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Showing posts with label Reading. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reading. Show all posts
Friday, August 26, 2016
Teacher vs Learning Coach
I've been thinking lately about the difference between a teacher and a learning coach. Reflecting on my experiences in education I wonder if it's that a teacher teaches content while a learning coach coaches learning. Thinking about how our day is split up in LH3 I feel like I'm a learning coach during iExplore and iExperience and a teacher during iDevelop.
During reading, maths and writing (maybe a bit less so in writing) I feel like I'm just going through the motions of teaching content to the kids. In reading I focus on comprehension skills like summarising and making connections and in maths we focus on teaching specific strategies and knowledge.
So, I've been wondering how to change from being a teacher during iDevelop to being a learning coach. I think the easiest place for me to start figuring this out is in reading. I'm not really sure where to begin but I need to figure out what my groups really need to learn about reading and how I can provide that learning opportunity for them.
I have two reading groups, both reading at around 8-9.5 years old which is a bit concerning. The year 5s and 6s should be reading between 10-12 and the year 7s should be between 12-14. So my question to myself is - how do I help my learners achieve increased reading comprehension while coaching their learning rather than just teaching them content? (So far literature circles is the only idea I have but I'm not sure how to run these in a way that achieves my goal). I have some research to do!
Thursday, April 14, 2016
Swivl DAT
My deliberate act of teaching was a reading group who were focusing on Self Monitoring. We had worked on this comprehension strategy for a couple of weeks and were doing the last, refresher session on it before the holidays.
What Went Well
The learners had their self monitoring bookmarks they'd been given and they were able to refer to them confidently. There were a couple of learners who were very confident with answering the questions that I had put up for discussion and could talk about self monitoring skills easily. Over the previous weeks the group had understood what self monitoring means, the importance of it and the different ways to do it
What I Would Change
Next time I would set the swivl up at the back of the group so that the learners are in the video. It would have been helpful for me to see their interaction so that I can better plan for sessions and to allow me to write narrative assessments on specific learners.
In the future I need to ensure that I move around a wee bit instead of standing or sitting in one spot, I think this would make the session a lot more interesting for the learners and would allow me to connect with more of the group (I follow a special needs teacher on Facebook and he uses this strategy to keep things interesting and keep the attention of his learners).
I need to use strategies for getting the whole group participating in the learning. More often than not it's a handful of learners who answer all of the questions and do all of the thinking, perhaps because the others are shy, or worried about being wrong or language is a problem. I think if I had them discussing, writing, mind mapping or doing some other activity in pairs or threes it would be a non confronting way for all learners to participate and access the learning. This is my main goal moving forward.
I think I also need to think about the structure of the session and really plan it out a bit more deliberately so that I can get the learning I want out of it but keep the session short and sharp.
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