My class Archives - Page 3 of 21

A Google View of One of My Lessons

TomGoogle, Mapping, My classJune 1, 2010April 22, 20191 Comment

It is certainly not normal to have people taking pictures of your lessons without your knowledge, well here is one that I wasn’t expecting!

View Larger Map

Yes that’s me and a colleague doing some throwing and catching work with our Year 5s during a PE session.

Since it started Google Streetview has been criticised by many for possibly breaching privacy laws and some residents in Buckinghamshire have even blocked the images being taken.

That said, I think the new imagery provides an incredibly rich educational resource. I think it can be used in a number of ways to support curriculum work:

Illustrate places that are crucial parts of topics, such as historical monuments or geographical features.
As part of a local area study explore the Street View imagery (where available) to start discussions and activities before going on a walk.
We used Street View to look at a type of building described in detail in Streetchild used in Year 5.
Help children picture part of storytelling or writing by following a path or looking at a setting using Street View imagery.
Explore the maths that surrounds us all using the resource and Maths Maps.

Let me know of any further uses you have for Street View in the classroom – or indeed if your lesson has been caught on the Google cameras.

Reflections on Being A Foundation Teacher

TomCurriculum, My classMay 30, 2010April 22, 201927 Comments

I have spent the last half term as a Foundation 2 (4 and 5 year olds) classteacher in my new school. Combined with a multitude of other factors, including finding my feet as a Deputy Headteacher, it has been the most challenging and intense seven weeks of my teaching career.

I thought I would take some time to reflect on what it was like to go from teaching Year 5 (9 and 10 year olds) to Foundation 2.

Pitch

One of the biggest challenges was adjusting the pitch of what I was teaching. This applied at every level, from what I was planning to my expectations for the children. I suppose this would be natural as I was teaching children 5 years older for so long. I have a much better appreciation for the ways I can adjust what I am teaching to suit different needs, including the way I use my voice or how long we spend working together.

Care

This is central to what occurs in the Foundation stage. What school should be about – I perhaps lost sight of this working with the older children. Finding things, tieing laces, scraped knees, getting changed, toilet trouble, tired children, family news – the care for children at this age is much more important than anything else. It is a care that gives them boundaries and helps to develop their independence and confidence. However this is energy sapping – I know from having a 4 year old at home – but times that by 30 and you quickly realise at the end of the day that you are emotionally drained as much as anything else.

Starting School

Foundation 2 is the first time they begin to experience elements of school as it will be for the next 5 years or so. It is an important time for the children as they have to adapt to new expectations and ways of working. I have learned so much about where the children are when they enter school, what sort of level they are working at and even the broad range of abilities that are evident even at this age.

Organisation and Preparation

Above anything else I have learned how important it is to be super organised and prepared for anything at this age group. You can lose the focus of a little group in seconds if you don’t have want you need to hand. The classroom needs to reflect this level of organisation and done well will facilitate the independent learning going on.

Sometimes you have to respond to something unexpected and it takes all of your attention – a nasty scraped knee, a nosebleed or a toilet problem. You have to just go with it.

Every Second Counts

A big lesson I have learned is that you have to take every opportunity for learning. Counting the children for register, counting the milk cartons, counting the fruit, counting the letters we are using, counting the people in a picture…

Specialist

The role of a Foundation teacher is such a specialist position. The level of care that is required and the expectations for teaching and learning make it such a unique role in school. My time in Foundation has shown me every facet of the role. I think part of the specialism is being able to cope with the energy sapping days and to remain focused on the myriad of ways children are learning. I have a much firmer respect and appreciation for the role of teachers in Foundation and the crucial part they play in helping children start school.

Comfort Zone

There have been some real lows over the last seven weeks, admittedly I have found it a serious struggle at times. But I have learned from it all. I have had a comfort zone and in the last half term I have been as far from it as I can remember. You learn to find comfort in other things, I have adapted to each new challenge as best I could.

