Today's staff developmement was the beginning, I hope, for our Inanda staff community really to share and collaborate on how to implement 'best practice' in our classrooms.
We are fortunate at our school because we have so much more than just the minimum required to deliver our lessons every day. We have to keep in mind that it is not always just 'more stuff' that is needed in our classrooms BUT rather a constant reflection on our practice to make sure we are not always delivering more of 'the same'. As one BUZZ group so aptly put it - our lessons need to be stimulating, interesting and fun.
We had a taste of some practices that Susan, Rachel and Val have implemented in their classrooms. Each one was very different but something that we could try out. Invite colleagues to your classes, join forces with people in your department and do some team teaching. Students love variation and anything differerent and exciting.
What have YOU done in your classroom that you've found to be successful?
That workshop was great! There is always something to learn in the teaching game, regardless of years of experience....
ReplyDeleteSue Fred
Please won't staff share ideas they have had or classes they have visited....ever hopeful I am!
ReplyDeleteWell, in case anyone forgot what I shared during the workshop, I'll post it here :-)
ReplyDeleteOnce a week I put up a few "challenge questions" which are usually from a topic we are not currently doing (so this is a form of revision, making them think back...). The first student to get the correct answer (WITH the correct method) earns points for her team (the teams are Fibonacci, Euclid, Newton and Pascal). That student then gets to go up to the board and show the rest of the class how she worked out the question.
I now have them asking regularly, "When are we having another challenge?" :-)