Student willingness: As I watched the video, students were very willing to participate. This has been the case all along. Kindergarten students are eager to share and often over eager. Some will go on and on and this has been an area I have been addressing. My current goal is to have students give a single answer or limited answer. I have students that can go on and on. I also noticed that if students give brief answers, it might help my paraphrasing. I have found in reflecting, that by the time kiddos that rattle off a list of items, I have a hard time paraphrasing everything they have mentioned.
I have a strong inclination that inclination that if I limit their answers, I will have kids more engaged and I will have less wiggling around.
This class was very interested in the water spigot. Some thought it was to press fruit into cider and one knew that it was old-fashioned and pumped water. I thought this was interesting because my other classes were interested in the houses, the fence and the animals.
I am not seeing a lot of conditional language but I am noticing answers that seem to be more elaborate and less of single word statements.
I have not seen flexible thinking yet...or maybe I have missed it. Are kindergarten students going to show this this soon? I am trying to recall from my prior VTS work if flexible thinking was done.
I seem so concerned about students being polite and disrespecting kindly at the beginning of my practice. Students are very cooperative and respectful of one another. I have not had any arguments or disagreements during our discussions.
I did not do a very good job of varying the questions. I have tried to implement the "what makes you say that" statement slowly into the kindergarten lessons by feeling if they are ready for this question. I seem to be stuck on the exact phrasing and it was hard to break out of the script.
I have been watching my time and I think students are gaining stamina. I see many students engaged for a longer period of time and less movement. It's hard to correct/redirect students while listening to a student intently so as to paraphrase. I think they did a better job of listening to one another because they were building and agreeing with statements from other students.
It is fascinating how different classes latch onto different things in a VTS discussion. No two are ever alike, that is for certain!And the flexible thinking is pretty developmental in nature. Conditional language and flexible thinking will come when they are ready and after they gain practice hearing various possibilities from their classmates.Don't worry either about sticking to "the script"...It certainly won't hurt the kids and when it feel natural to you to vary the question, you'll do it. I thought this discussion was great; no one seemed to mind that others saw the spigot as something different from what they saw. Stamina is growing, too. They are coming right along and you're doing a great job fostering that growth!
ReplyDeleteIt is a little difficult to have them not list, I'm having a hard time with the boys getting up to the screen and pointing themselves. For awhile they were fine with their words, but once someone starts they all want to do it. That is great your students are able to keep going! I was surprised at the first time group A went for 10 min. Its a good feeling!
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