Term 1, Week 10 - If Not Now, When?

Focus #1 - continue to work on the work-life balance
Focus #2 - grow my own passion for literacy
Focus #3 - grow my practice in numeracy
Focus #4 - building my practice in a traditional space

How’s this week been?

No gym sessions this week - energy levels were still not 100% after the weekend and I got into a routine of getting jobs done after school so will look to make up for this week over the upcoming holidays.  Great to notice that I actually missed exercise, so that is a bonus of not going this week!

I am still reading “The Invaders” by John Flanagan and enjoying it more as I read it.  The characters are being fleshed out more, particularly the supporting ones so I am glad I made the investment into the next two books in the series when I discovered them on sale a few years back.  Something that I am noticing though is how I need to put aside time for our class read-aloud as we are not making traction with the book and I do enjoy reading with the class.

We have selected our PLCs for next term to support our inquiry into numeracy.  I have chosen to join the group focusing on “using concrete materials to develop a rich understanding of mathematical concepts” as I feel this is what a number of my class require as we start to delve into new territories of numeracy next term and it will also build my confidence with how to properly utilise materials in my numeracy programme.  I am looking forward to having a shared focus on my inquiry as this is an aspect of teaching that I am missing from my previous experience at Stonefields.

We have had some great discussions in Room 13 this week about reflecting on the term that we have had and what we are looking forward to next term.  It has helped me identify who may still not be feeling part of the wider class and got me thinking about class culture over the holidays for anything that I can look to introduce in Term 2.

Teaching Highlights:
As mentioned above, we had a couple of great sessions this week on how we are finding life in the class and what things are missing from the kid’s perspective.  I did a bus stop activity where the kids had to respond to the following questions:

1. What have you enjoyed about Term One?
2. What have you found challenging about Term One?
3. What can we do differently in Term Two?

Without prompting, the kids got into the activity and I took the moment to stand back and observe.  At first, they were intent on adding their own responses on the sheets of paper, however, after around 10 minutes, I noticed that some of the kids started to talk to each other and ask each other questions about what they had put down on the paper.  This then turned into a whole class discussion and we made some goals that we wanted to achieve in Term 2.

Another thing that I was proud of the kids this week was that I decided that I wanted to grab a writing sample from them so I could assess over the holidays and plan based on what I found in these assessments.  These kids love to write, however, the writing sample prompts are never that fun so I discussed with them the day prior to them doing about why I was doing this and what could we get from doing this piece of writing.  Come Wednesday morning, I had 29 eager kids wanting to write about the life cycle of a monarch butterfly “because it would help me help them in their learning”.  Direct quote, no prompting needed.

Term 1, Week 9 - Feeling Fine?

Focus #1 - continue to work on the work-life balance
Focus #2 - grow my own passion for literacy
Focus #3 - grow my practice in numeracy
Focus #4 - building my practice in a traditional space

How’s this week been?

Only 1 gym session this week as I found myself getting a bit tired and run down.  This ended up with me taking Friday off to rest up.

The upside of being sick on Friday was that I was able to finish The Song of Achilles and have moved into the second book in the “Brotherband” series by John Flanagan.  I got into the Ranger Apprentice series a few years ago and ploughed through that so have started this series which I really enjoyed.  The backstory as to how John got into writing was something I found interesting where he started writing these stories as his son, at the time, was not interested in reading.  I have managed to hook 1 boy in my class onto the series so far as he was not enjoying Percy Jackson.

This week in numeracy I have been focusing on our Statistics strand as we near the end of the term.  I was also fortunate enough to have our Maths Lead come and model some number knowledge activities in class to a group of my focus learners as they move from Early Stage 5 (numbers up to 100) to become more confident with numbers past 100 leading into 1000 and 10,000.  As I have Learning Support in my class on alternate days, I will need to plan for this group of kids to have a boost of knowledge activities on those days.

I have also noticed that I am doing a lot more whole class teaching which is something that I need to look at for Term 2.  The majority of this term has been the build-up of our expectations and routines in Room 13 however it is slowly becoming the default for most of my literacy and numeracy teaching so now that I am getting a better understanding of the kids and what they are capable of, I should be starting to differentiate based on their needs.

Teaching Highlights:
Writing has been a highlight this week as we finish up our recounts of Garden To Table to send onto Anita at Stonefields for her learners to read and engage with.  Having this authentic audience has been really interesting as it has helped the kids focus on the following elements of their writing:

• The actual physical aspect of writing - as a class we chose to handwrite these pieces of writing as I noticed that when I said publish, the kids defaulted to thinking about typing their ‘good copy’ out and printing it.  
• The focus - while typically a rowdy class, when it comes to writing, Room 13 love quiet so we have made it a tradition to try and have as much quiet for around 15 minutes.  I have tried to implement the noise monitor on Class Dojo to help with this however the majority of the class seem to be able to manage themselves and are quick to let others know if they are not following suit.
• Feedback - we had a great session on Tuesday after I noticed I was starting to get the queues for conferencing (10 kids deep at one point!).  After some diagrams and discussion about them potentially only having a teacher edit and check their writing up until now, the kids were receptive to reading their writing to one another and I even had a few of the more confident writers start to critique and give feedback to each other.  This is very promising as I have also started to teach the class how to use both a dictionary and thesaurus in their literacy sessions so I will continue to grow this capacity as we move into Term 2.
• The level of detail - from my initial assessments, I noticed that the majority of the class were confident with simple recounts, however, these lacked detail.  Due to our prompt of writing recounts for another school who did not have similar experiences to ourselves, the kids really thought about how they could portray their messages.  This led them to use more adjectives, a range of different sentence types and a lot of them injecting their own voice into their writing. 

