Sitting with my mentor I had the opportunity to look through my teaching team and our provisions on line from planning through to the learner and whanau. It became very clear that the baseline of these provisions were somewhat murky...hard to see. An example: WALTS were stated, it took travelling to slides 3-4 before arriving at a task that focused on WALT.
While likely the students knew where to find the basics of:
1. WALT: what we are learning today
2. TEXT SET: what we are reading/watching/listening to this week
3. FEEDBACK & FEED FORWARD: for/from student, teacher and whanau
It was not clear enough with my lense of 'Team Leader', 'Mum' hat on. Time to reset.
At a recent PD for PES staff and also a cluster PD with Rebecca this was a list that my team came up as definite work-ons, must haves for our weekly delivery in reading. We decided to make a real effort of providing for the following in a limited number of slides. Explicit teaching also about why we are having more than one text - explaining T shaped literacy. Trying for 5-6 slides at the most with the following:
*1. Summary (story web, back plan - give a word count)
2. Word work (focus on vocabulary)
3. Comprehension (literal/inferential)
*4. WALT - the problem area (reorganisation/evaluation type questions)
5. Create - mindful of gear and length of time to complete
6. Showing of additional texts found by reader
As a team we are sharing fortnightly on a single WALT, text set and follow up activities. This has been really helpful for the team. Not only are we sharing but picking up ideas from one another that are successful so far this term. We are trying the same with our maths. Goal: to get back to a baseline that covers the basics of good quality learning and teaching for our students, teachers and whanau.
