EAL/D Collegial Group Meeting Term 3, 2022

Posted on September 21, 2022 by Jade Peartree

EAL/D Collegial Group Meeting.

Term 3, Wednesday 14th September, 2022.

PD Hours: 1:00-4:00pm Presentation Time, and additional hours for creating content for this presentation, research and preparations.

Trish Tynan, an EAL/D specialist and IPSHA Network Hub President, from St Peter’s Girls School and myself, Jade Peartree, EAL/D Teacher, from St Andrew’s Primary School, have collaborated to present at the 2022, IPSHA EAL/D Collegial Group Meeting.

Please see the agenda attached below. We presented about all things EAL/D in the Independent School Sector including:

Data Collection and Assessments
Enrolment Processes for EAL/D families
The Teaching & Learning Cycle
Quality teaching and assessing using LEAP levels (Learning English: Achievement and Proficiency) and ACARA National Literacy Learning Progressions, using Moderation Benchmarks.
Sharing Digital Tools and Resources we can use with EAL/D students, including examples like Seesaw, Lexia, and Humanoid Robots.

Agenda 14.09.2022 IPSHA EAL-D Collegial Group[59] copy Here is the attached agenda of the presentation.

Here is the PDF attachment to the presentation that Trish Tynan and I created for the IPSHA EAL/D Collegial Group Meeting:

EAL_D Collegial Group – Sept 2022

This was my first time presenting to the EAL/D community. I have had previous experiences running professional development opportunities about digital technologies but this was different. I have been an EAL/D teacher since 2020, I am new to this area of teaching and learning and Trish Tynan has been my mentor for the last few years. It was wonderful to have the opportunity to collaborate with Trish and gain insights into the EAL/D profession. I have learnt a lot from Trish, especially in regards to our school processes for enrolments and the importance of data collection.

Whilst the PD itself was only 4 hours, there was a lot of behind the scenes work. Trish and I had multiple Zoom meetings to go over the content for the presentation. We created the Google Slide together and discussed the areas we would cover individually. Time was allocated to go over our own documentation, provide samples and evidence ready for the participants to view and engage with. We also set up digital files for our participants to have access to once the day was over, including assessment tools, the curriculum documents like the ACARA National Literacy Learning Progressions and the LEAP Level documents.

The experience for me was reaffirming that I am developing and building a solid EAL/D Programme within our school context. The feedback from my EAL/D colleagues was positive and supportive.

Below is the link to the LEAP Level documents which we use in the EAL/D Programme, and I have also attached the assessment tracking sheets. My next goal is to share these documents with all teaching staff at my own school. These would assist with planning, teaching and assessing for the benefit of our EAL/D students.

https://www.education.sa.gov.au/schools-and-educators/curriculum-and-teaching/curriculum-programs/english-additional-language-or-dialect-program

LEAP Recording and tracking sheet Levels 1-6 Oral RecordingTracking sheets

LEAP Recording and tracking sheet

Oral LEAP Recording Template – fillable

Thank you for taking the time to visit my blog.

Appreciate your feedback.

Jade

Digital Citizenship in the PYP 2016

Posted on January 24, 2016 by Jade Peartree

Digital Citizenship in the PYP Workshop: Wednesday 20th- Friday 22nd of January 2015 (24 hours PD)

For the last 3 days I have been involved in a workshop called Digital Citizenship in the PYP.

My workshop facilitator was Nathan Pope (@Chinaheadk12), he was great at catering for a diverse group of learners and was very open to sharing resources and his presentation with us. I learnt some new things about Digital Citizenship and many discussions reaffirmed some of my prior knowledge and allowed me to share content with the group.

So what is Digital Citizenship?

This image is a brainstorm chart of my group’s definition of Digital Citizenship.

It says: Being a digital citizen means having an awareness of how to be safe and responsible in the digital community. We also wanted to acknowledge a level of accountability for individuals.

A useful resource I have used with Year 6 students about Digital Citizenship: http://www.digitalcitizenship.nsw.edu.au/

My previous post (2 days ago) was a response to one of our workshop readings, which stimulated great discussion within our group about the use of technology in the classroom. This post is an overview of the course and the highlights for myself as a learner.

