Suit-Keen's Professional Learning Journey

Delivering RE lessons during our Distance learning programme has been challenging. I found the Faith Alive Resources very helpful and was able to adapt the resources that they had for my online lessons. I had an experiment with screen-recording tools such as screencastify and cast-o-matic to record my own video content for RE lessons. Planning these lessons before recording became very important to ensure that the delivery was time effective. Also I discovered that uploading videos to youtube would ensure an effective way to upload lessons to seesaw, where my students had safe and easy access to video content. I learnt a lot professionally from this process as I had to ensure that I had a good handle on the teaching background notes for each lesson. Delivering the lessons on an online platform, meant that accuracy with my content was important since the audience was not only my students but their families as well. There was a lot of trial and error, failures and frustrations with t...

 I decided to continue to develop Math bite sized clips for Geometry transformations. Here is an example of how I have used various online tools to deliver online learning. The first video covered Reflection: Below the lesson is to teach about Rotational Geometry. I tried to incorporate real-life context as well to ensure that students are able to relate to the Mathematical ideas. I then linked it to an activity on seesaw for students to apply their learning by finding real-life transformation in their own homes: Here are some snippets of students work. Students also uploaded videos describing the transformations that they had found using the new mathematical vocabulary that they had learnt from watching the video lesson. I loved some of the responses that I had from my students. Hearing their learning helped me to review my video lessons and pick up on things that I could do better next time to make learning clearer for my learners. Giving examples and using teacher think alouds i...

After being in lockdown for 3 weeks we decided to collaborate as a staff on a video. Connecting with our wider school whanau through special online messages has been important to continue to engage with our families through what has been a challenging time.  

Delivering lessons via online distance learning has challenged the way that we are putting together lessons for students via seesaw. I have been exploring the use of screencastify to record online lessons. Here is a lesson that I put together combining the use of screencastify and google slides to teach students about transformation geometry. During this experience, I learnt to pause video regularly to ensure to compose myself before continuing to record. The more that I recorded, the more confident I became at recording my teaching. Thinking about the audience (my students) was what I had to remind myself throughout this process to ensure that I was creating content that students would be able to easily understand and interpret. 

Teacher only day 3rd September (via online conference) - Lead by Jacque Allen & Lori Mravivch Today we looked into online tools that could support us to explore different ways to deliver online learning. We collaborated in teaching teams to come up with ways to engage our students to increase agency with writing. As a team we decided to look into developing "bite sized" video clips to support students with their writing. With the current distance learning situation it is evident that students require tools to support them with their learning and so in creating bite sized clips, students would be able to watch and re-watch informative learning clips aimed at the level that they are learning at. Here is an example of a writing video clip that I developed for our target learners, as outlined in our collaborative team inquiry, after completing PD today. We have the idea that these video clips could be used again when we are back in the classroom and are thinking about ways th...

Week 6 of Term 3 saw us working from home during Alert Level 4 Lockdown. We were offered a range of PD sessions for DMIC Math planning. What I found helpful with these sessions was being able to collaborate with other teachers to work through the planning process, unpacking the learning outcomes from the big Mathematical ideas. I found that breaking down the learning outcomes was helpful when leading into planning the tasks. After completing a few sessions, I had a better understanding of how you link the connect at the end with your intended learning outcome. I also liked the way that some of the planning documents were organised for ease of use, which I think we will adapt to suit our collaborative planning as a team. Sessions completed this week: Geometry Measurement: Volume, Capacity, Mass Level 2 Geometry Measurement: Time, Temperature Level 2 Algebraic Nature of Number: Level 2 Geometry Shape: Transformations: Level 1 Geometry Space and Shape: Level 1