Emma's Teaching as Inquiry

 One of the main targets for my inquiry this year, was to engage boys in writing! This has been something I have found difficult throughout my whole teaching career. For some reason, boys just don't enjoy writing. Until it's about Minecraft that is...  My recommendation to every teacher is to look at Minecraft Education ! It is amazing! There are lesson plans and ideas for everything you could imagine; maths, literacy, social sciences and even te reo Māori!  We started with this - we used lessons from Minecraft Education and adapted them to suit our learners. We found a 'First, Next and Then' structure to be useful so they had a very clear view of what was expected of them every lesson. We also did not have the luxury of having someone supervise the learning full time (we we still teaching other workshops in the hub).  Success!! This targeted the interests and passions of all our target writers and they were engaged! We were also surprised to see that the learners ve...

  Kia ora,  My inquiry question this year is ‘ How might   my design for learning and deliberate acts of teaching in writing, support  boys, in particular Māori learners to become effective writers and cause shift in writing.’  With 2020 being the year that it has been, it was the perfect opportunity to get creative with my writing design. I was surprised to see how many learners were engaged with learning online and especially with their determination and creativity when it came to writing.  What happened for my learners:  The learners attitude towards writing was the biggest change. Learners who previously would not write anything independently were now writing narratives, information reports and mysteries. A survey given to target learners at 3 points in the year, showed an increase in their attitude levels and when asked to find a piece of writing they were proud of and were previously unable to do, were now showing 2 or 3 examples. E-asTTle da...