I took one day at a time and as Dai Barnes pointed out to me when I was finding it tough:

“Life is many days. This must end.”

“Every life is many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love. But always meeting ourselves.”

James Joyce – Ulysses

Cross curricular

I would like to see a whole school curriculum approach to learning in the same connected way as it is done in Foundation. A small number of areas of learning that just make sense and approaching contexts for learning in a holistic manner. There is the balance between child initiated learning and teacher directed work. I think my time working in this way will have a big influence on the way we re-develop our curriculum in the future.

Technology

By the time I was finishing my time I was hitting my stride a little better, so to speak, and was considering the role technology has to play in this early stage of school. One thing was how aware the children were of technology in their everyday life, clearly this is mainly from the exposure to mobile and online technologies at home.

Whilst we were working on some phonics activities for the “er” phoneme, I had a picture of an envelope for the children to think of “letter“. But one little girl said email when she saw it. Perhaps an isolated instance but nonetheless indicative of the need (and importance) for a clearly thought out strategy for technology at this stage of school. I will keep this firmly in my thoughts as I spend more time next half term on how my new school is using technology.

Another thing I noted was the need for technology to enhance and support the role of record keeping and evidence gathering in the Foundation stage. Learning happens and occurs at such a fierce pace, sometimes unexpected, sometimes planned – a strong tech solution for gathering, tagging and recording these occurrences would be ideal.

After my tumultuous first week I wrote that it had been the most testing few days of my career and I would go on to say that the whole seven weeks have stuck to that template. At times I have felt like a student again, learning pieces of a bigger puzzle, at times I have started to think like a Foundation teacher – linking up learning opportunities and seeing connections.

A very capable young teacher is taking over the reins after half term and I will be working from the sidelines to support his first teaching role. I know that I have learned so much and on reflection I feel I have become a better classroom teacher because of it.

Pics: My Life by pattyequalsawesome / A Crossroads by thorinside

I Hope…

TomCurriculum, Leadership, My classMarch 29, 2010April 22, 201910 Comments

My son will soon be pitched headlong into full time education. As a father and a teacher I have certain hopes for the kind of experiences he will have in the next 15 years or so.

I hope he will be in classrooms that are bright and engaging.

I hope that he will think school is exciting, where ever it is.

I hope there will be people that will find out what makes him happy.

I hope all of his successes are celebrated.

I hope he gets outside to see the world at every opportunity.

I hope his class sizes are smaller.

I hope that there will be teachers that understand what engages him.

I hope that technology is part of how he learns, but not the only part.

I hope teachers will really understand learning and not just teaching.

I hope that when he is learning he will be able to choose the technology and tools that he needs.

I hope that his teachers help him with this choice and stand back to let it happen.

I hope his achievements in one sector are not disregarded in the next.

I hope someone inspires him.

I hope he is encouraged to learn about the things that interest him.

I hope he begins to understand the world beyond his school and his home.

I hope that someone will help him understand what future contribution he might be able to make.

I hope that learning happens in a whole myriad of places.

I hope the teachers he encounters understand what technology means to him outside of school.

I hope his teachers feel free to innovate.

I hope he is happy.

I hope he is safe.

What do you hope for?

I am a Reception Teacher

TomMy classMarch 25, 2010March 25, 20103 Comments

Tomorrow is my last day at Priestsic Primary School where I have spent the last seven years. After Easter I take up my role as Deputy Head Teacher at John Davies Primary School.

I am excited and nervous all rolled into one. This is a major crossroads in my career and I am keen to make a start.

For the first 4 weeks I will be the classteacher in the Foundation 2 or Reception class (4/5 year olds). I am really excited about this as I will be returning to an age group that inspired me to teach in the first place. I have worked in upper key stage 2 for many years now and so it will be a big change.

Some people may see this as a challenge, I see it as an opportunity. Winston Churchill would have called me an optimist:

A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

I join an outstanding Early Years team and my aim is to soak it all up, to learn as much as I can from those around me and to remind myself everyday why I chose this amazing profession.

