Blogging task #18: Summarise key changes in teaching

 Summarise key changes in teaching and other factors that influence student learning. 

  1. Structure of writing lessons 

In the past, I have always modelled writing to the whole group. Problems that I faced with this were: 

  • The model was either too high or too low and was not targeting specific needs. 
  • Different learners have different interests
  • Difficult to engage 25 learners and make interactive
Changes I made to the structure of my lessons: 

  • Split writing group into 2 modelling groups
  • Offered a range of skills based writing workshops that relate to Schooltalk progressions. (I wanted these to be opt in workshops) 
  • Made sure that all lessons followed the writing process










     2. Opportunities for vocabulary building 
I found this to be the change that made the most difference. 

Things I tried: 
  • Connecting writing topics to concept learning so they already had vocab knowledge about the topic as well as word walls that were easily accessed. 
  • Gifting word cards with topic specific language on it 
  • Co-constructing word cards with the group - this was a good opportunity to incorporate some Māori words that they wanted to use











     3. Engaging topics 
Unfortunately this change was a bit tricky to implement and maintain but I hop it is something we can continue with in the future. We started a Minecrfat club with learners across 2 hubs with a group of boys who really struggled with writing - this included 6 of my target learners. We used Minecraft Education to plan our lessons and designed them so they had a writing focus. 



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