Innovation, Creativity and Success #2...

I have realised that the more enthusiastic I am about our learning the more enthusiastic my learners are, so with that in mind I introduced our pick-a-path story challenge. We began by exploring an interactive advertisement that gave my learners, who were working in pairs, a choice of which path to follow. I knew I had picked the right hook as the initial giggles were quickly replaced by excited chatter as the outcome of each choice became evident. We then went on to explore some pre-made pick-a-path stories that allowed a wider choice of options.

                                   

Once I knew my learners were hooked we began planning our own versions. We began by planning our ideas in pairs as I knew the discussion around the storylines would be richer if we did this. However the final piece of completed work was done independently as each person was given the freedom to add their own twist to their shared planning. the I used a planning template that Matt Goodwin shared with me to help us organise our ideas. The screenshots below show our twist with this. We found we needed to colour code the ideas that went with each other as this helped us organise our responses on the google form. 

We had a few hiccups linking between the sections on the google form. The pictures below show one pair's problem solving strategies.

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Te Pounamu is happy for me to share his pick-a-path story. He has done this with other teachers and classes in our school and absolutely loves reading the response sheet. This YouTube clip is a great resource that explains the process using google forms.

 

Te Pounamu said on his blog post 'I like this story because it was a new experience and I want to do this again because it is fun, new and interesting. It is a awesome way to do a writing lesson. I think everyone should have this experience and have fun.'

What I noticed most of all during these writing sessions was that everyone was engaged and motivated. There were even moans when we had a change to our timetable that meant writing wasn't going to take place one day! When I think of what we did through the lens of self efficacy, I can say that on this occasion the boxes were well and truly ticked. My challenge as the teacher is to now capture this so that we can hopefully transfer the same level of self belief to our next writing focus.

Innovation, Creativity and Success...

This is a celebration post and one I am extremely proud of! The clips below show the end result of our pechaflickr style challenge. You will see that they vary in recording style but when you listen to the story that accompanies each clip you will hear sentences that make sense, links between paragraphs, risk taking with vocabulary and the voices of collaboration. To preserve the anonymity of my target students I have shared a selection of DLOs from my group.

When I reflect on this learning challenge from start to finish I know I began with a huge level of motivation as this was (my twist on) one of the ideas I brought back from ISTE, and I was excited to try something new. I think that captured my learner's interests initially, but it was the fun element and the chunked bites of success that kept it going. As I had not given my learners a specific topic they enjoyed the freedom of being able to explore and be creative. The oral language component set everyone up for success because the storylines had been trialled a few times before becoming scripted text. This meant that ideas that didn't fit could be explored and easily eliminated.

Throughout the lessons I made myself available for 'learning chats' that were specific to the content of each pair of learners. I made sure I approached the new in a gentle way as this year has shown me that is what works with these learners. We celebrated the positives, shared our own exemplars of great ideas and each lesson set a focus together for the next. 

The challenge for me as the teacher is to retain the level of interest shown in this challenge as we move on to the next. I learnt a lot about what I need to do to help the levels of self efficacy continue to grow. External factors like ongoing absence and withdrawal group support mean not all my learners have the same opportunities to complete the work, so my next challenge is to ensure everyone is able complete the task.

                  

Success comes with completing a task...

Our writing session today was the most focused and on task my group have been all year! A big statement to make but also one that is very true. Last session we created our own pechaflickr style slideshows and had created the simple storyline plan to accompany these images, so today it was all about fleshing out the details. 

Throughout the lesson I could hear a lot of negotiation taking place as each new paragraph was created. To clarify here my learners were creating a collaborative piece of writing. As I have mentioned earlier, I work with a large group of reluctant writers so for us collaboration is the way to go when we are unpacking new learning. 

Our initial drafts show great promise but what I was most proud of was the efficacy that is growing within this group. No one was 'too shy' to share and feed forward was well thought out and constructive. Developing links between paragraphs was the guided teaching component. I found the best way to do this was to work with three pairs at a time. In each guided session I began by asking for an exemplar to use and this time I was most definitely not at a loss for volunteers. 

With permission I made a copy of the exemplar text and shared it so we could all help make the links between the paragraphs. This style of editing our work was really well received because it was safe. I noticed smiles and elements of dialogic learning conversations emerging. This meant when I left the group they were able to continue the process and help each other to make connections and links between their paragraphs.

Self efficacy remains the focus and I have learnt that patience and gentle praise on my part have gone a long way towards growing this. The final part of this challenge is that each pair will present their narrative alongside their pechaflickr style slides to the class.

Innovate and Try #4...

This lesson gave me the chance to build on from our pechaflickr introduction from last week. We began with a revisit of how to participate in a pechaflickr challenge. This is always an important step with my target students as it allows connections to be made with information that may have been overlooked previously. Once again the room was a buzz of chatter with the creation of the narratives to match the randomised images.

