My literacy planning will be covering fiction, during the sessions the pupils will be writing, using different genres including letter writing, report writing and newspaper reports on life the life and times of people who live and work in the area surrounding the Indian village. To promote progression in terms of vocabulary Halocha, (1998) suggested that ‘teachers can take a few minutes… to talk about world event in the news’. I have collected past news articles from the web site .
Especially news concerning the tribal people located in and around the Indian village we are investigating. On the days when the geography lessons take place, before registration, I will spend a few minutes reading or invite one of the pupil’s to read the news concerning Indian villagers and ask the children for their thoughts.
Teaching approaches
My approach to teaching will follow the same pattern throughout the sessions in geography. The beginning of each session will begin with whole class teaching. Jacques and Hyland (2000, p.78) suggests that whole class teaching can occur at, ‘the beginning of a lesson where the context in which it takes place’. The initial whole class-teaching episode will include focusing on the pupil’s prior knowledge from the topic ‘Investigating India’ and an overview of what we will be covering throughout the unit. Every lesson from there on will begin with recapping on the previous lesson by asking open questions. After the recap an introduction of the objectives for the days lesson explaining the learning expectations.
As the whole class covers all of key stage two, the older children lesson objectives will be more involved than that of the younger ones. This may require more in depth explaining of their objectives and may take a few minutes longer. According to Jacques and Hyland (2000, p.78) ‘children are relatively passive in whole class work. Their activities include, listening and watching, answering questions giving examples….’ Yet we as teachers are being encouraged to use interactive whole class teaching example are such as the National Literacy Hour. During whole class session it is imperative to ensure that all children are involved in the whole class teaching, especially the targeted pupils (see lesson plan).
The tasks for the children when working in groups will differ from session to session. It may be the case that during a lesson one group will be individually while another group may be working collaboratively. One writer explains that individual work can teach children how to work with independence and autonomy (Bale, 1987). The year ¾ children will be working individually, for instance in week one, sketching and annotating the landscape around the village in India. Bennett and Dunne (1992, p.79) thinks that collaborative work includes’ encouraging, allowing others to speak, setting standards, accepting other decisions, expressing group feelings’. In the same week, the year 5/6 children will be discussing what items are important in their lives; these items would illustrate to the villagers in India what life is like for a young person living in Gloucestershire.
Children can be taught effectively either by working in groups or individually. Group work I have found to be difficult. Managing the groups is important, making sure the groups are on task and balancing the level of support for the group work is effective is pre-eminent. Jacques and Hyland (2000, p.79) suggest that effective group work had been found to enhance the quality of pupil/teacher interaction’. In my teaching practise I have been taught to remind the children during the group sessions how long they have left to complete the lessons objective. I have found that by doing this, children who are not on task react by focusing back to the lesson objective.
Hayes (1998, p.82) thinks that ‘reviewing the lesson (the plenary) is an important part of the learning process’. After the group work the children are brought back into a whole class situation by sitting on the carpet around the teacher’s chair for the plenary. Here the children are invited to display their work, answer questions on what they have learnt or found out during the main part of the lesson. The plenary for one week would include asking the children if they could name the village in India, invite one of them to write the spelling on the white board. Ask the children if they can point out on the map where the village is situated. Ask the children if they can explain the main difference between the village and the place where they live. These questions could serve to obtain part of the assessment of the children’s learning.
Resources including the use of IT.
The Ofsted subject reports (1999-2000, p.1) explain that ‘effective teachers provide interesting resources such as photographs and maps, and use them creatively and attentively’. The schools resources for my subject of what is it like living in a Indian village is in short supply, I wanted to make sure the children would have an effective learning experience. Halocha (1998, p.145) thinks that ‘successful teaching and learning in geography are inevitably dependant to a greater or lesser extent on resources’. In one of the geography lectures we covered resources. One of these areas where resources could be gleaned was from a charity organisation called, Action Aid.
Action aid offers a resource pack, which is aimed at teaching and learning in schools; I decided to purchase a pack. The pack consisted of a number of resources including, a pupil’s work book, this book has forty eight pages of information text, picture, maps and photographs to try and stimulate children to a geographical enquiry and analysis. A book ‘A village life in India teacher’s book’, is guidance on using the pupil’s book, it includes advice on assessment and twenty-five photocopiable resource sheets. A village life in India CD- Rom, this CD is supposed to have animation, photographs, games, India music and 20 minutes of a video footages depicting life in an Indian village and the contrasting lifestyles of the city of Bangalore. A village life in India poster set; here there twelve laminated posters of photographs from the Chembakolli area. On the back of the posters there are discussion ideas and photocopiable activities. I think the action aid resource pack is excellent although rather expensive. The CD-Rom was poor in comparison to most soft ware of this day and age.
Bale (1987, p.114) thinks that ‘visual materials, either from good text books or individually from teachers are a good source for developing a number of learning skills’. To allow the children to visually see where Chembakolli (the village in India we will be investigating) is I tried to locate some maps. T found a web site on the Internet called this web site provided me with the necessary maps. In one of the geography lessons some of the children will be using the Internet to try and find the area Chembakolli is in. I shall instruct them on getting on to the web site and allow them to zoom in and out most areas of Indian to located it.
