Reading Practice Intensive - Days 7 & 8

 Day 7: Thinking in Reading

Today we covered the area of thinking in reading, using higher order thinking to access the deeper meaning in texts so that learners are going beyond the literal meaning of texts.

Learners need to be engaged in extended discussions to dive into texts and use critical literacies to explore texts collaboratively with other learners. Extended discussion protocols need to be set up to provide a framework for learners to engage with each other and discuss texts. 

Whilst extended discussion would be part of group work when with the teacher in the instruction part of the lesson, responding to texts is a place where learners are able to display their understanding of texts in many ways.  

We covered Bloom's Taxonomy (2001) as a framework for higher order thinking and the types of tasks and questions that would stretch readers into these higher orders.

Webinars and Recovery - PLD On Demand

 I have been on leave for 12 weeks recovering from surgery. Nothing too scary - a hip replacement which meant recovery time was needed to get moving again.

It was Winter and I was stuck inside.  After a few weeks I found myself wanting to think and use my brain again. There are only so many crosswords that can be done!

I subscribe to lots of website and get masses of emails giving the heads up about webinars. One I particularly enjoy and look forward to are the Google Educator Groups (GEG). The Australia/New Zealand Google Educator Group (Aus/NZ GEG) is particularly active. The webinars are a great way to keep up with what's new in Google and how to use it in classes.

The timing of the Aus/NZ GEG pretty good for us NZ'ers. They are usually at 5.30pm. But if that doesn't suit then you can find all the recordings here. I really like being able to use the recordings as I can rewind anything I need or speed it up past the the bits I don't need. 

There is also a wider Global Educator Group with Teach With Chrome webinars. Because these webinars are not in our time zone having the Recordings and Resources page is great as you can watch and learn on demand - PD in your pyjamas!

It is through these 2 groups that I have kept up to date with the accessibility settings on Chromebooks. I am evangelical in spreading the good word about accessibility settings for Chromebooks. I always show the classes I am in the Dictation and Select-to-Speak settings. Dictation works in edublogs which is such a good way to get students to complete their blog post if they are slow typists.

I have a lesson to support the use of Dictation and Select-to-Speak titled “Let Your Chromebook Do The Mahi For You”. I did this lesson with a year 4 class recently as the teachers has a number of diagnosed Dyslexic students and ASD students. It was an immediate hit. The teacher reported that the next day the students used Dictation without any prompting. She reported that the students said they liked it and it was easy to use.