How are the focus questions each week supporting the learning in your classroom?

A shared experience of collaborative dialogue from new teachers to Action Stations. 


What could you add? 



- its our lens into student thinking and where they are at in their learning journeys as independent learners. JB

- I am following Laetitis's questions at the moment but can see how I need to work more on a student need focus to guide, scaffold and engage thinking and learning to progress. - NS

- They help me understand what the child might be thinking and therefore reflect back to them our shared expectations for learning through Action stations. SP

- I use my observation to support a change I would like to see happening. RA

- It has been great. Provides me and the children to really focus on the question. 

- Encourages thoughtful selection of Action Stations. HA

- The focus questions help us to solve any problems or issues and clarify children's chioces and learning. BB

- They provide a focus for new learning and reflection. TM

What would Action Stations look like in Senior Classrooms?

Although the first publication of action stations is aimed at new entrant classrooms, the pedagogy and philosophy is one that could easily be implemented at any level.

To paint a picture for a more senior class - the stations may be set up the same but different contexts such as;

Design and Innovate 
- Follow a brief to research, design and create a toy for a preschool child, animal in the zoo, native bird in captivity
- Design, create and make a wearable arts costume, promote an event to showcase your designs with your own label
- Investigate 'worry dolls' history and meaning and design your own to give to a small child.

Cultural 
- Learn a new language by networking with another schools overseas
- Design and make an advertisement to promote your culture in NZ
- Make a traditional costume from your country using newspaper as a teaching model.




Sport Science
- Use educreations to explain a strategic defence or offence skill
- Design a sports game that will develop the skill of ball handling in netball
- Create a lesson plan to teach a year 1 student in skipping

Performing Arts 
- Plan, and create a TV advertisement for our school
- Choreograph a dance that reflects who you are
- Mash-Up and Remix a song to send a message to our Principal, community, global

Cafe 
- Design conversation activities for the class cafe
- Table setting - how is it done in different countries research and create
- Make a hot drink to perfection and meet friends at the cafe

Solar Powered Oven

Science Lab
- Research instructions to make a smors solar powered oven
- Explain how planes fly
- Explain how our respiratory system works
- Add your wonderings about our world on the class wonder wall for others, or yourself to research
- do an activity from Sciencebob

Computing

-Learn how to do coding
- Critique two similar apps to promote them best one for teaching and learning ie educreations and explain everything
-Get involved in quadblogging
- Create a learning activity that creates awareness of digital citizenship

Visual Arts
- Explore two different artist models and combine their most distinctive features
- Use one art piece and recreate in three different media types. Discuss the challenges you had
- Make a purposeful garden sculpture using found objects

In all cases you must allow students to share work in progress not just completed tasks. This is to develop skills in the process of learning and to scaffold the journey to higher levels of thinking and production each time.

The questioning will be similar but using more higher order thinking

What an exciting environment you would be creating. The concept of self regulated learning on steroids. The ultimate way to learn from each others ideas and passions and strengths or to develop new ideas from each other in a respectful way.


Would love your ideas and feedback. This is all new territory.

What are the skills of a classroom facilitator?

Our aim is to develop a community of learners who ...

• Question
• Share
• Reflect
• Talk about goals
• Inspire
• Challenge
• Create next steps
• Develops language of and for learning

The best skills a facilitator can apply in the classroom can be defined in four words 

Observe -  Listen  - Responsiveness  - Question

The first step is to create an environment of curiosity, engagement through providing fun thought provoking interactive stations and learning spaces that are;

• appropriate level - not too hard or too easy
• look engaging and fun - clean, simple, inviting
• child centred - what do they want to know?
• invite curiosity - pose something in a different way
• thought provoking - use conjectures
• less is more - children must know what to do when they get there

Teach the students to be a learner by questioning;

• Why is it important to try something new?
• When am I proud of my learning?
• When have I finished my work?
• How can someone help my learning?
• Where do I get new ideas?
• How can I make my learning even better?
• What do you wonder about?
• How do I learn something new?
• How do I choose a station?

