Spiral of Inquiry Reflection: Digital Technologies in iDevelop

How did you make a difference to your iDevelop workshops?

Did it make an impact? How do you know?

What do you still need to work on?

This term our Spiral of Inquiry focused on using digital technology in the habitat. This was carried out with a Professional Learning Group that had other learning coaches focusing on the same iDevelop area. My focus was to use Google classroom effectively with my learners in iDevelop (literacy or maths). I thought best to use Google classroom with my literacy group and small micro-teaching groups.

I used Google classroom to share google documents and presentations with my learners. The difference it has made has been minimal so far. I am still learning to how to use it with my small reading groups as devices are limited. Using google classroom has made a slight impact because learners are enjoying using devices to complete activities online. From observations, learners have enjoyed using Google classroom and are able to help others.

I have learned with the help of Donna Golightly, how to assign documents to learners without them having to make copies of it and to use. She has also helped me to assign documents in classwork rather than  on stream. I am currently learning to how to best use and manage google classroom with twelve devices for my group. 

Thank Claudine and Raman for leading the Spiral of Inquiry for us.

Please find my personal spiral of inquiry document here.

Maths Problem Solving: Spiral of Inquiry

This year our inquiry has been around Problem Solving in Maths. In our habitat (team) we have trialled and changed a lot of our practice to best suit our learners (students).
Looking back, we started out doing problem solving as four different classes with our home class and over the terms this has evolved. We now are problem solving altogether. Our learners all get the same problem.

The learners are also divided into alphabet groups based on Kagan theory of group work and collaborative learning. Until yesterday, I learned that Kagan groups have 4 in each group, not solely based on ability but also taking into consideration their Key Competencies. Each learner is given a specific role and is meant to be purposeful. Groups are meant to change every term (note for next time).

All learning coaches collaborated and had a turn at launching the problem one day of the week. Once problem is launched, we then sent our learners in their alphabet groups to each learning coach to work with. Once they had some time to work on their task, we gathered our learners up again and selected a few learners to share and others to reflect. Here is what we presented as a team yesterday for our Inquiry.

Some of the things, I'd like to work on next year are: looking more into the Kagan collaborative learning groups. Looking at other strategies to help our ELL learners. Improving our word problems to be more in the context of real life based.