Beyond a Blackboard

Are you interested in increasing oral language and critical thinking in your classroom? Argumentation Boards use engaging topics to prompt critical thinking and debate. Essentially, a question is posed and students form their opinions (and use factual information to justify them) as they engage with a range of multi-modal texts.                  I found using argumentation boards extremely helpful to increase the discussion and debate in my classroom. They gave my students an authentic and engaging context to read and write - they loved sharing their opinions! I also found that they helped me to understand the notion of T-shaped or 'wide and deep' literacy. In this approach, students read a range of texts that are linked by topic or learning intention. When using argumentation boards, I got in the habit of using a wider range of text; I used a range of text types (persuasive, narrative...),  multiple modes (texts, videos, audio.....

Today I had the opportunity to share my Inquiry with the Kaikohekohe cluster on their teacher only day. I focussed on the two things I learnt the most from this inquiry: using the inquiries of colleagues to inform my own and continuing to use successful aspects of past inquiries.               It was really helpful to connect the two inquiries (2018-19) and to reflect on my learning throughout this time. It was a great reminder of the things that I must continue to do; such as facilitating debate, using exemplars/text analysis and to use argumentation boards.

We educators teach a lot more than reading, writing or maths. We spend much time on developing life skills and preparing our tamariki for their futures. With this in mind, we in team five spent our first meeting creating graduating profiles of our learners. That is, we considered the skills, knowledge and traits that we hope they will possess as they leave our classes. This was a fantastic activity (created by my amazing team leader Andrea) that got us on the same page and excited about teaching a new cohort of children. We discussed motivation and resilience at length; we want our students to be driven, to love learning, to persevere and set lofty goals. We also discussed some of the challenges our students face at this age, as they become more self aware (and self conscious) and are beginning to make choices for their future. This is something that hit me hard at the end of 2019 as I started to connect more with teachers at the local college. Previously I had quizzed them on ...