Learning Story

Ashmira's Animal Habitat - Digitise It Learning Story - August 2015

Learner: Ashmira                                                                       Learning Coach: DWilkes       Date: August 2015                                                                       Learning Area:  Science

Learning Observed

This term the LH1 learners have been learning about animals, adaptations and habitats. Ashmira has been building her language and developing her understandings of the many ways the natural world can be represented.  Ash is very able to recognise that living things are suited to their particular habitat and can discuss the adaptations of many specific animals. She used her curiosity and creativity to research adaptations for the Penguin (Habitat).  She recognises that all living things have certain requirements so they can stay alive and could identify these in detail for the penguin.   Ash was fortunate enough to go on a field trip to the zoo where many animals captured her curiosity.  She used the learning from the zoo trip to create a creature using the www.buildyourwildself.com wesbite.  Ash also demonstrated leadership and supported many of the other learners during the process. Ashmira  then needed to create a habitat that would be suitable for the penguin.  She opted for the ‘Digitize It’ option knowing that she wanted to design the creature habitat in Minecraft and demonstrate her capability at using it.  She went through a rigorous design process that involved connecting with information through researching to create a fact file on the penguin, drawing a draft diagram of what the habitat would look like and then creating it in a digital tool of their choosing.  Ashmira collaborated well- listening to other learners and asking questions.  She also used Tinkercad and other tools to design her habitat on the days she was without her iPad showing great resilience and a growth mindset. Ask her to show it to you!  When it was time to share their learning, she presented her habitat with heaps of pride and confidence to all of the Learning Coaches and learners in LH1.  See her assessment here.

Evidence of learning

Next Learning Steps

write a reflective blog post about the learning and share with parents create a product of their learning eg. iMovie to show the habitat in Minecraft create a more detailed diagram with labels that is represented in the final product learn about the different species of penguins- do they have different adaptations?

Ashmira's Speech Learning Story - August 2015

Learner:    Ash                                                                        Learning Coach: DWilkes

Learning Area:  Literacy                                                                              Date: Aug 2015

Learning Observed

This term all learners in LH1 wrote a speech on a topic of their choosing.  Oral language is an important skill and Ash refined her knowledge of some language features to enhance both the speaking and writing of her oral presentation.  Ashmira’s speech about why boys and girls should be in separate learning spaces demonstrated her ability to be persuasive both through the content and delivery. Ash learned about emotive language features such as the use of adjectives; persuasive features such as rhetorical questions, repetition, quotations, statistics, contrasts and lists of three; and varied sentence structures like statements, questions, exclamations and commands.  She learned about the structure of a speech including introductions, endings, sequencing words and and how to make her point clear. Ash also explored how to creatively add additional details to make the argument stronger. This was based around the ‘hamburger method’ of speech writing.  I was so impressed with how Ashmira refined her speech through practice and responding to feedback- she was a winner in the habitat competition and did a great job at our first annual school competition.

Evidence of learning

Oral Language Rubric Here   Some of the tools used to structure and develop the speech

Key Competencies/Vision Principles

Ash cultivated the curiosity of others with her speech on boys and girls being together for their learning- she made everyone wonder if this would be a positive trend in schools.  She connected with her audience using emotive language and confident delivery - in her hapu group and at the school competition. She collaborated with other learners while practicing her speech and responded to feedback and in discussing, writing and providing feedback and feed forward to the other learners when they presented their speech or poem.  Her public speaking capability has grown as a result of this experience. We were very proud of Ash representing us- the Pukekos- at the Speech Finals- she is a real asset to our OrmPS whanau.  Ka Pai!

Next Learning Steps

write a reflective blog post embed the oral rubric into her learning pathway and a recording of your speech practice reading aloud daily write what you think your next steps are in the comment section future speeches will be strengthened by using some facts/research that has been done to validate what your opinion is and additional persuasive features

Google Summit Learning Story - Aug 2015

Learners:  Ashmira & Johanna                                      Learning Coach: DWilkes

Learning Area: Technology and KCs                            Date: Aug 12, 2015

Learning Observed

Ashmira & Johanna made us all proud when they represented us at the first ever Student Google Summit on Aug 12 at Hobsonville Point Primary School.  They were joined by hundreds of other learners from around Auckland and facilitated and participated in some exciting workshops about learning with digital technologies.  There was a lot of work leading up to this day.  First, Ash and Johanna met with Ms Wilkes to express their interest, brainstorm what they could present and then write and submit their pitch to the GEGNZ.  They demonstrated passion, commitment and skills while meeting their deadline.  This was their pitch which they decided to do on our Blogs: Blogger We are going to talk about our personal Google Blogs and how we use Blogger in Our School. We use Blogger to write posts about our learning and what we do at school that we think we should write about to share with the learners and learning coaches. We also get narrative assessments in our blogs. These are learning stories that our Learning Coaches write about our learning for us and our parents to read, comment on and learn about our day to day learning. They were of course successful and were added to the programme.  They then had to create their presentation and included lots of interactives like writing a blog comment in their blogs.  The learners decided it would be great if they could practice their workshops the day before to iron out any crinkles and so they were able to facilitate their workshops for the rest of the habitat.  Ash and Johanna did their practice run with a group of 18 learners and responded to feedback,making some small changes to improve their presentation.  On the big day they both demonstrated capability and collaboration.  They also demonstrated confidence and resilience when many devices couldn’t access the internet.  We were very proud of the way they solved problems, remained calm, positive and supported the participants.  Way to go girls!

