year of teaching.

Thanks to Matt for the guitar intro to classroom chats. You're a legend Matt!

Click here to listen to our classroom chat.

If you are having trouble with the links, you can see the original to download the audio file.

Same but Different

One of the great things about working in a Teaching Team is that you share your ideas but still maintain your unique perspective and approach. We recently realised this in terms of how we approached one of the art activities with our classes.
We all wanted to make an artistic representation of boab trees. Bec suggested we blow ink with a straw to make the branches of the tree, and we were all keen...at that point. When the day came for my class to do the art activity, I was ready to tear my hair out. I felt I'd been tug-of-warring with my class all day and didn't think it wise to hand out ink and straws to my students! Instead, we used crayon for the background and simply painted the trees with black paint. Kim loved the illustration of the boab trees from the book "Are We There Yet?" particularly the detail in the rocky ground. She wanted to explore this concept with her class. The following pieces of art are the demonstration paintings that we used with our classes. As you can see, what started as one idea, became three different products as we brought our own perspectives to the task.

Bec's Boab

My Boab

Kym's Boab

Working as a Team

Last week went by so quickly that I hardly had time to blink. It was a funny week - with the Alpha Show on Monday, and then Melbourne Cup Day on Tuesday. I struggled to get onto the computer at all, with most of my work focused around assessing, marking work, and then moderating with the other year 1 teachers. I'm really pleased with the end result. We have a fair and consistent approach that is backed by evidence.

We year 1 teachers, spent most of Tuesday together doing the moderating. It was a fun day, and we got to know each other a lot better while we waded through all the work. We were a lot more productive than any of us would have been alone. That's the great thing about this year 1 team - we work so efficiently together.

I'm not really sure what the recipe for success is when working in teams, but this team has it. We all started at the school this year, so knew very little about 'how things are done' at the school. In a lot of ways I think this helped us to bond together. We shared frustrations when we found out we had been doing things 'wrong' or had completely 'forgotten' to do something.

We've worked our way through the year together, improving things as we go and making things that little bit more efficient each time. We've already started planning how we can do things differently next year. It's rewarding to see how we have progressed.

Right now we are excited about the new unit of work we have just started. We keep coming up with extra ideas to make the learning even more fun. But that's the next post...