Blogpost #14 Monitoring - Checkpoint #1 - Shifts in my practice.

 So far, so good.

With the implementation of RPI resources into our reading programme this year, we've noticed a shift in engagement and excitement from our students. 

We have continued with the collaboration approach to learning that began in Term 1 when my team were teaching in an MLE environment. I think the change was needed. I went from being very anxious and nervous about it, to receiving positive feedback from colleagues and management. Upon returning to the classroom, my team and I decided to continue with it. Why put an end to something that we know is working?

Anyhow, so far we have successfully continued to include a few of the RPI resources into our reading programme. We have also successfully created x2 e-asTTle reading tests, as a check-in to how it's going so far. We sat one in Term 1 and our most recent one was at the end of Term 3.

Something I'd like to share is the shift in our task boards. In Terms 2 & 3, our reading task boards looked different - each group had a slide that had must-do activities, a create activity and independent work. It was great to start with but after a term of using it, we found it quite time consuming working on it and had better plans for Term 4's task board.

Our task board for Term 4, is much more manageable. The guided reading sessions/texts are still differentiated but we felt one board was enough for all 3 levels. We still had our Money must-do's, we had our independent activities and we also linked in our guided reading session texts. Students can view the texts before the lesson but as for the teacher notes, we kept that locked. We also included a new tool called 'Mahi Tracker" where students would link their completed work into so we could check it at the end of the day.

***Observation - Sandhya from GI Primary

 Today I was fortunate enough to pop into GI Primary and observe Sandhya teach Reciprocal Reading. She heard through the grapevine (colleague Vila) that apparently I teach a good RR lesson :) 

Anyhow, I walked into the classroom feeling quite honoured that she thought I was good enough to observe her. For me, I took it as an opportunity of learning because teachers implement things differently in the class. I really enjoyed how Sandhya executed it in her class. Yes, it can be quite difficult when one has a huge range of learning needs in the classroom but she managed this quite well.

My takeaway was definitely the 'Extended Discussion' part. Sandhya has a really big Level 3 group that consists of about 2/3 of the class. She seats them in groups of 5 (15 learners), they read the text together and after each page, they discuss in their groups what the page was about. Then, summariser from each group will share back their discussion.

Post discussion, Sandhya shares a template with each learner, this doc also works as a graphic organiser. There's a box for each RR role, questioner can write in their questions, clarifier can write in their list of words from the text (that may have needed clarifying), Predictor writes in their predictions etc.

It was a first time for me to see it taught this way. As mentioned before, teachers learn about the programme but we take it and implement it in a way that best fits our learners.