Term 1, Week 8 - A Bit Late!

Focus #1 - continue to work on the work-life balance

Focus #2 - grow my own passion for literacy

Focus #3 - grow my practice in numeracy

Focus #4 - building my practice in a traditional space

How’s this week been?

I am slowly getting into a routine with the workload with working to 5pm three nights a week so I can head straight to the gym afterwards.  I am finding that this time helps me finish any jobs after school as well as get organised for the next day.  This also means that I am getting around 3 decent sessions at the gym before going home.  I’m finding that this also means that I am not taking as much work home so once I get home, I do not have much to do in the evenings.

I have been using Goodreads to track my progress with reading books.  I am currently reading The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller which was her debut novel.  I had previously read Circe, her second novel which helped me remember all the Classical Studies I did at university.  I also found a Myth Atlas which I added to our class library and it has been great to see the kids show an interest in myths and legends.

Numeracy has been interesting - I have been doing some addition/subtraction diagnostics with the kids and moved into showing the kids some different strategies for this.  I have been showing them the reversibility of addition and subtraction as the majority of the kids are saying that they are confident with addition, however, struggle when it is subtraction.  We have been practising family of facts which I have been able to adapt for my four maths groups with the numbers used.  I need to explore resources in the Junior School as I have a student operating at Stage 1 of the New Zealand Maths Standards.  While challenging, I am excited to work at that level of maths as it will help me build an appreciation for the foundation of skills that all my class need to progress.

I have also noticed that I am doing a lot more whole class teaching which is something that I need to look at for Term 2.  The majority of this term has been the build-up of our expectations and routines in Room 13 however it is slowly becoming the default for most of my literacy and numeracy teaching so now that I am getting a better understanding of the kids and what they are capable of, I should be starting to differentiate based on their needs.

Teaching Highlights:

I was really proud of the kids this week as we had our first set of goal setting conferences with our whanau.  For all the kids, this was the first time that they did this and they handled it amazingly.  From previous experience, I noticed the majority of students tend to freeze in the moment so I thought I would keep this clear and simple of the kids by using a template.

The result was that all the goals presented were ones that I co-constructed with each student meaning that their voice was more present in the conference rather than me taking the lead.  The majority of the feedback was that the kids are enjoying being part of Room 13 and love coming to school so I was really happy to hear that.

The Next Chapter!

Kia ora whanau!  I have finally unlocked the blog for 2019, admittedly I had a few technical issues as I had forgotten to link my own Google account to this blog however I'm here now so let's get into what has been happening!

The major change this year is that I have moved schools and am currently teaching in a more traditional setting (ie, one teacher and a class of students).  This is more commonly known as a 'single cell' set up but this terminology has never sat well with me so you'll find me refer to it as traditional in relation to an ILE where I taught previously.  My main decision for moving schools was to experience this as my time at Stonefields meant that I only knew team teaching and I was not able to compare the two teaching experiences to help better inform my practice

Some things have remained the same - I am teaching a composite class of Year 3 and 4 (29 students) so my content knowledge from the last three years will help me as I work with my class with navigating Level 2 of the NZC.  While there is technology in the class, the ratio is 1:3 so one of the opportunities this year is how to maximise the affordances of technology as well as grow my practice as I learn to work with more of a balance with the digital resources I have at my disposal.

As it is a new year (yes I know it is Week 7), I wanted to let you know about what some of my focuses are for 2019.  I will look to update these as the year progresses.

Focus #1 - to work on the work/life balance.  Now that I'm in my fourth year, I want to really work on how much time I am spending with school and how am I ensuring that I am looking after myself.  I have started a new gym and am enjoying these sessions so I am using that as motivation to keep better hours at school.

Focus #2 - continue to grow my passion for literacy.  While I enjoy reading, I have found that lately that I have either been reading for school or university.  In the past I have called myself a reluctant writer however I do want to continue to develop my skill in writing and would like to make more time for that.

Focus #3 - grow my practice in teaching numeracy.  Our school focus for 2019 is to lift achievement in numeracy and I am keen to develop my practice as well as look for more opportunities to integrate numeracy into my programme rather than teaching it independently.

