Distance Learning Update:

At the moment we've been doing collaborative work on shared docs for juniors as a prelude to them doing their own individual work. It's taught them some VERY valuable skills 😂🤦‍♀️ I've really enjoyed seeing them work together.

My seniors on the other hand - has been more about wellbeing and checking in with them and then asking where they're stuck. We focus on those issues first before working on the learning I had planned. It's honestly just a day by day thing and we're getting there. Having a Google Slidedeck set up with notes for those missing the Zui has been super helpful.

My big concern at the moment is connecting with those students who haven't been able to come to the Zui sessions. 

Collaborative Storytelling - Y9 Tihi

Straight up proud of my Y9 students today! 

What started off as a korero about how lockdown was going for them, turned into showing them how Google Classroom worked and what I had planned for them.... 

Then it quickly changed when I saw I'd lost them already and that they were missing our face to face agentic lessons. 

I asked them if they'd started their creative writing from the visual prompts I'd provided... And then they asked if we HAD to use those to do a piece of writing... No, I said, it was just a starting point.

And then the topic changed again when I asked them what they'd been watching on Netflix and Tv... I asked them whether they'd ever told other people why they should watch their favourite shows. Nope, they hadn't. So - reviews were out of the question for the moment. 

Back to Creative Writing... I asked them if they could write any story - what would it be about? What characters would be in it? Oh my GOSH! I've never heard so much excitement and enthusiasm in a Zui before. Far. Epic. 

We quickly set up some parameters and what would be included in the writing. 

Then I asked whether we'd do it collaboratively in a shared doc or whether we would work individually.... Some shared issues around people deleting their mahi. Others said they wanted to do it individually. Some said they struggled writing so we decided to do both. 

I set up a shared doc (what is attached below) that they used to plan out their ideas and also an individual doc where students could go off on their own tangent using the shared parameters.

They quickly learnt and decided they needed some rules when working on a collaborative doc. 😂 That's always the first hurdle. But they overcame that quickly. 🙌🏽

The best part was seeing their teamwork when they delegated and chose different characters to describe. They helped define what would be in the setting and also what events would happen. 

Sentence starters are always the hardest part. But wow - check those out! Yes, I wrote some too. But that's all part of the modelling and development. 

Next steps - writing collaboratively together. 🙌🏽❤️

#Covid19Teacher #OCstorytellers #Maurua