Category Teaching

The Impact of Daily 5

Introduction I have seen first hand the benefits of Daily 5, as have the initiators of the programme when they first started it. In this article I focus in on one particular student in my class this year. For privacy,…

Learning and Teaching and Learning

This week, the Minister published a new announcement through the media. The headline: “Hekia Parata – Let’s make learning better.” For whatever reason, this completely grated with all sense and sensibility within me. Something just didn’t ring right grammatically. I’ve…

Troubled Behaviour

Over the years I have seen many different behaviours, and many different children struggling to cope with the myriad of expectations, rules, and consequences that they are faced with from place to place. Dad has different rules to Mum, and…

Getting started with Genius Hour

So this week I was intrigued by the concept of “Genius Hour” or “Passion Projects”. It just so happened that there seems to be a spare hour on Friday where students have finished their handwriting and spelling, and have got…

Discovery and Inquiry

Last week I was introduced to the idea of encouraging discovery rather than instruction in terms of the way that content is delivered. You see, back when I was at school, the teacher was the fount of knowledge and learning…

That strange quiet kid

But they do their work. They get on well enough with others. They coast through the year, and by the end of the following year you’ve already forgotten them. This here is a story of what I would consider one…

The Collaborative Classroom

The Collaborative Classroom Teaching environments and modern ways of reinventing knowledge. The silent classroom is a thing of the past. Long days at your desk, all facing north, with the teacher’s desk aligned in the opposite direction at the front…