ACEC 2014: Capturing the Hearts of Reluctant Writers by Chantelle Morrison

Posted on October 3, 2014 by Jade Peartree

Capturing the Hearts of Reluctant Writers

Chantelle Morrison

I came to this session as I am the Language & Literature teacher in the MYP Year 6 Program at our school and wanted to explore different ways to motivate my writers. To begin this session we did a “Drop everything and write” activity. This is something I have done with my students before but I particularly enjoyed participating in this activity today. I need to be more involved in this process and actively be a writing role model for my students.

Here is the drafting version and final copy of my Drop Everything and Write piece:

Coffee

Dear Coffee,

Work your mysterious magic.

Entice my eyelids to lift from their sleepy slump.

Awaken my brain with your bittersweet caffeine hit.

Warm my lips and satisfy my thirst for the awakening moment,

When I will be able to function at a somewhat ‘normal’ level.

Come on brain! Work with me here.

The coffee is not a sole awakener.

You need to participate in this challenge.

Wake Up!

Some notes I made during this session:

Questions to pose for students: What can I write about that would be valuable and relevant to someone else?

I enjoyed the writing Brainstorm activity.

What is writing?

What should writing look like?

What is one form of writing?

What is the purpose of writing?

What are the common writing blocks?

What is the first word that comes to mind when you hear the word writing?

Write one form of writing.

What is quality writing?

Everybody contributed to these brainstorms, they looked a bit like this:

I’m going to do this with my Year 6 students in Term 4.

Some thoughts:

I have always felt that writing requires motivation & purpose. Writing is a shared experience. Writing is shared even if it’s simply for yourself. I loved that idea of journalling and sharing with my past and future self. Always share.

How do we assess, mark, grade the creative pieces? Vocabulary, perspectives, structures. This is always the most difficult part. Writing is creative expression in many instances. Nice to explore all types of genres of writing.

Why go public? Publishing. Authentic audiences. Writer’s voice.

How can we make the writing we do more purposeful for our students? Blogging and creating an authentic audience for our students. Writing is a voice. Why is writing is important? I want my students to explore that question too.

Creation: The writing process

Writing Cycle

Resources to explore:

Cyber-dramas Google and use.

http://www.inanimatealice.com/

Videos: Up, a narrative without any words.

LendMeYourLiteracy: http://lendmeyourliteracy.com/

Switchzoo

Wild self

Inklewriter: Create your own adventure type of digital writing.

Storybird: https://storybird.com/

LookingGlass

Calemeo: Magazine making online.

Mahara: Digital portfolio, can be printed. FREE! Emaze/ Prezi

Poetry: Wordle/ Tagxedo, Voki, Vocaroo

I thoroughly enjoyed this session today. Refreshing, lots of ideas to explore in class and reaffirming in many ways. Thanks Chantelle.

Support or Questions to: @misscmorrison

End of Term Confidence Builders

Posted on September 17, 2014 by Jade Peartree

Towards the end of a term I find that many students are feeling a little run down and tired (as are the teachers!). The result of this tends to be students who are a little less tolerant of others. Small things that usually wouldn’t bother them before now really irritate them. So towards the end of the term I like to do a confidence building activity to boost the confidence of students and assists in developing an awareness of how they are interacting with each other.

Lesson Overview

Students brainstorm as a class as many Confidence Builders or (Boosters) and Confidence Busters we can. This comes from the You Can Do It Program (http://www.youcandoiteducation.com.au/)

Here is an example of the brainstorm the Year 6’s did today:

Students were then given this template and asked to write a Confidence Booster on everybody else’s page in their class.

The Confidence Booster needed to be specific, genuine and considerate. We discussed what each of these meant before allowing students to start the task.

I posted the following instructions on Edmodo for my students to direct them in the process.

Once each child had commented on each other’s pages they could decorate their image and post a reflection on their personal learning blogs. Some lovely examples:

The reactions from my students have always been positive ones. Faces light up when they read the comments made by their peers. Each comment is genuine, specific and considerate. It makes a real difference in attitudes towards each other at the end of a busy term. I noticed students being a lot kinder towards one another after this task.

