SPIN

I am about to start another phase of teaching at HPSS. So far I have worked through a Small/Specialised Learning Module where I am working with an english teacher in the development of visual images for the english curriculum as well as meeting the requirements for digital technologies/technology. Through this module we are getting students to develop their own comics based upon a poem, short story or novel.

Today I also went through my first big projects sessions. This was amazing as the students worked through a brief development making sure that they met the questions and developed an understanding of stakeholders. I look at this and wish that I had been developing these ideas with the students at lower levels sooner. I think I have been so much thinking about skills and knowledge that what students really wanted to do was develop their own project, and have the guide on the side to assist them to develop the knowledge and concepts with their own work. I think back to the lessons that worked well and they were the lessons where students developed their own content. Students also worked through some planning about how they are going to see the next 6 weeks. A number of them were talking about meeting during a lunch time to keep on track with what they needed to do by the next big project session.


But, back to what I am doing tomorrow. SPIN and mytime. I have three SPINS tomorrow, one we are doing digital information, very much based around using Google Apps, developing knowledge of the applications and how it can be used to enhance their learning. Coding using scratch to work through a number of projects, very much based to develop the knowledge and skills to meet level 1 programming. The last is web development, in which we are going to look at develop a web site. I think the part I have to remember is that we only have 7 weeks.

mytime tomorrow is based around a photo orienteering exercise. I am looking at observational skills of the students and how much they know about the outside of our school. Which will be interesting as the building is very much designed to keep you in.