Evidence of learning

Ashmira and Johanna practice their workshop with Lh1 Johanna and Ash present confidently to an interested crew Ash and Cooper & Johanna join the OrmPS gang for a googliscious photo!

Key Competencies/Vision Principles

The girls showed they could relate well with others both in their collaborative effort in creating and facilitating their presentation and in responding to feedback.  They participated and contributed, managing themselves in 3 other sessions on the day and took their learning back to OrmPS to share with others.  They showed curiosity in the google cardboard session and made connections to prior knowledge.  They were capable at solving problems when there were technical difficulties and constantly collaborated to maximise their own learning and that of others.

Next Learning Steps

start thinking about their presentation for next year write a blog post about their experience teach family members some new skills/tricks they learned

Leadership Experience Learning Story - August 2015

Learners: Aleena & Ash                                                              Learning Coach: D Wilkes

Learning Area: KCs and Literacy                                                Date: Aug 5

Learning Observed

It was impressive and humbling to watch these two year five girls lead the entire year six cohort in providing a ‘Leadership Experience’ as a long awaited follow up to the NYLD that the Year 6s attended in Term 2.  Aleena and Ash co-constructed the presentation that housed all of the other learner’s presentations and they MCed the event like true professionals.  When the order of appearance changed multiple times they just rolled with it demonstrating confidence and resilience.  They selected some inspiring videos, facilitated a leadership brainstorm and kept the energy levels high for the entire afternoon.  Practicing their public speaking, writing and leadership was what they did while the rest of us enjoyed a fantastic afternoon of entertainment, inspiration and wonder.

Evidence of learning

Aleena and Ash lead us through our dress rehersal   MCing our Leadership Experience like pros Introducing our special guests from OrmPS and Phoenix and his dance crew

Key Competencies/Vision Principles

Ash and Aleena collaborated on the presentation and demonstrated leadership capability throughout the preparation and delivery of the ‘Leadership Experience’.  They related to others and managed themselves like responsible young adults.  They were incredibly agile and resilient when faced with changes and connected with other learners, our special guests, learning coaches, each other and their prior knowledge.

Next Learning Steps

write a blog post to share their experience with others and reflect on your learning journey comment on the blog posts of your classmates share the new learning with your family

Ashmira's Literacy Readers Theatre Learning Story

Learner: Aleena, Neha, Ashmira & Kavisha      Learning Coach: Bex Remington                Date: 2 April 2015

Learning Area: iDevelop - Literacy: Reading

Learning Observed

This week the girls’ literacy group has been learning how to use their voices and expression to entertain an audience.  We did this through using Reader’s Theatre.  The script was based on an excerpt from the BFG by Roald Dahl.  The script had more parts than what there were members in the group so the girls soon realised they needed to change their voices completely so the audience could tell the character had changed.  While practicing they also quickly learnt that they needed to listen to each other reading so they could keep up with the story because if there was even a short delay when recorded it sounded like a really long pause.

Evidence of learning

This is a video of the girls reading just the first page of their script.  The actual voice recording they created was 10mins long and was shared with the rest of the literacy group:

Key Competencies/Vision Principles

By working on this piece the girls demonstrated that they could understand language symbols and text and relate to others. There was a lot of focus and concentration needed and while they were recording they also realised they needed to be patient with each other when a mistake was made and they needed to start again. Putting together the final recorded piece took collaboration and the girls were proud of their finished piece.

Next Learning Steps

Try another readers theatre piece Move from readers theatre to acted out plays Share their final piece with a wider audience to gain even more feedback

Ashmira's Literacy Predictions

Learner:  Ashmira Guptar   Learning Coach:  Bex Remington   Date: Wk 6, T1 2015

Learning Area:  Literacy - Reading: Making Predictions

Learning Observed

In literacy we had begun talking about different reading strategies and this lesson was focused on Predicting.  The students discussed how they make a prediction when they choose a book.  Ashmira had a good grasp of the different clues that help her make predictions and mentioned that we can’t just rely on what the cover looks like.  The students were given a prediction form and were asked to make predictions using the strategies we had discussed.  Ashmira thought she may have seen the movie before so I asked her to think about using what she might remember to help her make her predictions.

Evidence of learning

This video is of Ashmira explaining what predicting means in reading and what her task was:

Key Competencies/Vision Principles

Ashmira has a good understanding symbols and text and was able to confidently make and justify her predictions about the Ormie the Pig movie.  She actively took part in our group discussions and also supported others when they weren’t sure of the answers showing that she is able to paticipate and contribute and relate to others.  Ashmira shows a growing capability in making predictions and is applying this knowledge in literacy contexts.

Next Learning Steps

Evaluate her predictions against what actually happens to see where she has been correct Branch out into unfamiliar book themes and authors and find out if her predictions are just as accurate Actively discuss her predictions with others before reading or watching something