Feedback on Red on Blue

Staff focus = Questioning - maybe focus on the Task stage - assessment and staff development wise.

Feedback on Thoughts for Term 2 Ideas

Link with Key Competencies - Managing Self - having structure in place in terms of a timeline keeps students focused - we can discuss with children the importance of having a timeline to keep on track. Discussion around balance between time for finding and time for presenting information - a lot of time gets spent on finding rather than presenting information - obviously you need to find out information first. Integration of stages may occur -when we view a dance to find information, we are also learning how to present an idea at the same time. We need not think about the stages of STRIVE being entirely linear - not sure we agree on this one as yet! We need to have the model yes but we can and should be doing some Information at same time as Research etc - it's actually STRIVE with a stutter (STRTRITRIVRITRTRIVE) and lots of TRI!!!

From the Principal's Pen!

We have done it -we have all successfully blogged on some aspect of our Inquiry undertaken this term! We have also successfully used chatzy - aren't we simply the best!!! Yes  the bribes helped us get through the process.....and yes I  have yet to master anti clockwise!!!!! Ponder...how could you use blogging in your room? what about chatzy...could they be two tools we use with our Inquiry model?

In dealing with looking toward term 2  - we have come up with some excellent suggestions in how we can continue to strengthen the STRIVE model here at Levin North! 

Term Two Inquiry ideas

Cultural idea popular - how cultures use dance and the arts to express themselves - 

Cultures in relation to our own.

Whole school spark. e.g visiting cultural group(s)

Individuals or classes?

Questioning - focus?  TO day on questioning coming up next Friday.

Questioning gives direction and focus to study and achievement.

Identify different cultures identified in our school community - shoulder tapping.

Sharing websites and doing interactive resources.  Sharing parents if good.  

Research and finding out.

Need to know spark well before getting into unit so we have schoolwide spark rather than individual.

Using Voice - how can this happen successfully?  Dance, song, game coming from arts emphasis in culture.  eg. batik, tie-dying, leads to focus on country.

Not same voice throughout school, choose per room, but whole class can investigate same topic and have same activities.

Should we have a whole school question with rooms doing country choice?? or is it better to let classes set questions?? Great value in questions set in classes by children after spark.

Find culture relative to school for ready resource?

If we don't have a set question, does it make it too open/wide for children to maintain focus and achieve outcome.  Could we use children's questions to choose one, two or three as focus, not everyone's questions.  Gives control to chn and T for direction.

More time needed for teaching the skills to question well, to try questions. All student questions acceptable, use to choose most useful questions teaching children how to question.

red on blue

Red on blue

* school spark to inspire whole school learning. * are we going too far too fast? * we need to do lots of discussion in our classes about the STRIVE so students can see the process of the inquiry. * remember the aim of independent inquiry learning and passing onto the language and skills of inquiry. * perhaps staff focus on one stage of the model, e.g. questioning techniques. * more definition of boundaries of inquiry for next term e.g. dance or art or language. * bring/involve family cultural groups, including European * units need more time to gather info etc, probably 6 full weeks, 1 week to do Spark and teaching of STRIVE model, including the language of inquiry.

Term 2 ideas

 Term 2.

We need to set the kids timelines and deadlines for reaching the end of certain stages.

We need to show the chn HOW to approach each stage so that they have a format and a platform to work from. We need to work on what the STRIVE model is with our kids. eg: What is going to make good research? How do I know I'm doing well?

  In term 2 let's teach the STRIVE model and use our topic as an example of how it can work. We can prevaluate each stage by asking "How can we (our class) be successful at this stage?" We can relate our topic back to the model at each stage. 

  We could study a cultural topic according to our year-group abilities, and anchor the topic to, say, one culture per class in order to make it easier to study the STRIVE model itself.

  One problem with this is that if we set limits and timelines, we could be working against the individualism and freedom of the inquiry model. We could put less emphasis on stages like Research and more on the later stages such as Voice; work to present, more than find.

THOUGHTS for Term 2

In small groups we discussed about a school wide spark and the importance of this as a motivator as well as a spark happening in your own classroom, depending on the concept that classes are going to run with.  What has worked well in some teams has been the sharing of websites and this has motivated the children to run with the concept.

We have found that we need to revisit our strive model in our own classroom as well as working to a timeline. This term has produced a "fast" inquiry and maybe the depth has not been there. It appears that this inquiry was too wide and not pulled in enough to be classes AND school-wide. Especially after the xmas holiday break whereby a lot of the students have forgotten the stages and the parts that they play.

Thinking ahead to term 4 when we have a flower show, can we have some flower power thinking?

Thoughts for term 2, possibly having the pacifica group from the local college and a class lunch sharing, looking at different cultures and costumes that they wear. This would be homely for our children that are multicultural.

A school wide spark GETS everybody talking and hopefully the buy-in from all!! 

We still need to have that student voice factor. We are looking forward to listening to Trevor Bond and he will be able to help US in the area of questioning. As teachers we need to give direction to our students in locating resources, so they are more focused. The resources need to be relevant to the concept being shared. Classes sharing their inquiry during the journey to other classes and also the celebration.

Topic Term 1 GJB

Topic: How a Mousetrap Works

Spark "There are mice around our storeroom ......" discussion, what now?

After discussion: Task - draw a mousetrap (any style acceptable, no pics etc to work from) - compare and discuss drawings.

Lead on to observe big pic of mousetrap - "How many parts?" "What purpose of each?"

Voice

Our major question is Are Guns Necessary?

We looked at ammunition and then children picked a weapon and formed focussing questions on how they worked.  Research was needed and problems with accessing inappropriate sights arose.  We presented work on key note.  All how stuff works but our major question wasn't.  

We need to discuss using thinking hats and using information to draw unit together and get back to main question.

Term One identified needs

Children's enthusiasm for topic great - they chose it from some reading we did.

Brainstorming becoming effective - new emphasis: moving thoughts onto graphic organisers apart from mind maps.

Information to be at reader friendly level - T found sites suitable, this to be developed.

Conscious of need to convert information to knowledge related to previous sentence - reading ability, use of oral work to continue to support this.