Feedback regarding blogging structure post

I received this email regarding a post structuring the activity of writing a blog post around SOLO taxonomy.
Link to blog post here

Hi Miss.

I am going to use this format for reading responses and possibly some other English standards.

Today I shared it with XXXX and XXXX in our PCT meeting. We were talking about ways to make SOLO more concrete for students. They really liked the way a framework like yours/Carole's takes students from the abstract of SOLO to a scaffolded activity.

Ngā mihi

Inquiry Group - Baseline presentation

Today my inquiry group of Year 13 students (plus one year12) did their first presentation. They did this with no structure or content from me except for the example that I did in front of them yesterday, I wanted to see what they are like with no input and support so I can see where their improvements are over the year.












I then gave them some instant feedback straight after their presentations. I was proud of them today as they got up and did it even though they found it hard and embarrassing.  On an interesting side note, the Year 12 student who is doing Level 3 this year went through my inquiry  work with me last year where my focus was on literacy and describing /analysing work. He did a much better "base line" than the rest of the class who are in Year 13.

Preparing for our first presentation to the class

My Year 13 inquiry group have reached a stage in their project work where they have completed (ish) their observational drawings and are ready to move on to making models of the observed forms. This is an ideal point to have a go at a first presentation.
This is also a good point to get some "baseline" information from their first presentation.

• I have told them they are going to present. 
• We decided today what order this is going to happen over this week.
• I did an exemplar presentation with my drawings today to give them an idea what to do.

I have not given them any support structure for their first one on purpose so I can see what improvements they make over the year with the support I plan on giving them as part of my inquiry.

Here is my example presentation today :-

We also sorted out the Google Plus Community today (slightly delayed due to network upgrades). The students are now in the Level 3 community and I uploaded my example video there so they can rewatch it to prepare for their presentation this week. I have also got my example Google Site up to date so the students know what should be on theirs by now. These are the first steps to what I hope will be the support the students need to keep up to date and on track this year. Student site links are here

Teariki	Site Link
Vaifoa	Site Link
Antonio	Site Link
Martha	Site Link
Jayden	Site Link
Sella	Site Link
Princess	site
Apii	Site Link

Technology Department Blogging PD Session

Today, the Technology department staff were lucky to have a presentation from Carol Heka, our food technology teacher. She was explaining how she includes blogging into her planning for her lessons for juniors and intermediates. Her blog post about it is here.
This is part of our department goals this year.

This is the template that was provided today as a starting point. We want to structure what the juniors and intermediate students blog about instead of just putting their work on their blogs with no explanation or analysis.

I took the starting point template and added extra things that I thought would be good for the Graphics lessons.
Link here

The plan now is that we try these out with our students and feedback in our next blogging catch-up session in the department in a couple of weeks time.

Breaking down my inquiry for 2019

This year, the focus for my inquiry is my Year 13 class. I will be looking at ways to keep them all up to date with their design work and produce work of a better standard.

Year 13 Observational Drawing.

My Year 13 class have to do the work for the external assessment first as it leads into the first internal design project. This external work starts with observational drawing and they had to pick their own starting points for this.
I showed them some examples that I had produced to show them the kind of thing I was looking for in terms of detail, notes and media use.

Our media experiments from the first week of term have been really useful as I want them to use a variety of different media in their observational studies. So far, they have used drawing pencil and coloured pencil. Some have painted, used soft pastels and black pens.
According to the time plan (we are on the third week shown in the green), we have another week of this work so it gives them plenty of time to try out different media and explore different views and images of their chosen subject.

Then the students have their first experience of presenting their work to the rest of the class. This will be next week and I promised to do an example for them at the start of next week so they have time to think about it and prepare.

Here are their observational drawings so far. As you can see there is a vast array of abilities shown here. Some of the class have not done any graphics work since they were in Year 10 and are a little worried about this but are trying hard.

Inquiry Group 2019

This year, my inquiry group is going to be my Year 13 students so one of the first things that I am doing is looking at who they are and what achievements they have so far.

		NCEA Overall Achievement				DVC Achievement
	Ethnicity	L1	L2	Lit	Num	Level 1	Level 2
1	Maori	59	80	Yes	Yes	NA	4
2	Tongan	34	99	Yes	Yes	NA	NA
3	Maori	66	53	Yes	Yes	NA	4
4	CI Maori	55	115	Yes	Yes	13	4
5	Maori	86	79	Yes	Yes	22	22
6	CI Maori	65	67	Yes	Yes	NA	NA
7	CI Maori	77	67	Yes	Yes	NA	19
8	Maori	77	49	Yes	Yes	19	22
9	Tongan	90	68	Yes	Yes	NA	22
10	Tongan	71	91	Yes	Yes	NA	NA
11	Samoan	121		Yes	Yes	19	NA

Of the 11 Year 13 students, 3 of them have not done graphics since they were in Year 10.
3 of them have done both Level 1 and Level 2 DVC with me.
1 of them is in Year 12 and is doing Level 3 DVC this year.
All of them have Level 1 literacy and numeracy.