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Wheel Work Outline
WHEELWORK AT ST. NICHOLAS
A PARENTS" GUIDE
Has your child brought home a new type of work called Wheelwork? Don't panic or despair. This booklet, in combination with input from your child's teacher, will give you insight into a very exciting learning process. (*Purely for simplicity, in the following text, 'your child' will be referred to in the feminine form.)
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At St Nicholas, Wheelwork may also be known as:
a) contract work
b) assignments
c) independent learning
d) cross curriculum links
e) extension work.
Wheelwork is a topic of work:
Chosen
Planned
Developed and
Evaluated by your child.
Your child, therefore, accepts total ownership and responsibility for her work.
BACKGROUND In 1993 the Board of Studies (the governing body of our N.S.W school curriculum) distributed a booklet for ALL schools of NSW, recommending areas of assessment based on Benjamin Bloom's Taxonomy. ("Assessing and Reporting Using Stage Outcomes" Refer p 10). Bloom's wheel is a classification of products (the children's presentations) and activities (skills the children use to produce their work) presented in a wheel format.
The Board of Studies also produces booklets outlining the knowledge and understandings, skills, and values and attitudes that teachers use to plan lessons. The course content outlined in theses booklets is separated into six Key Learning Areas: English Maths Human Society and Its Environment Science and Technology Creative and Practical Arts Personal Development, Health and Physical Education
St Nicholas combined the use of Bloom's wheel of products and activities with eight key competencies (basic skills) to create a curriculum that delivers across all Key Leaming Areas. The eight key competencies are: *collecting, analysing and organising information *communicating ideas and information *planning and organising activities *working in teams using mathematical ideas and techniques *solving problerns *using technology *checking, monitoring and assessing own progress
St Nicholas recognised the value of "Wheelwork" to enable these competencies to develop, so that our children may become more independent, resourceful and flexible learners. Wheelwork has been part of the Year 5 and 6 program since 1993 and was recently implemented in Year 1/2 with overwhelming success. Bernadette Mackay, Kate Woolaston and Louise O'Sullivan were instrumental in developing Whpelwork and since then, many other teachers have adopted this approach,
WHEELWORK IN THE CLASSROOM
Wheelwork is different from the education that we parents may have experienced. No longer does your child learn by "spoon feeding" or "parrot fashion". With professional guidance, Wheelwork is putting learning back into her hands. It involves an enormous amount of plaiming and facilitating by a very committed teacher, as it caters for the individual needs of each and every child.
There are no right or wrong choices in Wheelwork. There is no 'failure' in the negative sense because this is seen as a natural and expected part of the learning process. For children to choose topics or activities and work strategies that do not appear to be successful, provides a golden opportunity to learn a better way of fulfilling their own needs. This is honest learning, based on honest self-reflection in a 'no lose' supportive environment.
Wheelwork is school-based work and is timetabled into the school week. If your child is enthusiastic, she may wish to bring this work home but this is optional. This would be in addition to the regular homework.
Wheelwork does not replace your child's Key Learning Areas, but rather enhances these KLAs and the basic skills associated with them. This means the learning in Wheelwork is not boxed into individual subjects, and allows a level of flexibility or overflow across the curriculum. Wheelwork allows your child to apply what she has learnt in the KLAs, setting up challenges to further her skills at her own pace. It also provides an opportunity for the teacher to assess her strengths, weaknesses and understanding of the skills taught. Where skills need developing, the teacher decides whether they are best addressed by one-to-one teaching, small group sessions or a more formal whole class lesson.
When your child commences each new Wheelwork topic, she uses the following process:
*commitment sheet (a contract she signs, committing herself to use the steps in Wheelwork)
*planning sheet (using Bloorn's Taxonomy)
*log (organising aid)
evaluation sheet (for critical selfï·“reflection)
graph (records areas of wheel most worked and those that may need
developing) I
celebration with community as she displays her own work
Samples of the first five steps may be found in the 'Kit' that accompanies this booklet.
When your child has gathered her information and collated it, she will choose to present it in many ways. She may choose to do a painting, graph, model, chart, or use various text types.
HELP!
In Term 1, a general information session will be available for you to attend. As a followup,
there will be class sessions which will develop your understanding further and allow you the
opportunity to ask questions. As we, the parents, are learning this concept, so are our teachers dealing with this changing focus.
Please don't hesitate to discuss any concerns
or questions you may have about Wheel
work with your child's teacher.
SURVIVAL TIPS FOR PARENTS Wheelwork is your child's responsibility. For various reasons (eg so the teacher can monitor your child's progress) most of your child's work is to be done at school.
When the work does come home, try the following tips:
*Provide a supportive environment. A place and time where you can be nearby to guide and assist. Necessary materials near to hand (eg dictionary,
atlas, thesaurus at your child's level; eraser; colour pencils; textas; lead pencils/ biros). These may be kept for individuals in a box or basket of their own. A family basket may contain, a glue stick; scissors; sturdy stapler and staples; sticky tape; scrap paper; coloured paper and cardboard scraps; etc
*Other resources that may be helpful to her learning are books; rnagazines/journals; videos; computer programs; intemet; audio cassettes.
Find time to guide your child. if you can, then each time research work comes home, the amount of help she requires decreases and her independence grows.
*Check due date together, then you both know when it must be completed.
*This is not a competition against other class members. It is a chance for your child to move forward at her own pace, learning from others.
*As a new skill is developing, this new skill is the focus of the work and some previously acquired skills may temporarily be forgotten eg spelling, grammar etc. This is normal. If you would like to know the current focus, ask your child's teacher.
*When starting a new topic, ask your child to list questions she would like answered. Put each question on a separate sheet so that this can be added to when the appropriate information is gathered. This stops you from expanding the topic beyond her interest or capabilities.
Remember this is your childs work.
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