The school belongs to a mobile library; a request can be made to the librarian to find different books on various subjects. The school made a request for books to be found on India. I rang the Indian embassy and asked if they could send me any information on the area. They sent me some resources that I will use in a classroom display; photographs of the wildlife that and be found in the area; a copy of Gudalur’s, a newspaper from the nearest village to Chembakolli. One writer explains that a display can raise much interest and can raise many geographical questions (Halocha, 1998).
As well as text and visual resources, I sometimes have adult helpers at my disposal.
Differentiation
Differentiation is crucial; in every day classroom there are children of differing abilities. Managing this is pivotal to a child’s development. In the class I will teach the age range covers all of the key stage 2. It was difficult differentiating tasks to accommodate each age range. Of course there are different abilities in each year groups to address also. One write suggest that to ensure differentiation is manageable, work should be set that is common to all pupils in a class, with some targeted, positive support should also be given to help strugglers keep up with their peers (Thompson, 1988).
When planning I tried to take this into consideration. For the initial part of a session, whole class teaching, I would ask questions that were common to all age groups. From the knowledge they gained from previous sessions, I could expect most of the children to able to answer this. Another task from week 1 is ‘what is the area around Chembakolli called and what is it like? Again this question can be asked to the whole class, but obviously I would expect the quality of their answers to match their abilities.
Group work will be differentiated by task, with levels of ability being broad between year 3 and year 6 pupils I decided to give each of these groups different tasks. With the years 3 and 4’s, I gave them similar tasks with higher expectations from the year 4’s. A reporter found that in primary schools in Europe each year group worked on similar activities, the issue of different attainment levels are addressed by extra support, but all pupils were expected to cover the same work. In contrast to this it was found that English pupils are often working at different levels and from different text. Studies show that children were more successful when working from the same text (TES, 2000). As a student working in collaborative situation, I have to work in consultation with the geography co-ordinator. It was therefore decided that sometimes, given the constraints that go into teaching mixed year groups that different tasks would be set to years 3/ 4 and 5/6.
When there are two and sometimes three different activities taking place in the same classroom, to accommodate the differing levels and reaching to lesson’s objective can be difficult to achieve. I am fortunate in my class because invariably I have adult helpers who I can assign to work with different groups. Hayes (1999, p.82) suggests that differentiating by task ‘can only succeed for a minority of specially skilled, hard working and determined teachers’.
In my observations I noted on occasions, a pupil of low ability is seated next to a pupil of high ability. I have planned in some of my geography group work sessions to continue this, as it has been found that this child’s attainment has increased. Coll and Hastings (1997, p.118) thinks that ‘having a less able child working with a more able child can be beneficial to the less able child’s learning…’ However, the teacher recommends when seating these children together ensuring the low ability child is not affecting the high ability child by distracting them when asking too many questions.
When setting work for children of differing abilities, less able children may need more time to reach the set objective. I will continue to monitor this and if necessary will set smaller tasks for these children. If they begin to complete the tasks then I shall extend their objective accordingly. When setting work for the able child there should be opportunities for them to extend their thinking.
In week two of my planning, for group work, year 3and 4 will write about a typical day for an Indian villager. Year 5 and 6 will extend this task by writing their typical day and comparing. One writer explains that less able children may also finish the task quickly because they can only work at a relatively superficial level (Hayes, 1998). I feel I have catered for this and as I have mentioned earlier will give smaller task to the less able children and if they finish will extend them. The same writer also suggests that some children will struggle to finish a task on time because they want to divert from standard procedure and try their own methods, or they like time reflecting issues (Hayes 1998). I have tried to alleviate this problem; by reminding the children of the time they have left to finish the task. Hayes (1998, p.83) thinks that when differentiating lesson planning, three things have to be taken into consideration, ‘what children know and understand, what they need to know and the best organisation to facilitate learning’. I tried to take all this in to account when planning. I carefully planned each year group, trying to elicit the children knowledge at the beginning of each lesson. I have tried to set tasks according to ability by consulting with the class teacher and my previous experience with the children. I shall try to organise my tasks the day before the lesson so as to facilitate learning. Word count 2884
Bibliography
Bale, J. (1987) Geography in the primary school, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Bennett, E and Dunne, E (1999) Talking and working in groups, London: David Fulton Publishers.
Croll, P. and Hastings, N. (1996) Effective primary teaching London: David Fulton publishers.
Foley, M. and Janikoun, J. (1996) The real practical guide to primary geography, Cheltenham: Stanley Thorne publishers.
Halocha, J. (1998) Co-ordinating geography across the primary school, Manchester: Falmer press.
Hayes, D. (1998) Foundations of primary teaching Trowbridge: David Fulton publishers.
Jacques, K. and Hyland, R. (2000) professional studies primary stage Exeter: Learning matters.
Thompson, I. (1999) Issues in teaching numeracy in primary school Buckingham: Oxford university press.
Wiegland, P. (1992) Places in the primary school, London: The falmer press.
Government publications
Ofsted subject reports (1999-2000) Primary geography effective teaching, subject specialist courses in primary initial teacher training.
Internet Access
Hayes, D (2001) European school statistical report, TES education new [online] [cited 17 April 02] available from
http;//www.tes.co.uk/breaking_news/