I also think it is important to participate in this task as their teacher and comment on each page. I created a page and had my students give me some feedback too. Gave me what I like to call “Warm Fuzzies” meaning a happy feeling in my heart. I too hope my students experienced this feeling today.

So if you’re looking for something to do with your class to boost their confidence and build on positive attitiudes and interactions, you might like to give this one a go.

Maths Lesson: Properties of 3D Shapes/ Solids

Posted on August 18, 2014 by Jade Peartree

Reflecting on My Practice

As part of my PLP (Personal Learning Plan) I identified the need for me to focus on Mathematics, specifically Maths mental warm ups and Maths lesson starters.

I did a warm up for a lesson today which I thought was quite good and I thought I would share and document it.

The lesson outline:

This was the note I sent my students on the online learning platform Edmodo: (If you want to learn more about Edmodo go to this link: https://www.edmodo.com/about)

Warm up Activity: Revisiting Properties of Shapes.
You were given a 3D solid shape in class today. You need to describe the properties of that shape on your iPad (using the apps Explain Everything OR Educreations) and post your video to the padlet attached.
Thanks
PS. Remember to use the vocabulary we learnt in the last lesson. Key words I’m looking for are vertex/vertices, edges, faces, angles.

Below is the link to the Padlet with my student responses:

Properties of 3D Shapes:

http://padlet.com/wall/4bw0zr27be9z

The thing I liked about this activity was I was able to quickly collect my students responses and view them later in my own time. I was then able to assess their work whilst the students were off at another lesson. I was able to give them direct specific feedback about the content of their videos and assess if they were capable of listing the properties of a 3D solid shape using learnt vocabulary from the previous lesson.

The students seemed to enjoy the task too as it was recapping what was learnt in the last lesson and applying some of their creative skills to communicate their learning in a different way.

It was a fun Maths Warm up today and I’m glad it went so well.

MLATS Learning and Teaching Mathematics: Number

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Jade Peartree

MLATS: Mathematics Learning & Teaching for Success

Saturday the 9^th of August 8:30am-3:30pm

Presenter: Sarah Ratcliffe

The Rationale for MLATS

The teaching of mathematics is a complex business, and in the busyness of school life, teachers often do not have time to reflect on the teaching and learning cycle, on what is working well and on what could be improved. Additionally, many teachers have expressed a lack of confidence in their own mathematical knowledge, which in turn impacts on their teaching of mathematics.

The interplay between school mathematics and the development of numeracy is complex. MLATS core course offers a broad introduction to the teaching and learning of mathematics and numeracy, and seeks to help participating teachers identify the mathematical knowledge that students should be learning, and makes explicit the teacher’s role in supporting all students to be successful.

Our broad range of other workshops and short courses are designed to meet the needs and interests of teachers.

For information about MLATS and courses available please see the link attached. http://mlats.com.au/

We need to report to the achievement standards in ACARA and be mindful of IB curriculum too.

Sort and classify activities (newspapers, houses, categorise and sort houses by number/ patterns, relationships)

When/ How do we give our students the opportunity to:

Identify and describe attributes
Identify and describe relationships
Think logically to classify and order
Handle data

Thought: Being confused means that you are learning.

Being Successful means:

50% confidence

25% attitude

25% IQ

(I shared this with my students and they were so surprised and relieved!) This was one of my highlights.

I don’t need the answer I want the process.

Students need to construct meaning for themselves.

Students need the factual and procedural knowledge but they also need to know when to apply these in everyday problem solving tasks.

EMU: Extending Mathematical Understanding Intervention program. Something worth looking into at St Andrew’s School. http://www.ais.sa.edu.au/__files/f/133092/Extending

I am concerned with students whom I have worked with who have difficulty with number concepts and Sarah (Course leader) suggested that they might have dyscalculia. I had not heard of this term so did some brief research about it. Here is what I found.

What is dyscalculia?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyscalculia

http://www.ncld.org/types-learning-disabilities/dyscalculia/what-is-dyscalculia

http://www.dyscalculia.org/math-ld-books

Formative assessment: A discussion about how we assess mathematics formally came up in this session. We have one summative Maths assessment per term and base some of our results on testing and general maths tasks in bookwork, on iPads and through observations. I liked the idea of introducing Maths Journals, which is something we can do quite easily using the iPad in the 1:1 program currently running in Year 6.