Focus #4 - reflect on how my overall teaching practice is operating within the traditional space.  Naturally, the first few weeks of Term 1 are used to get to know the kids and start to bring in the routines and expectations but now I am seeing that without other adults in the classroom, I need to ensure that I'm focusing on the consistency and transparency of my teaching style.  To help with this focus, I want to continue to read professionally as I feel a lot of my practice has come from observing colleagues in action and my luck and chance while I stumbled through my first few years of teaching.

Twitter has been great in me seeing how all my colleagues from Stonefields and Manaiakalani are starting up and focussing on for 2019 so it was great to see how Nicola was doing a weekly update and I liked the snapshot approach of her blog posts so I am going to endeavour to keep more regular updates.  Look forward to sharing more!

Bringing Our Best Together!

This term we have been focusing on creating artefacts for our school exhibition which we were using

as a launch pad for our new school values.  This spawned from a staff PLD earlier this year where we looked at our current set of values and from that came these three ideas for focus:

Being My Best Self (incorporating our vision principles of Building Learning Capacity and Making Meaning)

Bringing Our Best Together (incorporating our vision principle of Collaboration)

Breaking Ground  (incorporating our vision principle of Breaking Through)

The exhibition was an opportunity for the kids to create artefacts that helped us show our current understanding of these values as well as create some permanent features around our school environment.

If you have ever been to our school, you may have noticed some large rocks around our playground.  Upon investigation, the kids found out that these represented some of our local maunga (mountain) and we created a project to see what we could create to help people understand the nature and significance of these rocks.

We investigated signs and a lot of the kids made connections to the AA Road Sign at Cape Reinga and it was quickly decided that they wanted to create their own sign to help people understand which each rock represented as well as how they are connected to the creation of our school - these was a theme that all our groups were investigating.

Insert teacher panic here... I had managed to fumble my way through woodwork growing up but the creation of a signpost was looking daunting, however through the natural curiosity and fearlessness of the kids, I was eager to take the challenge on.  We decided that our focus through this project would be bringing our best together as we knew that the group of 30 could not all possibly work on the same aspect of the project at the same time.

The kids did really well to unpack what it would mean to collaborate on this and quickly assumed roles and responsibilities to get the project from idea to a design phase.  I was able to enlist the help of both our school caretaker and one of our parents for their technical experience and it was great to see the kids evolve from an attitude of "we can just ask someone else to do
this for us" to "I am keen to get involved myself."

What did this mean?  For the kids and as you will read through their reflections below, it was a lot of sanding.  However over time, I got to see kids who normally would not take leadership roles within the hub find an opportunity to shine and take risks on elements on the project that they wanted to try out or felt comfortable stepping into.

What was the result?  The project ran to time and was executed so we had the sign up for the night of our exhibition.  The sense of pride that the kids had when they saw the post going up was incredible and it is great to see other learners in the school start to use it.  Something refreshing is that a lot of the group still have some ideas about the next iteration of this project and have seen this attempt as a first draft that they can build on as a legacy item they have created for their school.

Show Me Your Understanding - Update

I have been fortunate enough to pick up some time with our Agency team where I spend time observing another teacher's lessons to see how they are promoting agency within their practice.  Based on discussions had so far, I realised that I have been promoting aspects of agency within my numeracy programme based on the initial hunch I had earlier this year about the learners I am teaching.  Student agency is something that I have been wanting to investigate more due to moving to a different year level so I am grateful for the opportunity to spend this term doing so.

Reflection:
I have always given learners the opportunity to reflect in various formats however I noticed that this year I needed to dedicate specific time each session for learners to reflect on their learning.  I updated my modelling books to add in a slide like the one below where I ask the learners to reflect on what part of the learning pit they found themselves in during the session.

This is the basis that the learners to use and I found that it reflects the concept of the knowledge action gap that I heard about when attending the NZAI presentations earlier this year.  Each session learners have the choice to upload in SchoolTalk an element of evidence on that session.  Historically learners have seen this as completed work however I have been encouraging them to upload learning that they are still completing or reflections on how they have been finding the learning.  This is great as I am getting snapshots on all the groups thoughts.  Here are some examples of how the kids have been reflecting:

This has been going for a few weeks now so now the next steps is to build the kids confidence in the articulation of what specific elements of the learning that they are having issues with so I can tailor learning to help them with those.  I am still modelling thinkalouds to boost discussion and reflection in the moment so they feel confident to discuss at any part of the lesson.

Looking ahead:
I have had some conversations with the kids and their whanau about anxiety in maths.  When we discuss where this may come from, a lot of the conversations come back to some of the kids feeling surprised when we start a new unit of learning.  While at Claremont, I saw a wall display where the teachers encouraged questions from their learners on the next week's learning.  They will display both the learning goals or main objectives for the next week as well as resources for the kids to help them to make meaning of the topic.

As the kids love Padlet, I chose to create a digital format of this display which looks like this example:

After asking questions on the learning goals, I give the kids the option to book into a workshop based on their confidence in this topic.  So far the kids have really enjoyed this weekly part of our learning as they are coming to the relevant workshop with a lot more confidence and the questions they ask help me tailor the learning to any specific knowledge gaps.

