Today is our official day one for the year and we have gone straight into PLD mainly around 'Assessment For Learning' - it's importance, implementation and school wide focus for the year.
It seems that AFL is really just a new term for 'Formative Assessment' - the idea that we should assess not only for data collection and reporting but equally (or even more so) to inform us how best to move forward, change, improve etc. I must admit, I am often doing this, not really because of any explicit motivation to 'Assess for Learning' in any deliberate way mostly, but more so because I am often trying things (activities, games, lessons, units etc) for the first time and would like to slowly but surely streamline what we do in class to engage, benefit and be enjoyed by the most amount of people! In groups and as a whole, we discussed what PLD is and how it affects our selves, students, school and learning environments. We unanimously agreed that as teachers it's important to keep growing, developing, learning, connecting and striving for better outcomes for our students.
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Tomorrow we go back to school (officially - went in a couple times last week to setup and get ready somewhat). It's been a great summer in many ways; weather, family and friends time and with MUSIC! Derek and I went down to Auckland on the 18th to play a HANGMAN show with our bro's Paulie and Seth - it was awesome. I believe strongly in continuing with my own music adventures, not just 'on top of' teaching music but BECAUSE I teach music! I'm looking forward to continuing to try new things this year and putting more focus into facilitating opportunities for the students to grow their experience, confidence and knowledge of music. I'm striving further to lessen the need for physical resources and really get into games and activities too.
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Teacher/ Musician from Northland, New Zealand. |