Zones of Regulation

As part of my behaviour management of a student in my class, it has been suggested that I use the Zones Of Regulation as a way to modify behaviour and support this child in the whole thinking process. The more I have learnt,  I have come to realise that this will work for more than this child in my class and am looking forward to the coming term to put into practice some of these ideas.

The "ZONES" has a framework that provides strategies to teach and support children to become more aware of and independent in the ways they control their emotions and impulses, manage their sensory needs, and their ability to problem solve conflicts.

The FOUR ZONES: 

RED ZONE: Is an extremely heightened state of alertness and intense emotions. Trigger words for the children are mad/angry, terrified, yelling/hitting,elated,  and out of control.

YELLOW ZONE: Is also an heightened state of alertness and elevated emotions but the child has some control. Trigger words for children are frustrated, stressed, worried, silly/wiggly, excited, and some loss of control.

GREEN ZONE: Is a calm state of alertness. Trigger words are happy, calm, feeling OK, focussed, and ready to learn. This is the zone where optimal learning occurs.

BLUE ZONE: Describes a low state of alertness. the words used to connect are sad, tired, sick, bored, and moving slowly.

Using the colours of red, yellow, green and blue can be compared to traffic signals. Green being a 'green' light for learning and everything is good to go. A yellow sign indicates caution and maens be aware. Stop for red which is the outcome you need. Being blue usually is a sign for re-energising or rest.

Everyone experiences all these states of emotions and are very normal, the framework will enable me as an educator, to empower my students how to recognise and manage their zone based on the environment, its demands and the people around them.

Where to next? What implications will this have on my teaching? How can I manage this so that it becomes part of 'the way of being' for my current class?

Where to next?

• Make resources such as posters, needed to scaffold the thinking for my students. 
• Create a space in the classroom where the children can refer to to assist each other. 
• Plan for time for the explicit teaching and role playing of the ZONES and what strategies we can co-construct for everyone in our class. 
• Create a classroom toolbox, as place for "things' that can be used for sensory support, card of yoga poses for calming techniques.
• Ensure that I have a bank of resources such as, music, movement games, breathing techniques that I can access at short notice.
• What sorts of resources will I need to source to empower and engage my Maori learners? Some research maybe needed to ensure that this covered.

So some work for the term break but hopefully in the long run it will be worthwhile.  Success isn't always about greatness. It's about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come. Dwayne Johnson

Maths is a language

This term we have been changing our pedagogy in regards to the way we teach maths at our school. We start with a word problem and give the children time to notice things about the problem and how/what they need to learn to solve the problem so there so much more student agency around the learning.

The problem can be worked on over a number of weeks with reviews as the children learn more. The problems have been set at a higher level for all the children. The children are encouraged to work together to solve parts of the problem to improve their skills - we discovered that the children were unable to break a bigger number into 'do-able' numbers, using known fact to solve division problems and understand how decimals work.

As part of the follow up to the NOTICE, the children write their own learner pathways recording the learning they need to solve the problem. The planning is reflects the learning needs, we are now planning in response to what they children reflect on day by day. The activities each day are small bites of what they are learning - division of numbers, multiplication of 2 digit numbers, recording remainders as fractions and decimals. Because the children are working collaboratively, they are using the language of mathematics to explain to the others how they solved the problem. With the use of TALK Moves, the children's ability to verbalise their strategies with each other has given the learning more meaning and more purpose.

The improvement in the children's ability to verbalise the ways they are solving the problems has been amazing. When testing their strategy knowledge through GloSS snapshots has made a significant difference and using Seesaw has given them a platform to share their learning with their family and whanau.

Not only has the children's learning improved I know that my teaching has more questioning and the possibilities are endless, especially when my ADHD/ autistic child is solving higher order thinking problems then it is worth it. Also we are using the language of mathematics more as in this TED Talk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6yixyiJcos has made a difference in the way we are teaching mathematics.

https://www.weareteachers.com/multiplication-vocabulary-mistakes/ Is also a reading that has made sense in the way we are currently teaching mathematics in our class.

Clarity, Share and Understand Learning Intention and Success Criteria

What is the aim of learning intentions and success criteria? It is not to help the students complete the activity - it is help them learn.

I was given this reading of Chapter 3: Embedding Formative Assessment and it has made me rethink how I use WALTs and Success Criteria. Also I have been thinking about using a whole class approach and this reading has given me some scaffolding for what these lessons will look like.

Here are some pointers from the recap -

• I may not know exactly where the lesson is going - it is the experience rather than the outcome.

This has happened when I gave the class a maths problem I thought they should all be to work through if they worked within a small group. The problem was too hard and I realised the children were unable to recognise the patterns of 3/4 digit numbers - how these break down into smaller workable numbers. This was good as it gave the children loads of questions regarding what they needed to learn and therefore the writing of their learner pathways was way easier.

• Keep the context of the learning out of the learning intention.

I have always struggled with WALTs and how to create them, during my observations of colleagues, I discovered the importance of keeping the context out and how it makes the learning more transferrable for the children to apply the learning. This has happened more since using a whole class approach and asking the children at the end of the lesson what they have learnt. 

• Start with samples of work rather than rubrics, to communicate quality

Using Notice, Think, Imitate and Innovate has given more scaffolding to my class lessons. By using 'good' exemplars the children have become more aware of the standard they are trying achieve and where they need to go with their learning. It has changed the way the children 'think' about their learning, and what steps they may need to get there. The children are beginning to show this in Seesaw when they realise what they have learnt.

• Use big ideas, learning progressions and staging posts

As part of the team planning, we are unpacking each big ideas and finding all the learning progressions needed to solve the problem. It is rich learning because each child is able to take what they need and this in turn build more student efficacy, which is what we after for 21st learning.