In term 3, I went to Kerikeri Primary School for professional development on the importance of Shared Reading.
This was a rewarding P.D. as I was able to share with other teachers how I integrated this into my reading program and to hear how they use Big Books but also poems. This is shared with the children before a guided read reading lesson. Literacy online is an amazing resource for teachers. We also discussed why and what we should be doing while we are taking a guided lesson. Another one that I found very helpful was Literacy online Sound Sense for writing as well as reading.
I also went on a maths PD in Kaitaia. The discussion was really interesting especially on the Key Competencies. The discussion brought out that as teachers we really think that Communication is what we are doing really well in maths, but actually we don't. For example do we explain to our students the = , +, - , symbols mean.
There are different questions when students are doing statistics. These I found very helpful when I am teaching statistics.
Investigative questions- questions we ask to get data (What are the heights of students in our class?)
Survey questions-questions we ask to get data (What is your height in cm, without shoes?)
Analysis questions-questions we ask our graphs and tables (What is the tallest height, median height, where are the most of heights....)
Interrogative questions-questions we ask as checks and balances throughout the statistical enquiry cycle (Do my results make sense with without children's height,...this height seems very short, can we check it?)
Level 1 and 2, NS 1-4 Summary data questions EG: what sports do the children from 2 play? like?. Displaying different but only summary data questions posed.
Level 3, NS 5-6 Summary and comparison questions. EG. I wonder if these boys' arms spans tend to be longer than girls' arms spans.
Level 4, NS 7-8 Summary, comparison and Relationship EG. Is there a relationship between arm-span and length and height for students in our class?