Next Steps:

So how has this focus on communication impacted on the kids understanding?  I did some analysis based on the learners' Gloss assessments from Term 4 2017 to Term 2 2018 and for the majority, they have made shift in at least one element of this assessment (green). 

Looking forward to working with these kids for the remainder of the year!  We have moved into a strand focus with looking at elements of geometry and algebra which is new to both the kids and me so I am enjoying learning alongside this group of kids as we continue to communicate with each other about our numeracy.

Why mentor?

Today my stint as a mentor teacher came to an end.  It was awesome to see someone grow in both confidence and their practice and it wasn't until I had a conversation with a colleague that they pointed out that this growth was for me as well.  Personally I think I should have waited another year before offering to be a mentor however as my colleague discussed with me, the insight into my current practice was invaluable for not only the remainder of the year, but my continued teaching practice.

As I reflected, I found this blog post that helped me articulate how the experience had helped me grow as both an individual and a teacher.

I learned that I am a bit of a control freak!  I am one of those 'details' type of people who will often get entrenched in the daily grind to stop to ask those 'why' type questions that open up to the blue sky/ocean way of thinking.  I have noticed that this has come back a bit more this year where I default to the "yes but..." type responses when listening to others and need to remind myself to continue to listen with purpose.

Having another adult teach alongside me helped me understand the importance of relationships with the kids.  Through discussion, I found myself learning more about the kids as we analysed why  some lessons did or did not work for particular learners and while observing lessons, it was able to give me more insights into how I could adapt my practice to better suit the needs of the kids I am working with.

I learned to make learning more fun again - again me getting caught up in the details and with Term 2 having a lot of focus on assessment, I wasn't enjoying how I was planning or some of the outputs from my planning and I can bet the kids were feeling the same way too!  Observing lessons where the kids got to be creative or try new things has inspired me to continue to push this inquisitive nature of my practice as well as realising that it is ok for me to learn alongside the kids more so.  Stay tuned for how Term 3 is going to turn out - I am looking forward to it!

So thank you to AUT for allowing me the opportunity to test out the mentor role - I got a lot out of the experience!

Claremont Exchange 2018

This year I was fortunate to take part in the annual exchange between Stonefields and Claremont College alongside Anita.  This exchange has been one that has existed for a few years now and a lot of my colleagues have visited Sydney.  The intention of the exchange for the two schools to share both information and aspects of our practice with each other so Anita and I created a video as an application for the reasons why we wanted to go.

Fast forward to Week Eight of Term Two and I was in Sydney at the school - the staff were amazing and set the bar high for hosting which we returned the favour next term.  Both Anita and I remarked on how fortunate we were to be immersed in a school for three days and being able to capture our noticings as we moved around.  So what were some of my take outs from this experience?

Use of Space:
Claremont has a smaller footprint than Stonefields therefore have been really smart about the use of space in their teaching environments.  The first thing I noticed was the effective use of storage - all the classrooms have been purpose built so it was great to see storage being implemented under seating, whiteboards as teaching spaces on the outside of cupboards etc.  This has really made me reflect on whether I am using space to the best of my ability while teaching and how I can really get the most of the environment (ie, the initial hunch for my inquiry this year).

Team Teaching:
All the classrooms at Claremont have two or more teachers in them so the potential arises for collaboration.  It was great to see communication happen between teachers on the fly as the learners transitioned from one subject to another and again I reflected on whether I was doing this in my practice currently.  To be honest, I feel that I am teaching solo at the moment and wonder what impact it would have on the kids if we opened up the potential for more team teaching within the hub.  It was great teaching alongside a student teacher these last two terms so I need to look for future opportunities for us a as hub team to work collaboratively.

Digital versus Practical Applications in my Practice:
One of the most stand out moments for me was to see how the learners gravitated more towards practical applications of tasks rather than opting for a digital method.  To my untrained eye, I first thought I was seeing a lot of worksheets however as I got to speak to both the teachers and the learners, it was made aware that these were custom made resources that scaffolded learners into tasks.

Currently I am finding that the learners are opting for digital due to it being new or accessible however am I scaffolding them into these applications appropriately?  I feel that I am making assumptions that we are 1:1 devices that all learning should be accessible through that forum but are there better ways to make these links more explicit as well as catering for all learners.

Next Steps:
The main follow up from this blog post is to prepare for Claremont's visit in Term 3 where we continue to look for opportunities for the kids to interact with each others.  They are really interested in how we bring Te Reo into our practice and it was be a great opportunity for the kids to share their knowledge with others.

Lots of things to ponder as I move into the next term however the best thing was that I was able to share this experience with another teacher.  Being able to discuss these areas of wonder in the moment helped me think about how I could bring some these to life when I get back into the hub.  Stay tuned for more updates as I will definitely link back to this blog post with future reflections.

Lovin' The Library!

With Term 2 moving on quickly, it is time to stop and reflect on how my inquiry on how to use the environment as another teacher has been working.

