Gaylene Young Professional Blog

 Kia Ora Koutou, I was tasked with digitising a tracking system to gauge the progress of our students within Level 2 Te Reo Māori.  We wanted a way of knowing whether the students were: Manawa Taki - Needs a modified programme Manawa Āki - Working towards National Expectations Manawa Ora - Achieving National Expectations. Manawa Toa - Exceeding National Expectations. The trickiest part to this process was knowing that our students were arriving within our senior syndicate classrooms at different stages. For example, a new student to Tautoro School in Room 6 would start at 0.0 - 0.6 (less than 6 months) regardless of whether they started at the start of the year or halfway between.  However, students who have been at our school since Year 5, in the same room would be learning at 1.0-1.5 (between one and one and a half years). As a result, we needed a way of easily identifying individual goals and expectations for Pānui, Kōrero, and Tuhituhi. Below you will find a google ...

As part of Room 8's Pānui Programme, I realised that students needed multiple opportunities to engage with the texts they read, as well as increase their reading mileage.  I found the perfect resource - available online through TKI, 'Te Huinga Raukura' .  The only issue I discovered, however, was the lack of access to digital resources that allowed my students to practice and consolidate the skills they'd learned during our reading lessons. For every text the students read, I created supporting resources to consolidate their learning.  The plan is to create a resource bank for many years to come.  Below are examples of resources we'd expect the students to complete weekly.   * He Pānui Whakaharatau - Reading Practice (reading groups, audio tape support) * He Mahi Takitahi - Independent Practice (without audio support), can request a conference with the teacher. * Hei Mahi Tiriwā - Cloze activity * Hei Mahi Whakaraupapa - Sequencing activity * Hei Papa Tāk...

Building Proficient Writers # Bookmarking101 Motivating my students to write can seem at times a really difficult task to accomplish.  I've started to use mixed ability groupings, and encourage them to all write within a shared document.  This approach enables my struggling writers to get the support they need from their peers really quickly.  I'm not sure if you find yourself in the same situation, but my reluctant writers tend to take in the words given from their friends more than they do from me.  My proficient writers also love being able to give that help and guidance. We've worked really hard this year on building that strong, supportive culture within our classroom.  Self-management is a key goal we strive to instill in all our students also.  Building Leaders comes as an added bonus! In our shared writing documents, you may find yourself in a situation where they have tonnes to write about, which leads to the students having to scroll th...

One of the new skills I have learnt while attending the Digital Fluency Intensive programme here in Taipa is creating an infographic through google doc's.  I never realised how more visually eye catching it is to read as opposed to the normal boring word document.  They can be used for posters, newsletters, visual aides....actually if you can think it, you can no doubt make it.  I've discovered you just have to jump in and give things a go. Here is an example of my first attempt. Nga mihi to Dorothy Burt and Kerry Boyde-Preece. Looking forward to next week's session.