Incredible years review

This term I have been very lucky to have the opportunity to attend "Incredible Years Program" for teachers. It is a program that goes well with 'Positive Behaviour For Learning' (PB4L), as many of the philosophies which are taught line up nicely. We spent each lesson going up the pyramid in the picture, looking at a number of ways we can support students in making good decisions and their learning.

Using this pyramid each session we came up with several goals to focus on. Some of my goals were:

• Focus on using "when... then" commands to make sure instructions are clear and simple.
• Teach my students to give and receive a complement.
• Use group incentives to promote teamwork.
• Identify behaviours I can ignore while keeping students safe.
• I give more attention to positive behaviours than to inappropriate student behaviours.

Sue and Claire who were the facilitators of the course did a wonderful job at presenting the content of the course in a fun and enjoyable way. Claire even visited my classroom to observe how I was implementing the incredible years program in my classroom. You can read the observation notes here and I must say they were so positive and a delight to read.

After Tuesday 27th June session it was time to say good bye to my fellow students, but also a quick graduation ceremony. This course has done two things to my teaching practice, first it made me feel confident in what I have been doing in my classroom and also it has given me more tools to use in my classroom.

Day 5, Manaiakalani Intensive Day

Agenda:

Connecting with each other

Connecting with Manaiakalani

Google Certification Exams

Learn: Digital content introduction

10:00 Morning Tea

Learn: Digital content introduction

Hapara Teacher Dashboard and Blogger

12:30 Lunch

Create: Making meaning of content

Share: Embed and Rewind Content

2:30 or 3:00 Queen’s Birthday Weekend

Today we stated looking at using sites and how to use them in the classroom. We use Magpie's Baking Day as a start to creating a week unit around bread.

To brainstorm ideas for our unit the year 1 - 3 teachers used padlet. a neat tool for grouping and sharing ideas with a team. Using what we came up with I created a quick draft on google docs for my site.

Some key things to remember when using google sites to keep it aesthetically pleasing are to use a white back, keep to 3 colours, use the same font and use the rule of thirds. This is just a simple guide for creating a website and can be changed.

Here is my unit for Magpie's Baking Day you can click on the buttons to look at the different activities.

TESOL PD - Run by me

I ran a workshop for the teachers at Glenbrae Primary as a series of PD session going over TESOL strategies to help support our students. My session was on how to use picture dictation and dramatised dictation to empower our students, particularly ESOL students in speaking, listening and reading. Have a look at the notes I created and shared with my colleagues below.

Day 1, Digital Immersion Intensive

Day 1.

Today was the first day of the Manaiakalani Digital Intensive, The day's purpose was to familiarise ourselves with google docs, apps and Hapara.

Here is a link to the day's agenda.

I was able to take away a many new tools, which I will be able to use both inside and outside the classroom to accelerate my students learning and development. Including many of the tools which I have listed in my venn diagram below.