COA Lesson 1.mov

Direct Instruction

The learning intention for this lesson was for the children to talk about their feelings and discuss how to use their WITS at school.

The video shows the Team Inquiry session that was presented to all four classes in our space. It followed on from work within our own spaces on writing about feelings, and was followed up by more work on 'Using our WITS' in our own classes. 'Using our WITS' is part of the 'Pt England Way' that we learn about at our school.

Unit Plan Extended Lesson Plan

Reflection

The lesson felt like it went really well at the time. I was pleased with the degree of student engagement and the conversations I could hear as they shared their ideas in their groups.

Looking back on it, I think it would have been better broken into two seperate lessons. One focusing solely on Feelings and the other on the WITS section.

The reason for combining these two foci in the one lesson was down to timetabling concerns. There is a tension when timetabling, between doing learning as a team activity, but then also needing to consolidate this learning in our home classes. With this in mind, it is important to consider that each class had been talking about feelings within our individual spaces in the lead up to this lesson, and were to continue following up in the area of ‘Using our WITS’ after the lesson.

The follow up EE did not provide as many excellent examples to share (within my own class) as I had hoped for. Having said that, the use of the iPads and the ability to record their ideas orally, (without the need for advanced literacy skills,) allowed everybody the opportunity to connect with the activity to the best of their ability.

Even in the work of students who did not directly understand or answer the questions provided, you can hear personal connections being made with the topic, and their thought process around how they would solve the problem.

Things to Note

In Year 2, we are just starting to learn how to post our work to our blog. As this lesson occurred so early in the year, only 1 student was ready to post his work to his blog. As more of my students gain the skills to blog, I hope to share more posts of their work. Instead of links to their blogs, you will find a link to their Explain Everything work, uploaded as a video for you to watch.

You will find links to 'Completed EE's below. EE stands for Explain Everything, which is the app the children use on their iPads on a daily basis. It operates much like an exercise book would, but allows for whiteboard functionality, as well as the ability to insert photos and voice record.