Thursday 26 October 2017

How will I implement?

What I have tried to do is set up a template that is easy for students to use. With this sheet they can write down words or at least try to that have a link or something in common with the topic. This allows them to be creative as they like, some of the links they are able to come up with are very clever. Some issues I think that will happen is that they will be intimidated by the how many letters they are so I think i will try and give them a set time limit and they can do as much as possible. The important part will be around how they link what they think.
Here I have created a sheet around expanding their thinking skills and also problem solving. This sheet can be used in pairs or individually. It also lends itself to the prediction key what do you think could happen. This key really focuses on prior knowledge of what to do if something unexpected happens. A skills that is so important with my age group of students in the community.


Saturday 21 October 2017

Thinkers Keys for the term

The three thinkers I will be trying this term are The Alphabet, The prediction and the What if. I will be using these approaches in small section of the lessons and hopefully by the end of the term will be able to see some students using them on there own.



Image result for thinkers keys the alphabet


We will choose an object or general category of objects which feature in the area of study and compile a list of words from A-Z which have some relevance to the objects or pictures. Then we will try to expand some ideas which link with each of the chosen words.



Image result for thinkers keys the prediction


We will ask the students for a series of predictions in regard to a particular situation, product or set of circumstances. "What do you think happen if?" "What do you think they will do, say look like?"






Image result for thinkers key what if


Here we can ask virtually any What if question. They can be either serious or frivolous. We will try to tap in to the students' knowledge base and generate loads of innovative and creative ideas.

Wednesday 11 October 2017

Review of the first term

thinking capAfter our first assessment to check how my select students had achieved I was able to sit down with Donna our Head of Literacy and unpack these results. We came to the conclusion that the method of my classes was actually in fact more activity based and students were highly motivated by the game rather than showing or developing good thinking skills. What I need to do now is concentrate purely on developing thinking skills. I will continue to use different keys which have been developed by Tony Ryan and implement these keys across different areas we cover each day. By doing this I hope to achieve better results and it will strongly based on the development of thinking skills through the use of the keys.
I will continue to keep Mathew in the group and hope he starts turning up to school.
I will also try to keep the writing samples as independent as possible with no other help or support from teachers or aides. We will no longer use "The Game of Awesome" but rather keep to our own lessons and introduce different thinkers keys to trial.

Thursday 5 October 2017

The marks are in....

After receiving all the work samples from my select students I was able to use the developmental writing scale to grade the students and check to see if my use of some of Tony Ryan's thinking keys and the use of "The Game of Awesome" have improved the writing of the students.

Ben has made an increase of 2 levels. He was at level 9 and is now at level 11. As you can see from his work sample he is able to write 3 or more sentence (coherent but limited cohesive)

Matt has not made any progress and his work is still at the same level. He has had a high amount of absenteeism which has meant he has missed a lot of lessons. He stays at level 8 and is able to write partial sentences of three or more words independently. This is in contrast to the piece of writing you see here. He has used the game cards and also asked for a lot of support from teacher aides to complete the task.



Sam has shifted 2 levels from 9 to 11. As you can see from his sample he is able to write 3 or more related sentences (coherent and limited cohesive)

Jess has made a 1 level shift from 10 - 11. She is able to write at least 3 sentences that are related (coherent and limited cohesive) It would of almost shifted to 12 however the prose needed to be sentences that could not be re-ordered without changing meaning. As you can see all these sentences are able to be re-ordered without it losing any of its meaning.

Denise has continued to stay at the same at level 10. She has written 3 sentences that are neither coherent or cohesive. Even though this is a good piece of writing in the pre-test this student scored extremely well so to make any progress on this would of been very difficult.