Te Hiku Sensemaking - Manaiakalani

Today the Woolf Fisher Team was presenting the online observation data taken at the end of Term 2, 2020. Click on this link to view the Te Hiku - OLO & Qs presentation 2020

What does your classroom 'text diet' look like?

These slides have definitely made me realise that my classroom has a certain type of 'text diet'; school journals, PM Readers, Reading to Read, short videos related to text, NZ and Maori voice. 

I need to include more short fiction, poetry and news and make it visible on my class site. I read extended texts to the students but don't often offer them extended texts (group novels etc). I don't put our shared books on our class site which is something I will change from now.

Think about having a range of texts for students to see themselves in the text or to see out their window into another world; for example cultural, local context, national, international.

Do my students understand why they are using a certain text or have exposure to lots of different texts? There were some examples of teachers in Manaiakalani explaining about T-shaped literacy approaches to student so they understand why teachers use multi-modal literacy choices. Click on the link to view the OLO Exemplars

Now that you have seen the data, what would you talk to teachers about in terms of what a classroom 'text diet' should look like?

One of the points that came out was that there was no emphasis on purpose of the text that was evident online - this has made me think again - what should be on our class sites? Is there a risk of too much information which can confuse students, lots of what is being discussed around this data is probably the focus on guided reading sessions. This is where we need to 'capture' guided reading discussion, peer discussion. This thought is shared by our teachers and leaders here today.

Other links to Term 4 mahi - Te Hiku Term 4 Staff Meeting 2020