Student-Student teaching learning and collaboration

Student Agency

As apart of Room 10's new learning environment I thought about providing an opportunity for 4 of my students to run workshops based around students needs. The workshops run by students showed how respectful and focus their learners were. Through allowing students to run a workshop once/twice a week will allow me to conference with 6/7 students a day around their learning progress regarding Auckland. Through the use of student voice, I asked learners at the different workshops run what they liked about their peers running a workshop. 

Response: 

• "I am able to connect more with my peers"
• "Language used is easier to understand" 
• "Helps me to understand the work easier"

The past two days have been great watching these students grow into the role as a leader/teacher. Through observations of each workshop run students seemed advice from the teacher when required. As a teacher I definitely found it difficult to allow these learners to run a workshop without my input. 

Teacher Suggestions through reflection on experience:

• Peer/small group discussions
• Waiting time
• Checking for understanding of the learner/s
• identifying different students to share their ideas. 
• Giving step by step instructions where required (e.g. solving maths equation) 

Next Steps: 

• Provide students with enough time to prepare for their workshop so that they are comfortable and confident with what it is they are wanting to teach to their learners. A week in advance. 
• Continue to reflect on lesson with each student identifying positives, and next learning steps. 

A student was lucky enough to have a teacher come and watch a lesson being run. This teacher was very much impressed with the respect shown and learning taking place and saw that this could definitely be beneficial. 

Workshop run by a year 7 student
based on adding and subtracting fractions

Workshop run by a yr 8 student based on myths and Legends
(Narrative Writing)

The discussion around this happened through collaborative discussions with our schools AP/mentor. We discussed how I could effectively conference with students throughout the week instead of trying to dedicate one whole day.