Goal Two

Each of my lesson plans included learning intentions and success criteria which linked to the curriculum. I need to work these more naturally into my lessons, and start developing the success criteria with the children. I did start to write the success criteria onto the whiteboard during whole class lessons, but I need to be doing this earlier in the lesson. Writing the success criteria on the board is helpful for the children as it gives them a point of reference so they can make sure they are doing what they are meant to be doing, and is especially helpful for more visual learners or children who get distracted.

I used a number of different assessment methods. For maths, I would ask them to show their thinking on their white boards, then ask individual children to either explain to another child (while I listened) or explain to me. This allowed me to see what their thought process was and if they required more teaching or were at a point where they could move on.

I also got the maths groups to think, pair, share, and I would listen to each pair, asking questions if I didn’t understand what they were saying or to clarify what they were saying. The pairs would then come together and we would discuss the thinking behind the problem as a group. All of the children in the maths group were relatively good at contributing so I felt like I had a good understanding of each child’s understanding.

For maths I also produced some questions for the children to complete at the end of the time unit to see if they had understood all of the concepts I had taught. During the fractions unit, I produced some questions (with the children’s names in the problems) for the children to complete as a take-away so that I could gauge their understanding.

With the reading lessons I assessed through discussion during the lesson. I did do some follow-up activities and we went over them at the beginning of the next lesson to see what answers the children had come up with. I also used resources such as KWL charts and we completed these over the period of lessons which allowed me to see if they were learning information as we went.

For the Matariki lessons, I assessed these by viewing the output of the completed tasks. For example, the drawn kite plans and the prototype kite or the scratch art showing the constellations in the sky.

I provided verbal feedback during lessons and this is a continuing area of development for me. I need to consciously provide mastery feedback, connecting the feedback back specifically to what we are learning in the lesson.

In my handwriting lessons, I would provide feedback while the children were writing, which was specific to the child. For example, some children may have trouble forming a particular letter while others may know how to form the letters, but rush through their work so they didn’t take the time to form their letters correctly. I did this using a pen so I could show them good examples in their work and highlight an area that needed improvement, each child was given a sticker (this was a good way to check that they had been given feedback).

With writing lessons I did start to provide some written feedback on Google Classroom, and this is something I need to develop further. I also sat down with a number of children during writing lessons and worked with them, making sure that they were working towards the success criteria (for example, discussing the use of adjectives, or getting them to understand how they could make me feel as if I was a giraffe).

Particularly with the maths lessons, I would base the next lesson on what had been achieved in the previous lesson. For example, if I thought at the end of the lesson that we hadn’t met the success criteria, I would re-work the next lesson to include some similar material (with different problems) so I could ascertain if the children understood. At times I also added an additional part at the beginning of the lesson to briefly go over a particular part of the previous lesson so I could check that they did understand.