Clip 3: Understanding teaching's impact
Melanie:
OK, Glenda, so we developed a criteria for what we thought you would be doing in your modelling and what effective modelling would be. So let’s have a look at the students’ writing and see what the impact was of your modelling. And then we’ll use the criteria to, to see if we can evaluate your actual teaching.
Glenda:
Well, clearly some of them got it and some of them didn't. I mean Sarah, I thought, where’s Sarah’s …
Melanie:
Well, let’s start with Sarah. Because she did get it, didn't she.
Glenda:
She did, she did. Yeah, I felt Sarah had a really good handle on what it meant to add a phrase to your writing. In that she had really carefully thought about the phrases that she had added, and was able to show me and articulate why she did.
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Melanie:
Glenda, while you were teaching I had this criteria in my head that we developed before the lesson, you know, so that I was focused in. And I could see you doing all those things. In terms of your modelling and in terms of your goal, there was lots of evidence I felt that you really are getting a handle on effective modelling. I could see the writing on the wall – on the board – and I could see how you had taken the kids back into that from your previous lessons.
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Melanie:
So when you were sharing the writing with the children – their own writing – you were really clearly telling them what it was they had done well, and the impact that it had on you as a reader. And so in a way you were making that thinking visible as well. And there was one particular bit where someone had talked about beady eyes, and you said “And that made me think, that gave me a really good picture, and those things really helped me”. So that was going back to the learning intention and making it really clear.
Glenda:
I thought I was doing it too, but some of them still – like Danny really still didn't get it.
Melanie:
Yeah, yeah.
Glenda:
Like, even talking to him, and his writing – he’s almost, he’s done it, he’s added, he has added phrases, but the phrases don't tell us anything.
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Glenda:
So he’s understood that he needs to add something here, but I don't think he’s understood how – or the importance of what he chooses – to make sure that it actually makes sense and has an impact.
Melanie:
That’s really interesting, because I think all of the children that we spoke to could tell us exactly what they were learning, but I think Sarah was the only one who was really clear about the why and the how that you do these things, and how that improves your writing and how you need to be thinking as a writer while you are doing it. Yeah, and yet, you know, as I said, your modelling I thought was really clear. So I'm thinking that there’s something else that they need.
