Tania's Professional Learning Blog

Fostering investigative conversations in a junior class can be challenging but incredibly beneficial for promoting critical thinking. Let's look at some strategies: Encourage Friendly Debate:  Providing open-ended prompts that engage students' interest and allow them to take a stance can spark organic engagement and critical thinking. By encouraging students to share their opinions and participate in debates, they develop their ability to articulate their thoughts, provide evidence, and respectfully engage with peers. The math talk questions and picture-based discussions are great examples of how to generate interesting conversations. Put Your Students in the Question:  Centering students' viewpoints in a question or discussion prompt fosters deeper thinking. By personalising the topic, students are encouraged to analyse, reflect, and make connections to their own experiences. This approach enhances engagement and allows for more meaningful exploration of the subject. Open ...

The Writing Rope - created by Joan Sedita Let's look a the basics of each strand and what it means with an example and simple ideas. All 5 strands need to be taught for the students to become efficient writers. 1. First Strand - Critical Thinking Generating ideas and gathering information and teaching about the writing process like organising, drafting, editing and revising - Very important in junior years to teach our children to brainstorm ideas and to let them know they have a bunch of ideas to write about and plenty of ideas to share with others - Important to instil that they are writers and that they can do this   Joan Sedita has broken down the writing process into 4 categories where the writing and revising parts are usually the hardest parts  - We can also put it in 5 different categories which may be more applicable to juniors and New Entrants:     THINK - I can think of an idea to share    PLAN & SAY - I can take my idea and plan what I ...

  Formulating my hypothesis and my hunches on why this is a massive struggle for all New Entrant teachers and Teachers globally. As a teacher and specifically looking at New Entrant or students starting primary school we want them to succeed within Level 1 of the National Curriculum - in order for teachers to be successful or rather feel successful to setting up our students we typically want our students to have some basic knowledge and skills when they start school. I have asked a few colleagues and teacher friends what their expectations are when a child starts school. My intention is to created a survey to send out to all Manaiakalani teachers to get their voice and expertise. Obviously this will differ as you look at the socio-economic environment the students are from.  Here are some questions I asked the teachers about their concerns for students starting school and I have summarised their responses in purple. What are some common challenges you've seen in students who ...