Finding Your People

Finding Your People

  When preacher and poet John Donne proclaimed in the 17th Century that, “No man is an island”, he might just as easily have been talking about teaching in the 21st Century.  An older and wiser teacher once said to me: “It is possible to teach (and to thrive...

Data-Informed Practice

Data-Informed Practice

Data should shape our practice to strengthen learning. Using student data as feedback for our teaching is not an optional extra, but fundamental to practice. Like most aspects of teaching, data-informed practice is a skill that teachers will refine throughout their...

Te Tiriti in my Classroom

Te Tiriti in my Classroom

If we say Te Tiriti o Waitangi is a living document, then what will it look like embodied in my classroom? What role does Te Tiriti have in a maths or PE class? Figure 1 shows a very truncated timeline of the influence of Te Tiriti on educational policy. Figure 1: Te...

Active Observation

Active Observation

By the time they leave school, the ‘average’ student in Aotearoa has spent 14,000 hours observing teachers. As a result, most of us begin our teacher education with a sense that we know what teaching is and what it entails, (Lortie, 1975). This can have an impact on...

Pacing and Transitions

Pacing and Transitions

Do these scenarios sound familiar ...  Students are enthusiastically finishing up the final activity on your lesson plan. They’ve been engaged and keen for 45 minutes. You look at your watch, there are still 12 minutes left in the lesson, you look at your plan …...

Differentiation

Differentiation

Differentiation is one of those things that is hard to talk about in a forum like this because the whole point of differentiation is that it is highly contextual. With that in mind, what follows are some thoughts on good principles to keep in mind as you approach your...

Seating Plans

Seating Plans

To  put them in a seating plan or not?  Well obviously the answer to that question is yes … and no. A seating plan can be an effective tool to help you shape the learning environment in your classroom, and to create positive relationships (teacher/student...

Shaping the Learning Environment

Shaping the Learning Environment

Fundamental to successful and joyful classroom practice is remembering this: Our end goal is not managing student behaviour or insisting on compliance.  Our end goal is our students learning and that is why we intentionally use the phrase ‘shaping the learning...

Finding Your People

Meeting Your Class

Consider the culture you want to create in your classroom, and the approaches and routines that will help you to establish this. If you are aiming for a calm, hospitable and engaged classroom, plan initial learning activities that champion these pedagogies. ...

Planning

Planning

It is worth honing your planning skills and refining your planning routines until they are the best fit for you.

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