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I never thought of the Oyster Festival and I’ve been in Galway when it was on. I think the aquaculture can help meet the demand for oysters while allowing Galway Bay’s stocks to replenish.
I’ve visited VOYA in Strandhill and it was fantastic to see natural local resources being used. I dived a little deeper and apparently there has been controversy over licensing and large scale harvesting affecting the local environment. I think sustainability has been at the forefront of aquaculture and perhaps we’re not far enough along with seaweed in our regulations. We could end up with a situation similar to oysters where we have to allow it to replenish if we’re not careful with how much we allow to harvesting. The issuing of licenses is a good step here and they seem to be restrictive in providing them.
Aquaculture farms in Ireland seem be located all along the western coast from Donegal down as far as Kerry. There seems an abundance of bays, estuaries and fjords there where conditions are ideal for salmon, oysters and mussels. I recall the map from the model where those extremities in the west were unsuitable for anything else really. Being from the east, our land is seen as ideal for farming animals and for tillage. The more rugged western coast would not be as well suited to this and with the gulf stream, aquaculture seems to suit best.
The aquaculture farms provide a vital source of employment and provide economic benefit to many communities. Apart from direct jobs on these farms, indirect jobs in areas such as transport, tourism and processing are vital. One criticism that is always directed to our government is that when our country receives Foreign Direct Investment, it is usually situated in the east of the country while the south and west suffer. Here the natural environmental need for these farms is in the west and they provide vital sustainability to many communities.
A common theme in these farms is sustainability. It appears much thought and research has gone into choosing the locations of these farms. I think this would be an interesting teaching point for a senior class in giving them maps, tide times etc. and having them decide which location is most appropriate for salmon, oysters and mussels.I like the concept of introducing this at infant level. The more I think of it, perhaps when reviewing policies we should have a basic level at SESE (or SE in the new curriculum) we introduce it across all classes. E.g. At infant level we visit this area and then step it up at each level of the school. We do some work on the Global Goals and aquaculture hits a few targets here. 14 – Life below water, 11 – Sustainable communities, 12 – responsible consumption and production. While originally I was focused in where I’d teach it, seeing that it could be done at infant level brings a whole school approach as a possibility.
I found the first module quite informative as despite teaching in a school only a half hour walk from the beach and sea, we’ve never really explored this area. I think we subconsciously teach children all about farms and farm animals like pigs, chickens and cows but never visit the area of fish and those farms. We even bring the kids to a farm in Junior Infants on school tours! As an island nation, I think it’s an area we need to include as part of our curriculum. Knowing exactly where our food comes from and knowing the time and effort put into ensuring it’s quality can only be a good thing.
I was surprised at some of the facts about the amount of our fish that comes from farming and it makes perfect sense when you think of it that these farms should be used rather than wild fishing. I have heard reports about disputes on overfishing in areas and EU quotas and the like and while aquaculture might not work for every species, it’s a sustainable start. It seems Ireland has been proactive about sustainability and the correct treatment of species which is a huge area we focus on in school too which ties in nicely.
I like the lessons the ARC have put forward (yes I added our school to the 500 others waiting) I think teaching 2nd Class next year will be a nice age to bring in explaining the process through videos and quizes. Perhaps the quizes can be transferred into Kahoot form. Having a look at doing this I came across some quizes already made such as https://create.kahoot.it/share/aquaculture/a7000758-6071-4bc8-93bd-0e89fd6c85eeI like the SSE area of Wellbeing. We did this previously and while it was invaluable to focus on it, I found it tricky to assess where we were on it.
Making students feel safe and supported is key to any school environment. In reflecting on your post I suppose I often skip over the areas that you put down as vital. Things like regular check ins, chances to reflect on learning and getting feedback. Even simple reflections like traffic light system or emojis to reflect on lessons or their own work can be such an enlightening experience for both teacher and student.
It seems obvious now reflecting on your post but in effect I always tell students a teachers 3rd job is to teach. Job 1 is to keep you safe and job 2 is to ensure you’re ready to learn. Addressing wellbeing won’t have immediate academic results but will have a more rounded developed individual.
Our new SSE focus is on improving Literacy across the junior classes by introducing the UFLI programme, which is replacing Jolly Phonics. This year, I will be teaching 2nd Class and using the UFLI system for the first time. My SSE focus and I suppose that of the school, is to review how effectively UFLI supports pupils’ phonics knowledge, reading fluency and spelling, while also helping me develop my own confidence and professional competency in delivering the programme.
