My Preproom

The school term break in New Zealand is just finished.  I don't call it the school holidays...we all know it isn't a holiday for teachers as they spend it marking, writing feedback, preparing lessons, going to conferences to learn more, and in some cases, still teaching.  By the end of this week or certainly next week, teachers all over the country will be feeling like they are starting to count down to the next term break when they can catch up on all the jobs that are already beginning to build. Decreasing our workload is really important. REALLY important.  We want amazing teachers to stay in the profession and we want to attract amazing teachers to our profession.  Marking student work and giving quality feedback is a teacher task that is incredibly important and is an effective way of causing learning.  TKI - Effective Feedback  webpage states that feedback is "most effective when given at the time of le...

Problem = offering one off PLD about digital tools to teachers is not effective because more than half of them can't keep up with the lesson, there is too much content, and teachers weren't given time to play with it and think about how it fits their classrooms. Solution = offering teachers ongoing support much more often; what they need, when they need it                    2nd Problem = IT staff don't have time to do this, not enough IT staff too many teachers My version of this solution = "IT-Drop In" which is an allocated grounds duty All teachers have duty in schools, designed to make the environment during break times safe for students.  All schools have those cushy duties where your relationship-management skills are not really needed, it is just supervision.  In my school, that cushy duty is the Library Classroom - a suite of computers the students can us...