Ideas for the Journal:

Prompt reflections in Mathematics. (Links to IB: Reflective & Thinkers).

I challenged myself by…

Next, I want to…

I worked…. Because…

Next time I will

An activity I thought would be great for our buddy class visits:

Write a procedure on how to draw a graph. If you had to explain how to draw a graph to Year 1 students what would you tell them?

Mathematics Inquiry Cycle:

Provocation and reflect

Investigation and reflect

Share ideas and reflect

Test, draw conclusions and reflect.

MLATS rules for working:

Choose to work alone, in a group or with a partner but everyone must do their own recording
You can choose to use concrete materials or work without them
You must seek to understand what you are doing
If you need help, follow the procedures to get it.

What do we mean by numeracy and mathematics?

Numeracy is the practical use of mathematics in context.

Developing Number Sense:

Counting

Estimation

Subitising (the ability to know how many are in a collection without counting)

Place Value

Part-Whole Relationships

Four Operations

How can we develop estimation skills?

Handful Grab Game. Estimate and counting games. Refer to MLATS booklet.

Mental Computation: Do this every so often but make sure to go through the processes afterwards. This is important for developing quick thinking strategies as well as going over different strategies each student has used and trying them in the next mental computation quiz.

I found this image about Adult usage quite interesting but not shocking. We as adults use calculators, estimation and mental computation strategies before written strategies. Yet we are getting our students to record and write their Mathematical thinking in their books all of the time. We need to create a balance here and make sure that we are giving students the opportunity to estimate, use calculators and solve mental problems.

My goals after this workshop:

I always like to set myself a few goals after a workshop and at least attempt one or two of them within that week.

1. Year level Maths Survey and Data Collection task. How are our students feeling about Mathematics? How do they prefer to learn? Ability Ranking data.

2. Maths Journals/ Reflections after the lesson. This won’t simply be a separate book but at the end of the lesson allow for reflection in their maths book or on their iPad.

3. Mental warm up strategies as per my PLP Goal (See Heather for demonstration lesson asap). Go through the mental guides in the MLATS booklet.

Resources:

The Van de Walle Professional Mathematics Series.

Two of Everything. (JP Book)

Open Ended Maths Activities: Using good questions to enhance learning in Mathematics. 2^nd Edition. Peter Sullivan and Pat Liburn.

Ontario

About Teaching Mathematics: Marilyn Burns

Origo: Thinking Caps

www.origoeducation.com

Maths Solutions: http://mathsolutions.com/about-us/marilyn-burns/

All Hands on Deck

Number Pieces Basic app.

DaVinci Decathlon 2014: Part 2

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Jade Peartree

The Race Around Sydney

The Year 7 students were full of excitement and anticipation as they participated in the Race Around Sydney. Each destination held a challenge. The students were required to answer questions, solve riddles and find landmarks to complete each task.

The first stop, The Botanic Gardens, where students were asked to find specific plants, answer a set of challenging questions and record their findings.

Next the NSW Art Gallery, where they were required to choose any piece of Art work to inspire them to write a poem and create an image to accompany it. There were also some questions to answer and pieces to find within the gallery.

Here is the piece that inspired our students:

Here is the poem that they wrote and submitted:

Henny and Henry’s poem

They were cornered, hiding, trapped

The enemy closing in

The regiment were silent

Not even on little rattle of a tin.

From my precarious perch on the mountain top

I saw it all unfold

So then I had a thought

Which made my blood run cold.

Oh how I wanted to help them

I heard their silent plea

But if I helped save them

What would become of me?

I would probably kill someone

I’d have blood on my hands

and they’d be six feet under,

lying amongst the sands.

I slowly climbed down the mountain

I had decided to fight

from safety I bought my rifle up

and focused throughout the sights.

I saw my target all alone

I was waiting for my chance

and that was when it happened

I caught a glance ,

Of his eyes, they’d changed, this was so strange

they’d gone from green to blue

for they had changed from green

And then I witnessed something

I’m still not sure I’d seen

It was my daughter, standing there

with her magnificent eyes of blue

Her face a stream of tears

Saying “Daddy how could you?”

