Term 3 - Teaching Inquiry - What's happening?

Term 3 - Week 1-3

Self Managing independent learning has been the focus across the class this term. This is something that has not been as much as an option for the target students. In previous times, the students have struggled with what to do, and managing themselves to actually do their learning, there was very little motivation to do the right thing at the right time in the right place.

The term started well with the students enjoying having the opportunity to make choices in their learning in terms of who they sit with, what they are working on. I have called this a trial and the students understand that this is an opportunity for them to have more choice.

I have adjusted my planning to allow more choices in the students writing and reading. Writing has 3 writing choices with a similar theme. The goal for the target students is to write 4-5 quality sentences independently using a planning template as a scaffold. In Week 3 this includes a video, google slide deck with pictures and a paper planning template.

I tried using the students blog for writing, they were happy to do a blog post and were even happier when they realised it was their writing. This was an aha moment as up to that point they have thought of reading and writing as separate subjects. I had thought they knew they were linked but clearly I need to make this link for them. 

They were happy to use their blogs to respond to their reading and were also happy to show that they could take a partial screenshot of an illustration in the book that they wanted to use.

I have been using a ‘Workflow’ spreadsheet in class for the students to manage their learning. Some of the students have enjoyed this, however my target group have found the transition tricky as they require more reassurance. It feels a fine line between them asking for help and and not wanting to persevere. This has been a tricky juggling act.