While I had been focusing on the space within the hub, it wasn't until last week when I had to let the kids know that we weren't be going to the library the following week that I realised how much of an impact having a regular library session each week has been building the relationship between teacher and learners as well as coming the realisation that I had been using the library space as another teaching environment.

Please note this photo was not staged - this is the usual state of the group when we are in the library on Thursdays.

Moving in the library for 30 minutes each Thursday has helped me appreciate the following:

• I am getting time to learn about the kids as readers as we discuss their interests in books.
• I am seeing some of them take risks with the choice of books they are choosing - I have implemented a "Free Reading" Box back in the hub and we rotate each week on who gets to choose books for this box.  This has allowed the kids to go and ask each other opinions about the types of books they would enjoy.
• I get to share some of my passion for reading with the group.  It can be pretty easy for us to get caught in the routine of learning within the hub and what the kids have said to me is that they like the fact that I sometimes can be looking for a book to read myself.  
• I am also using this time to teach skills like researching, skimming and scanning as well as evaluating texts as we begin to locate texts for inquiry.  Having this context allows the kids to be more engaged and they are able to make the connections quicker due to the environment we are in.

Next Steps:

My inquiry is changing in focus as the kids are making progress so I intend to keep the regular library session to help me explore this further.  Stay tuned for the next update!

Mentor or Coach - What's The Difference?

Having a strong mentor can really set up you up for success as a teacher.  I was fortunate to have one in my first two years of teaching, especially being able to teach alongside them in my first year of teaching.  Being able to observe teaching in practice as well as reflect while in the moment enabled me to feel more confident within my second year of teaching, especially when we worked in different areas of the school.

My mentor inspired me to take the opportunity to apply to be an AUT mentor this year and while I am in a different year level, I think continuing to learn alongside the kids allows my practice to be more transparent to someone who is observing me.

One thing I have struggled with so far is what is the difference between being a mentor and being a coach.  As with any new learning, I try to understand the definition first to help me then work out my next steps.

Mentor - an experienced and trusted adviser, a wise and trusted counselor or teacher, an influential senior sponsor or supporter.
Coach - a person who trains an athlete or a team of athletes, a private tutor who prepares a student for an examination, a person who instructs an actor or singer.

From that, my baseline understanding is that you can be coached for an end result (ie, finishing your teaching qualifications), however a mentor is someone who works alongside you rather than instructing you on your next step.

The word trust really stands out for me and this is something that I have been working with being open about my practice.  The conversations have been great as it helps me reflect on why I chose to teach something in a different way and I am finding it beneficial having another set of eyes in the space to pick up on things that I might have missed.

Next Steps: Continue to have these reflective conversations about our practice, shift more of the control over and observe.

Show Me Your Working (Understanding) - My Hunch

Having changed year levels this year, developing my pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has become a priority for myself.

This year I am team teaching in numeracy with a group of learners operating between Level 2 and Level 3 of the New Zealand Curriculum for numeracy.  This is a natural follow on for the numeracy that I was teaching in previous years and I am grateful for this foundation as I look forward to challenge myself in this space.

As the learners are operating at a higher level, my first noticing goes to how we are struggling as a group to articulate our numerical thinking when asked to explain how we came to a conclusion or got a specific answer.  My first instinct was to explore if there were particular vocabulary gaps within our group, however, what I am noticing more is a) a general lack of confidence with articulation of numerical thinking and b) a reluctance to do this in group settings aka 'the fear of getting it wrong in front of others'.

Fortunately for me, a lot of schools in our clusters are looking into this area and documenting through the use of their blogs, especially Pt England School, so it has been awesome to read and see how some of the teachers are developing these skills within their own numeracy programs.

I have also found the app Flipgrid helpful in developing the learners confidence in taking risks in articulating their strategies.  Learners are able to record themselves on their own device and listen back to themselves before posting the video to an online forum where other members of the group can listen and respond to the videos.  This has also served as a great link with our cybersmart curriculum.

Next Steps: Continue to look for opportunities to build these communication skills within our numeracy program.  I also need to see if the team will let me pay for a Flipgrid membership as the free version only allows you to activate one grid at a time.

I am also going to connect with some of my colleagues at Pt England to see how they are finding their PD and what are their learnings so far.

Closing The Door - My Hunch

Working in an ILE, you do get used to the hum or buzz that comes with 70 bodies within one space all undertaking their learning.  However for some of our learners, this can serve more as a distraction and they may seek out spaces where they a) feel comfortable and b) feel safe to take risks in their learning.

So come to this year where I am operating in a learning space with 100 learners and three other teachers, it seemed somewhat wrong to try the following.  I took a group of learners into one of our larger breakout spaces and I closed the door.  Their faces said it all when they smiled.  The transformation of the space went from hustle and bustle to a more calming vibe and the kids sensed it as soon as the door touched the wall.