I will use lesson plans and resources from the UFLI programme itself along with ones created with Teach and Create to support structured literacy instruction. I also plan to use Copilot to adapt and differentiate activities to meet the needs of all learners as UFLI can be a one size fits all category. It’ll also assist those pupils requiring additional support or extension. Assessment evidence will include weekly UFLI check sheets, teacher observations, pupil work samples, spelling assessments and reading fluency checks. Reading coach using specific words would be vital here. This formative assessment information will help identify pupils who may need additional intervention from our SET team and allow me to adjust my teaching accordingly.
As this is my first year implementing UFLI, I hope the evidence gathered will help me reflect on the effectiveness of my teaching, identify areas for improvement and ensure that pupils are making measurable progress in Literacy. Working with the Literacy team (which I’m a part of) I also hope to contribute to the successful implementation of UFLI across the school as part of our shared SSE goals.
I agree with your final statement. It’s not perfect but provides a starting point. I think sometimes as teachers we hit a wall or a mental block and this is where CoPilot can get you out of a hole. I don’t want to go using it for every lesson I’m doing or everything that we’re planning. I also think we need to be aware of the environmental impact if we’re constantly using AI to try find insights when our current ideas and teaching styles are sufficient too.
I used the Canva agent to create a poster for 2nd Class Maths based on subtraction. The main concept is renaming tens when needed. I added in instructions for the rhyme “more on the floor, go next door” “more on top, no need to stop”
I gave as much info as possible in the command and got back a series of possible posters. I had to do some adaptation at first but ended up rejecting it and starting again. As we make children write numbers underneath each other for subtraction, I wanted the poster to show this too.
Copilot in fairness made some nice suggestions for example colour coding the units and tens.
The poster did add value to my teaching as I know having this on display when doing the topic will help remind children of the steps involved for subtraction. I think the frustrating part for me was that I thought I was giving clear concise instructions but these weren’t being carried out so I had to keep giving further instructions. This is probably an invaluable lesson as to not trusting the first draft of anything that is complete! I also wonder that the time taken to create the poster with all the adjustments needed might not have bettered one I made myself. And do children prefer the handmade one?
With regard to the prebuilt agents in SSE, I agree with the statement made that finding balance is the key. Using it as a starter point or as a tool to generate ideas etc can be valuable but we don’t want to completely alter what we’re doing either. I think using it to help set targets within our SSE areas would be valuable or in making posters to advertise to parents and the wider community what our SSE targets are would be beneficial. I like the idea of using it to create social media posts about our aims too.I agree that the Learning Accelerators have the potential to be a good support to learning outcomes. In a classroom where demands on teachers are huge and getting around to hear children read or give directed individual feedback can be tough. I do think these changes need to be inputted slowly or be a support to practice in school. We want to go down the route of the tools being an added support to teachers classwork.
Otherwise, I can see the newpaper headlines already where Reading Coach is listening to children read, Speaker Progress is helping oral language and Dictate is providing their written work, the teacher is becoming obsolete!!
I spent a bit of time with Reading Coach. I used it myself and got my son to trial it too. The novelty of reading into a computer was a nice start to it but it did get frustrating for him too. It did have the unintended consequence of getting him to speak up when reading and to be more concise in his pronunciation which was a bonus (it was a bonus for me too!)
Barriers to this learning in my classroom would be the availability of technology to use it. It would need a quiet space for the child to read, and it would be dependent on our poor wifi in school.
Pupil engagement in this learning using IT in my experience has always been positive to start off with and then has suffered a decline going forward. We used times tables rockstars in our school and class and after a honeymoon period, the level of engagement dropped.
Differentiation would be useful. Getting children to read the same passage is always useful so you can do a comparison on a class level. Aside from this, reading at a child’s own level is very beneficial to fluency and confidence so this tool would be useful for this.
Adjustments needed? Perhaps I need to be more open minded to the possibilities of Reading Coach. I think maybe it might be a nice tool for parents at home with their children as it provides a good record of what their reading and keeps a nice log of work done.I also spent a bit of time with immersive reader and admit I only thought it was a reading support tool just to read something aloud. I wasn’t aware of the line focus or page colour. I’ve used dictation with children who have writing struggles too this year. While of course children do need to write, the confidence and engagement in project work and writing tasks with children really benefited from this.
