Inquiry- Term 4, Week 2

How do I talk less and more student discussion, and get the students to get the meaning from text rather than from me, or discussion?

I was observed during reading, and I talked to much which lead to the students not getting the understanding from the text but through me.  I wanted to find out what I need to do to promote more discussion and step back as a teacher, we discussed this and came up with a few ideas.  It will help if I had had prompts and cards that I have on the mat with me, that I can show them that could say;

this would help me as I would just need to scaffold and assist when necessary.  One of my colleague's shared some of these cards with me so I'm able to use these during conversations when relevant.

How do I manage Seniors when teaching a whole class lesson, when they keep talking?

We discussed this and thought you could bring it back to the basics and get them back to sitting on the mat, rather than having them sitting at there desks, you could potentially move them from where they were sitting to somewhere that you know they would get less distracted.  After conversation they will put down masking tape on the ground and get the students to sit on the mat in the masking taped area, and see if this will be a way where they can pay more attention during class time.

How do I get students writing Independently?

In one of the New Entrant classrooms one of the teachers inquiry was to find out how she could get the students to write independently.  We discussed and came up with a couple of ideas, on how you can scaffold the students to get them to individually write their pieces of writing, by creating an idea or an experience together and being able to write the same thing with a couple of words difference than the teacher has written on the board.  This was an inquiry we were going to think about and come back and touch base on.

How do I use the vocabulary that we talk about, so it's not just in my guided reading lessons?

We discussed this as lots of us were having the same issue, during my shared reading lessons in the morning, I put some of the vocabulary that has been used in the text on the white board and I encourage students to use these words in their writing each day.  Another idea was to have a few words to work on each week and base your writing and guided reading around these words so the students could really understand the words and get a good understanding of what they mean, and how we can use them.