Seuga's Professional Blog

 This week's catchup was on Creating. There were a number of tools that we looked at and some that we have been using in class. It is always helpful to use digital tools to enhance the work of our learners so that they can see the power of digital tools and what a difference it can make to have a page of words to a page of words and images.                               Periodic Table Multimodal Here is a link of one of the tools that we use in Science for our Year 10s. The other good way of understanding how learners can be creative is by knowing where these tools fit and their purpose which can lead to the element on fun in a number of quizzes at the end of a unit or topic. As we were looking at the various examples on  Class on Air  it was noted that this could be a good way of sharing some our science multi modal lessons that we have in our Science Classes made by our very own science teachers....

  Plenty of learning taking place after being away from the group, but an abundance of learning today and knowledge being share by our three facilitators. Today’s topic was critical thinking in our reading. We were reminded of the Four C’s implemented into  21st  century skills of Critical Thinking Communication Creativity and Collaboration. It was interesting to revisit the Manaiakalani Cybersmart Programme, the relationships still enforced between teachers, parents and learners where the outcome is for being cybersmart empowers learners as connected, digital citizens and confident decision makers.  The reason we were learning about critical thinking not only because it is mentioned in the curriculum and it makes our learned smarter to be reading information critical and also being digitally competent.  And learning more about AI, Gemini app and NotebookLM and the powerful set of AI apps available to our schools. We were using Infographics in our senior classes...

  Vocabulary and Decoding Fortunately after changing times and dates for this catch we were able to meet today Wataka 5 during a non-contact and learn more about the session which I missed because I was attending ToD June 19. This is always one of my favourite topics and that is how to inspire students to learn new words after choosing a book of their choice. Learning new words, sounding them out, understanding the meanings and reusing these new words in conversation or to learn more about Vocabulary and Decoding. Here are a few of the slides which I managed to save and share as I discovered that these are all useful activities to implement into class lessons which will encourage and challenge our akonga to learn. There are small notes which I made as I was listening to Kiri explain as we went along.  Hyperbole Place holder definition Hit the vocabulary so that they can embed the new words Connections game generated for our own learners https://connectionsplus.io/create  ...

Today I was able to have an update on Planning a Reading Programme. This like all the topics was very interesting and I was able to understand the reasoning behind the different ideas and theories explained in planning a reading programme for Science Lessons.  Some critical thinking and discussions came out from the examples given in Rubrics to be learnt at an earlier age so that they know exactly what they need to get for an achieved merit and excellence grade.  \  Having those conversations early about their writing and how they can improve.  Sign posts to check on the way. Not a shock in term 4. Set up from the beginning of the year. Q A R - tool Question Answer Response On the line between the lines What is this question asking me? Below are a few of the gems which I will implement into my lessons and also use as guidelines for planning.   Epic! is one of the apps that I was introduced to at the start of this RPI, I would like to use in my classes as wel...

Setting up a task board for Week 9 Using small groups to investigate texts. How often would I do this with my classes? Depends on how much time I have with each class and the difficulty of the text. Scenario - We all go to the library every week on Thrurday to issue out a book about our topic. One week it was on climate change, the other week it was what makes things bubble and recently we are looking at Matariki. Observing at first some students were taking out books related to the topic or word about the topic but had no idea how to decode the words in the book. This week because all the students have some prior knowledge about Matariki they are more than happy to read their books over and over without any reservations. Some things noted on the slide was SL/Words Spend longer on preparation if it is a new topic and students have not much knowledge on the topic. Vocabulary teach new words, repetitively but in a variety of ways Why we are learning this is a good reminder. Pi...

What? (The Concrete Experience) This Week s Blog I am reflecting on what I learnt about reading groups identified from their reading age level, interests and age. There were a number of ideas that go with text and critical thinking. I also learnt that there is a vast amount of resources available for implementing into Reading Programmes. We also heard that it is important to have a teacher to help readers who need extra help rather than having reading apps available. Summarizing a text through script and what students actually thought when reading over text. These are some of the gems I will take back with me to school. So What? (The Significance) Why is all this important for my learners? If I look back to the beginning of this Course and the results from my students it was an eye opener so if we continue to do the same things over and over how do we expect any change? Through Manaaiakalani Reading Practice Intensive course it enables me to learn the tools that can be implemented in ...

Today's theme for this week was Know your learners as Readers. At the start as always it was great to see our enthusiastic presenters doing their mahi in their positive and experienced way. Being able to revisit our homework through our readers profile survey was a good start and quite doable until we were taught what their reading comprehension assessment results could possibly mean. That was quite a hurdle to jump over as there was quite a bit of English jargon that I needed to get my head around and somewhat out of my learning space. Thus we perservered and managed to upload names onto the teacher workbook with the 10+ columns of evidence required for each student. Thankfully for some reason all my students were not showing on the individual report where I discovered Local Inferencing, Interpret and Integrate were my PAT Reading next steps. What did I learn that increased my understanding of the kaupapa and pedagogy of the Manaiakalani Reading Programme ? There is a lot of te...

First and foremost students were able to fill out the survey about themselves ✔ 14 completed survey 25/2 10 completed today 4/3 Email 24/24 First Name 24/24 Last Name 24/24 Otaki College 15/24 Year Level 24/24 Then after receiving feedback from the survey here is a short summary. PART ONE: HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT READING? Q1 4/24 likes reading at school Q2 3/24 ss like reading books digi or non digital Q3 2/24 ss like reading other digital texts in own time Q4 5/24 students are enjoying a book for enjoyment Q5 7/24 students thought reading texts in their own time helped them Q6 6/24 ss have never borrowed a book from a library Q7 7/24 ss had no texts they liked to read in their own time Q8 6/24 could not list 1 favourite book Q9a 6/24 students have never had a teacher suggest further reading Q9b 6/24 students did not do further reading Q9c 12/24 could not give an example Q10 16/24 had no for their response PART TWO: HOW...

 Friday February 13 2026 Today was the first session of our  Manaiakalani Reading Practice Intensive What did I learn that increased my understanding of an effective reading programme ? There were various topics which involved: Connecting with each other,  What  characterises a good reader? Teachers as Readers  Across the Curriculum  Grow good Readers Research and bringing that all together before the end. Talk about Intense! There is a lot to take in about what makes a good reader and how to follow the process and criteria of using the pedagogy and research that will enable me to teach good reading skills to my students in my classes.    What did I learn that could improve my capability and confidence in teaching reading? I could possibly visit the library more with my students once the reading survey has been completed and we can identify a possible list of topics that could be related to their interests. ...