Can you match these to key competencies?

Listen

• share learning, achievements, success, problems, new ideas

• inspire more learning
• develop curiosity in a new learning
• motivate a want for success

• develop language of learning 
• identify learning needs

Capture their language anyway you can

• ipad videos
• camera provided for tv interviews -("What are you learning?")
• reflection booth
• modelling books
• educreations app
• think boards
• think pads
• discourse cards
• whiteboards
• investigating books
• setting success criteria for key competency question each week
• class list of anecdotal notes when they share and reflect
• wonderings wall
• peer assessment

Create a purpose for sharing - What you say will help others. Create a culture that sharing is learning.

Be responsive to what you observe through questioning

Creating expected standards is vital to turn play into learning. Why is this great learning?

Considering Feedback - Why did you choose this station?

Identifying Next Steps - What can you do on your own now?

Developing Thinking - What was the tricky part?

Creating a Community of Learners - How can I learn from someone else?

When considering learner dispositions what would you do to inspire these in your classroom?

Independence

self direct, self manage, and organise themselves for learning

Creativity

curiosity, innovative and use their imagination

Resilience

to bounce back after frustration, stress, challenges and to problem solve creatively

Self Motivate

to engage fully in their learning, be responsible for their next steps and get stuck in.

What is an investigating book?

With a plea to reduce the amount of paper our children were using when practicing their learning I sifted through their extra stationary and handed out a line exercise book. We named it the investigating book

The children could use this book for any learning they liked.

The rules;

1. Can't use crayons, vivid's or felts that will go through paper
2. Must be respectful at all times
3. Must be used to explore, practice or design. 
4. Can't go home 0 just in case we forget to bring it back the next day causing stress for all parties
5. Teachers never mark them!

The children used it for designing their constructions, practicing their handwriting, learning their math goals, drawing and labelling diagrams, The ideas were endless. Some of their best work was done in this book. 

The fact that teachers never marked these books is what made them so powerful. The children could explore and take risks without being judged. 

We used a book that was not too large and had lines to support neatness and handwriting skill development. 

How do I teach children to use numeracy equipment?

To support children in learning their own number knowledge goals we have to empower them with the skills to use equipment. 

Throughout the inquiry process students will…

• -       ask more questions
• -       make conjectures
• -       plan and monitor their activity
• -       develop collaboration skills
• -       Identify when they need knowledge
• -       Ask the teacher for instruction
• -       Explain their reasoning
• -       Prove their results

Do it Daily

Pose the question….

How many ways can we make 10?

What is 10?

How can a number line help my learning?

How can a tens frame help my learning?

How can lego help my math thinking?

Record their ideas

Put their name to it so you can see who is sharing.  Give them ownership of their idea

Give them the equipment

Let them work on their own with a buddy or small group to explore opportunities for learning. Observe, listen and record what you hear. Math language, thinking, discourse, identify their next steps for scaffolding.

Regroup and discuss

Scaffold thinking to explore new ways of using equipment. Invite questions. Challenge them with another question.

Record new ideas

On the same page and first ideas. Display on class wall for referring back to.

Now they are ready to teach themselves their own math goals in number knowledge

This is a powerful way to not only scaffold children into using equipment but the children come up with such diverse ways I would never have thought of. 

I display these on the wall as a reference point for later teaching. It also informs parents of how children are learning especially if they come in as parent help. 

Children are never old enough for these skills to be developed. Showing your thinking in different ways is vital in all mathematical workings. 

 

How do I set up the visual display?

The visual Cards make it really easy for children in developing their thinking assisting in making a choice. It also makes the framework look attractive. 

The Quiet Space - all literacy - imagine your local library plus more. Handwriting practice activities, story retelling resources, ipads for recording or writing own stories, a library of books of all genre, stations for drawing labelled diagrams, instructional text for creating and making. 

Any children can visit this station at anytime. 

