Inquiry update

Over the past few weeks, we have been given release time to go and view two other teachers who are working on similar inquiries. In my group, there was a Year 2 and 3 teacher (me), a Year 1 teacher and a Year 4 teacher. I was lucky that the others were close in year level, as well as looking at the same inquiry. Unfortunately, one teacher was away on leave for this time, so I only visited the Year 4 teacher.

It was a privilege to go and observe another teacher in the school. We have so many visitors to our school but it is rare to get to see another teacher in action, unless you are in an innovative learning environment.

The teacher I observed was in an open space - two classes and three teachers. This was interesting because the noise level was much higher than I am used to in a single cell classroom. However each teacher, and almost all students, were hugely engaged in what they were doing.

The group that I observed were reading a Level 15/16 orange book (reading age of 6.5years). They were working predominantly on decoding strategies. The most interesting part of the lesson was the constant referral to a poster they had created, and shared on every slide of their group reading site, to remind them what a good reader does.

This is something that I would like to try with my class, not just my focus group of learners.

This video shows two groups of children using the decoding cards that I designed in my class.




File_000 from Team 3 PES on Vimeo.