In November, Yonit, a Google Certified Teacher put out a request for info from any teacher who has done some project based learning. Completely unexpectedly, this led to a group of our Year 6's, who had done some project based work in my class over the last two years, taking part in a hangout at a conference for the Ministry of Education in Israel who are interested in making this part of the curricular approach in Israel!
I have also been very fortunate to have met many amazing educators through the Google Teacher Academy in London this month. One of these is the inspiring Rachel Jones @rlj1981 who invited me to contribute to an Top Tips iBook she's putting together with @chocotzar. Can't wait to read tips from others but in the meantime I thought I could combine my top tips with this blog entry & will update with a link to the full ibook when it's published. So here they are:
Top Tip Number 1
What's in a name...
At the beginning of the year, give children the opportunity
to name their class. If you like, you
can ask them to follow a theme that goes with a topic you'll be studying. For example, when my year group studied the
rainforests, my pupils could choose any rainforest animal - this led to the
Year 4 Monkey Mandrills, the Year 4 Mountain Lions and the Year 4 Bengal
Tigers. This year I'm the Year 5 teacher
and our theme is water so pupils chose The Year 5 Dolphins as their name.
If you want to take it a step further, ask your pupils to
choose cryptonyms based on the rainforest (or for us this year, the
ocean). Whenever the class go on-line,
instead of using their real names, they use their cryptonyms. That way our class all know who is posting
but they safe because no one else has this information. It's also a fun way for children to explore a
topic more deeply. Pupils have populated
lots of Google class maps using their cryptonyms. Here's an example: http://bit.ly/17bqaEv
Top Tip Number 2
An invisible pupil
I got this tip from the inspirational Ros Wilson on one of
her improving children's writing courses.
The idea is
just as the title says, to have a pupil in class who is
invisible. Let me tell you, your
invisible pupil will take on a life all of his (or her) own. Pupils of all primary school ages - and
perhaps beyond - love the mystery and imagination involved in this idea and you
can develop it in lots of directions.
Ours took on all the writing 'mistakes' in class, he sat next to children
who wanted some company and wanted to get ideas about how to write well from
every single child - which was a great confidence boost. Over the years we've had a Marmaduke, a
Byron, a Humphrey - more than I can recall offhand but all brothers of the 'Allbright'
family. They've had time machines that
have taken them to the ancient Greek theatre where we've had to help with
posting a report so that they can get the time machine to bring back. Another went to the Mary Rose in Tudor times
and we helped him create a soundscape of a Tudor ship using Audacity before he
could return. The possibilities are
endless!
In recent years, each brother of the 'Allbright' family has
left us with a rainforest mascot. Among
the many we've had are Zingo, the Toucan, Humphrey the Tapir and this year King
Kong the Chimpanzee. My pupils give the
mascot a name and take him home and on their travels and share his diary with
the class. Sometimes our mascot goes
further afield - one mascot, Zingo the toucan made it to the Himalayas with a
Local Authority adviser and blogged throughout his trip. Later that year, he went to the Members'
Dining Room (& received his own security pass!) at the Houses of Parliament
with a group of the Year 4 Mountain Lions to explain how we'd helped our
community to get on line!
Top Tip Number 3
Develop your class as
a 'Community of Enquiry'
Develop your class as a 'Community of Enquiry'
Build in opportunities for pupils to explore and develop
their thinking skills through enquiries and you'll see why I cannot recommend
this highly enough. Based on the ideas behind Philosophy for Children (P4C),
enquiries give children opportunities to respond to a range of prompts from a
story, to a newspaper article, an artefact, a piece of music or a picture -
anything really - with their own questions and then their own discussion. The prompts can be related to something
you're studying or real flights of fancy - you will be amazed at the quality of
discussion and thinking that emerges. If
you'd like to take things a step further, Sapere run courses
(http://www.sapere.org.uk/) and you might like to check out the Gallions School
in East London who've seen some remarkable outcomes through P4C
(http://bit.ly/1bvEfue).
For just a taster of enquiries try 'Thunks' which are
collections of questions to get your pupils thinking like 'can a fly see a
skyscraper?' ; 'Can you turn a sound upside down?' and 'If you could take a
pill that meant you'd never fail, would you?'. These will lead to discussions
that surprise, if not amaze you! http://amzn.to/1inFlRi
Voicethread
There are many fantastic websites and tools out there but
one which I've found invaluable time and again over the last few years is
Voicethread (Voicethread.com). Each
Voicethread you create is based on a picture or photo which pupils respond to
using a choice of doodle pen, typing, voice recording or camcorder. You can create individual identities for each
class member (mine are based on their rainforest or ocean animal
cryptonym). We've used them for many
things from responding to Maths questions, contributing information they'd
found for topics and often for evaluating Art and D&T projects. There's a free edu version available if you
contact Voicethread using a school email address.