With regards to SSE, I think Learning Accelerators need further development on a whole school level. We seem to be having a huge increase in Assistive Technology being approved for children. My class a couple of years ago had 4 pupils each with laptops approved and paid for by the department. While tasks were completed with Word and PowerPoint etc., increased use of these Learning Accelerators could further boost learning and the effectiveness of their technology.Interesting to read other lessons and subjects people have used Teach to help out with. I am focused on reading in the Junior Level as it’s where I’ll be next year.
Using it with fractions makes lots of sense. I taught 5th a few years in a row and lots of concrete materials and visuals were needed for the topic of fractions that some kids absolutely hated. More resources and posters around the room the better.
I went to Create to make a poster for equivalent fractions and it made one….with mistakes in it! You really have to check everything.
Interesting to read other lessons and subjects people have used Teach to help out with. I am focused on reading in the Junior Level as it’s where I’ll be next year.
Using it with fractions makes lots of sense. I taught 5th a few years in a row and lots of concrete materials and visuals were needed for the topic of fractions that some kids absolutely hated. More resources and posters around the room the better.
I went to Create to make a poster for equivalent fractions and it made one….with mistakes in it! You really have to check everything.
Topic & Class Level: 2nd Class English reading
Overall Quality of AI Output: I found the quality of the reading piece quite good. The prompts make it more amienable to the aims of your lesson. I like being able to add in certain vocabulary and glossary etc.
Level of Adjustment required for use with learners – I think straight off, it gives you a good solid example. The first adjustment you put in makes it suitable for most children in the class. Apart from adjusting the level downwards for struggling readers, I adjusted upwards for those children who are more able. Within this then, you can add vocabulary that is more challenging for them.
One specific adjustment you would make – Like I found in module 1, you really do need to check what adjustments they’re making. I thought when they simplified language or shortened sentences they did cut out a sentence or two that I considered important in the piece. I did like the flexibility of it however. I copied another piece into it directly from our online book which we’ll be using this year and it amended it for a struggling reader. From working with children lesser able and with children with additional needs, this adjustment makes the classroom a more inclusive place.How Copilot Teach could be used in School Self-Evaluation (SSE) at your school.
To be honest I wasn’t sure how Teach could be used on our SSE. I drew a blank. So CoPilot made me some suggestions that were embarrassingly obvious! I’ve helped out with surveys in the past on Wellbeing we do each year in school. Of course I could generate questions for students and parents for these surveys and then create them on Forms. Creating posters on Create to promote these around the school/social media with nice graphics and a QR code would be a nice useful tool also. I’d assume then also it could help collate and summarise responses as these are used to feedback during Board Meetings and during Croke Park meetings.I agree Marguerite about having to refine the prompts in CoPilot. It is similar in teaching sometimes in that you have to be soooo specific about what exactly you need or alter your instructions a little to get exactly what you want. I spose that’s what teaching is too to a certain extent.
One problem I came across too which I haven’t solved yet is that I have CoPilot as a shortcut on my Microsoft Edge browser but don’t have it in my Microsoft Word or PowerPoint. I think it’s a subscription thing. I’m onto IT to try and solve it but it does work in the browser too.
I think doing my fortnightly plans, having coPilot available to fill in lesson objectives and differentiation would be invaluable.I suppose the main point is that Microsoft 365 Copilot to be a useful tool for supporting planning and resource creation. To explore a bit I used Copilot to create a summer holidays reading comprehension worksheet for my 2nd Class. It generated a short reading passage, comprehension questions, vocabulary activities and a drawing task. This saved time and gave me a solid starting point, which then needed editing to the ability of my students. In hindsight I should have asked it to edit it too and make differentiated passages.
One benefit of AI is that it can reduce the time spent on admin and prepping tasks, allowing teachers to focus more on teaching and supporting pupils. Sometimes only basic idea is needed or sometimes I revert back to my old ideas rather than trying something new which AI can provide.
A drawback, is that AI-generated content is not always accurate and requires reviewing. It’s like an enthusiastic child which needs the teacher (as the adult) to give proper direction!!
To ensure pupils remain the ones doing the thinking, we need to get students to have questions and requests ready for Copilot so it can be used as an aid rather than as a source of answers. We don’t want to stifle kids problem solving and creative abilities by only using AI to answer all problems.
