Skip to main content

1. Starting out

Welcome to our blog! 

We are Miguel Garcia and Viv Aitken. 

This is what we look like:

                                      

  


Miguel is a beginning teacher at Intermediate level, living the dream in New Plymouth. Viv is a lecturer, research and PLD facilitator based in Palmerston North. We're using this blog to record our planning and reflection conversations about Mantle of the Expert. We're hoping our posts will be of interest to teachers starting out in Mantle. We'd love to get comments, tips and advice from experienced teachers too - all comments welcome! We'll be sharing our ups and downs, mistakes and triumphs and hope to include contributions from children in the class as well.

Viv says:
What brought us to this point? Well, last year Miguel bravely embarked on his first attempt at teaching in Mantle of the Expert. He came to me, his previous lecturer, for advice and support and I was really delighted to walk alongside him through the process. We had regular conversations as his Mantle unfolded and we both heaps learned from the exchanges. Problem was, we didn't write anything down...! This time, we'd like to preserve the conversations and share them with others. Can't wait!

Miguel says:
Hi! Last year I went on a bit of a rollercoaster ride with Viv and my class. She helped me to navigate the ups and downs and we formulated a flowing and flexible plan as we went. Many of my most profound first year teaching moments were to be found in that experience so I decided to continue this adventure with a new set of students in Term 1. Strike while the iron is still hot!

CLICK 'SUBSCRIBE' IF YOU WANT TO COME ON THE JOURNEY...

Comments

  1. Wow Miguel this is awesome and such an incredible journey! I have been using some drama this term to encourage my 5 year old students to be independent and have a mind set to push themselves by setting them up as superheros (made their individual personas - my favourtite is Cheetah girl). They come to superhero headquarters for their debrief about upcoming task where they get all the skills they require to be successful in the task. Then get to go and see if they can compete the task (we don't have to be right when we are super but have to try our best). So far it has been quite amazing to see how they have become so confident as writers! Therefore the next steps is to carry this through to our maths but that is still in the ideas stage for next term. I look forward to a catch up with you at some point. Keep up the great work! Jane

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

5. Writing and researching

It's now week five and the formal commission is underway... Miguel, can you describe how the class responded to the VOKI presentation? From what you told me, it sounds like it was a rich opportunity for aural language as they listened, inferred and questioned. I also liked what you said about holding back from directing the children and instead asking "how do you think the information should be presented to the client?" I think you found the children came up with ideas similar to what you would have planned - plus some other 'angles' you hadn't thought of...? I'd love you to share some more on the temptations to lead and the benefits of walking alongside the learners - this sounds like a really important part of your experience... Yes! After watching the video (I spoke about 'Voki' on the last blog, see images) I asked: "so...how are we going to do this?". And then I went quiet, resisting the temptation to lead. We have time restra

9. The presentation to Mr Jacob Mana and the Local Iwi.

On the day, we had the presentation at 2.30pm. The principal, my teaching assistant and my tutor teacher were attending as the company owner and representatives of the local Iwi respectively. I booked the hall so that we could have the morning and afternoon to rehearse. At 11am, they practised in their teams whilst I put some of their work up on the wall. There were a lot of unfinished works but I was not phased by this, we did what we could and concentrated on the hands-on stuff.  Next time I will use what I have learnt to improve the transmission of the learning into other curricular areas. (More detailed photos of their work will appear in the last blog of ONLY photos.) Then we set about the final rehearsing. Three girls from the same freeze frame were absent so we had to re-jig and get rid of one of them (5 instead of 6). Instead of me calling out the six-word poem at the beginning of each freeze frame, I split this in between the two girls with nothing to do. One of th