Some of my highlights included:

Some old and new Learning Engagement strategies, I particularly loved the Nearpod poll, (http://nearpod.com/) this allowed you to see results being generated from the class live. Nearpod is a tool for delivering content that I would like to trial with my students. You can set it to class mode and run through it as a group or set it to individual mode where students can work through content and tasks at their own pace. Something worth exploring for sure.

Web 1.0, 2.0 & 3.0 and learning what these were and the difference between each. I had never heard of this before but it was something I enjoyed learning about. Here is a brainstorm image from the workshop explaining this. In short Web 1.0 is readable content we can view but not edit, Web 2.0 is writeable content we can collaborate with others on and Web 3.o is executable, artificial intelligence, computers communicating with computers to share content relative to our interests. Pretty amazing stuff. Please also view the video link for a more detailed explanation below.
After learning about Web 2.0 we were asked to choose a piece of technology that we use to collaborate and identify the opportunities and threats about it. I chose Seesaw as I will be using Seesaw with my class again this year as part of our digital portfolios and starting blogs in junior primary. Here is what I came up with:
Google a Day Challenge: http://www.agoogleaday.com/ I’m interested in using this with middle to upper primary students to assist them with searching tips using Google. There are some skills that need to be specifically taught and refining searches is one of them.
Are we disconnecting by being digitally connected? I stumbled across this video whilst searching for something else but thought it was just too good not to share. It’s about the issues we have today about being connected by technology but disconnecting socially in real life. I think everybody should take the next 20 minutes and just watch this Ted Talk by Sherry Turkle, especially those addicted to their phones!
We also explored Digital Footprints, Cyber Safety/ bullying, Grooming and Creative Commons and copyright issues (plagiarism). I have a bit of a background knowledge on these topics already but would like to add the videos I thought were quite good in relation to these topics.
Digital Footprint:
Creative Commons:
Cyber Safety resource for students. I’ve used this with Junior Primary up to Year 6’s: http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/cyberquoll/
Digital Citizenship Rubric: We discussed the importance of intellectual property and plagiarism. We defined plagiarism:Plagiarism is the use and copy of unacknowledged works. Works can include pieces of art, music, theatre performances, graphic designs, photography, film, published/ written works online, website content, programmes, graphs and digital representations.
- We then discussed ways in which we could educate students about plagiarism and how to check if their work was cited properly. This rubric can be used or adapted to suit your students, I think it’s quite good.
Finally Policy Documents: We had the opportunity to look at policy documents from other people’s schools in the group. The big take away point was that staff, students and parents should be involved in creating the policy documents. Too often it is the responsibility of a senior/ leadership staff member to create policy documents and then they share it, ask people to read it and then it’s done. Some people will take the time to read the policies but I dare say that more people will not find the time to engage with them… So, getting people involved in the policy drafting process and then handing the ideas over to leadership or senior staff to finalise is probably a better way to go about it.
Resources: Here is a link to the course website that Nathan Pope shared with each of us. It has many great articles, videos, resource links and examples of policy documents. I hope you find them as useful as I do: https://sites.google.com/site/jadedigitalcitizensite/home

Final thought, we are all Digital Citizens, it is our responsibility to be great role models for our students and share our knowledge and understanding about what it means to be a good citizen, on and offline.

Thanks for reading, please post a comment.

Jade

Effective Lesson Design: Intentional Planning

Posted on May 13, 2015 by Jade Peartree

Week 4, Term 2, 2015. Curriculum Staff Meeting

Category: 1. Know students and how they learn, 3. Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning, 5. Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning, 6. Engage in professional learning,

Topic: Effective Lesson Design: Intentional Planning

I presented at staff meeting this evening about a course I’ve been on recently called Effective Teaching in English & Mathematics. The course has been designed by AISSA (Association of Independent Schools of SA) and delivered by Rosemary Kadow and Desiree Gilbert. Some of the references and resources have come from their course guide. The course runs for 3 days and I still have one more day left but thought I should reflect on my experiences so far and what I have shared with my colleagues.

Our school has been focusing on curriculum alignment. We are an IB school so we have been focusing on aligning ACARA with IB, making our planning intentional and clear for all to assist with informing our assessments and reporting.

