RBL

I have spent the morning slogging away with the readings for Topic 1. I have put it off til today - my day off teaching and what is, to me, my first official day of study.

Thoughts at the moment?!

RBL sounds great. Is it really going to work though? Too much emphasis is placed on results drives tests such as NAPLAN. Even school reports have children graded from A - E from Year 1 onwards. (Which in my opinion is shameful - let's brand 6 year olds as incompetent from from the word go!!)
Also, I am looking at this very much so from the point of view of an infants teacher. RBL might be hugely successful with older children, but I think has lots of limitations in the younger years.

As I was reading Haycock, I started to get really excited about what was going on in my own classroom, particularly with regards to Literacy Groups and thinking that perhaps it is possible in 'the early years'. Reading through the behaviours exhibited by facilitators I started reflecting:

1. Teachers retain the responsibility for learning for ensuring learning occurs by structuring the learning environment
Tick. I do this
2. Teachers are actively involved in guiding student learning
Another tick and this time a pat on the back. Another thing done during Literacy Groups
3. Teachers are actively involved in tracking and assessing student learning
Once again, I can tick that box

Then I read the next page and realised that what I was actually doing was 'putting a bunch of students and a bunch of resources together'. While there is differentiation of tasks to allow for different abilities, I was not actually designing tasks that encourage problem solving or decision-making. I have activities that range from open-ended to very closed tasks that have a right or wrong answer. Is this okay? I think for my little Year 1 children it is.

Maybe this is an area I need to address in the classroom. However, I need to be mindful of the fact that I am teaching Year 1 children, and Literacy Groups is a time for implicit teaching. It seems to me that sometimes actual teaching goes out the window in favour of student-directed learning. In order to provide students with RBL, don't we need to teach them how to do this. And doesn't there need to be lots of actual 'teaching' particularly in the younger years when the children are learing essential skills eg how to read, in order to be able to participate in RBL.

Right or wrong this is where my current thinking lies. When I move to a Primary class my opinion will surely change. If it doesn't then I will need to take a good hard look at what I am doing.