Pic: Perception by Frazzled Jen – Attribution License

Marmite: Love it or Hate it? – Using Google Forms and Twitter

TomGoogle Docs, Maths, My class, Networks, TwitterMarch 15, 2010April 22, 201910 Comments

Over the next two weeks in our year 5 class we will be exploring data investigation and the tools with which we can use to undertake them. The first three days of this week we will be looking at some technology that can enhance data handling and make our life easier. In today’s session we learned about Google Forms and I demonstrated how they work with the help of my Twitter network.

We wanted to achieve three things from our maths session today

Make a short survey using a Google Form.
Complete other people’s surveys and get a feel for the process.
Review the data added to our own and explore some of the ways it is represented.

After placing the lesson in the context you see in the first paragraph, I began the session by explaining that I was going to use my Twitter network to help demonstrate how we can use Google Forms to collect data.

I spent some time with the class going through the process of creating a Form from the Google Docs home screen and then adding my questions and running through the different types of questions you can use. We talked a lot about how this type of data collection is only good for some occasions and a pencil and paper method can still be the best way. It is a matter of choosing the most appropriate.

The class would be making a simple favourites or preference type survey and so our shared one was similar. You can see it embedded in the post below.

Loading…

Once complete, I sent out the link to this to my Twitter network (Look at the bottom of the Form edit page for the link – I used bit.ly to shorten it for Twitter, more on that later!) I did this because I wanted the children to see data being added, I wanted to demonstrate the moment of data submission from the Google Form. This also helps the children see how a spreadsheet is linked to the form. (15 minutes)

We switched to the spreadsheet and the children thought it was rather magical as the responses started to drop into the cells as we watched. I reminded them that as soon as someone clicks SUBMIT we were seeing the result.

The children then worked in groups of three with a single laptop (2 groups per table) – one of the children signed into their Google Docs (part of Google Apps for Education) account and created their own “Favourites” Google Form. To keep the children focused I asked them to only give 5 choices for their questions otherwise they tend to get longwinded and only create one or two questions. (15 minutes)

One of the useful things about writing up lesson experiences on my blog is that it is wonderful to go back and look at what I learned and make adjustments to lessons. With some of these things in mind, once the groups had made their Forms, rather than share via email etc (this just adds a complication) we clicked on the Live Form link at the foot of the page.

So everyone had on their laptop screens their form and I asked them to simply change places with those on their table and complete each others’ surveys. They then moved around the classroom adding their responses to other forms from other groups. Although it is nice to share via email, in my experience of working with Google Forms and lots of children it is much easier to move the children rather than share the Form. The children certainly got more responses this way and contributed more, there was less in the way.

After each child had submitted their responses they clicked on the Go Back to the form link which reset the form for the next child – this worked out really well. (15 minutes)

Up to this point the children were able to appreciate how Google Forms is a great way to gather information and how it organises it for us in the spreadsheet.

Back at their own Google Form the children spent some time exploring the results Summary page to look at how their data can be represented. (5 minutes)

As a class we returned to our Edu Favourites survey of educators in my Twitter network. By the end of my second session we had over 125 responses and it was a great pool of data to explore. Real data from real people that we literally witnessed being entered. I was able to ask children lots of questions from how it was represented. It proved to be a great plenary. Here are the results from the survey, there are currently 170 responses – thankyou if you were one of them. (5 minutes)

As a final exploration of this whole process you could explore the link data. I used bit.ly to shorten the long Google Form URL. bit.ly provides traffic data, with a free account, and you can show the class where the people clicking on the form are from. Currently there have been 269 clicks on the Edu Favourites form link and here is where everyone is from.

You could even do some work on how many didn’t fill in the form and compare it to those who did.

Thankyou for taking the time to help with our maths lesson today, I am always so grateful for your contributions – and some of you have even gone away wondering what Marmite is – life will never be the same again. By the way I hate it too!

Enter your search term below

Category: My class