Here is the Keynote Presentation we used at Staff Meeting:

Attached are the handouts provided to staff from the course booklet we received:

Intentional Handouts

Things I take away from this experience:

The reflective tools were useful and I have enjoyed using them with my class and other staff seemed to appreciate more strategies to try out in class.
I spent a considerable amount of time planning out this presentation and working with a colleague of mine to really dig deep. We reflected on why we should plan intentionally and how we can improve teaching practice by starting at the big picture and working backwards by design. Breaking down the objectives and curriculum standards to teachable and intentional lessons. Here is an example of an intentional planner in Mathematics that I made this term. Intentional Planner Maths T2 Money
Success Criteria. Our lessons should hold no secrets. Students should know what we aim to do, how they can achieve success and the purpose behind the task. This is all part of WALT (What Are Learning To), WILF (What I’m Looking For) & TIB (This Is Because). Shirley Clarke introduced the concepts of WALT, WILF & TIB, google her and images for each and you will find an abundance of resources.

I had some good feedback after the session from staff. One staff member (Paul Huebl) blogged about our presentation and noted the following:

Learning intentions must be explicitly clear for all students in the room. Intentions must be visible.
Learning intentions are not descriptions of an activity. They are directly linked to achievement standards.
There should be no secrets in the learning process –> this means success criteria must also be clear and explicit.
Success criteria tell kids “You can succeed at this and this is how you do it”. What does it look like to achieve the learning intention?
Along with WALT statements (We Are Learning To) and WILF statements (What I’m Looking For) you also need to address TIB (This Is Because) which links WALT and WILF to the students personal contexts.
To help with students engaging with WALT and WILF statements, these can be present on task sheets and blank work sheets. That way teachers can easily indicate how students have performed against them.
Students should be able to state learning intentions and success criteria. This is easier if displayed as above.
Don’t use the term differentiate. Say ‘make it accessible’.

If you wish to read more of Paul Huebl’s blog post please click on this link:

http://mrhuebl.edublogs.org/2015/05/12/deliberate-planning/comment-page-1/#comment-51

I will blog again about my final session and share some more strategies I have used in the classroom.

I hope you found this post helpful.

Thanks, please leave a comment.

Jade

Lest We Forget. The ANZAC Centenary in 2V

Posted on April 24, 2015 by Jade Peartree

This morning we had the ANZAC Day Assembly. Students of every age across the school campus Reception-Yr 7 all seemed to understand the significance or importance of showing respect during this time of reflection and remembrance. The stillness in assembly was something unlike any other day in your typical primary school.

Following the assembly we returned to class and watched this clip on You Tube about the significance and symbol of the poppy. This helped students to understand why we make poppies on ANZAC and Remembrance Day.

We then made a poppy using this template:

Poppy template

To do this in your class you will need the template, some red and green paper or card, scissors and glue sticks.

We have been looking at procedure writing in English so we also watched a video about how to make a poppy. This was quite handy.

This is the final display in our classroom of our ANZAC poppies.

Some children chose to look at and draw or colour in pages of ANZAC soldiers and nurses like this image below.

After recess we returned to class and read a book about the ANZACS.

I was fortunate to have a parent find and lend me this lovely book called “Lest We Forget” by Kerry Brown. We read in it class today to give the children some context as to why we say Lest We Forget and why it is a day that we choose to remember the ANZACS. It has beautiful illustrations and puts things into perspective for children. The link below takes you to a review of the text.

http://www.kids-bookreview.com/2015/04/review-lest-we-forget.html

Following the reading of the book there were many questions and discussions about the soldiers, nurses and animals in war. We reflected on the importance of acknowledging all those brave men and women who served Australia and fought for our freedom and rights today.

We had a lovely day reflecting on the significance of ANZAC Day and many students were keen to attend ANZAC services tomorrow for the centenary.

The Ode

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

A useful resource and good read for anyone interested:

http://www.anzacportal.dva.gov.au/

A Poetry Lesson: My Poem

Posted on October 28, 2014 by Jade Peartree

In class today, Mr Huebl gave the students the following instructions:

Please select your poem and compose a blog post on it. This post will need:

1. A copy of your poem, including author, date of writing and source
2. An explanation of what the poem is about, in your opinion.

