Sharing time...

l'm pretty sure that all of my early school reports said something along the lines of 'does not share her toys well'. I've changed my ways considerably in the interim BUT there are times when even I question my sharing abilities.  More precisely I, sometimes, question whether I have the courage it takes to share.  Perhaps I'm not brave enough to share possible weaknesses?

It doesn't take a particularly skillful psychic to see where this post is going when you consider that, as I've previously mentioned, I'm currently sharing a class. It's a minefield of possible stressors but not necessarily in the way you might imagine. 

I have no issue with sharing the responsibility for this class with my co-teacher. In fact that's quite welcome. I have no issue sharing space with her either. (She's neat, tidy and quite organised: what more could I ask for?) Or even ideas. I LOVE that side of sharing. What's a little scary for me is that I'm constantly sharing my teaching practice in a way that I've never done before. Everything lesson I teach, every activity I design, every piece of work I set is right there on display! Open to be judged and interpreted and... Argh!

I guess it's a good kind of scary though. It's the kind that drives learning and development. So... a'learning I will go. Here are my learning goals (in just numeracy and literacy) for the rest of this term.

Numeracy

• I want to learn ways to use our available technology to support my numeracy learning program (this is linked to my inquiry question for my staff PLC)
• I want to learn how to better include reflection in our maths (and other) lessons (we follow Ann Baker's Natural Maths pedagogy so this is particularly important)
• I want to learn how to create high quality assessment tasks (this is a focus for our staff, and I'm really enjoying the challenge)
• I want to research ways to help our lower achievers develop better basic number sense (it saddens me to see the depths of the struggle for some of them).

Literacy

• I want to learn more about teaching explicit strategies during guided reading (I'm still finding my feet with guided reading so am very keen to learn more)
• I want to learn how to better enable to children to use the resources available to them when creating their own written work (there are LOADS of resources available, I want to work out ways of better encouraging the students to independently use them rather than ask the adults)
• I want to learn how to use Edublogs WELL (we've set up a class blog and the children are all very excited so I'm keen to leverage this tool to support strong learning outcomes)
• I want to research ways to make proofreading an automatic part of our writing process (they're grade 3/4... they're learning to proofread but I want to find tools to help them do it more independently and spontaneously).

Clearly I can identify about three gazillion more things I need to learn in these (and other) areas BUT these are my goals for this term. I'll check back in during the holidays with my progress. In the meantime, I'm keen to hear tips and advice on how to cope with my stress about sharing...

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...
Standard 6.1 Identify and plan professional learning needs
Standard 6.2 Engage in professional  learning and improve practice

Standard 6.3 Engage with colleagues and improve practice

Standard 6.4 Apply professional learning and improve student learning