I like to join webex sessions across the year levels most day. The considerable range of learning experiences our teachers provide for students, differentiating based on identified needs, is clearly the case.
Recently, I joined a Year 1 small group which was exploring the maths measurement concept of ‘length’. The use of informal units the students had used included pasta, string/rope, textas and tissue box edges. During the learning task the students were challenged to consider ordering a variety of shapes based on their approximated length. The experience resulted in the students enriching their collective knowledge using terms such as width and concepts such as circumference.
Information Reports was a genre being explored by Year 3 students. The structure and sections of a report were discussed, modelled and scaffolded. The students used the topic of animals and selected one animal on which to focus. The image shows the scaffold the teacher used to help direct and organise the students’ research, knowledge and thinking.
Summarising is a skill that demands considerable modelled instruction, guided practise and a diet of genre types. Ms Huynh’s small group were using a protocol (see the image) of Somebody, Wanted, But, So, Then (SWBST) to assist them to summarise a section of the text being read ‘Billionaire Boy’. Expertly, Ms Huynh co-created with the students a first draft summary using the protocol after which further refinements were made. The final summary capturing the essence of the key messages from the text. The image clearly captures the result of the use of this tool to support the developing mastery of year 3 students summarising a text.