Then we went to the National Museum, where students did a code breaking task. This was a wonderful experience for the students; they particularly enjoyed exploring the Dinosaur Exhibition, an impressive display!

After the National Museum we walked to the Powerhouse Museum, where students were asked cryptic questions and had to solve riddles. They thrived in this challenge.

The ferry ride to Circular Quay was a highlight for our students, who happily gazed at the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Opera House, all the while taking notes for their cartography task.

Here are some snap shots from that part of the day:

The final challenge was exhausting! The children ran from one point to the next finding the clues needed and managed to answer every question bar one. There was a little time left over to visit a lollie shop and buy some fish & chips before our train ride back to Knox Grammar School.

Once we had returned, students had dinner and then completed the Cartography Challenge, the final task for the day. I am still unsure how they managed to do this as they were so tired from the days events. They created a map of Sydney from their observations during the day. This was what our students submitted as their final task:

The Year 7’s were fortunate to receive three certificates for the event, 1st for the Legacy Symposia, 1st for the Creative Producers challenge and 2nd for English. We did not place overall, but we were very proud of their efforts over the four day Decathlon.

What a wonderful experience for our students and staff, who were able to engage with like-minded individuals. The students were ready for a challenge and eager to learn and solve the problems presented to them. We couldn’t be more proud of our Year 7 DaVinci Decathlon Team. Well done Henry, Henny, Le-Anne, Marlon, Milly, Hayley, Billy and Thomas. A fantastic effort by all.

Personally, I’m exhausted and I was only there to supervise and mark test papers, imagine how exhausted the children must be! Well Done St Andrew’s School.

The Da Vinci Decathlon 2014: Part 1

Posted on June 22, 2014 by Jade Peartree

I have been fortunate enough to accompany our Year 7 students to the Da Vinci Decathlon at Knox Grammar School, NSW.

Being surrounded by such intelligent students and teachers has left me in a state of awe and wonder. It has also given me the opportunity to connect with passionate staff who specialise in all subject areas

I have been observing a lot of the activities and assisted in marking some of the papers, but the highlight for me so far has been witnessing the enthusiasm of our students. They have already received two certificates, 1st place in Creative Producers and 2nd Place in English. They also won first place in the Symposia Challenge with their invention presentation about iSense. Very proud!

This afternoon students were privileged to listen to a guest speaker; Mr Mark Scott, AO Managing Director of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. http://about.abc.net.au/profile/mr-mark-scott-ao/

Key Notes from Mark Scott’s Presentation:

What kind of person leaves a legacy? How do you become the kind of person who leaves a legacy?

Key idea: It’s all about how you use your time.

Things we know: You can’t change what happened yesterday/ can’t change the past.

The future is uncertain, you don’t know what it may hold .

It is about living for today. Today, what can we do today?

1. Learn how to like a problem. Learn how to thrive in the challenges you face. To be great you have to have talent, but you also need to concentrate on improving your skills. Being talented is not enough. Learn as you go, show dedication. If you are going to master something, focus on the one challenge at a time. Multi-tasking is useful but its not the best way to learn. The answers that you are seeking won’t always come easily. Take your time to solve them and learn through the process. Stick with it, success doesn’t come easily it takes time and many mistakes and disappointments. Our failures help us to eventually succeed.

2. People who leave legacies work in teams. The team can bring together different skills, knowledge, insights etc. Thinking together helps us to get further in problem solving. Get involved in discussions, be a part of the debate, question your opinions and thinking. Challenge each other.

3. Have Goals. People who have goals want to achieve things. Be mindful of where you are, live in the moment on your journey because it’s not just about the final destination. Celebrate your successes along the way. Enjoy where you are today, the journey gives you just as much pleasure and success as the final destination or product. Focus on making the best in the present moments.

4. What legacy would you like to leave?

I would love to hear some of my student’s responses to this question, what a great reflective task to set after this experience. I would personally like to reflect on this question too, but that’s for another blog post, another time.

