DFI Collaborative Teaching and Learning

For me today's session had the important message of teaching and learning should aim to be visible.
Visible to the learner, teacher, colleagues (sometimes a bit unnerving- as we like to be seen by our colleagues as professional and knowing our stuff!), and whanau. Knowing the audience and what will 'hook' them into learning as well as be engaging cognitively.

As an natural introvert it is always a little scary being on show for everyday actions. I think some of my pupils can relate to this as when you've had time to prepare and rehearse you can feel and exude a different type of confidence to when being 'put on the spot'. This is one of the reasons I enjoy teaching drama and create an end of year performance because I often see shy children shine and the confident kids push the creative boundaries with their ideas to just add a bit more. Scripting a play together based on a simple story line is a wonderful collaborative adventure and all children can come up with a few ideas to enrich the final product from scenery ideas to jokes to add, music to play or costuming...and that is when The three little pigs can morph into something exciting for an audience.

Knowing where you are going and having an idea of what the teacher's expectations are, actually frees up creativity because there is a framework and the big picture in the mind.

My favourite take away from today was Kerry's phrase of having our  'Bag of Tricks' to support our teaching that engages the learner. Setting up my own website around a theme and trying to employ a few engaging tricks and using collaborative ideas. I'm looking forward to exploring this further.


https://sites.google.com/otaki.school.nz/superseeds/home

In class:
Check students know what we are doing
Steps to achieve this - have this visible and accessible
Exciting ways to achieve the outcome
The opportunity to share the outcome/learning with others