TKI

Picnic Tables for Kindy

Mr Smith, one of the technology teachers, organised with the Paeroa Kindy to make some small picnic tables. While the year 10 students he gathered 15 Year 9 students to work on the project.

I was interested in seeing the project be rolled out so offered to help. The students got into 5 groups and set to work finding out about the kindy fire which distroyed their building in July this year.

Year 10 End of Year Quiz

English and Science joined together again.

Picking a self portrait

Catapults - cross curriculum

English and Science joined forces this week to design a course for our year 9 class. We decided on a theme... catapults. 

Minecraft trial with 9 Asp

Build a part of the school using Minecraft
Team 1 - English block
Team 2 - Science block

Plan what your block looks using tape measure and graph paper

Plan - measure the block. Different people do different parts.

Main parts - deck, 4 classroom, film room, toilets, hallway, ms mccleans office,

Each block is 1m

Organising a plan for who was going to measure which part of the English Block

Measuring

Great problem solving conversations happened

Teamwork

They had to think about what was the best way to measure aspects of the rooms

Prior to building their section of the building in Minecraft, two girls drew a plan

It's coming together!!

Overall, I found it a positive experience and look forward to seeing the program develop,  There are so many opportunities for problem solving and communication.  It brings in aspects of Mathematics such as measuring and estimating and there is the possibility to build in literacy including procedural writing and oral presentations of what they did.  There is also leadership roles that need to be filled.

For me personally, I got to interact with a group of student's I don't get to spend a lot of time with and it was fantastic to see some of the student's known for their off task behaviour to be focused and loving what they were doing.  There was a range of abilities but together they helped each other and it was exciting to see the blocks come to life in Minecraft.  I also got to see how Minecraft works and how it can be used in a classroom setting.

Skills being used-problem solving, measuring, communication, learning to use minecraft.

Moderation of Carbon Cycle poster

Earlier in the year, I wanted to have discussions within our department around the standard we have set for our internal standards.  During discussions with my mentor I came across clarifications and the role they play.  This then lead me to look at the Conditions of Assessments for the different standards we were offering. To me it highlighted that our expectations might be a bit high.  

My first step was to look through my student's assessments again and I identified some of them I wanted to discuss further with my HOD.  We had a number of conversations about it but we really weren't on the same page.  One weekend he took them home and had a look through them.  He really wasn't impressed that I had continued questioning the marking and on most of them he came back with an even worse view.  

The next step was to speak with the Principal, who then worked with Ric to come up with an external moderator who would look through the assessments.  I gave the moderator a selection of the student's work, she looked through it and as a department we sat down to discuss the findings.  As a result, a number of student's grade's did go up, we also identified some student's who's grade came back lower but we didn't change it.  

During the process, we identified a need to update the Student Instructions for the AS90953, the Carbon Cycle Standard.  Based on the marking schedule we required them to draw their own carbon cycle but in the student instructions it just said to place your carbon cycle in the middle of the poster.

There was one student who had researched the topic really well but didn't use his own diagram.  It was decided that it wasn't a minor error therefore he couldn't resubmit his standard.  

His parent's continued making inquires and as a result the Principal nominee for NCEA looked at this student's work.  After months of discussion a decision was made.  The student gained a Merit.  

Year 12 garden - Trip to Paeroa Garden Centre

This year I decided to include an Agricultural and Horticultural Standard, AS91296.  They need to design and create a Potager garden.  Before we began this unit of work we headed down to the Paeroa Garden Centre.  It was the first time I had taken a group of student's on a trip outside of the class.  To ensure I did things correctly I spoke with my mentor and the teacher in charge of EOTC.  I needed to complete the following information and consent form.  As it was a low risk trip it was covered by the blanket consent from so didn't need permission from their parents. As the weather, was a bit hit and miss we took the school van.  

The goal was to find out what plants they could include in a winter garden.  There was lots of fantastic information and the student's were receptive to it.  Some of the student's did need to be reminded to not touch things and when we were back in class we talked about some things we could do differently next time such as asking more questions, ensuring they had the right shoes and being respectful of their surroundings at all times.