World Without Order - Minecraft

I have been using Mine Craft as a Community Simulator during Term One in my three year 9 Social Studies Classes.  We have spent about 5-6 hours in each class’s world, interacting with each other, building, collecting resources, and killing each other.  Now before your imagination runs away killing may not be what it seems so it needs some explaining here.  You can deal damage to another player by attacking them and when their health is gone they ‘die’.  They drop any resources they had collected (free to be picked up by the attacker) and the are sent back to the starting/spawn point of the world.  Essentially it is a way to steal from another player.

What The Students Have Learned Term One

This year, part of my plan to develop student ownership over their learning is to teach them to write deep and expansive reflections about their learning.  I am taking this a step further by taking their end of Term One Reflection and turning it into their learning comment for their School Report.

Self Directed Learning Pilot - Social Studies

I have just finished the first two period Self Directed Learning (SDL) session with my year 9 Social Studies classes. My goal is to teach citizenship and the skills that go along with this.  I aim to increase motivation and engagement in the classroom and with the learning content.

Teaching Self Reflection

I have been developing the teaching of reflection for several years now and I want to share what I have learnt.