Mark's Learning Log- Wondering if all teachers in training and graduate teachers are being taught to instruct all students in reading as though they were in the red? September 29, 2024I have this wondering that we are teaching all students in the class – as a whole class lesson – in the junior years as though they all needed the intensive phonic instruction and frequent repetition. Yes some explicit instruction … Continue reading →mwalker
- Why Why is the question we all need to answer! May 31, 2024In my work with school educators this is the question I ask them to resolve for themselves. What drives you to lead / teach young people and why? What happened to you and why is that important. I was reminded … Continue reading →mwalker
- Wondering if all teachers in training and graduate teachers are being taught to instruct all students in reading as though they were in the red? September 29, 2024
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Category Archives: differentiation
Maribyrnong Network of School Leaders
This post is to follow-up our network day on the first 2 steps of Data Wise. We spoke about answering the WHY question when change is being advocated – as we are about to advocate for change in collaboration in … Continue reading
Why have learning intentions without success criteria?
John, in this 9 min clip, puts the case for why we need to explain what we intend students to learn, why and how they might self assess success. It’s hard to defend the opposite. In this clip John’s work … Continue reading
Provoking student interest in learning
I say again I’m in a fortunate role as principal to see some amazing products and processes of learning and I’m guilty of not sharing these as often as I should. So here goes: the first two photos show an … Continue reading
Posted in curriculum, differentiation, Instruction, Teaching, Uncategorized
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“education is not a horse race”
Over the holidays I came across an easy to read article by Elliot Einser on Benjamin Bloom. Essentially the article made a some key points about Bloom’s work: education as a process was an effort to realize human potential, indeed, … Continue reading
Posted in Assessment, curriculum, differentiation, Instruction, Instructional Rounds, Teaching
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Is drill and kill the right approach to learning to spell?
My headline is in lots of ways misleading for there is no one right way to learn to spell efficiently in English. In the 60’s and 70’s we made students learn to spell lists of words through repetition or drill … Continue reading
Posted in Assessment, differentiation, Instruction, Teaching
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Personalising is really an outcome of differentiation: points to note for educators
At a recent regional Principal conference I heard Vic Zbar, an educational consultant based in Victoria; speak about personalising teaching and learning. Personalising learning he put it was really an outcome of differentiation. Vic then made a number of points I … Continue reading
2011 Instructional Rounds Evaluation
As I set up our Network Instructional Rounds dates for 2012 I was interested to read and reflect upon another group of principal evaluations of their experiences last year. Overwhelmingly the consistent comment of principals as observers in both groups are … Continue reading
Carol Tomlinson: an encounter to remember!
This year in our Instructional Rounds group within the local network of schools we purchased Carol Tomlinson’s book “Leading and Managing A Differentiated Classroom” to use as a base text for understanding our observation of instruction in classrooms. Last year … Continue reading
Rick Wormeli on redo’s and retakes
I’ve been pondering some recent parent feedback about our senior students lack of engagement with some teachers and the material they are expected to learn. I began my reflections about the students coming from the digital generation and expecting to … Continue reading
Posted in differentiation, Feedback, Instruction, teacher efficacy, Teaching, Uncategorized, Video Clips
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Three improvement strategies to make a difference to relationships and learning.
Over the past 2 months we have focused on preparing our teachers to differentiate instruction. I’m writing this post to explain to readers within my own community why this emphasis on preparation and why we need to adopt three different … Continue reading
Differentiated Instruction
This post is a work in progress. I’m putting it up on my blog before this weeks instructional rounds for principals to view so that we can tune in to the problem of practice.
Posted in differentiation, Instruction, Teaching
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