Tomorrow we have an exciting day ahead, a Race Around Sydney! Will blog about our next DaVinci Adventure soon.

Have You Tried Turning it Off and On Again?

Posted on June 16, 2014 by Jade Peartree

The 1:1 iPad journey has been one of huge learning curves for my students and myself. We have constantly been working out how to resolve technical iPad issues, and one of the most common starting points and our class tagline is “Have you tried turning it off and on again?”

This week in Genius Hour (http://www.geniushour.com/) a couple of my students created this clever poster display for our classroom. They like to be referred to as my Tech Support Team but I am also flagging the idea of Digital Leaders within Upper Primary at our school.

One of my goals will be to begin working with Digital Leaders within my ICT Club (Co-curricular lessons) to establish a team of students who can assist their peers, teachers and other staff members with their technical difficulties. This may also extend into students running mini tech lessons in classes. This idea was born after following Nick Jackson @largerama (http://largerama.creativeblogs.net/) , who I saw at a CEGSA Conference in 2013 promoting the idea of Digital Leaders in schools. Nick also came to our school to meet with leadership to discuss options for our school.

These are some exciting ideas, which have created high levels of student engagement. I also believe that this kind of learning is purpose driven, allowing students to take responsibility for themselves and others, and importantly it gives students the opportunity to develop leadership qualities.

For more information about Genius Hour:

Language and Literature Unit: Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence

Posted on June 5, 2014 by Jade Peartree

For the last two years my team and I have been developing a Middle Years Programme (MYP) unit of inquiry in Language & Literature based on the novel and film “Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence” by Doris Pilkington and directed by Phillip Noyce.

I was introduced to this inquiry unit by my colleague Andy Peartree (http://anderspearz.edublogs.org/) who had historically taught this unit to Year 6’s in previous years. Paul Huebl and myself enjoyed team teaching this unit in 2013, but this year I have been teaching the subject to all students across the year level on my own.

I have adapted the unit and made some changes and thought it was worth sharing with others. I have attached the following documents:

1. The MYP Unit Planner: Language & Literature T2 RPF 2014

2. The Task (Comparative Essay) and Assessment Rubric: Rabbit Proof Fence Rubric 2014

3. The Novel & Film Study documents:Rabbit Proof Fence Novel & Film Study 2014

4. Essay Planning Document: Individual RPF Essay plan

5. Rabbit Proof Fence Display Posters: Rabbit Proof Fence signs

Within this unit we have been exploring the MYP Statement of Inquiry: Films and novels convey the same message to an audience.

We have been comparing different texts to see if the same messages can be conveyed. I have used the film and novel, “Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence” and the picture book, “The Rabbits” by John Marsden and Shaun Tan, to see if the theme and messages about the Stolen Generations were conveyed similarly and which medium was the most powerful.

We have had some pretty amazing and powerful reactions from students, especially after watching the film and looking at the following clip to anaylse the director’s work about the abduction scene:

My students are now in the process of analysing the film, doing guided reading sessions and making text connections with “The Rabbits” by John Marsden and Shaun Tan.

The final assessment and response to this unit will be a written piece (comparative essay) responding to the following questions:

Did the novel or film communicate the story “The Rabbit Proof Fence” better? Why?

Compare the ways the film and the novel explore your chosen theme.

Explain why you think that one communicated the theme better than the other.

This is the first essay my Year 6 students have written so quite a bit of scaffolding has been required. I’m looking forward to reading their completed responses and final reflections about the inquiry statement after this assignment.

Week 6 Staff Meeting: Using data in a holistic way to track and analyse progress.

Posted on June 3, 2014 by Jade Peartree

Staff meeting today focussed on reading, analysing and interpreting the data from our year level, specifically focussing on Year 6 Reading Comprehension Strategies.

We compared TORCH results with one of our own school diagnostic assessments. There were some interesting discrepancies and we discussed comparing NAPLAN results with these to provide further clarity.

I sent out a request on Twitter to see if like-minded professionals could recommend a better diagnostic tool for us in Year 6. If you could suggest some please comment below.

https://twitter.com/jadevidovich/status/473720157982822400

I will speak with my colleagues, Paul Huebl http://paulhuebl.com/ and Andy Peartree http://anderspearz.edublogs.org/ to break this down further and create our year level SMART Goal in relation to how we are going to improve targeted student’s reading comprehension strategies and build on their skills.