Also see 

- Spelling visual Pathways for self directed learning 

- Learning environments on pinterest tab

The Number Space - all number and strand - trolleys holding an abundance of equipment organised for ease of access and learning. Number lines and hundreds boards on the floor, number formation activities, challenges and activities to support the learning of number knowledge. 

Also see 

- number knowledge board game, visual pathways for self directed learning. 

- learning environments on pinterest tab

The other stations are developed to meet the needs of your students while covering many curriculum areas. 

Fit Kit - fitness, skipping, ball skills, innovation of new games to build a skill, PMP reinforcement, developing gross motor skills

Science Lab - exploring physics, design and technology, chemistry, our world

On Stage - drama, dance, cultural awareness, retell, puppetry, 

Digi Kids - Learning the skills to connect and collaborate, learn and share online. We use many apps to support leaning in handwriting, spelling, maths, science and recording own learning journeys. We use blogs to share our lessons and connect with like minded students 

The list is endless.

The action station planning format assists in the design of your action station framework. 

One of the most important stations are those that cater for the emotional needs of your children. The ones that recognise how special they are, helps them to relax and develop a sense of belonging. 

Each child will need a laminated card of their name. Thee get stuck with either blutac or magnetic tap under each station. 

Quiet and number space can have any number of children at any time.

The other stations can only have 3 to manage success for all. 

There are no limit to stations. 

The children can move their names as often as they like. 

They must never be told where to go - no matter what. Its all about choice and what that tells us about that child. 

The children can move their name whenever they like throughout the day. 

The stations must be.....

• appropriate level - not too hard or too easy
• look engaging and fun - clean, simple, inviting
• child centred - what do they want to know?
• invite curiosity - pose something in a different way
• thought provoking - use conjectures
• less is more - children must know what to do when they get there

How do I use Numeracy Visual Pathways

Purpose

• Provides a visual data wall for you providing appropriate timely child centred teaching
• Provides feedback and next steps parents can help with at home
• Provides current goals and next learning steps for each child
• Provides a pathway of learning (big picture) for children
• Ensures there are no gaps in learning of knowledge teaching or learning
• Aligns with Numeracy Project and National standards and testing
• Creates peer tutoring opportunities
• Creates opportunities to learn using equipment in their own way when they want to – not just math time
• Empowers children as learners
• Provides consistent language of math for children throughout school
• Creates opportunities for children to share their challenges, learning, thinking and achievements with pride

Class display

• A3 laminated pathway for knowledge only on wall in sequence
• Only display the stages your children are working at (space)
• Once you have gathered data you will know what stage they are working at for knowledge
• Put each child’s name on a math counter and blu tac it to the start of the stage they are working in creating the look of a board game.
• No children are to touch their name – only teacher decides if they can move up a block
• Children must pass through each step and never jump steps without providing evidence of their learning.

Daily

• Children work on their knowledge goal independently, with peers, using equipment every day while you are working intensive teaching strategy with group.
• Children are introduced to different ways to use equipment to achieve their goal through inquiry so it is child owned and child centered learning.

Routine may look like:

• Warm up – you tube song about counting back
• Pose a question – How can I learn to write numbers correctly, How can I get better at adding? What is a number line? What equipment will help me learn to skip count backwards?
• Children investigate, discuss, share, as teacher collects information from children and records on large paper poster for class. (list, mindmap) This can be reflected on later in the week with which is the best equipment for this job? What was the quickest strategy for this problem?
• Ask children what is your goal and send away to the number space. Children then work on math goals independently confident that they are focused. Intensive strategy teaching is done with groups
• Children share with you three ways they achieved a goal then you decide if they go up to next goal. This is important to do regularly otherwise they will lose interest. You need to value their work as much as you want them to.
• Sharing time at end of math session Teacher scaffolds by questioning.
• What was the tricky part?
• What equipment helped you today?
• Did someone else help you with your thinking?
• What will your next goal be?
• Can you think of another way to learn this or show your thinking?