You might remember, and if you don’t then go back and read it, that I wrote a waffle about the reasons I left primary school to teach in higher education. Within this waffle I mentioned that my first teaching session was not, as you might suspect, to do with mathematics or science, but was, in fact, to do with literacy. The session was from the initial days of the assessing pupil progress grids (APP grids) and was based on how to teach a series of lessons based on a book. What follows is a waffle about this session
All from a book…
Whenever you are on a course that lasts a few sessions over a period of time, it is often the case that you have what is called a gap task. The gap task for the course I attended was to implement and use the APP grids for reading. Being inspired by a session presented by Alison Bailey some time ago, in which she presented the work she had done with her class on the “Queen’s Nose” book, I decided to attempt and combine the two to create a series of lessons based on my chosen book – “The Eighteenth Emergency” by Betsy Byars.
For this waffle I am going to present the activities I did without referring to the APP grids since their longevity is seriously in question at the moment. I have also uploaded the PowerPoint presentation (removing some slides for copyright reasons) so you can see how I presented this at my initial session at York St John University. Throughout the waffle, remember that the book was being read to the children at the end of the day over a period of time and the activities were being ‘slotted’ in at the appropriate time. With hindsight, which is a wonderful thing, I would have been better planned but the spontaneity of the sessions made it quite exciting.
Wanted Posters for Marv Hammerman
How to survive…
What would the 18th emergency be?
The final display
Looking back on the series of activities, I am aware of the lack of involvement by technology. Although you might initially consider that this was done on purpose, I have to assure you that this was not the case. Technology was not as accessible when I completed the activities (yes I am that old!) and looking back now I can certainly see ample opportunities for engaging with technology. The use of art packages to change the children’s own digital images into that of Marv Hammerman would certainly engage the children and recording their responses to the questions with sound recording software would certainly be possible. As you can see from the accompanying image, all the activities were added to the final display which was expertly put together by my teaching assistant at the time. If you want to look at the presentation then you can see it below – interesting that even then (2010) I was using the term waffle.
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3 Comments
The joy of reading with technology – Wilson Waffling · November 9, 2014 at 11:58 am
[…] if you are a regular reader of my blogs, you will be aware that it was a book which actually was responsible for my slight detour in my profession. For me, the joy of stories is the key aspect of books. Within stories there exists worlds of […]
Facing up to selfies? - Wilson Waffling · June 15, 2014 at 4:10 pm
[…] one of my previous waffles, I shared the initial lecture I gave at higher education called ‘All from a Book‘. Within this series of lessons the children made Wanted posters about the class bully. This […]
All from a book — e-Learning Feeds · June 9, 2014 at 12:15 am
[…] Read the full story by Wilson Waffling's Blog Subscribe tο get quality news from the industry's Top e-Learning Blogs, delivered by email Spam Free. SUBSCRIBE googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display("ndfpm-eLearningFeeds-Post-Footer-1392381359"); }); […]