At the end of this weeks staff meeting we looked at a process of self-reflection shared with me by Mary Hudson via Janet Farrall https://twitter.com/JanetFarrall

The process is called NESW Reflections:

N is Need to Know

E is what am I Excited about?

S is Suggestions for the future

W is what is Worrisome?

Here is a photo of my NESW from our staff meeting today:

This is an ongoing process and hopefully we can make a difference by taking the data we have collected to make informed decisions about our teaching practices to improve student skills and understanding.

Alignment with AITSL Standards: 1.5, 3.2, 3.6, 5.4, 5.5

Professional Learning Plan (PLP) Stage 1: Self-Reflection & Assessment

Posted on May 28, 2014 by Jade Peartree

This term I began my Professional Learning Plan (PLP). I have decided to blog each stage of the process on my blog for documentation purposes.

Stage 1

Meeting 1: Introduction to the process. Teacher self-reflection and assessment of Teacher Professional Standards. The teacher reflects on their practice and completes the self-assessment tool and domains.

This process was quite useful for me. I used self-assessment rubrics provided by the school leadership team to rate my current abilities against the AITSL Standards.

Here is an example of what it looked like:

Standard 1_Know_Students_and_How_they_Learn:

Teacher Self-rating

Well-below expectation	Below expectation	Sometimes meets expectation	Meets expectation	Exceeds expectation	Significantly exceeds expectation
		Yes	Yes

Comments: The one area where I feel I need further experience and development is 1.4 Demonstrate broad knowledge and understanding of the impact of culture, cultural identity and linguistic background on the education of students from Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander background.

I am interesting in exploring avenues and further opportunities/experiences that could cater for this enhancement in my practice.

In all other areas I meet expectations and feel I’m highly accomplished in 1.

I have completed rubrics and reflected on each AITSL Standard. Files attached below for your viewing.

Standard 2_Know_the_Content_and_How_to_Teach_It:

Teacher Self-rating

Well-below expectation	Below expectation	Sometimes meets expectation	Meets expectation	Exceeds expectation	Significantly exceeds expectation
			Yes	Yes

Comments: I feel that in areas of ICT I am highly accomplished and model high level teaching knowledge and skills with my work colleagues. There are some areas of the curriculum where I am not as confident, especially in Science and Mathematics. Assessment and reporting is an area I have identified as a challenge, sometimes I have higher expectations and read achievements at a lower standard than they actually are.

Mathematics is my main area of concern and is a subject I would like to explore further. I’m not particularly confident in my content knowledge teaching Upper Primary Mathematics. In particular I would like to learn the timing and delivery of each area that naturally leads onto the next area. I think Mathematics is very sequential and requires forward planning and this is something I require guidance with in Upper Primary.

Standard 3_Plan_for_and_Implement_Effective_Teaching_and_Learning:

Teacher Self-rating

Well-below expectation	Below expectation	Sometimes meets expectation	Meets expectation	Exceeds expectation	Significantly exceeds expectation
				Yes

Comments: I feel that this Standard is an area of strength. I have quite high professional standards and engage with content and processes, which demonstrate this.

Standard 4_Create_and Maintain_ Supportive_and_Safe_Learning_Environments:

Teacher Self-rating

Well-below expectation	Below expectation	Sometimes meets expectation	Meets expectation	Exceeds expectation	Significantly exceeds expectation
				Yes

Comments: This is also an area of personal strength. I pride myself in the ability to provide a safe and inclusive learning environment. I have spent time engaging in PD to enhance student well being.

Standard 5_Assess_Provide_Feedback_and_Report_on_Student_Learning:

Teacher Self-rating

Well-below expectation	Below expectation	Sometimes meets expectation	Meets expectation	Exceeds expectation	Significantly exceeds expectation
		Yes	Yes

Comments: I see value in providing verbal and written feedback and modelling how to self-assess and peer-assess. This is an area I feel have been successful in especially using student blogs and reflective practices.

