Margaret - Fostering tuakana/tēina relationships during Maths

During maths there are quite often students working on completely different lessons of varying levels which I find challenging trying to get to everyone to help.  During my observations of Steve in the class, I noticed he allowed the other students to help each other when they became stuck.  Quite often the other student could explain it in way that was understood and reinforced their own understanding at the same time.  This takes the pressure off the teacher to get to everyone and gives the students an important role.  I actually asked the class after one maths session where I saw many "teachers",  "Who had helped someone/been helped by someone and did they learn something new"  Finn had sat with Francis and showed him a different way to work out long division which Francis finally got.  I could see that both were quite pleased with the outcome.  I still need to reinforce the difference between helping and telling though and check some are not doing the work for others.

• Fostering tuakana/tēina relationships.
• Providing opportunities for ākonga engagement in co-operative learning, and reciprocal teaching. 

Setting up Seesaw on students laptops

Room 4 were posting onto seesaw only through the ipad before so they could only do this one at a time.  Steve and myself thought to make this process simpler and more efficient we could put the seesaaw app onto their laptops so students can post straight from there.  Today was a huge learning curve for everyone, myself included.  Steve set Finn up with Seesaw first, then he proceeded to teach two others, then they two others until the whole class had it set up and knew how to post there writing tasks.  There are still a few issues to work around such as some students cant seem to post from google docs and taking the time each break to check and approve work before they are posted.  Each time we go through this process of having the students learn the skill, then teach to others, I learn something new too to apply within the class, while reinforcing for the students.  As a result, more individual items are going home to families on the same day as its being completed and students can see comments from parents immediately.