Top 10 Must Do's For Term 4 - A Great Way To Finish 2012

Term 4 is the ideal time to consolidate the learning and living habits cultivated during the year and nurture in students a willingness to extend their learning further next year. Habits are things we do easily and often through regular repetition and as we know, students have to ‘do’ to develop lifelong habits. 

Teachers are supported by detailed lesson plans from the Lesson Plan section of the website in covering The Top 10 must dos. 

The following is a suggested list of ‘must dos’ for throughout Term 4. The intention of the Learning Curve is to develop students into successful lifelong learners and young citizens with spirit and confidence.

1. As students are not born knowing how to think critically, it is essential to reinforce the lessons learned from Habits of Mind. An effective strategy to embed these Habits, is to focus on two Habits each week for each of the eight Key Learning Areas for the Term. Encourage students to use them in their classes. The Habits can either be nominated for each KLA by a learning leader or left up the KLA’s to decide.
    
2. Ask students to read the letter they wrote to themselves in My Dreams: Making Them Happen in 2012. Then ask them to reflect on whether they have been true to themselves by completing a PMI on their actions towards making their dreams happen.
    
3.  In Pastoral Care classes or at morning roll call, ask students to reflect on their learning progress over Term 3 and complete the Assessment of My Performance Last Term to build their reflection capabilities.
    
4. To cultivate self-correcting and self -managing habits, ask students to complete My Guidelines. Often a class discussion on what works and what doesn’t work creates new ways of looking at things for many students; they need to hear a diverse range of perspectives grow.
    
5. What are My Goals? - ask students to think about what they really want to achieve for Term 4 and for 2011 and write them in the goal setting section.
    
6. The first five ‘must dos’ need to be led by us as teachers as seeking positive ways for students to build their learning and living power. Then ask students to complete Key Competencies, which will give them an overview of the big picture of how they are going.
    
7. To ensure that we build a real self-awareness in our students of their all-round health, ask them to reflect on how well they manage their health and complete My Health Review. Often a class discussion on what works and what doesn’t work creates new ways of looking at things for many students; many of them may already be entrenched in living in an unhealthy way. We have to help break the cycle.
8. To cultivate resourceful and resilient learning habits in our students, it is important for them to develop plan A, plan B, plan C ....... approaches to use to overcome learning obstacles that will confront them. Ask students revisit Multiple Intelligences, How I Learn and My Learning Style and self- assess where their strengths lie. A class discussion on their thoughts will benefit individual student’s learning perspectives.
    
9. To reinforce students’ capacities to deepen their thinking, as a class revisit Thinking Tools and ask students to give examples as to where each one could be used for each of their subjects. If time permits, break the class into groups and ask each group to use a particular Thinking Tool in a five minute presentation.
    
10. One of our major aims is for students to develop into good people who can make a positive difference in the communities in which they live. To build their people skills and self awareness, ask students to reflect their Emotional Intelligence and complete the focus. A class discussion on acceptable and appropriate behaviours and ones that are not will prompt students to think about their attitudes and behaviours.