Clay Burrell Blogging
Here are the main messages I got: the notion of thinking aloud and reflecting on practice I like the way we skyped with him and while he was chatting to us he sent us a useful link which we then accessed etc etc- so much use for the students if they got into the habit of doing this when preparing for assessments etc and would enable them to collaborate with one another more effectively. I also see huge value in taking notes such as these as these sessions are going on and should this be the road that our school heads down with personal laptops etc so kids can take and share notes with each other etc etc Needs balance- we all need to lose ourselves in our own worlds now and again, blogging is a more productive way than drinking copious amounts of gin of doing this. Classroom applications: Need to provide kids with greater choices of what they do- in Math this could be exploring their own methods for solving problems and sharing this, or completing open ended tasks such as using specific integers such as -5, -8 and 6 and 4 and any operation to create the greatest and least values etc etc Students could also set one another challenges such as this for one another and set each other targets of how many challenges to complete within a week- they could then pick and choose which challenges they were most interested in; each student could try to create challenges involving different math concepts such as measurement, probability, algebra, probability etc etc It has inspired me also to create a wider range of discussion forums for my students to ponder and discuss with one another, rather than just setting up discussion forums for “Fractions Test this Friday” I could pose problems such as how many fractions can you find between one half and one third? What strategies did you use to find these fractions? Can you show this in diagram form or use a number line to illustrate your findings?”
I also liked his idea of re-writing the textbooks- this could easily be done with the Math textbooks we currently use, with kids using their own examples/explanations and record the kids explaining and showing one another and upload these to the wiki/portal to use as future resources for one another etc etc.
They can then self reflect on their own presentations and so the cycle continues…as the videos and presentations improve, the students become more and more supported in their learning. I also liked the fact that the kids could search for useful videos and links to help each other out futher.
WIKI- Informational
BLOGS- Reflective
How do you provide more effective differentiated assessments?- I may post this on my blog and see what responses I get!
