The Remarkable Moments Keep Coming

Wow... Wow... Wow!!

Our second attempt at Discovery Time was AMAZING!! The difference in one week was truly inspiring.

After last week I sat back and reflected on how could I engage those students who really had no idea about what was going on. I thought about those student and what challenges they were facing in moving forward. It came down to two things.

The frist was that they didn't want to do the wrong thing so they just did nothing :) and the other was that they didn't know what to do with the information they had or what their next step would be.

So.....

This week we spent 30mins with me modeling and guiding the 62 students as a whole on what to do with the notes we have and identifying what step we might be up to (gathering, reading, identifying key points, note taking, conferencing or making). We also disussed 'how do we know if we are ready for the next step?' I used students at different stages to model the steps and then gave all students the opportunity to decide what stage they were at. We had an hands up response to what stage they were up too. We had time for questions and discussion.

It was apparent that through this interaction the students felt more confident to state what stage of the discovery they were at.

From this we then moved into 'Think Tank Time'...

This was to address one of the other challenges we faced the previuos week... What do I do now?

Students had to spend 5mins (this was a very long time for Year 1) to think about what stage they were at and what was their goal for today? They had their discovery journals and thinking caps on!! They were not to get up or begin until the 5mins had passed. There was to be no "I don't know what to do" or "mrs Irwin, mrs Irwin". They HAD TO sit, THINK and PLAN their discovery for the session.

At the end of the 5 mins nearly every student had the capacity to direct their learning and discovery for the day! It was truly magical and inspiring and a definite REMARKABLE MOMENT!! I took the time to stand back and enjoy the problem solving, critical thinking and authentic learning that was taking place!

They could have worked all day and when I told them it was time to back up they all looked at me like I aaas delivering the end of the world to them. When when reflected on the discovery session all agreed that they worked harder and better today than the previous week. They flet that they knew where they were in their discovery and what steps they needed to still take.

So after week two I can confidently say that...

25 out of 31 students were totally engaged in their discovery,
3 needed guided teacher assistance,
2 needed reassurance of what to do next,
1 still had no idea what was going on until the last 5 mins when the light bulb went off!! We will get there!!

So pretty successful session in my eyes!!

Keep your eyes out for remarkable moments... They are all around us!

Xoxo

A