Reading Practice Intensive - Day 8

Day 8 - Create in Reading

I have been looking forward to this day's content, and now that it is almost over I am looking ahead to what exciting things I can plan for my students in Reading.  Today three of my cohort joined the Tuesday cohort as we have one of our ministry teacher only days this Friday.  The Tuesday cohort was very welcoming and had a good vibe.

We shared our Homework tasks and how they had gone first.  A challenge for many with all of the sickness around, both with teachers and mentors.  I have to catch up with my mentor as I haven't had a chance in the last couple of weeks.  I discussed the frustration that although my students can engage in a great extended learning discussion about a text, when they come to complete Response to Text activities they struggle to capture what was discussed in their answers.  Kiri suggested two tips that may help - (1) Have a teacher aide scribe everything said in the discussion (out of view) that can be referred back to, and (2) Use an online voice recorder and record the discussion audio for the students to check back on.

What did I learn that increased my understanding of the kaupapa and pedagogy of the Manaiakalani Reading Programme ?

It is always great to hear from Dorothy each RPI session that we have - today she was joining us from her car! She began by asking us, "Do you do your best thinking while your hands are creating? 

Dorothy talked, quite obviously, about the foundation goal of the Manaiakalani programme is to motivate our learners to engage with the curriculum (the "hook").  We want learners to not only have have opportunities to create digitally but also to create across the spectrum of disciplines that include art, music, movement, drama, and all forms of making. It is important to capture these creative artefacts and responses using the affordances of digital technologies. We can do this in ways we never could before. 

Dorothy talked about SiSoMo (Sight, Sound and Motion).  The more senses you can engage in creativity the more deeper you can go with consolidating the learning. With digital tools, we can create like never before. Not only can we use ever increasing ways to harness digital innovation in creative ways, but we can digitise and share what we create with our hands in the ‘real world.’  

It was interesting to find out that OECD's Pisa tests rank New Zealand's 15-year-olds 5th in the world in creative thinking (out of 81 countries).  In the same round of tests New Zealand ranked 10th in reading, 11th in science and 23rd in maths - these scores all show drops.  Interestingly Singapore was number one in all subjects.

AI was also discussed - how will this impact on our creativity.  We still want our young people to be creative without using AI.  Dorothy shared a few more AI tools for me to check out.

What did I learn that could improve my capability and confidence in teaching reading?

Today we had lots of chances to create resources that we can use in our Reading programmes.

The first activity we did was using an unillustrated poem and recording ourselves reading a paragraph and then adding the audio and an AI image to illustrate it.  This was really amazing when we saw what each other had created - all so different.  What do you think?

Mayer’s principles of multimedia learning provide a blueprint for how to structure multimedia elements to maximise learning outcomes.

Creativity empowers learning - Digital technologies empower creativity.

We revisited the SAMR model (which I often think critically about when I see some colleagues teaching and learning).  And I often need to remind myself not to slip back into bad habits of "substitution" when organising activities for students.  We should all be striving to be in the top section - Modification and Redefinition.

We added examples of how we have designed opportunities for learners to Create after reading using multimedia ideas (see below) and this will be a valuable resource.  It is great to look at other people's ideas and recall that I used to do some of these things - but why did I stop?!

What did I learn that could be used with my learners? 

We looked at short responses to texts - before, during or after reading.  We looked at "tighter" and "looser" design options for responses.  We had an opportunity to create a response task and link it to a register (which is another fantastic resource to use with my learners).  I created this prediction activity on a slideshow which I plan to add to Explain Everything as well.

It was good to revisit some of the Create tools that I haven't used for a while.  My students are loving using Canva at the moment.  I hope to teach them how to use a variety of new tools and then offer them the choice for what tool they would like to use for response tasks - Storyboard That, Book Creator, Pixton, making quizzes.  I regularly "magpie" ideas from other school's blog posts to use in my programme.  

After looking at our Uru Manuka Cluster data last week for our Reading Observations, we certainly need to focus on adding some choice into follow up tasks and opportunities for students to collaborate during follow up tasks.

It was great to have Fiona Grant join us today and run through was a one-shot film is.  How cool would it be to have a green wall in our learning space to use as a green screen?  Maybe a conversation with the caretaker coming up!  Then we created our own one-shot film! I must have missed the memo to have a children's book with me.  After a mad panic around my house I managed to find one of my books from the beginning of my teaching career to use.  What a hilarious activity watching all the one minute videos at the end!  My Puppy and Me by Mercer Mayer was my one-shot film, which I will not be posting on here!

What did I learn that could be shared within my wider community, with either colleagues, or whānau/aiga? 

Our last task for the day was a reflection actiivty on Padlet where we needed to consider "What do you need to adjust?"  We reflected on the day and identified areas of Create pedagogy to further develop in these categories - Opportunities, Collaboration, Design, Choices, Display/Digitalise(Share).  We then added our next steps to the Padlet.

