After last meeting where we had to evaluate our RELLCO goals with a buddy, I was very disappointed in myself and I started to wonder if all the work I had done this year for the contract was a waste of time. I felt, at this stage, that I could not say if it had all made a difference to my children's literacy levels. I THINK it has but I can't prove it.
Why do I think it has?
Things like the oral language levels according to the RTLB KLST results have improved a lot. But have other things caused that?
For the children who started school before July (ie the Y1 children -not Y0) only 4 are still low with their reading and they have oral language/speech issues and have been identified as such. How has my work on travel buddies, blogging, inquiry helped this?
Our term 4 inquiry on What makes a great New Entrant Room? has helped me to reflect about my own practice. One of the follow ups has been looking for more opportunities for whanau involvement with the children's learning. I absolutely feel that whanau involvement has been an important factor in the children's literacy learning successes. (There, I have found one positive.) Surely the oral language, writing, research skills involved with our travel buddy must have helped with literacy. How many 5 year olds even know there is a place called The Isle of Man, or can tell you about leatherback turtles, or why they were eating jellyfish in the waters around the IOM, or writing on the class blog to explain what whanau means????---there some more answers.
In hindsight I must have been having a bad day last Monday because when I take the time to relect properly, I THINK all the exciting learning we have been doing is a big help with our literacy and when 5 year olds say "Whaea Tric I just love learning" I KNOW it does.
Hi Tricia
ReplyDeleteCould I put a link to your reflection blog in the Milestone report I am working in right now please?
I can empathise with your feelings regarding your goals. I can see they have worked for you. I can see the change in your classroom, the input of your children, the stimulation generated through your own development. It is hard to measure this impact in hard cold terms and sometimes we are looking so intensly at the blade of straw we don't see the haystack.
I wonder if anyone had to measure the chalk, the pencil in learning or the paper?
I acknolwedge that we need to KNOW why we are doing things the way we do. Why should we invest in ICTs for our classroom?
One way of looking at this maybe to consider what if we didn't (Like using Tony Ryan's reverse key)
Would it help to go back through your blog, recall your earlier notes to see the impact? Has ICT helped you become a different type of thinker? Have we focussed too much on the tool?
Has the way you reflect or the impact of your reflections into classroom practices stimulated a change? Has htis change been for the better?
Is the doorway for learning now wider for you, for your students? Are you more able to incorporate their differing learning preferences (visual, Aural, Kinethetic, individual and small group)?
Are your children learning in more and diverse ways? Do they know more about how they learn and why? Do they see themsleves as active participants in the leanring cycle? Did they used to?
Has ICT in you rclassroom better catered for the memorisation and repetition tasks in learning e.g. maths games, talking books etc.
Does ICT provide access to or support more authentic learning tasks. e.g. easispeak so children can record their reading and review it too.
Do your children connect directly to others around the world? Is this preferable to learning about?
Is ICT a distratcition from more meaningful learning? Does it help in achieving just in time learning as opposed to just in case?
Does ICT expose and liberate the learner within us all, connect us to others, develop the potential of interdependence and independence in learning? Are we the isolated learners of the past, cut off from the real world that we used to be? Is this old way more conducive for learning or conditioning students?
How are we developing a love of life long learning in our students?
Sometimes the provocative question that upset us are just the ones that make us reflect and learn more deeply. Something to keep in mind for our inquiries I think.
Perhaps this could be a catalyst for next year's Action Inquiry?
How have the learning behaviours changed for your students, for you, for your parents since the introduction of the ICTPD programme?
And on that very long winded note you might like to check out
http://elearningbop.wikispaces.com/6months
But before you do - could you please flick me a reply - "Are you happy for me to share your comments in our MS 4 report to the MoE please?"