Please submit the URL in the ‘my poem’ assignment on Edmodo.

I chose to partake in this lesson and have found a poem and will submit this assignment.

My Poem:

I Love You
by Jean: http://www.teachers.net/gazette/MAY03/poem.html

A child grabs my hand in “ownership.”
“Teacher,” he calls me. “Miss ______.”
I call the roll and, instead of his name,
he answers this, “I love you.”

What do I say while the others laugh?
I’m choked with emotion; words fail me.
I have to do something, I know in my heart,
But the words are so sweet, so lovely.

An “angel” is heckled for loving.
I have to reprove him – I do,
Just to set an example
So the others won’t act up, too.

But the words don’t stop with the laughter,
And the “angel” is not quite through.
When the other kids giggle, “He loves her,”
He stands up and cries, “But I do!”

And my heart sort of pulls at my chest now
As I call the names left on the list.
But my heart is waiting to hear once more
The words that I already miss…”I love you.”

My interpretation of this poem:
The writer is a teacher. The angel is one of her students. The student/ angel is a boy and he says he loves his teacher during roll call. Obviously this teacher has made an impact on this child. I have made the assumption that this is a young boy, a child in primary school. The other children laugh at him, obviously not many students announce their love for their teachers. This makes me wonder how old the children are, and if the boy is different in some way? Is this boy craving love from his teacher because he doesn’t get love at home? Or is this boy in a family who openly expresses their feelings and love for one another, that this appears to be a normal behaviour?
Is this boy different from his peers? Yes. How and why? We do not know.
The teacher appreciated this boy and his kind words but fears that his actions and words will isolate him. Yet she craves the words all the same. Teachers can love their students and students can love their teachers, but it is not something that is usually expressed for fear of judgement, limitations of standards of professionalism, keeping safe distances and boundaries within the classroom, defining an appropriate teacher/ student relationship etc etc.

A lovely poem all the same.
An experience I can relate to.

ACEC: Australian Computers in Education Conference: CyberSmart

Posted on October 7, 2014 by Jade Peartree

CyberSmart

Embedding a Cyber Smart program into the curriculum.

Presenter: Greg Gebhart

National Curriculum: Standard 4

4.4 Maintain Student Safety

Provide learning opportunities on cyber bullying and how to report
Provide students with the information on safe use of social media.

4.5 Use ICT Safely, responsibility and ethically

Provide lessons to students on plagiarism
Provide students with the curriculum that identifies key online risks and issues.

How do we embed Cyber Safety within current programs in the curriculum?

There is no doubt that we, as educators see the importance of raising student awareness about issues regarding online safety. There are constant changes, risks and obstacles we face online and it is our responsibility to equip our students with the tools and strategies to safely engage with the online world. In my teaching experience I have created a Digital Citizenship Unit of Inquiry with my Year 6 students to address such issues.

I found this statistic fascinating: The average number of student personal digital devices is 4 or more each! This includes devices such as iPad’s, phones, laptops, gaming consoles, iPods etc. It was also interesting to note that whilst the number of mobile phones for students hasn’t really changed, they have instead progressed from standard mobile phones to Smart Phones, allowing further access to online activities.

Less than 5% of Primary Schools students are on Facebook. There has been a shift away from Facebook and a move towards other social networking sites and apps such as Instagram and Kik. This is due to Facebook becoming an increasingly adult world where students are being friended by their parents, family members etc. We need to remind our students about the security settings within each app and site. For example many students are using Instagram to upload their personal pics, not realising that even though they are sharing these pictures with their friends lists, the pictures themselves become property of Google images and can be used on Google and found by strangers if searched. I have students in Year 6 who are currently using Instagram and I wonder if they realise this…note to self: remind my class about this in our next Digital Citizenship lesson.

Here are some Sites/ Apps which are popular amongst students ranging from primary to high school age:

KIK: Kik has limited security settings, it is meant for young adults (17+), we find many offenders on this app, searching for young people. Do not recommend KIK to students, talk about the lack of safety and how to change the settings to not allow strangers to connect with you.