Top Tip Number 5
Lollipop sticks
Create a named lollipop stick for each member of your
class. They can be useful in lots of
ways. Often
they're used when you or the
class are asking questions and you don't want to keep choosing the same four or
five children who regularly put up their hands.
This encourages everyone to think about a possible answer. Avoid anxiety by giving children an
opportunity to 'think, pair and share' before hand so that they've talked about
their answer with someone else and give them the opportunity to respond to the
question with their 'talk partner'. The
lollipop sticks are also useful if you want to create pairs or teams or for any
activity needing a random element.
Top Tip Number 6
Movies
Movies feel real in a way that just reading about something
or just writing about something really doesn't.
Children have used film to make news broadcasts about Hurricane Sandy,
the St. Jude's Day Storm and the deaths of Henry VIII's wives (in costume!),
they've created videos about their Polar Bear Project Action Plans and most
recently they've used them to film their Maths Casts explaining calculation
methods to post on YouTube. There's just
something about a film project that invariably brings together and develops all
sorts of skills from planning, researching, scripting and acting to ICT,
working to a tight deadline and collaborating in teams.
All you need for the above is something you and/or your pupils
can film with. If you have access to
iPodtouches or iPads think about using iMovies which enables pupils to top and
tail their films for a bit of a professional finishing touch.
Class rewards
Here are two ideas for rewards that have proved popular with
my pupils. The first one is for tidying
the class - something everyone, including children, can feel reluctant about at
one time or another! Each table of
children work together as a team to tidy their table and the 'peripheral' class
room area (why not squeeze a bit of Maths vocab in while we're there!). The tidiest table wins the cushions which
they can sit on throughout the next day of lessons.
Treasure Tokens are the other popular reward. Children are given a raffle ticket or
treasure token for all sorts of things.
Usually it's unexpected and for their being kind and doing something for
someone else. The tokens they like best
are the ones they given to each other and where they write the reason on the
back and choose whether they wish to put their own name to it. At the end of each half term we have a draw
and the first person chooses the main activity for an afternoon and the first 8
can use the iPodtouches. The first 20
receive a small prize from the Treasure Token Chest (usually pound shop
stuff). If someone's name comes out
twice or more, they given the additional token to a friend in class. Very popular!
Top Tip Number 8
Real world
My pupils love opportunities to bring the real world into
the classroom. This is possible with
pretty much
anything you're studying in class.
Over the years we've had a Black Country history project which involved
children in creating a large playground sculpture of an anchor. The project grew like topsy with children
hammering chain at a chainmakers furnace and arc welding the final structure. They visited factories, created living
histories with their families and learned Old English dialect.
We've had a rainforest project that led to pupils
campaigning for better labelling of palm oil in products - a major cause of
deforestation. My pupils now watch over
an area of endangered rainforest land in Borneo with the agreement that they'll
flag it if they spot any signs of fire or logging (Check out Earthwatchers for
more info: http://earthwatchers.cloudapp.net/)
This year, my class have created polar bear action teams to
try to tackle some of the causes of loss of Arctic habitat.
You really don't need a detailed roadmap for bringing the
outside world in, just a willingness to given children opportunities to pursue
their interests a bit further a field and encourage them to believe in their
ability to make a difference. Small
changes can lead to a big impact.
Top Tip Number 9
Learning skills
Developing good learning skills is at the heart of good
learning outcomes. As a school, we've
identified the key areas as:
independence, curiosity, learning relationships, staying power,
changing, meaning making and creativity.
Children have come up with their own definition for these:
(http://bit.ly/Rgeu8c). Pupils in my class
think about their learning skills and set themselves targets which they review
later in the year. Children also give
their reasons for areas they've identified as strengths and weaknesses and this
is always a valuable perspective for me as their teacher.
Top Tip Number 10
Class stories
There's absolutely nothing new about this one but it's right
up there in my top ten anyway! Children
just LOVE sharing a good story and as primary teachers we're in a privileged
position to ensure that it's part of children's experience in primary schools. This term we've shared ancient Greek myths
and legends, stories from George Layton's 'The Fib' and, thanks to Axelle, my
French born PGCE student, Le Petit Prince - a French children's story by
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry that is also steeped in philosophy. 
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