Now it is not my intention to close these learners off from the rest of the hub.  My inquiry is focused more around how the environment can be used to foster independent learning.  The "Bat Cave", as it has been named, is serving as a launching pad where learners can develop strategies to focus on their learning, rather than get caught up in the activity that is happening around them.

I did something more extreme and this has put me in the learning pit.  I took all the furniture out of the space (see the photos below).  I am curious to see what the learners feel that need or by observation, we decide as a group is important to have in the space to help us with our learning.  So far we haven't asked for much as we have been working on building the routines and structure of our literacy learning.  This group is with another teacher for numeracy so we are working together to create the norms for the Bat Cave, co-constructed with the kids.

We decided that we needed a whiteboard the other week - the smart board that we couldn't get working wasn't adding any value so we were fortunate enough to appropriate one that wasn't being used in another part of the school.

Next Steps: I have had a few teachers come and observe me which has been great for my practice.  I need to look at developing my knowledge around using the environment as the third teacher so will be exploring some of the content by Reggio Emilia.

What's On Top for 2018?

Recently we have been asked to build our inquiries for 2018.  Given the nature of who I am as a teacher and how my brain works, I intend to embark on three inquiries this year - one being my main inquiry for the year and two smaller ones that focus more on specific elements of my practice.

My main focus this year is how I can use space as another teacher within my literacy program.  I will be labelling these posts with Inquiry - Environment.  This goal also speaks to some of our COL achievement challenges, with particular focus on goals two, three and five.

My secondary focus will be examining how I am developing learners' articulation skills within numeracy.  These posts will be called Inquiry - We.  This also has connections to the COL achievement challenge six.

My last focus is reflecting on myself as a practitioner, especially as I am a mentor teacher to an AUT student this year.  This posts, called Inquiry - Me, will be focusing on my reflections as I build my coaching ability with an adult.

While I appreciate that it may seem ambitious to achieve all three, I think having the platform of my blog to help me articulate will help me document my thinking and build my reflection skills further.

Resilience - a recipe for a secret sauce?

Four weeks into 2018 and the word resilience has come up in various conversations at school with colleagues as well as having professional development examining the concept last week.  There are a few definitions that I have been reading:

• "the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties";
• "trust and belief in yourself"; and,
• "the capacity to call on tools and techniques to recover quickly from difficulties and help eliminate future difficulty"

While I see it as an important skill set to bring into my teaching practice, I needed to put myself into the context to get a better understanding and reflected on the session.  Scott Beattie from Elevate Coaching spoke to us about creating our secret sauce which was made up of a combination of the following elements:

1. Staying present - it is easy to get caught up with the day-to-day of the learning space and the ability to stay present is vital especially at this time of the year when you are building relationships with both colleagues and more importantly the children.  A noticing I had about my own practice is that I am not giving enough thinking time when I ask questions.  I often was asking two or three questions at a time so what I am trying to do at the moment is use the physical action of counting to ten on my fingers to help anchor me to that moment rather than skip ahead to the next part of my plan.
2. Sharing my values - I reflected that in 2017 we looked at our values as a team, however I had not shared with my new team on things that I feel are important as well as listening to them to get further insight on how we can collaborate effectively.  This includes making the effort to get to know the team outside of school to get that full view of my colleagues as people, rather than 'teachers'.  This openness extends to how I am building relationships with the kids at the moment.  This year there are a lot of kids who have not had me as a teacher and this means that I need to ensure that I am sharing who I am, not only as their teacher, but as a fellow learner.
3. Reflection - I mentioned earlier that I was excited to continue this blog as a way of reflection however I found myself beating myself up as I hadn't blogged in four weeks.  While this is a tool for reflection, it is not my only vehicle for reflection and how am I doing this while teaching to not only role model but to capture the noticings/learning as well as celebrate the successes.
4. Exercise - I had been told not to fill the void of study with more teaching and work on maintaining the work-life balance.  Given it is the start of the year, it is naturally a busy time however I am trying to stick to a routine of exercise as a way to 'switch off'.

I think these are some great starting points for this year, especially as we move into looking at our inquiries for this year and gives me some short-term goals to bring into my practice for 2018.  Onwards and upwards!

2018 - New Year, New Me?

Like our learners, it is the first official day of school tomorrow and there is a sense of trepidation in the air as I go through preparations for this week.  

During our teacher only days last week, I was noticing how often I was using the word 'new' - new year levels, new team, new hub ... but does that mean I am needing to change along with these?  I agree that there will be some adaptation and learning involved but I think that reason that I was noting all the different elements was due to the fact that my support network at school has changed as well as  no longer having a mentor teacher.  This means starting afresh with a new team so remembering to communicate and be open in order build factors like trust in our team is fundamental in this initial set up period.  I am teaching in a four teacher team with 104 learners so last week was discussion about how we will use the space.  What I am noticing from the four of us already is the sense of adaptability when we discuss about observing how the learners are reacting to the space and being flexible to tweak or update based on these observations and discussion.