Reading Practice Intensive - Day 7

 Day 7 - Thinking

We are now into the final term of the Reading Practice Intensive with 3 sessions to go - Thinking, Creating and Sharing.  To quote Dorothy "it's always fun to be thinking about thinking!"

We began by going into our smaller breakout groups and looking through our Homework tasks.  This is always a great part of each session as you learn so much from other participants.  It is nice to reflect about what we are proud of, have found challenging, found helpful and what we might still need support with.

What did I learn that increased my understanding of the kaupapa and pedagogy of the Manaiakalani Reading Programme ?

Dorothy spoke to us about the 21st century skills (Critical Thinking, Communication, Creativity and Collaboration) that are essential for our young people in the world we live in.  She talked about how the Manaiakalani cybersmart programme supports the development and growth of thinking - especially in the Smart Learners and Smart Media areas.  Information should be read critically.  Smart Learners critically examine information online.  

Dorothy is always great at sharing gems of knowledge - whether it is a new website or app or something that I have seen before but had forgotten about.  She reminded me about the Cybersmart Challenges (Fake News, Media Bias, Copyright) cover what is true and what is fake.  I am excited to try the new Adobe Podcast and love the feature of removing background noise and being able to edit the audio like a doc.

What did I learn that could improve my capability and confidence in teaching reading?

We looked at the Levels of Thinking.  Learners should have opportunities to develop awareness of the ‘levels of thinking’ involved in being a good reader. 

At the literal level (‘reading on the lines’) information is stated directly and can be located at one or more places.

At an interpretive level (‘reading between the lines’) readers have to use their reasoning and critical analysis skills to work out an implied or suggested meaning (not directly stated). Due to the interpretive nature of the meaning making, care needs to be taken to uphold the integrity of the author’s intention by aligning as much as possible with the evidence available. 

At the evaluative level (‘reading beyond the lines’) readers are making judgements concerning values, correctness or issues of wider social significance (and relating these to their own contexts and lives).

We then looked at these levels using the text "Jump" as well as a YouTube clip of someone bungee jumping and a poem.

We revisited Blooms, Do Bono's Thinking Hats and Solo Taxonomy and how these show a progression from lower order (below the line) to higher order (above the line) thinking. Above the line or “higher order” thinking is more complex, requiring more ‘brain power’. Part of the reason for this complexity is the need to hold more things in one’s head at a time. Another is the 'higher' you go the more abstract (less concrete) the thinking. This is also in part to help hold more things in our head ideas are conceptualised in abstract terms to group, categorise and generalise.

We discussed the 'higher-order thinking skills' like analysing, evaluated and creating. Analysis can be seen as the opposite of summarising.  It was a chance to think about the difference between interpretive questions and evaluative questions,  It can be challenging to be sure of the difference between these, but I like the point that Naomi made about evaluative questions often having an element of interpretation within them. 

Students need to use "hawk eyes" to zoom in and zoom out at a text.  

What did I learn that could be used with my learners? 

We watched a video about how to annotate a PDF - I didn't know you could do this, so this is a great tool that I can use.  Here is a video I found to use to teach my students how to do this on their chromebooks.

We talked about using the TSM materials for guidance about the figurative language (which I already do) and we had some time to create reading responses for a text that we brought along to use today.  We also talked about practising visualising and interpreting using images - literal verses abstract.  Comparing one thing to another involves thinking about unusual comparisons and why author’s use these comparisons to invoke ideas, emotions, and other features like mood and atmosphere.

We read a poem "The Cave" which was just the text (without showing the illustration until later). What images or pictures did the poet create in our minds? What was the person doing in the poem? How did we know?  After a discussion you would show the students the poem in the school journal and ask - Was this the kind of image of the cave you were thinking of in your mind? 

We learnt about how we can use a provocation - present it, discuss it and then ask who agrees or disagrees.

This was the provocation from the text "The Jump"...

A provocation, dilemma or perspective can also stimulate higher order thinking through discussion. Collective thinking about a problem can support learners to get to “the bottom of an issue” together: many heads are better than one.

As a teacher I should be looking for opportunities to challenge and resist.  

We had an opportunity to create a provocation from the text that we brought along.  My text was "No Girls Allowed" so I chose "Rugby should only be played by boys!"  Questions to follow would be - What character do you relate to?  Have you ever felt like this character? Who is the author? What message is the author trying to share with us?  Why was the text created? What does this text say about your gender roles?  Follow up ideas - Re-write the text so it has a different ending, Make a petition, Write a letter to the tournament organisers.

What did I learn that could be shared within my wider community, with either colleagues, or whanau/aiga? 

Once again I have a lot of great ideas and resources from today's session.  Lots to share back to my team at school, and lots to get stuck into and use in my Reading programme.  It was great today to have so much time to create a resource based on the text we brought during the day, and for it to be be complete and ready to use now.