YouTube (13+): So many students have YouTube accounts and upload videos of themselves to share with others. Again there are privacy settings and choices of who you share your videos with. Golden rule of if you wouldn’t share this with your grandma, don’t share it online.

Vine (17+) (6 second videos) Risky behaviours are being displayed here, students dare each other to do things to get their 6 seconds of fame online. We need to warn students about these risky behaviours and what impact 6 seconds can have on your digital reputation.

Tumbler (13+) (majority of kids not using this now)

askFM (13+) ask.com has recently purchased this site and have promised to clean the site up and restructure it. It is not one to recommend to children.

Whisper. This site has been linked to teenage suicides, it allows people to comment and be completely anonymous, which is why students like it, but also allows for some terrible posting and behaviours.

SnapChat: This app is being used by some of my students. The idea is that students can share a photo and set a time limit for that photo and then it “disappears”. The issue is that these images are being shared but then captured and stored and shared again! There are Snap Chat cheats to collect the images without the sender realising their photo has been captured. The names of the cheats are: Snap Save, Snap-Hack Pro, Snap Capture. I wonder if my students are aware of this???

It is so important for us to create an awareness of the importance of Security Settings. We need to not only tell students to change their settings but also show them where they are and how to activate them. Sometimes it is simply one setting that can take you from high risk to low risk.

We need to develop the idea of Digital Identities and how they are your real identity too. Teaching the whole person and developing their well-being. Cyber safety is viewed negatively in the eyes of students, there is the “been there done that” mentality. However, the Digital Citizenship topic is seen in a positive light, looking at who you are as a person online and the values and behaviours you display that project who you are as a person.

Resources to investigate:

CyberSmart Website: Some great resources for teachers, parents and students

http://www.cybersmart.gov.au/Schools/Cybersafety%20policy%20guidance/Holistic%20approach%20to%20cybersafety.aspx

Bogus Websites to share with kids: https://infolit.wikispaces.com/Bogus+websites

This website gives examples of websites that are full of completely false facts. They are quite clever but can be used to teach students how to identify good sources of information. Check them out.

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.

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.

Why Technology? Why the iPad? My Initial Reflections and Research

Posted on December 28, 2013 by Jade Peartree

In 2014 my year level (three Year 6 classes) will embark on a 1:1 iPad program.

Many of my blog posts in 2014 will be based on my research and iPad practices in the classroom.

Here is my reflection and initial justifications for “Why iPads?”

Why Technology? Why the iPad?

It was early in my teaching career that I realised the value and importance of using technology in teaching and learning.

Early in my career, my classes were limited to a few desktop computers and we would allocate time for students to use the technology available. We would also book cameras, video recorders, tripods and so on to assist us with recording our learning and creating pieces of work.

Then we were sourced with a class set of laptops, which we could borrow and use for certain lessons. This was a game changer back then, as the laptops were portable, there was 1:1 accessibility, they had cameras in them and video recording programs and we had the opportunity to cater for individualised learning.

Collaboration across the class when creating projects with technology becomes easier and we also have the world at our fingertips. Technology is simply a tool, which allows access to greater resources, whether those resources are the Internet, students and teachers across the world or sharing amongst peers. Technology allows opportunities to learn from others and share our learning in an instant way, something that we couldn’t have achieved at this standard before.

We hear the term “21st century teaching and learning” frequently, and as an educator I question what this really means and what that looks like in the modern classroom. The iPad has been described as a revolutionary tool in education for quite some time, but why? What are the main differences between an iPad and a laptop for example? Firstly, we cannot deny the iPad’s portability and mobility. The idea of anytime and anywhere access to information is a game changer, this device can be used throughout the school day and easily transported home to be used as a continuation of learning and creating at home. Why should learning be limited to just the classroom?

We use personal devices, like phones, ipads or laptops, to assist us with day-to-day organization and workload. Shouldn’t we be preparing our children for a world where technology assists managing life’s tasks? The iPad is sensory, intuitive and relatable to our students today. It’s a tool that allows for student creativity, collaboration and problem solving. A tool, which assists in, individualized education, meeting the needs of the individual.

I found this image on Twitter about iPad workflow and thought it would be a useful resource for myself.

http://www.edudemic.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/ipadflow.jpg