I feel that I do not refer back to student tests and results enough, I usually use them when reporting writing or preparing for interviews, but I think there needs to be a different approach to assessment rather than simply standardised tests. I would like to focus on collecting more relevant samples of work. Portfolios are changing for Year 6 with E-Portfolios, so this is an area I could look at more closely.

Standard 6_Engage_in_Professional_Learning:

Teacher Self-rating

Well-below expectation	Below expectation	Sometimes meets expectation	Meets expectation	Exceeds expectation	Significantly exceeds expectation
			Yes	Yes

Comments: I have been closely engaging with the AITSL Standards over the last year and incorporating what I do and how I achieve these standards on my blog. Any professional development I undertake becomes a blog post to document and record my learning and adds to my professional evidence of achievements. I feel that I am doing this well but I need to refocus some of my PD into my challenging subject areas such as Mathematics and Science. Being that I am working in the MYP, which has become very subject focussed, I’m not sure if this is worthwhile. I will be taking Language & Literature as a core subject so directing my PD towards that is also important.

Standard 7_Engage_Professionally_with Colleagues_Parents_Carers_and_the_Community:

Teacher Self-rating

Well-below expectation	Below expectation	Sometimes meets expectation	Meets expectation	Exceeds expectation	Significantly exceeds expectation
			Yes	Yes

Comments: This is also an area of strength. I pride myself in the ability to openly communicate with the school community. I make myself available face to face, via email, online learning platforms, attending school social functions/ events, accessible within the class etc. I have enjoyed working in the Year 6 open learning space. Team teaching has been a useful tool and opened up my ability to network and plan collaboratively. I have been engaging with other professionals via Twitter and blogging. I have been engaging with school documentation in particular the behavioural management policy and YCDI to assist with student management. I was also involved in the reviewing process of iPad & and safe technology use policies whilst in the iPad Steering committee.

After the self-assessment against AITSL Standards we were then asked to answer some reflective questions under five domains.

These were the domains:

1. Student Achievement

2. Relationships

3. Communication

4. School & Program Initiatives

5. Reputation

Here is an example of one of my responses :

(These were written in bullet points to elaborate on in meetings with leadership)

Domain 2 -Teacher Self Reflection Statement – Relationships

How well do you build relationships in your school and its wider community?

To what extent do these relationships support the values, ethos and strategic intent of your school?

What has been achieved?

Trust and respect across class, school and community
Open communication
Happy students, parents and teachers
The development of lasting relationships beyond that class/ school year

What are the particular areas of strength?

Personalised education
Developing relationships and bonds with my students & parents
Personal Development (YCDI)
Recognising the potential of each individual

What are the personal leadership attributes and gifts that you bring to the role?

Creating a fun and comfortable, safe learning environment for students to thrive in.
Leading my students to discover personal strengths and potentials.

What are the organisational and performance barriers that have impeded personal effectiveness?

Nil, sometimes I’m a little too honest or can be guarded if having issues with a parent/ student.

If I am criticised for my efforts I get upset and take it personally instead of viewing it as constructive feedback.

What aspects of your role (if any) have not been addressed adequately by you?

Time, balancing workload, when I answer emails etc.

What are the aspects of performance that need to be improved?

I think that this is an area of strength.

This completed Stage 1 of the PLP Process.

Jade Peartree's Blog

My professional reflections and documentation

Author Archives: Jade Peartree

ACEC 2014: Capturing the Hearts of Reluctant Writers by Chantelle Morrison

End of Term Confidence Builders

Maths Lesson: Properties of 3D Shapes/ Solids

MLATS Learning and Teaching Mathematics: Number

DaVinci Decathlon 2014: Part 2

The Da Vinci Decathlon 2014: Part 1

Have You Tried Turning it Off and On Again?

Language and Literature Unit: Follow the Rabbit Proof Fence

Week 6 Staff Meeting: Using data in a holistic way to track and analyse progress.

Professional Learning Plan (PLP) Stage 1: Self-Reflection & Assessment

Standard 1_Know_Students_and_How_they_Learn:

Teacher Self-rating

Teacher Self-rating

Teacher Self-rating

Teacher Self-rating

Teacher Self-rating