I am excited to see the learners this week as I have taught a majority of the Year 4s (as Year 2 and 3s) and Year 5s (as Year 3s) so am looking forward to seeing how the break has treated them as well as looking forward to exploring new content alongside them.  The Year 6s will be a new entity to me however the first couple of days, we as teachers are sharing our identities as a lead in to our Term One concept so during this time it will give me opportunity to both reflect as well as observe.

I am excited to continue blogging this year as I enjoyed the reflective element it brings to my practice and will help draw out some of the wonderings I am currently having throughout 2018.  So new year, new me?  Lets wait and see!

Graduations - MDTA and PRT

November and December have been busy months with loads of deadlines looming for both study and school assessment however it was great to stop and celebrate some of the milestones at the end of this year.

We were fortunate to have our MDTA graduation at the Google HQ in the CBD where we all came together to celebrate.  The support for the group was oozing out of the room and it was great to hear everyones mentors and principals speak highly of our journeys.  While I already considered myself fortunate to be a part of the MDTA, it wasn't until I reflected on the great opportunities I had since joining the programme.  I now feel more confident within my teaching practice and the skills that I have gathered since starting will allow me to continue to grow as a teacher.

What made me more humble about the experience was the support we have had from the start, both Dorothy and Anne have added so much to my kete and I look forward to connecting with me in 2018.  I was also fortunate to have Latai at school with me and this shared experience has allowed me to see all opportunities for collaboration.  What I am most grateful for is the support of my mentor teacher who exemplifies what it means to mentor and has inspired me to become an AUT mentor in 2018.

Today I was also fortunate to have a graduation ceremony at school for the end of my provisional registeration.  Through an administrative error, this meant that Stonefields graciously held a ceremony for myself, Latai and Sammy and looking back, I would have not had it any other way.  To celebrate with the kids meant the world to me!

So while this brings me to the end of my journey as both a MDTA and a PRT, this is not the end of my blog.  I am moving into a new year level in 2018 and intend to continue blogging not only to help me with reflecting but also help me develop further as a writer and connect with others as I move onto the next stage of my teaching practice.  For all those who have supported me so far, thank you very much.

2017 Reflection on my Impact

With the end of the year drawing to a close and assessments finished, I thought it would be timely to reflect on what impact I had this year and how I would use any learning from this year to help form next steps for 2018.

I did some data analysis on the shift of my learners this year. I measured those who had had the expected 12 months gain (i.e. maintaining their National Standard curriculum level between their 2016 and 2017 EOY results.) and those who had accelerated their learning and had 18 month or greater gain (i.e. shifting from Below Standard in 2016 to At Standard in 2017, or shifting from At to Above Standard).

Numeracy:

The majority of the learners that I taught for numeracy maintained their progress and will be moving into next year with a strong foundation for the continuation of their maths knowledge.  Looking at this data, my numeracy practice is something that I want to continue to evolve as I feel that I can improve in this space.  During the middle of this year, I moved away from the digital aspect of my instruction based on feedback from my principal when I went to her to ask for help to see how far I could challenge some of my groups.  Learning became hands on and we did tangible examples using pen and paper during instruction, allowing learners have gain success with new strategies and having these to refer to as they moved through their follow up activities.  This is something that I intend to continue moving into 2018.

Reading:

While this data looks very similar to my numeracy groups, this set shows that I have continued to push learners who are currently at 'Above Standard' for them to maintain this shift.  The reading groups I worked with were all very enthusiastic readers and now all reading at Level 2 of the NZ Curriculum.  I have really enjoyed my time with these learners as they have allowed me to blend other areas of the curriculum into my reading practice.  Using tools like GetEpic! has allowed me not only to offer more opportunities for students to access multimodal texts, but also allowed me to teach skills like research and inquiry which is something that I am going to continue into next year.  

Writing:

This has been my biggest impact and something that I am most proud of as we now have a gang of writers who are enthusiastic about writing and want to continue this journey.  For some learners, this has meant that they have made considerate progress however the attitude they know have for writing is what inspires me the most!  As a writer myself, I need to ensure that I am continuing to build my craft and practice to continue to develop and challenge others to write.  Knowing myself as a writer will allow me to see opportunities to engage with my students and colleagues as well as continue to challenge my mindset as both writer and educator.

So what's next?

I am moving into a new year level in 2018 teaching Years 4/5/6 with three other teachers.  I am excited for this challenge as it not only means that I am moving with some of my learners that I have been teaching this year, but also reconnect with learners that I taught in 2016 who will now be in Year 5.  I am also excited for the opportunity to teach at some different curriculum levels as well as working alongside some other teachers whose practices I am interested to tap into and see what impact we can grow for our 2018 cohort!

Manaiakalani Film Festival 2017

This year's Manaiakalani Film Festival was an absolute blast - it was such a great occasion to take the hub along to see both their entry as well as other schools from around the cluster.

This year I gave the control of the film over to a group of learners who crafted an idea to highlight one of the 'issues' that happens in the playground.  Having a goal and a vision really helped the kids storyboard out the different elements of their narrative and allowed them to direct me as to what types of effects or shots they required.  I was merely the cameraman for the day!

