There just ISN’T enough TIME!!!!!

I think the most difficult thing about teaching is the TIME conflict! Teachers’ feel so much pressure from so many different places: children, parents, team members, school management, BOT, ERO, the community, the media, themselves. It becomes a real juggling act, keeping all your clients and supervisors happy and up-to-date, and still achieve your priorities. If you can get it balanced, then those priorities should mesh, and achieving your own priorities, should be the same as the other demands on you, but unfortunately it doesn’t seem to always be the case.

What does this mean in terms of implementing Learning Pathways?

1. Get smart with your initial planning – when you’re setting up your planning for the term, make sure the skills teaching that you want to do in writing and reading are linked with probable directions in your Learning Pathways. In this way you will be able to kill two birds with one stone. eg If your topic is going to need report writing, then make this is the designated  writing skill for the term.

2. Daily Focus Points – Use the opportunity of times of whole class focus to keep the topic in front of the students. Don’t have your Inquiry as a separate subject that only pops up for two hours a week. Keep it in front of the children every day.  Have a daily current events session related to your topic - there are different ways of doing this, one child a day, one group a week, a monitor who checks the Internet before school for a news item related to your topic newsboards. Wall map with pins with related news items etc At Shared Reading time – use material related to the topic. You can tailor your teaching points to work with this material. Journalling and Reflection – I think I’ll make this a topic for a whole other post – the role of reflection in your Inquiry is so important with much research showing the importance and success of this technique in children’s learning, and in your knowledge about each student. Make this a regular occurrence, whether a quick verbal round-up of progress at the end of a session of what was achieved that day, or a written journal, or a weekly sharing session where the children share and support each other in their projects.

3. Flexibility – recognize that the way you go about teaching subjects such as Reading will vary at different stages of your Inquiry, and that your planning for Reading should reflect this. eg In the Immersion phase, give the students material in their guided lessons that will teach them about the topic. When groups are researching, give them time in your programme, such as in their group rotation to carry out their research. Where your lower achievers need greater support, small group work is an ideal opportunity to teach them skills as well as to enable them to gain the information that they need. When it is time to present work, use your writing time for them to write up their reports. At ICT time, choose a meaningful task related to what they need to do for their Inquiry, rather than doing something separate. At the research phase, use it for research, at the presentation phase, use it for presentation.

4. Observe/Reflect/Respond – You cannot completely plan the term ahead in terms of the children’s needs. Neither can you ignore the children’s needs. You can however, predict what the children MAY need, and plan to teach to these needs as they arrise. You have a hugely important role when the students are working “independently” on their projects. You need to keep close tabs on what each group is doing, think about their future directions, and whether what they are doing is taking them in the right direction, diagnose their needs and MEET those needs. This may simply be on-the-spot guidance, or it may be recognizing that individuals, groups or the whole class have particular needs which you will need to plan and teach for. 

5. Prioritise – Don’t let yourself get sidetracked by side issues. Stick to your inquiry as your main focus. Don’t forget to use homework for the Inquiries, OR for the students to do rote work, that then doesn’t have to take time away from your Inquiry work.

6.Have fun with it!!! IF YOU ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT IT, THE CHILDREN WILL BE TOO!