I haven't blogged since I arrived in Johor Bahru in May this year so I thought it was time to get 'back on the blog'.
I am very privileged to be working here as an Education Advisor contracted through a company called LeapEd, to the Malaysian Government. We are working on a transformation project in government schools called Trust Schools. To meet accreditation in Year 5 of the programme these schools must meet certain standards across a range of criteria.
The biggest shift is in the Teaching and Learning in these schools and some teachers have come a very long way on an amazing journey. To that end some of the biggest challenges are to meet the AfL and differentiation criteria.
At the highest level this means students need to have far more autonomy and be able to set their own goals, using strategies that suit them and their individual learning styles. To support teachers in doing this it is essential they understand the development and progression of students across the range of skills in their curriculum area. So (or 'jadi' in Malay) to that end I am currently working with a group of teachers in the two schools where I am based to encourage teachers - and ultimately students, to be clear about next steps in learning.
I have found some amazing resources on pinterest and will attach one example with some other links here.
Grade 5 LearningTargets
Young Teacher Love
How to Write Learning Targets
Learning Targets Images & Examples
Today I am working on a flowgram of step by step instructions for learners to create their own multi-media product. I have decided to go with flowgram because I realise that I enjoy having the audio aspect to instructions for anything I am doing, so this must be the case for lots of my students as well. It involves time, and quite a bit of nervousness so I am hopeful there will be a payoff in student engagement - fingers crossed that they all get into it like the 11 year old student here!
I am convinced that because they will be creating something rather than being expected to soak up more fabricated 'learning' there will be a bit of a buzz. Speaking of buzz, it was great today to collaborate with Allanah King on a buzzword document I had created as part of these instructions.
Here is the first of our 2-minute guide series (what you see here is an extract - for the rest you will have to get your hands on the latest edition of 'interface')
Website for interface is here - you can check it out online, or order your own - there are so many ICT for learning ideas in here opening your first issue can be a bit mind boggling.
In a skype discussion this morning with a 'twitter' friend we have arranged to meet next week and have our first ustream.
This will be fun and we are hoping it is something we can introduce to learners as another useful collaboration tool. Look out for Richard and I next Friday on ustream.
