Term 3 Focus: DLOs

This term my aim is to encourage the students to use the rubrics that have been set up for them in Maths and Writing independently. Although we are currently experiencing some technical difficulties with the writing exemplars I am working on this and will hopefully have it functioning again soon.

I would love to focus on engaging my students in creating DLOs which demonstrate their learning which they can link to their Maths rubric as proof of ongoing achievement at their current stage. It will also encourage them to frequently visit the rubric and reflect on where they are working and what their next learning steps are.

Here is an example of an educreation that Room 7 have created demonstrating how to solve a multiplication problem. This is one of the forms of DLO I am to teach my students to use.

What I have learnt during Term 2

During this term I have seen how using the rubrics in writing and maths have encouraged my students to set goals and strive to succeed. It will be interesting to see what results using them on a regular basis over term three will bring.

Our Steps to Success

This term Ben and I have been working to have our students track their progress in Maths Problem Solving. 

We created these Steps to Success which we have embedded in a subpage on our students blogs.
The students reflect with teacher support about where they are working and post a link with the date under the column. The students then highlight what they are currently focusing on with their Problem Solving.

We have also used a create a word problem task that can be used to link as evidence of where they are working. We have brainstormed some ideas and would like to get into recording explanation videos as well.

Reflecting on Progress: Term 1

Over this term I have made a start. My students have begun to track their writing learning. With a focus on sentences we have used the rubric to assess our work. The students have then gone through and sent their work to the Picasa Album. This has made their work visible for their peers and others which makes them accountable for their work.
Next term I will make sure I take time to continue getting the students to self assess, justify this and to send their work to the exemplar folders. 

Picasa Albums!

After an inspiring conversation with the amazing Dorothy Burt, I have created Picasa albums to go with my sentences rubric.

Using the rubric, I plan to conference with the children about their work and agree on a year level their work is sitting at. Once they have decided, the students will then take a screenshot of their work and email it to the correlating Picasa album. 

This will create a bank of exemplars with which we can refer to throughout the year. It also makes their learning visible and the students accountable for what they are producing.

Over the following week we will hopefully have some work to share so watch this space!

Teaching Inquiry 2015

How can students knowing where they are working and what their next steps are increase the ownership of their learning?

This year I am lucky enough to be teaching in a Year 4/5 class with the amazing Ben Baxendine. Our brand new open modern learning environment currently caters to 60 eager students.

We have set our teaching inquiry on raising student ownership of learning through clearly guiding students about where they are working and what their next learning steps are.

I have decided to begin this journey by focusing on using rubrics for each of our learning goals during writing. 

As you can see in the example below I have broken down for the students what is expected when writing sentences at each year level. The students then use this to judge where they are working and to set their goal for what they need to do to progress to the next level.

My aim is to make this visible for the students with examples of their work on our site and also on the wall. It keeps the students accountable to themselves, their pairs, and myself and will hopefully inspire progress.