RPI: Day 8 - Creating

I really enjoyed todays RPI session based on the CREATE component of the Manaiakalani kaupapa. The SAMR for creativity slide that was shared early in the day instantly made me reflect on some of the tasks that I provide for my students. It made me think how I could adjust my planning with this in mind to improve, challenge and extend my stiudents more.

The CREATE component is definitley what hooks my students in and gets them most excited. The majority of them enjoy being able to express themselves and showcase their own interpretation of set tasks. However an area that I have identified that I would like to provide more opportunities for is COLLABORATION. I already know that this will motivate my students to be even more engaged and actively participate if they are working alongside others. It will create many opportunities to improve social skills, tiime management and learning how to cooperate to achieve a common goal.

When the 'One shot film' task that we particiapted in today was explained it instantly made me freak out! I avoid photos so filming myself is something that is waaaayyyy out of my comfort zone. I immediately starting thinking how I could avoid it.....this really put me in the shoes of my students. I did manage to complete the task but with a cunning twist. I promoted the book 'The Wonky Donkey' by Craig Smith but instead of filming myself I used my own donkey as the presenter (Thanks for saving me Pancho!). It was a good reminder to allow my students to participate in a way that still challenges them but doesn't completely make them shut down.

There were so many cool resources and ideas that were shared today that I will explore further. 

RPI: Day 7 - Thinking

Definitely a day filled with lots of 'THINKING'. I am always so impressed with the people in my group and how quickly they complete the planning activities set throughout the day. I always need a bit more time to go over things and plan out exactly how I see it working in my class and with my students.

I will definitley be going back and looking into the resources that were shared today about 'higher order thinking'. Currently my students discussions in their reading groups are still very limited and at the literal level. I am looking forward to trying out my provocation (All zoos should be shut down) to try and encourage some higher order thinking and extended discussion. 

I plan to use the hoax website  'The Tree Octopus' to show my students the importance of thinking critically about information. We have been creating our own animal fact files so this links in nicely. I will get my students to complete a small research task using the site and then reveal that it is fake. I am also going to share the image below with my students and see how they interpret it first without any input from me. I will then talk about the importance of going beyond the surface meanings and how important it is to always question things rather than just taking what is presented as a given. 

'Teaching learners to read beyond the superficial, and below the surface level of meanings, is an issue of equity'

I am yet to introduce the 'initiator' and 'builder' roles to my reading groups so I need to make time to do this as I think it will really help with the quality of discussions in our groups and encourage more interpretative and evaluative thinking. 

We have made a start on our word wall (synonyms for 'boring' words) which has the title 'looking for a better word?' We identified boring/overused words and in small groups they looked up synonyms. It is still a work in progress and we will continue to add to it as we identify other words that are overused or just a bit boring.