Janeen - Effective Teaching Practise

A huge focus this year through our 'EffectiveTeaching Practice' is to develop further our understanding about 'Acceleration' and to apply best practices and strategies for this in our teaching and learning programmes.  The main focus is to accelerate our students in writing. This lead me to my inquiry question 'How can I develop student agency to help accelerate learning?'  Below shows my thinking to further research to get a better understanding of this.   What is student agency?  My thoughts - the student takes greater control, ownership and responsibility of their own learning.  Students lead their own learning by directing their own learning pathway, setting their own goals, and making their own decisions instead of the teacher directing it.  

After our professional development staff trip to Rotorua, my main aim was to take something from this and to try within my own classroom.  I was enthused to add rich learning and problem solving into my classroom by using a familiar context 'cake stalls.'    Our class have been raising funds for our end of the year camp and one of the fundraiser's has been a cake stall.  Already we've had two very successful stalls, however I noticed only just under half of my students were actually taking part. The students who never took part definitely realised how much money they could potentially raise as several of our students raised between $120-$150 in one cake stall. Here's the challenge I set for the  students and they had to work on their own (to increase independence, risk taking and ownership of their learning). Instantly the students showed engagement as the tool they used to support their learning was a laptop or ipad to research and compare diffe...

Whaowhia toku kete matauranga (Fill my basket of knowledge) Students enjoyed putting together their kete As a class we brainstormed several things that we special us and what represented us as a school.  We came up with family first and foremost, and also Manukorihi Intermediate - the grey heron.  The students were told a little bit of history behind the bird of why it represents our unique school.   We also looked at what a kete means and why is it important for us as an individual to have one - 'Fill my basket of knowledge' what does this means?