A first opportunity to meet as a CoL

This was our first opportunity to meet as a group of Principals, Teachers and Support Staff as a community of learners to strengthen connections, share positive practices and to deepen our understanding of the 'Teaching as Inquiry' process.

Part 1 - Analyse current TAI: (school group)

My thinking:
- Interesting read: Deepen Teacher Inquiry

- My PD in 2016 - Inquiry Led Learning and Teaching as Inquiry

Part 2 - Envision creative possibilities for students to expand their Oral Language/Writing: (mixed group)

My thinking:

1. Greetings – Encourage students to greet each other by name, shake hands, sing, clap, and

learn greetings in different languages. 

2. Sharing – Similar to “show and tell,” allow students to share activities and respond to classmates’ questions

3. Daily Oral Language ...Everyone participates in singing, chanting, games, and so forth

4. Word Wall. ...

5. Nursery Rhymes / Poems / Speeches and “Take A Stand” activities. ...

6. Listening Activities. ...

7. Storytelling is a creative way to build oral language skills. Provide students with a sentence that is the beginning of a story; for example, "The boy who lived next door had a very strange pet." Have students complete the story, and then retell in their own words. Focus on the sequence of events and sentence structure. Remember to wait patiently while students put thoughts together, and praise students’ efforts to use new words and sentence patterns 

8. Sorting. - Students work together to group, or sort, words based on commonalities such as word beginnings or endings, vowel sounds, parts of speech, rhymes, meanings, or some other common feature. Students may compare, contrast, or identify similarities while building automatic recognition of words, thus promoting fluent reading and writing. 

9. Sentence starters - “Describe a time when you (blank—ex, urged) someone to (blank).” What happened?

10. Sequencing - Students frequently have difficulty following the sequence of events in a story/passage. The following activity can help pupils become familiar with the concept of sequence:

• Retell several familiar stories such as "The Three Little Pigs", "Snow White", etc.

• Purposely misread, mix up, or omit items and events. Give students the opportunity to correct you.

11. Tongue Twisters are great for practicing articulation, and fun, too.  eg. Super thick sticky tape; She  sells seashells by the sea shore; Sly Sam sips Sally’s soup.

Remember:

Good oral language communication activities should be two-way, ongoing, comprehensible, instructional, and enjoyable.

- My PD in 2017: Language and Learning

Part 3 - Refining and Forming direction for TAI: (school group)

Next Steps:
- Check out Oral progression matrix on TKI
- Check out talk moves (for maths) use it in circle time (DCIM FB page). If kid did not know what was said, they should say I don’t know and ask someone to explain it again
- Engage in discussion and kids and ask them what they are doing and what it is about
- Get kids to clap a poem. (Note: if they are unable to clap in time… that is indication / evidence that they [might] have oral language problems)
- Check out learning maps for kids to talk about their learning

~ "Our job is not to prepare students for something. Our job is to help students prepare themselves for anything." - A.J. Juliani ~