RPI Day 7: Thinking

Sharing and reflecting
This morning we started with sharing about our successes and challenges since our last session. I really enjoy this part of the session as we are able to share different thoughts and ideas with each other. During this time I was reflecting on how I am completing my vocabulary and word work activities. I have been doing this separately and having a spelling task for overall words but what I would like to try next week is have my vocabulary tasks instead of overall spelling and they will hopefully nicely link my reading and writing. Some other suggestions to check out from this morning is using the Cambridge dictionary and online voice recorder to record discussions. I am also really keen to check out other people's vocabulary tasks that they have created and try to incorporate some of these into my own planning.

Smart thinking for smart learners
I really enjoyed hearing from Dorothy and being connected to some different tools that we can use in the classroom to engage our learners to make them think. I will definitely be looking into the fake news sites that have been created and link my class and team back to the fake news Cybersmart lessons as a way to introduce this to the students. I am really excited to look into Squiz Kids and use this in the classroom. We have also been looking at podcasts as a school and I am really excited to use this with the students as I think it will be a really great tool for students to be able to record themselves reading and remove all of that background noise from the classroom. 

Higher Order Thinking
It was really great to look at different examples of questions that we can be asking our students during guided reading sessions dn then incorporating these into follow up activities as well. I think I often can create literal and interpretive questions but I often leave out the evaluative questions where students need to make a judgement based on the information from the text. I know that my students will really love this challenge and I am looking forward to using this in the classroom in the coming weeks.

Analysis

We looked at Blooms in detail during this part of the day which was really interesting. I have seen this model before but never really deep dived into it and we were given a really great explanation of it and how we can use this in the classroom. I have learnt a new tool of using highlight on PDF which I am very excited to use in the classroom. I have previously been printing off the text for the students to highlight old school so I am really keen to try this out. One big takeaway from this session was showing a competing definition of a word to counter the evidence as this will really make the students think a lot more critically. I will be using this in my planning next week so will let you know how this goes! 

Explore 
One key thing we discussed today that has stuck with me is students not just being passive consumers of a text, we want them to be able to think critically about what they are reading. We looked at a range of different digital organisers that support the exploration of texts. I am quite excited to create some of these and use these in the classroom in the coming weeks. 

Critical Analysis 
We also had a deep dive into perspectives and positioning and how we can make sure to add this into our literacy program. With perspectives we looked at creating provocations about a theme in a text, this was something that I initially struggled with because I think I was thinking too much about it. However once I started to read the text and pick out the key messages and ideas I could feel the cogs in my brain turning to find a provocation linked to my text. I am really excited to bring this to my reading groups next week and focus on having those discussions during and after our sessions. I am interested to see how the students tackle this for the first time and can’t wait to hear their thoughts and ideas around the topic. As I think about this I also remember a key thing from this part of the day and that is exploring the fact that disagreement can be risky and we need to make sure that we have a discussion around what it means to share a thought and opinion as a group. So I may start out with an introduction piece to get the students comfortable with having a position or idea that not everyone might agree with. 

We also explored how to be purposeful and to add bias for the students into texts that can lead to discussions. I really liked how Naomi had used the text Jump and taken other parts out of this text to lead to a bias that the students could very easily see once it was pointed out as well as a great way to build and foster conversations and discussion around this. This really made me think about how I need to be more intentional with some of the key messages and ideas that I pull out of the text as well as explicitly bringing these ideas out during guided reading. I have reflected during this time that this is something that I need to work on, I need to explicitly put this information in my planning so that we are able to bring it out during our guided reading sessions. 

Response to text
Finally today we looked at how to create a response to text task that will really make the students think critically about what they are reading. We were given the opportunity to plan for a group for next week and I am looking forward to seeing what my students create from this text, guided reading and response to text task. 

I thoroughly enjoyed today's session and I have taken a lot away with me. We had a chance to reflect on Planning for Higher Order Thinking and what we could change in our teaching practice to ensure that this is happening in the classroom. You can see from the image I have added above I have lots of areas that I would like to work on in the next three weeks in order to plan for Higher Order Thinking. So I am very excited to see what the next three weeks brings and I cannot wait to share what my students come up with and share with each other during discussions.