Sunday, September 9, 2012

Teachers 4 Teachers Professional Learning

A bus full of teachers headed off on a 'mystery tour' of schools.  Thanks to the Teacher 4 Teacher group for organising the venues and keeping us well fed and watered:-)  We visited Otaika Valley School, Maungatapere School and Maunu Primary School.  Thanks to the teachers from those schools for opening up their classrooms for us to learn from.  It was great to have 16 + teachers from Whangarei Primary School along for the ride.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

'Speed Dating' OR Powerful Sharing


Collaboration and communication is a vital part of continued learning.  Today we tried out a different approach to collaborating and communicating.... speed dating teacher style!  2 minutes with each 'date' - and different questions to focus our conversations around.  The room was buzzing as teacher's shared their ideas.  Pure magic to see junior, middle and senior teachers engaged in conversations, putting incredible thought into how their teaching and learning can be supported by technology 'tools'. 

Questions we discussed...
  • Share an idea - what you could ‘create’ a digital story about...(following on from our learning around the iPad app 'My Story' last week)
  • What can you see as a potential benefit of iPads?
  • How could you/do you use iPad/iPod touches as part of your math programme?
  • How could you/do you use iPad/iPod touches as part of your reading programme?
  • How could you/do you use iPad/iPod touches as part of your writing programme?
  • How can iPads/iPod touches support your teaching and learning?
  • What is your vision for ‘mobile devices’ at WPS?
  • How could you use ‘speed dating’ in your classroom?

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Inquiry Learning - From knowledge to understanding

A fantastic curriculum story - thanks to TKI.
This would be fantastic to share with the whole teaching team and/or parents and whānau to deepen the understanding of inquiry learning. 


'How do you use inquiry learning to move from knowledge to understanding? Vic Hygate, from Windsor School in Christchurch, explains how she carefully focuses her planning, then uses events and provocative statements to make inquiry relevant and fully engage her students.'