Lesson+Feedback

Reducing, reusing and recycling: Lots of children are suggesting ways of reducing energy or water consumption: is this really what

we want them to do? I see it as rather different to the idea of consumption of materials / waste / rubbish - what do the rest of you

think? ALso, I think we may need to push the children if we really want them to come uip with ideas for reusing which genuinely

ralso reduce consupmtion, rather than just resuing materials 'for the sake of it'. Ben

'The shop': We have found that most of our children have a lot of difficulty working out change from $1000. One strategy I've used which seems to work quite well is putting the $1000 note and the toy down near each other, let's say the toy costs $600. I ask "Are these equal?" - No. "These 2 must be equal before we can exchange them." So then, on the toy, we start counting $600, then add $100 one-by-one until we get to $1000. "Are these equal now?" - Yes. "So now we are ready for you to take the toy. How much change did you get?" - $400. For me, this worked better than the strategy I'd planned. What has worked for the rest of you?

Writing: I found it very difficult for my children to think of the 'big idea' for the report, in a way that is suitable for the first sentence. They would generally say something like "Kittens and cats", which is a great title but not a sentence to begin with. I couldn't find a way to successfully communicate to them that this is not a sentence - does anyone have any tips? Thanks.

Ben

I think we are all in agreement that Dr Ruiz´ presentation was brilliant, many thanks to Adri in particular for organising it. The maps / directions activity in YF was great for getting the children engaged in using the directions in a kinesthetic and structured way - many thanks to Miguel for setting it up for all of us, and to YF in general for arranging for everyone to use their classroom! I am keen to receive feedback on how the shop is going in Maths, and whether you see the children putting their learning into practise in the cafeteria. Ben

May 2nd! Ey adri! Thanks a lot for getting and helping with Dr Ruiz speech!! It was so related to the unit! I was amazed!! It went to the point and super clear!!! Thank you so much!! Elaine :). Thank you Elaine, the doctor made a very good job, I agree. She went over the duty with it. Adri. Thank you Miguel for setting everything up in the auditorium, by the way, our children behaved really good. Kudos to all of us for that.

April 30th I would like to suggest that a short statement announcing the homework for each subject (Maths, Unit, English, Spanish) would be written on the wiki's folder of the subject.

I would also like to thank you all for your willingness to help on Thursday & Friday, your help with duties, agendas and dismissal with my children is very much appreciated. Adri

April 13th Thank you Analu for today's expert. Perfect timing, cute octopuss, and related to our 2nd line of inquiry. Adri

April 6th Wanted to drop a note to mention how nice the reading online activity Maritza planned was. This is a cool resource. Also to Analú the videos for your activity were interesting and the children enjoyed them a lot. ! Adri

Thank you Adri, yes Children enjoyed them a lot! Ana Lu.

Dear team, Many of you asked for a forum in which we can share information on how we, and our children, have been progressing - in order to help inform and continuously improve our planning. Please use this forum to evaluate lessons, to share what your children need more / less of, make specific suggestions for future planning etc. This should be a place for constructive criticism which will help us all to continue 'growing' and meet the needs of our children ever more precisely. Thank you!


 * Lovely idea, Ben! **
 * This is what reflective teaching is all about! **
 * Metacognitive strategies applied to teachers, not only to students--BRAVO! **
 * Big hug to you and your team, **
 * Claudia **

Thank you Ben, I think this is a very good idea. I have 1 suggestion for future planning. 1. It is important to attach our disciplinary planning to the achievement indicators, as well as the transdisciplinary and the inquiry to the lines of inquiry, skills, concepts, attitudes, and attributes we have to assess, of course not forgetting the flexibility of the curriculum, but not assessing some "not-in-the-extended-POI" stuff, and then having short time for what appears there. Maybe I am wrong, but, for now, this is what has been my concern for the last weeks. Adri

March 13th Hey team,

I would love feedback on the planning on "The Lorax", and the "Diversity on a tree". Were they too ambicious regarding the timing. Were they understandable? Thanks Chachi for the suggestions on the timing. Adri Oops, I forgot something: Please let´s remember to change the title of the English Unit. There are some L.E. still in "Neighbourhood News", not big deal for us, might be a deal for ISO or somebody that sees our planning and gets confused with the title. I would also like to suggest to "sign" the learning experience, maybe by typing your name in the box where we write the date. Sometimes I can´t understand or need feedback before delivering the lesson, and I don´t know who wrote it, so it makes it hard to get the feedback on time. maybe it is just me guys... :-) ADRI

Hey Dear team! I suggest we check the Language writing achievement indicators for next year, the 2 first ones are really similar, based on Maritza`s, Elaine`s and Fabio`s points of view! Elaine

Hello! 1 I think that in general we are doing a good job with planning learning experiences accurately for the indicators. In Maths we have been teaching time, which isn't an indicator for this period, but we feel that we need to start working on it early if the children are to be able to work with it in the third period, for which it is an indicator. The Unit team have a very difficult job to try and cover all of the aspects identified in the extended POI but I think they have been doing a good job on the whole. 2 The Lorax: It looked very ambitious, but actually it was OK to implement. The content could be covered in the time (except for the air pollution experiment). However, I would prefer the children to 'do' something more, rather than have a whole-class activity for the whole lesson - in fact this has been a concern of mine with a number of lessons. Maybe the children could be directed to discuss certain parts in groups, moving around tables with some kind of prompt / provocation at each station to get them thinking. 3 Language indicators: I think that we will need to make a major review of these next year. This year maybe we didn't quite appreciate that the programme would become pretty much all of our L2 teaching - i.e. I think we may need to forget about integrating our old indicators and only adopt the ones in the programme, OR become much more flexible in the way we implement the programme. 4 Diversity in a tree: The only problem was that it was very difficult to shake the tree enough to make things fall out! Maybe I need to be more of a man... I've only been going to the gym for a month hahaha. And IIRC there were lots of resources mentioned at the beginning of the plan which then didn't have any use during the learning experience... 5 'o': The programme CD had what I suppose is an American pronunciation of 'o' in the middle of words - this is one time where I think British is best ;) because that weird pronunciation then makes it very hard for the children to distinguish 'o' from other vowel sounds...  Ben

Hey,

I totally agree, there is a lack of small group work as well as interaction and actual inquiry in the Lorax L.E. very interesting, huh! I will take this into account for next planning. It was also interesting to see the materials I requested for the Diversity in a tree, and then I forgot to apply them in the planning. More things to take into account for next time. ( IIRC: ???)

Thanks for the feedback, I think this is a great opportunity to grow. ** Wow lol, I thought they were so good, ** **hahahhaha**.

About the achievement indicators, yes there are important analysis to be made and probably important changes and/or adjustments. As a language coordinator I invite you all to start keeping track, maybe online, or in your notebooks, or as footnotes to the achievement indicators format, and not leaving our ideas or suggestions for the end of the school year, when we usually sit to make this analysis and we have, maybe not forgotten the whole idea, but the keen details we observe in the daily work and implementation of this new programme.

Adri