Welcome to my mind mirror blog. In this blog I'll be reflecting on my practise as a learner and as a teacher. I find I teach the best when I am learning and so I like to have students teaching and learning with others also. Students peer coaching is very powerful and can also keep some students engaged when they could be disengaged.
This week I gave the grade one students in the Prep/1 classes the job of showing the preps all the things they knew about the iPads. The children were far more engaged than if I told them all about the iPads. I asked if they had shown this and that, as they worked and the students would then show it if they hadn't.
Peer coaching is a great way to give students confidence and to building relationships between students. It can be done in a single class and across grades. The buddies are involved in cross age peeer coaching when they visit Prep/1's.
With our grades end to end with other grade levels it also makes it easy to have the students leading each other in their learning.
How have you had students peer coaching in your classroom?
Peer coaching is such an effective strategy for a teacher to have in their bag of strategies. This year I have used peer coaching in Art as we embark on some lessons around sketching. We have some passionate and skilled artists at our school and it is so powerful to spread these students out on separate tables for an informal approach. The conversations and advice has been fascinating.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your reply Gill. People with passion spread the word best. And kids with passion are even better. I've heard the kids talking very excitiedly about the art activities.
DeletePart of our Daily 5 literacy is Read to Someone. Children pair up and sit together to share books. Last year (we will get to it this year) we worked on what to do when your reading partner is stuck on a word. Instead of jumping in and telling your partner what the word is, children were encouraged to ask "Do you want time or coaching?"
ReplyDeleteIf your partner wanted more time then you would wait, if they asked for coaching then you would offer strategies to help them work out the word.
I agree with you Jen, it helped build relationships between students in the class and they really had to be actively listening with their partner.
Thanks for your thoughts Steph. Its great to see everyone so excited about the daily5. Coaching the strategies is a wonderful way for the kids to learn.
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