Manaiakalani Hui

Yesterday we were fortunate to attend the fifth annual Manaiakalani Hui which was a great opportunity to connect with colleagues and other members of our cluster.  It was a jam packed agenda so I attempted to both sketchnote and tweet over the day to see if that helped me synthesise the information.

Multitasking is not my forte so here are my outtakes via sketchnotes from the day:

The first item on the agenda was a presentation from our Manaiakalani Ambassadors which are student representatives from our schools who presented an element of their learning from the year so far.  Their deft knowledge of the "learn/create/share" pedagogy and the pride and confidence in which they presented was admirable and something that I would like to strive towards creating with the learners I teach.

The part that I found the most interesting was the presentations from the Spark MIT Innovative Teachers - these are colleagues within the cluster who shared their current enquiries with us.  A lot of these revolved around both motivation and literacy - both topics that I am currently investigating for potential focuses for next year's dissertation.  Again I found these presenters incredibly proud of the learning they are creating - this opportunity is available for me in my third year of teaching so something to investigate over the next year as an option for 2018!

Russell Burt presented the group wth an interesting notion that there are 47,000 plus jobs in the technology sectors which we need to be preparing our learners with the skills to work in such positions.  By keeping the open lens on how we can expose learners to opportunities in which they learn these skills is paramount - a very scary but also exciting challenge for the years ahead!

We were fortunate to have Rebecca, Aaron and Stuart from the Woolf Fisher Research Centre come present to us - some analogies and acronyms have stuck with me like "Students who can do harder things with harder tests at an earlier age" and L.I.F.T (Learning Ideas From Text).  Again I am excited and inspired about how to bring more critical literacy skills into my practice and am grateful for the support and the information that is provided to our cluster on a regular basis.

After lunch, it was great to learn more about the outreach programmes especially after having made connections from today.  How can we use these networks to share resources and ideas freely to better support our learners in the drive to learn today's skills for tomorrow's jobs?  We were also challenged by both Russell and Pat Sneddon to keep reassessing the status quo and using the skills we have from moving from below to at and transfer these over to the movement of learners from at to above.

A very thought provoking day - check out Twitter for more insights from other attendees - #Manaiakalani

PLG - Social Media and PLNs

This diagram from James Hopkin's presentation resonated with me.

In my response to James after his presentation to this morning, I called myself #currentlyincuriousity as a reflection of my status of a Twitter user.  I follow people, I read posts, however, I have not found the courage to engage with others in this forum.  Discussing it with the members of the MDTA cohort, I put it down to where I am in my teaching career and how I feel that I do not have a voice yet to engage with others.

Upon reflection, this feeling does not sit right with my teaching philosophy where I value the power of conversation.  Twitter is a powerful connector and I need to start engaging with others to develop my own Professional Learning Network (PLN).

Why is it important to have a PLN?  This infographic from Sylvia Duckworth gives some strong context.

To help build all our confidence in how to connect and discuss with others, Dorothy and Anne set up a provocation where we were answering a series of questions and using the hashtag #MDTAchat.  We were able to gain the technical expertise of responding to others from this exercise.

While doing this, I found myself in the "zone" - I was reading, responding and formulating ideas at a quick pace and it gave me the insight into the personal philosophies of my cohort.  I was able to see the connections that others made as well as challenge both others and my own thinking.  I found my Twitter voice!

So what next?  You tell me, I want to talk!

PLG - Visit to Point England School

Today Juliana and I went to Pt England School as part of our PLG focus.  As we both teach Years 2/3, we went with the focuses on seeing the following:

• Year 1s - seeing the level of ability our learners are coming from and how the design of learning is set at that level.
• Year 4s - we wanted to see how the design of learning was set at this level and how we can prepare our Year 3 learners for the transition.

We were greeted by one of the most impressive assemblies that I have attended - the air of celebration was present as we watched learners get their sport awards.  We also saw a new house captain being elected which was announced with such mana!

Shortly after, we went into two Year 1 classes - these learners are adept in using Explain Everything (the app that we use in our hub) and were very keen to show us their learning.  The learners that I spent time with showed me how they use the sound bytes which their teachers record with their explanations or instructions to assist them.

After morning tea, we moved into the pavilion where we visited a Year 4 learning space - this was two classes that were merged into one with two teachers.  The learners were working through a list of activities from the week in the block called "Finishing Friday" - I helped some learners with an activity that they were working through with geometry and I got a fair few "presents" with them all keen to show me their proficiency with symmetry.  I got this awesome example from a learner who understood the concept and explained it to me very efficiently.

Both experiences have made me consider the following with my own practice:

• How can I use digital affordances (such as the sound bytes in Explain Everything) to allow my learners more opportunities for rewindable learning?
• Am I generating enough choice for my learners in regard to their learning?
• How can we incorporate more opportunities to celebrate our successes in our learning?  I was blown away by the attitude of the learners at their assembly!

Such a humbling experience being welcomed into other schools in our area - I am grateful to part of a community of learning!  Thank you to all the teachers that let us come into their spaces and observe!