What is the problem?
As I draw near the end of week 4, I am feeling a bit flustered with the way my class program is running and I don't feel I am being the most effective teacher I know I could be to every student in my class.
This year, I have a total of 27 Year 6 students. Of these 27, 12 go out every Monday afternoon for Marimba, 9 are out every Thursday morning from 9-9.45 for orchestra, 2 are out every Mon-Thurs for 25 minutes after morning tea for a special program, as well as numerous children out each day for duties, music lessons, tuition etc. While it is fantastic that so many students are involved in a range of extra learning activities, I am finding the frequent interruptions disruptive to both their learning-as they see to keep missing teaching sessions, as well as the remainder of the class.
While I have tried to ensure that I work with certain groups at certain times so the students aren't missing their teaching sessions, I have found that something seems to crop up and many students are missing key teaching sessions. This then results in them not being up to date for the next lesson or activity and I am having to spend a lot of my time catching those students up when I should be moving our lessons along.
I do realise that it is still only Week 4 and routines are still being cemented: we have also had swimming 3-4 times a week, as well numerous absentees which have added to the disruptions. Welcome to the life as a Year 6 teacher!
Whilst many of the students who are out of class frequently are great independent learners, achieving at or above national standards, will make sure they catch up on lessons missed, work in their own time etc; some of the students have learning challenges, need additional support within the classroom, or have poor time management.
As the year progresses, more and more students will become involved in extra roles and responsibilities throughout the school as leaders and role models. Rather than discourage students from taking on board extra roles within the school, I want to be able to encourage students to do this, as it will be a great opportunity to show off their talents, leadership, and other capabilities.
What can I do about it?
Rather than see the extra responsibilities and disruptions as a negative/hassle, I have decided to make changes to my class program and teaching so that every student in Room 16 gets the best possible teaching they deserve. The aim will be to enable students to partake in additional programs and roles within the school without it affecting their learning or disrupting the remainder of the class. This will form my second teaching inquiry.
New inquiry question:
How can I ensure students who are out of class still get the best teaching possible, whilst minimising the disruptions to the remainder of the class?
My reflective questions:
- What changes can I make to my timetable/program to ensure students aren't missing out on key teaching sessions?
- How can I run an effective learning program to ensure each student keeps up to date with their tasks?
- How can I adjust my class program to minimise disruptions when students are out of class?
- What can I do to ensure students who miss their teaching session, don't hinder the progression of lessons for the remaining students?
- How can I ensure students manage their time effectively?
- How can I ensure interruptions don't constantly disrupt my class program/routines?
- How am I best to group my students - Mixed or ability?
- What can I do to create more student agency in Room 16?
- How can I use technology to enhance my teaching program and minimise disruptions when students miss a teaching session?
Starting point:
This morning I sought advice from my team leader and deputy principal about what I could do to minimise the disruptions being out of class was causing for many students. As a result of these discussions, I came away with two starting points.
- I had a look at my weekly timetable and added the number of students who were out for each session. Straight away it highlighted which times were key for learning when everyone should be present. It also made me feel better to see how many more teaching sessions would be available next week once swimming stops (however there will always be another program that starts up and causes disruptions).
- I am going to get each student who is out of class at some point to complete their own weekly timetable so they can see when they may end up missing a teaching session. It will also be their responsibility to then ensure they catch up on the work they have missed during their independent learning time, at lunch or at home etc.
- Conversation with my DP around grouping by mixed or ability was started with both pros and cons being identified for both. For now, I will continue with my mixed ability writing groups, this way it is much easier if a student is absent from a teaching session to jump into another groups session. I will leave both reading and maths as ability for now, but may look to merge the some groups if needed. This however may only work for the middle groups who don't have much difference in ability.
- Another conversation was around using technology to better support my program. Two ways have been identified for this so far. Firstly I am going to use google docs and our google drive to upload my planning, timetable, activities, exemplars, success criteria etc. This way students can see what they have missed and what they need to do to catch up. (Whilst this will help ensure students keep up to date, it still may only help the more able students who are achieving above national standards and could quickly catch up. Those students with learning challenges, may not be able to catch up as fast or know how to complete the work because they wouldn't of had the teaching to go with the task).
- Lastly I thought about videoing my teacher session and uploading it to the google drive so students who missed the teaching session, or students who needed a reminder of how to do something, could view the lesson and then complete the task. While it's not quite the same as being present in the actual lesson, this could be the next best thing. This would also enable those students who are absent from school, to access the teaching sessions from that day. By videoing the lessons, this too could be a great way of ensuring the lesson uses appropriate materials for modelling to reinforce the learning. It may also help prevent me from waffling to much :)
When I shared these starting point ideas with my class this afternoon, they seemed really excited. It will be a new learning curve for us all and certainly a new challenge. Hopefully the end results will be worth it!