I enjoyed the fact that our vision principles came through in the story without me prompting these and the fact that the stars wanted to ensure that the entire hub were in the film.

Here is 'Thunder' which was proudly presented three times at the film festival by two learners.  Please check out the film on our hub blog and if you get an opportunity, please leave a comment on there for the kids.  They really love to read and respond to these.

Amazing Writers

My inquiry this year has morphed since the last time that I wrote about it.  I was first looking at the connection between both engagement and achievement in writing with the use of non-cognitive skills, last term as I was analysing the data that came from my sample, it was clear that I needed to examine how students were interpreting the role of these skills within the context of their writing.

This realisation brought both joy as non-cognitive skills have become somewhat of a passion of mine to explore within my practice, but also fear as this meant that I would have to rewrite a large portion of my dissertation.  This fear also showed me that I had forgotten about myself as a learner of writing.  This year the academic writing has not come easy to me and it is something that I have had to persevere at and build my confidence in.  I have drawn on the elements of writing that I have been teaching this year - using the conferencing time with my supervisor to discuss openly how I am feeling about my writing, reflecting on feedback and seeing it as a prompt to practice more but most importantly continue to believe in my skills as a writer.

Looking back at where this low opinion of myself of a writer comes from, I can only pinpoint some report comments that stuck with me from when I was a similar age as the kids I now teach.  This is where the passion for developing non-cognitive skills in my students comes from, I do not want to have kids say that they aren't 'good' at something.  I would rather have them reflect on how we can work together to overcome learning that they are finding challenging in the moment and equip them with strategies to help look at problems from different perspectives.

So yesterday I decided to be open with the kids and tell them about an upcoming piece of assessment that was happening this week.  We spoke about who our audience would be for this writing to give them a chance to think about the reason behind this assessment.  Responses I got (unprompted) were like the following:

"So you can see how I am going with my writing."

"So you can talk with me about how I am making progress in my writing."

"So I can see my progress in my writing."

This was a pretty awesome moment to have in Day One, Term Four.  I decided to ask the following question to the group: "How do I show that I am an amazing writer?"  The amazing writer is an in joke with me and the kids as earlier this year, I had over-indexed in using the word amazing to describe progress and the kids picked up on it.  So now it has become the norm to describe ourselves as amazing writers.  The kids rushed to write on these pages and again the responses were amazing for kids who did not enjoy writing in Term One.

All the responses resonated that these kids have become more self aware of their writing abilities and are determined to give any writing challenge a go.  So I am looking forward to reading through their samples this week as they have inspired me to continue developing my craft as a writer to help become a stronger teacher of writing.

Perceptions of Progress

In order to prepare for Term Four, I got learners to do a reflection on how they enjoyed their learning this term as well as ask some other questions to get insight into how they were finding my planning and instruction.  As these learners have been with me for the majority of the year now, I chose to add in a question about had they felt that they had made progress in their learning as I was interested to see what voice came back from them in this regard.  Having used Google Forms to capture this information, I have been able to analyse and graph their responses.

NUMERACY:

All these learners are now moving from Early Stage 5 to Stage 5 so it was great to see from their responses reflect some of the different areas that we were learning about this term.  I chose to explore a more hands of approach with these learners where we problem solved together and share our ideas on a group modelling book which the learners enjoyed judging by this graph.

I also chose to dedicate one of our weekly sessions to building their confidence with strand maths as most of our learning had centred around either number knowledge or strategy.  By making these lessons more hands on, the learners have been able to make progress in areas that historically I have left to the end of the term to go through and they have been able to make connections to other parts of their numeracy learning.  However how did they rate their own progress?

Reading through the responses, the majority of them talk about being able to work through 'harder' or 'bigger' strategies which rings true to how I introduced the bulk of the Stage 5 strategies to the groups.  We would start with Stage 4 or Early Stage 5 strategy first and unpack that before making connections to the Stage 5 strategy.  The one learner who felt that they did not make any progress is one that I have been tracking for confidence and their response reflects this.  What was more awesome to read however was that they wanted to continue their learning and wanted more assistance (a 'workshop') to help them with this.

READING:

We have had a busy term with literacy and these learners have been able to move into more complex texts based on the learning that we had done the previous two terms.  We have also looked at building our inquiry skills with information literacy.  As I have mentioned earlier, this group are very engaged and their reflections about the term mirror my observations:

The two learners that said 'no' are ones that have recently moved to new reading levels and I have been working with them to manage any anxiety over the shift in focus.  

I also asked all the groups about what they thought their reading focus was for this term (please note, it was a bit of a trick question as all answers they could choose from were focuses but I was more interested in seeing how they responded):

Gold 21 and 22 Groups:

Silver 23 and 24 Groups:

Having asked about their focuses for the term, it was great to see how some of these had come into their responses about making progress.

I am currently looking at how learners self-report as part of my dissertation so am aware of any bias that may come from these responses however I am more happy to see that the learners are seeing themselves making progress.