Cindy Wihongi - Professional Blog

  I have found today to be one of the most beneficial days of this programme!  All the other days have been awesome but for some reason, today really resonated with me?  I am wondering if this is due to me not feeling like I am doing a great job of word work in my classroom or not deliberately planning for this, like I do for the other areas we have covered.  This is certainly an area of improvement for me!  Like it has been reiterated today, we can not assume that our learners know words or will simply learn this by osmosis and this teaching needs to be planned and explicit.  The apps and resources we have been supplied with today make this an exciting challenge, one of which I am certain my kids will just love!   Anna was able to share a couple of great apps with us which lead to others in our breakout also sharing.  This collaborative learning is so awesome given that we are so busy, it's great to have someone recommend particular resource...

 Day 5 RPI What an amazing day full of such great resources that although I did know about, didn’t know about the extent of what they could do!   Sometimes I forget about JUST using images to begin discussions, particularly in regards to inferencing.   Great way to use reading for writing and vice versa.   Good reminder to be aware of splitting the timetable to be inclusive and the rationale behind this.  I liked the idea that Georgie spoke about, of swapping times to ensure that those that are withdrawn don’t miss out but am grateful that in my class, withdrawal is the same time each day so I am able to avoid doing this.  This is great for my class learners as they are so much productive when routine is maintained!  I also struggle with the possibility of not offering choice for learners in order for them to take some agency over their learning and think that sometimes timetabling takes this away from our kids.  It was great that t...