I am learning so much about the work being done at St Elizabeth’s from reading the blog posts. I just wish that I could read everyone’s posts. I have learned a great way to scaffold student’s blogging posts from Tania and  Delphine has been thoughtful in reflecting on children’s ability to give feedback about writing. Louisa will collect baseline data that will be very valuable not just for Jess and Louisa’s PART project but for all of us who work in communication with parents. We have been very quick in moving from paper based newsletters to online newsletters and then to electronically stored personal information. I wonder if that was done too quickly? Louisa’s survey may show us how parents are adjusting to this new way of communicating.

I wonder how you are feeling about blogging and using Google Docs? I know how I feel. I feel overwhelmed at times. I feel like an idiot when I can’t remember how to do something that I was shown yesterday. Technology is not the way my mind works BUT I love what it can do for me. I will take the pain as long as I know that I am creeping forward to a gain. What I value is the patience and encouragement of those who help me when I am in a mess. I am an adult so I understand that the mess is what happens when you are learning something very new. How must children feel when they are in the same mess and they do not have the benefit of hindsight to know that what they are involved in will be worthwhile if they persist? They cannot  understand that the mess is creative in itself if we have enthusiastic caring teachers around us. Mess is manageable if we are scaffolded. No wonder some of them get discouraged.  Its possible to learn by yourself but its not nearly as effective and as positive as when you are learning collaboratively. I really understand far more about learning from being a learner that I did from just being a teacher.

I have been reading blogs and commenting on my designated sites. The variation in our blogs is interesting and echoes what we know about working with our students. Everyone’s journey is different. When you stop and think about how we have managed learning in the past, you can see the pace of change in the C21 is enormous compared with the years prior. However, I guess that each era had its own challenges. In the early days no-one knew much about how we think and not everyone thought children should even be at school. It just wasn’t feasible to consider individual needs when class sizes were enormous!  When I started teaching class sizes were up to 40 but colleagues would sometimes have taught 50 or 60 in a grade and I remember some of the nuns that I worked with in early times talking about classes of 100!

Now that we do recognise that different children learn in different ways, it seems so obvious that whole class teaching is only one option that we have at our disposal and most of what we deliver has to be tailored to small groups. I am not referring to the ancient method of grouping where cetain chn were in` Wombat’ group and stayed the same with a different group name until they left! I am talking about groups that change constantly according to the individual’s immediate learning needs. I think that all the questions we are researching for PARTS  are geared to providing support to this concept. Whether its provocations that will appeal to children based on their interests or use of the latest collaborative technology or publishing on-line, we are learning how to maximise learning for everyone at their point of need.

Given that, it is often the case that when I walk around I see heaps of  teaching to large groups. Why is this so? How does that fit with what we are learning about providing particular learning pathways and how are we using technology to optimise individual, small group independent learning? We know that focused teaching brings about powerful learning. Two focus groups of 8 children with a strategic intent having 20 minutes with a teacher  is much more powerful than a group of  16 for 40 minutes. Much much more useful learning in the group that really hones in on the student’s learning need.

Those of you who taught at a time when the CLaSS Literacy block was the established practice will remember that we managed to do 2 focus groups as well as Big Book and Reflection time all before recess. Are we achieving small focused group teaching for all the children across the week? Will blogging, collaborative online learning tools and rich provocations support and strengthen what we are doing in our clinics and focus groups. Will they enable us  to build them into our routines to support the precious individuals whose learning is in our hands? Big questions! Lets keep looking for big  answers!