Today we personalised our pechaflickr style challenge. Each pair made a copy of the google slide template I shared in my previous post and chose an idea to build a story around, then set about finding a series of images to tell that story. To add a written component I introduced a template so the sequence of ideas was clear and links between each image could be made. We will use these later to flesh out what will become the paragraphs needed for our narratives.

What I noticed when I stepped back to look and listen was that everyone was on-task. Why? Probably due to the 'fun' element of our challenge, but also because my learners could connect to their learning. Each pair chose a topic that linked to their own prior knowledge which meant the vocabulary was richer as the words and ideas flowed more easily. Interesting to note here is that despite knowing what they wanted to say, a number of students struggled to access the content words they were searching for. I could hear frustration in their voices as they found themselves settling for what they were able to recall, so I stepped in to give them the words they were searching for as I wanted to keep the momentum going. 

Student voice continues to play an important role in my quest to grow self efficacy so at the end of the lesson I asked my learners what they liked about our learning today. Here is a snapshot of the feedback: 'The slides we created helped us think about the emotions of the image.... People's faces made us think about how they were feeling.... It helped us check that the story made sense and linked with the photos.... It was fun and interesting because we had pictures to help us with the writing.... I learnt to link an idea in one picture with an idea in the next picture'. 

I am looking forward to seeing how this writing challenge unfolds. We have the foundations in place and now need to tap into my learner's awareness of linking ideas and exploring feelings in our guided sessions using the exemplars we have created.

Innovate and Try #3

One of the sessions I attended at ISTE explored different ways of encouraging creativity in writing. The link to my previous post is here. With my inquiry focus of exploring ways I can build student self efficacy in mind I decided to start the term off creatively using the 'pechaflickr' idea. 

I knew most of my reluctant writers would not have done much written work over the term break so finding a fun way to get them to use the skills we have been developing over the year would be the hook I needed. As this was a completely new activity for us I wanted to maintain a level of control over which images were being used so I created my own versions using a google slide template sourced from here. You can make a copy of this template by clicking here. It's fantastic as all the settings have been done for you.

I thought carefully about the topics I chose as I knew my learners all needed to be able to make a connection to the images they were seeing. For our introductory session I used the subjects of 'dogs' and 'friends'.

The initial plan was that my students would work in pairs using the 'pechaflickr' slides on their Chromebooks to co-construct their narratives, however this wasn't to be. Just as we were about to begin we lost the internet so I had to use my phone to display the slides on the tv. This worked a treat and all I could hear around the room was the buzz of talk as stories were being created!

I noticed the usual ever present initial shyness but this was soon overcome as confidence levels grew and the risks being taken were paying off. Today was very much an oral language activity so my next step is to introduce the recording aspect to allow my learners to apply the skills they have been practising in context.

Afterwards I asked my learners for feedback and found that this task was well received by all my learners. One student said, 'l Ioved hearing people giggling about their stories to each other because it meant they were practising their learning.' One of my target students said he thought, 'Our lesson was really good today and everyone was focused because they were all communicating with their partners.' Another said, 'It was fun to take turns to come up with ideas and try and turn the ideas into a story that made sense'. 

On the flip side another targeted learner said, 'It was fun Miss, but it was a bit hard to make up a story that made sense when we both had different ideas. I had to listen really hard to my partner's idea then add something that made sense with that.' I see this feedback as positive and I am excited to see where our next writing lesson takes us as everyone found success in our learning today.

ISTE 2018 - Elevate Thinking, Writing and Creativity With Technology Resources

Presenters: Julie Jaeger
http://sites.google.com/site/jjaegerconsults/home/elevate-thinking-and-creativity-technology-resources

This was a creative writing session and with my COL inquiry focus this year, right up my alley. Below are the notes of my main takeaways from this session but the website link above details these in more detail.


Ian Byrd - use 2 topics and create analogies between the two - ref to pic 1
How expensive is it to fill your car with gas v other things eg: milk’ juice, coke... which is more expensive? Choose car model and insert image - link to measurement - research - smart searching - convert to same measurement using conversion apps

How long would it take to drink your swimming pool? Link to 8 glasses a day
XKCD.com - submit a ridiculous qu and the site accepts the challenge
Use ‘What if...’ Randall Monroe - deep thinking problems posed in text

Pechaflickr - 20 secs per slide tells your photo story - chains of conversation - each persons explanation of pic must carry on from last - not planned and creative - the fun is that the kids don’t know what’s coming - T pre finds the pics but kids don’t know this - after 1 pic per paragraph = instant created narrative
Type in a word eg: clown choose number of slides ... 2 people tell story in context linked to pics. Pechakucha is the research presentation where content must be known and timed