Parents

toc Information about the class routines, home learning and class goings on can be found on the class information page or on our classroom blog. This page has links to answer questions you may have about the teaching and learning approaches used in the classroom. I realise the jargon and changes that happen in Education can be a minefield, hopefully these explanations provide a bit of clarity. I am happy to speak with parents at any time about learning and teaching theory and practice in the classroom. We are all different and have different learning preferences, I attempt to use a variety of strategies and learning experiences to ensure all of the students in the class feel engaged in the classroom programme. Most of the teaching will be in small groups, students will be in groups to meet specific needs, interests or strengths. Whole class sharing and reflecting on this work will ensure that all students have opportunities to hear about their peers' learning.
 * Information for Caregivers and Whanau of Students in Room 6**

**Teaching and Learning Approach**
DNI offers classrooms based on learning styles or approaches. Our classroom is an 'Advanced Inquiry' classroom. All of the classes at DNI use an 'Inquiry' approach to explore topical integrated studies in the curriculum areas. We use this process in everything we do in Room 6. All of our learning begins with a question or statement that I will guide students to explore.

'Inquiry Learning' attempts to set up learning experience that mirror learning in real life.

If you think of a time when you have needed/wanted to learn something and formed questions, researched, found mentors to help you learn and eventually understood enough to apply and practice what you had learnt. Ultimately once you fully understood your new learning you would be able to use it to create and use your knowledge flexibly.

These experiences are authentic, they all begin with purpose. In the classroom the first activities we engage with will be those that help students make connections to what we will learn. They can explore how this learning may be meaningful and worthwhile for them to understand. Learning is presented as questions to explore. I will provided experiences that will provide insight into these questions, the students are not wandering around with questions with no guidance about how to answer these. This approach is still very structured but my aims are slightly different. My teaching emphasis is on the students learning to direct their own learning not solely on the learning of the content. The aim of this approach is to build independence, we all must come to understand how to make meaning out of our experiences without a teacher. The aim is to guide students to independent learning, therefore I am not telling them what they need to know but ask them questions to prompt them where to look so they discover and make connections themselves. This means that all students may discover or connect to content that is relevant and meaningful to them, that in many cases there are no right and wrong answers but that the understandings are rich and far more complex. This type of learning means students' time at school is not about preparing for real life, they are living it. They are working on real world problems with support and guidance from a teacher.

This website on[| Project Based Learning] may explain this approach further.

**Element Project**
While the inquiry learning experiences do give students ownership of and connection with their learning they are all teacher selected to meet specific needs students have within the New Zealand Curriculum. Ken Robinson is a world renowned speaker and expert on creativity and some of the issues within Education. He speaks about people working in their 'Element', where they can work at full capacity, where their talents and abilities meet with feelings of enjoyment. This can be as a career or hobby but usually involves connecting with people who also share your passion. If you are interested in hearing him speak his TED talk is embedded below. As a part of setting up the classroom culture at the beginning of the year I have read the class parts of his book 'The Element. How finding your passion changes everything'. It is a collection of stories about exceptional people and how they became that way. Each student in the class has since made goals to explore a passion. This will be fully guided by myself and each student must make a report on their progress to the class once a term. Parts of this project will be assigned by the students for Homework to meet their goals. This is self directed learning and will be given about 40 minutes class time a week. Students who have work which is unfinished from that week will not be given this time until the work has been made up.

**Mathematics**
Maths teaching has changed a lot in the last ten years. This site provided information on the Numeracy Project and the stages of Mathematics development, the Number Framework. []

**The Ministry of Education**
This site provides information for families regarding the [|New Zealand Curriculum]

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