As mentioned in a previous post I recently attended a professional development day at the Pop Up Globe theatre. One of the activities that I formed the strongest connection to was the 5 sentence summary. This was taught to me in the context of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, but even as we were working through each stage, I was thinking about the different contexts I could use this activity in the classroom. Today I did just that.
Our school-wide Inquiry for the term is Enterprise and Economics and for our Year 7/8 students this began by looking at early Maori enterprise. My learners worked used their smart searching skills to build on the foundations of the content knowledge I had gifted them. Their challenge was to make notes and record new vocabulary as they worked collaboratively to fill their knowledge ketes. To help strengthen their connections and understandings I challenged them to use their notes to help them summarise the key ideas in just 5 sentences.
With our 5 sentence summaries complete I then challenged my students to add detail and make their thinking more succinct by turning each sentence into a 10 syllable sentence. My students absolutely loved this challenge. I know this because throughout the last part of this challenge 33/33 students were actively involved, contributing and engaged.
Wednesday 16 October 2019
Monday 14 October 2019
WFRC #12
Describe the evidence you have so far about the effects of your changed practices or intervention on desired learner outcomes and how you summarised and recorded these...
What do my learners think?
Often when I ask my students a question about their learning or my teaching they will try their best to give me the answer they think I want to hear. This often involves wanting to do well or learning something so they can go to university, especially when asked about the purpose of the lesson. This is despite me having unpacked and continuing to unpack learning intentions on a regular basis. To see if their responses would differ if asked by someone else I asked Donna Ryan to ask my inquiry group the same questions I ask at the end of each term. Donna is well known to my class so my learners were confident and happy when talking to her about their learning. Student G4 was away overseas for the last three weeks of Term 3 so has been excluded from this snapshot to keep the data clean.
Explain the reflections and tweaks you have made along the way and the reasons why you made these changes. Share your evidence for these decisions...
Previous posts that link to this question and describe the some of the tweaks in my practice can be found here:
Often when I ask my students a question about their learning or my teaching they will try their best to give me the answer they think I want to hear. This often involves wanting to do well or learning something so they can go to university, especially when asked about the purpose of the lesson. This is despite me having unpacked and continuing to unpack learning intentions on a regular basis. To see if their responses would differ if asked by someone else I asked Donna Ryan to ask my inquiry group the same questions I ask at the end of each term. Donna is well known to my class so my learners were confident and happy when talking to her about their learning. Student G4 was away overseas for the last three weeks of Term 3 so has been excluded from this snapshot to keep the data clean.
What the data linked to my inquiry shows:
- 7/7 students enjoyed being in LS2 this term.
- 1/7 identified Maths as being their favourite learning area at both time points
- 3/7 identified Maths as being their favourite learning area when talking to Donna
- 1/7 responses to what they liked about Reading aligned at both time points. What I noticed here was that the responses aligned with the learning focus at the time.
- 1/7 responses to what they needed help with in Reading aligned at both time points. What I noticed here was that the responses were detailed and specific so as a result I have been able to adapt my current term planning to address these needs.
- 2/7 responses to what they liked about Maths aligned at both time points. What I noticed here was that the responses aligned with the learning focus at the time. I can also see from this data that the Spring Into Maths programme is popular. This is good to know as student buy-in is vital to the success of the intervention.
- 2/7 responses to what they needed help with in Maths aligned at both time points. What I noticed here was that the responses reflected the common thread of times tables, larger numbers, strategies and fractions. What is needed now is more opportunities to practise the learning in a variety of contexts. Recalling quick responses is addressed through maths games.
- 5/7 responses reflect they feel they have improved in Maths and/or Reading at both time points. A possible reason for this is that we have celebrated successes throughout the year so my learners know when and how they have achieved the learning intentions.
What does this tell me?
The responses show that the student perceived successes and gaps in learning are quite specific (although at times link to the current area of focus at the time the questions were asked). That tells me that connections have been made, and learning intentions and lesson purposes have been unpacked successfully. I will be adapting my planning to meet the 'gaps' as that will show my learners that I value their opinions. I can see what learning they like as well. This is a bonus as I now have a toolkit of learning that resonates with these students. I will feed the gaps into the Spring into Maths and Phonics sessions so that they will have the opportunity to experience the learning in guided teaching time with me and during intervention time with Linda.
Important to note:
Our end of term evaluation is given to the whole class and is much more detailed than the responses I have analysed below. I use the student voice to inform my planning and welcome the opportunities to make adaptations that will help meet the specific learning needs of my students across all curriculum areas. A section I always include in our end of term evaluations but have not shared as I need to respect privacy, is the sentence starter... 'I want Mrs Anderson to know...' This is very powerful as it allows me an insight to changes in friendship circles and home environments etc. Often something our older students tend to keep close to their chests but can definitely help to explain changes in work habits, connections to learning and behaviour. Mind you it is not all doom and gloom. My students also use this section to share successes and milestones, or thank me for specific help I have given them during the term.
Wednesday 9 October 2019
Engaging Shakespeare for Y1-8 PD...
Today Kiri and I attended the Engaging Shakespeare for Y1-8 PD at the Pop Up Globe theatre. The course was run by Rita Stone who took us through a variety of ways we can introduce Shakespeare to a younger audience.
We began with a behind the scenes tour of the theatre which was really interesting. We walked through the 'rat run' and made our way to the stage. This was a perfect opportunity for us to learn about the 4th wall, a theatrical term for the imaginary “wall” that exists between actors on stage and the audience. From there we moved up the stairs to the 'Romeo and Juliet' balcony, and yes we all tried to find Romeo! We then climbed another set of stairs to find out how the sound effects are created. This was a lot of fun as this was very much a hands on experience.
Thunder Rain Wind
After exploring the space we would be working in the practical sessions began. Using the characters from A Midsummer Night's Dream we learnt how to move and speak in ways they would have. The challenge was to not only stay in character, incorporate dialogue and use gestures, but also to remember to make use of the whole stage. Easier said than done when you are completely out of your comfort zone! This activity taught us about freeze frames and travelling. We then moved onto an activity called 'Silent Movies'. This required us to choose five words from a scene, create a frozen image for each word, select a move genre and add music. Once these performances had been shared they were all put together using the entire section of the scene.
After lunch we were introduced to Romeo and Juliet, through my favourite activity of the day. Our challenge was to write a five sentence story that tells the story of two families who loathe each other and the two children who fall in love. This was a fantastic activity to practise summarising and could be used across all curriculum areas. After sharing our stories we were challenged to turn each of our five sentences into ten syllable sentences. I loved this! I noticed that I was collaborating and negotiating as my partner and I trialed, tested, adapted and changed our sentence structure and vocabulary choices.
5 sentences 10 syllable sentences
We were then introduced to the 'Shaboom' rhythm. This helped us to understand how Shakespeare used iambs, trochees, spondees and pyrrich feet to show the actors which syllables to emphasise when delivering their dialogues. Using the symbols / - helped us make sense of this before we moved onto reading a sonnet and unpacking the rhyming structure within it.
We then explored the tactics of demanding, pleading and rejecting in pairs using only the words 'yes' and 'no' as our dialogue. Again we were challenged to stay in character, incorporate dialogue, use gestures and make use of the whole stage. This was a great introduction to our final performance of reading and acting out a scene from Romeo and Juliet on stage at the Pop Up Globe!
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