Reflection on Semester 1 2013

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Edmodo is becoming more and more an integral part of my teaching.


Year 9 English
**Edmodo proved a fine base for submitting small regular assignments.
Students could see immediate progress and could easily check on missed work.
*Students enjoyed practising their media response skills on Edmodo
*Creating haiku for board display + masks for the play Romeo and Juliet were highlights.


Students enjoyed being photographed with their masks.
*Essay writing skills improved significantly because, as a class, we created an essay response to a topic by screening the stages of preparation and essay craft.
I feel that the students at least understand what they should be doing,
even if they have not quite perfected the art.
More practice needed regularly.
**Many students were willing to try extra writing challenges to improve their skills.

Year 10 English
**A challenging semester - students involved in many other activities
- Drama + Outdoor Ed + rally days, so they missed classes, often a series of classes.
** Edmodo proved a vital ingredient in this class.
Successfully managed to keep students connected with their work, but found that most lessons needed to be "self-contained" and all work required was recorded on Edmodo.
*Many prepared lessons required re-adjustment when surprise absences were involved.
*Most lessons were after lunch, (students less fresh, less motivated) so that was an additional challenge.
I tried to avoid introducing new work at this time.
*Last week of term was Discovery Week, so all work needed to be finalised by this time.
*The more able students met the challenges of the course well - recording fine results in the examination.
*On days of significant absences, I tried to give remaining students more individual tuition.
*The King's Speech was received well - once the students empathised with the King's disability and they often initiated discussions about it.
*Most popular was the theme study - conflict - associated with Destroying Avalon.
**Trialled peer-marking of a text extract response.
Students loved the experience - especially setting some of the criteria themselves.
Must trial run more of this activity.
*Last period one afternoon, we sat in a circle and shared bullying experiences.
Somehow I felt that lesson in particular drew the members of the class closer together,
appreciating one another.

Year 9 Programme
Enjoyed exploring the dreams of the students and sharing their experiences.


VCE studies
** Edmodo was used significantly in both classes as a means of keeping individual contact - a help line.
Year 11 English - wide range of abilities and motivation levels in this class.
The writing folio unit inspired many students to write captivating short stories, but most were hesitant to experiment with other writing styles.
The media unit surprised many students because they found that they enjoyed annotating newspaper articles.
In particular, those Maths/Science students in the class who were not creative writers, tended to excel in this.
Most successful were discussion lessons where some  mature, challenging thoughts were shared.
Year 12 Revolutions -  3 students with significantly different history experiences.
Mainly needed to work on individual tuition after class discussion to upgrade and polish their skills.
Slowly the students are realising how much research time is needed for this subject.


OVERALL
**In the classroom, I felt that I met the wide range of challenges.
*Perhaps I should consider having more lessons - not just tasks
- outlined online to cover long-term absent students.
*I need to keep comments on students' work updated in OneNote
to reduce time spent writing comments on final reports.
* Should students have a copy of a term's weekly topics???


LOOKING AHEAD
**I am integrating Edmodo and Diigo for my new Photography elective in Semester 2 Term 3.
Edmodo will be for students to connect me with their Picasa web album and to ensure that they are aware of the weekly changing topics.
+
Diigo will be for their folios of  "found" photos + sticky notes.
I am hoping that this does not become too complicated and is a means of keeping photos online
- no "I lost my USB" excuses.
Picasa + Diigo will represent students' final assessment work.



To teach is to keep learning