Hi All,

 

As you all know the beginning of the school year is extremely busy for all teachers from Prep to high school.  You would think that because Distance Ed is done through web-conferencing there would be less preparation but actually I have found that it's quite the opposite.  Although I myself don't have a physical classroom, to create and hang resources in, I do have to be super organised and have those resources ready to mail out in the first week of school to my students.

 

The items I include in my first mail out bag are mixed.  Some are simply to create a relationship between my students and I, some are to establish classroom expectations and others are physical resources that will be used in their lessons throughout the year. 

 

 For getting to know each other I create a craft glyph using the book 'Pete the Cat Rocking in my school shoes'.  After creating their glyph my students have been mailing them back in so I can use them in a display at the school as well as sharing them on our Class Dojo where they can discuss what they have learnt about each other.  I have shared this file on my TpT's store.

Free Pete the Cat - glyph craft

Because our time on-air is very limited (1hr/ day for English) I try to use a little of the Flipped Classroom model of having students view digital learning resources before class.  This year to establish classroom expectations for learning and behaviour my students listened to a reading of the book 'How do dinosaurs go to school?' at home and in class we created a Y chart of what we wanted our on-airs to sound like, look like and feel like.  At home they completed a writing task, so I would have a beginning of the year sample and dinosaur name plaque to show cutting skills.  You can find the dinosaur template and writing paper on my TpT store.



Establishing Classroom Expectations Pack

I also like to establish with my Home Tutors some communication and teaching norms that will make a their classroom run smoother and unsure continuity.  I send out a Home Tutor Guide and in it I include timetables of lessons, work returns and hints for the tracking of the assistance they gave during the units of work.  This Evidence Of Learning feedback guide is now being used by other teachers to unsure continuity across the school. 



Evidence of Learning Assistance Guide

 

Lastly, I include templates for maths resources that can be printed out by my time poor Home Tutors to use with my students during lessons or to assist my students with their rote learning.  After the Home Tutor establishes the routine my students are then expected to independently complete these activities which frees up time for the Home Tutor to do prep work or work with their other students.  I also provide links for where Home Tutors can download songs that will assist with the rote learning of skip counting patterns and number facts.

 

    100s Counting Board     Addition & Subtraction Board      Multiplication Board

This year I have also added in a Number of the Day sheet.  This allows my students to be increasing their fluency with a range of number concepts and I'm expecting to be seeing improvements in their working time during Maths on-airs. 

  Number of the Day Book/ Board

Some students have received this as a booklet while others have it printed and laminated in A3 size and complete it with a white board pen, as per the Home Tutor's wishes.

As we all know accidents do happen and to ensure that each of my student always have access to the resources they need to ensure their learning success I provide all my Home Tutors with these resources on a USB which they return for updating every five weeks.  I also include additional resources on this USB that I feel may be of assistance to complete the units of learning in those five week.  I will have posts about some of those resources soon.

Another big post but hopefully well worth your time.  Chat to you all again soon.

Kickstart Conference 2016

Hi All,

When I first started working in Distance Education 3 years ago I really struggled with letting go of the every day teaching.  The main reason for this was that I was still responsible for my students reaching National Standards but the majority of the teaching was out of my hands and being done by untrained home tutors.  One way my school attempts to remedy this situation is by holding an annual conference, which not only up skills our parents and home tutors, but also allows our students to participate in learning experiences that are taken for granted by schools on the coast.

It takes 6 to 10 months to plan and organise this event and costs a minimum of $25 000.  This is paid for out of the annual school budget, parents and the school's Parent Liaison Officer applying for grants.  We are very lucky that there is many national sporting organisations in Australia that will send out representatives to work with our students for minimal costs.  This year we had 70 home tutors and 85 children attend for the 3 days, with some driving up to 5 hours to get here.  This will be the first time parents, home tutors and students will meet their teachers, even though school started a week before.  In fact some teachers will never meet their students face to face, due to the large, isolated areas Distance Education covers.

For the three days the parents and students are separated, as our school grounds is too small to accommodate everyone. The students are organised by age groupings and are supervised by teachers as they rotate through a range of activities, with a focus on sports, arts and health and safety.  The majority of our students live on large properties with unfenced dams, rivers and creeks so a big part of school events is the teaching of swimming and survival skills. 

This year the students also participated in hockey, lantern making, weaving and gymnastics.  A lot of time is also spent on team building activities to ensure the students are learning socially appropriate ways to share, turn take and play with each other.

These seven hour days don't seem to exhaust them either as they are all revved up for night time activities!

While the children are playing the adults are learning.  There is a mixture of teacher lead sessions and guest speakers.  These sessions need to meet the needs of beginning to 10 year experienced home tutors who have  limited or no ICT skills and students ranging from Prep to Year 10 .   Also due to the impact of working large properties, in the middle of a drought, we are also mindful that many of our families are needing social and emotional support outside of the classroom as well. 

Some of the sessions this year focused on reading, sight words, ICT support, web-conferencing, mental and emotional wellbeing, personal goal setting and Back to Front Maths and misconceptions with guest speaker Tierney Kennedy. 

As an experienced teacher I held two sessions.  One was about the implementation of our school's phonemic spelling program 'Soundwaves' and the other was about the importance of creating word walls to help build up student vocabulary and understanding.  Both of these presentations can be downloaded from my TpT store by clicking on the links. 

Click on link to download Soundwaves presentation

 

Click on link to download Word Walls presentation

 

I also created a set of IWB games that the home tutors could use to practice the spelling pattern for the week.  These can be done individually or with a class of students. In fact I use them as warm ups before our English lessons everyday.  They are made using PowerPoint and are completely editable.

 

Click on link to download IWB spelling games templates

  

The week of Kickstart Conference is an extremely busy and tiring week for all involved. It is a time for me to connect with not only my students but also their home tutors.  In no other school setting is it more obvious, and vital, that teaching and learning is about partnerships and give and take.  It's nearly taken me three years but I think I can actually now say my relationship with my home tutors is blossoming.  I have stepped away from the mantle of being the expert in the classroom and now see myself as a mentor and an equal of  those with less knowledge and experience in teaching. 

 

Lots of good things to come...I'm sure!!