Sunday, April 3, 2011

My Teacher Action Inquiry

So what am I looking at this year. It really is an extension of what I was doing last year. I want to work with the children on how I can share my learning - both the content and the process. I began last year with this and explored ways that we could share this so I knew, they knew and so their parents knew. So much of what we do is about thinking and how could we share this, so traditional methods and tests didn't always show this. I explored SOLO last year and need to keep exploring this. I also did a lot of work with recording voice, drawing our learning, using statements/comments about what I knew then and what I know now and how I got there. I guess my ultimate aim is heading towards a digital portfolio that meets the needs of what we want to share, but that is also realistic/manageable in a class of 26 children. Last year I had 18 students so things were a little easier. I guess my first question I am posing myself is "What is a digital portfolio?" What does it need to have in it to show and share our learning?

2 comments:

  1. Hi Robyn

    How is your TAI progressing? Teachers have been struggling with this for a long time. To invest in a change, the change has to be recognised as worthwhile. I am wondering what you may be wanting to achieve that can't be done in a non digital format?

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  2. Still a bit of a struggle, but I think I have come to the conclusion that it is more about sharing the learning than the digital format/e-portfolio. To me that is just a bit of a red herring. So much time is being spent on developing them when it is all about are the kids able to share their learning.
    For my kids, the digital format has been about being able to record and share our thinking at the time of doing it. Also being able to reflect on what they have done and where they were moving to next. I found with our pupil/parent/teacher conferences, the ability to pre-record really helped my kids to be able to share their thinking/strategies etc uninterrupted. By this I mean that no matter how hard they try, parents often get fixated on the neatness and the spelling of something, rather than the learning progress/process that has been made. The children were able to say what they wanted to say, highlight the parts they wanted to be noticed without the stage fright aspects as well.

    The parents started to appreciate how great it was for the children to be sharing their editing and their ideas on what they wanted to do with their piece of writing rather than the old endless pieces of "published" writing that in all honesty showed the teachers editing rather than the child's.

    I loved the way the children involved their parents in their learning - in maths they set them problems (similar to the standards) and asked them to solve them and discuss the strategies they were using. They then showed how they would solve it and then we discussed how that did or didn't meet the standard and what they needed to do to move their strategies on.

    For my TAI - my energies are still in working on how can we share our learning and making it better. Was interesting talking with parents about what they wanted to see. For me the examples of "digital/e-portfolio" that I have seen don't necessarily give any more information than the report/summary we are using. It is all in the discussions and reflections and next steps we decide on that makes the difference.

    Hmmm, as always you are making me think.....:)

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