Impact Stories 2.0

This morning I, along with the rest of the Stonefields staff, presented our impact stories to each other.  These presentations are an update on our teaching as inquiries, however as a PRT, I had to present one of my term goals towards registration.

I chose to use Powtoon to make an animation detailing my inquiry - this goal links in with my dissertation focus with my group of writers.

While it was great to trial a new app for learning, I probably over invested time in getting this done.  Check it out and let me know if you have any thoughts on my progress so far!

Mid Year Reflection: My Practice in Writing

As with reflecting on reading and numeracy, I also reflected on my writing practice this term and gathered voice from the learners.  I was a bit nervous to see what these learners would feel about my instruction as they had both been a focus for our Term 1 inquiry as well as the focus for my dissertation this year.

Looking at the above chart, I am not surprised by these results.  Some of the learners (18.2%) have been vocal about not enjoying writing hence the reason why I have tried to keep my practice fluid and find ways to engage with them based on their interests.  

The tension I have had this term has been balancing the need for aspects like handwriting and spelling and finding ways to get technology to aid us in the writing process.  From the feedback, it looks like I have had some success with using Explain Everything to help us with our planning and crafting sessions.  Learners have been able to use the voice recording aspect to capture their ideas and plan on their device to help them then go onto craft, refine and publish.  While I had intended to have the group create a full narrative on an animation we had watched, I found that we needed to spend more time on the first part of a narrative where critical elements such as characters and setting are introduced.  The group have achieved some amazing results this term where we were able to share and celebrate via our hub blog (please leave a comment if you can):

I also chose to ask them about an element of my dissertation inquiry where the group reflected on their writing progress each week.

I do wish to carry on with a scaled down version of this reflection process for next term so will gather some more information from the group on how I can make this less of an event and more a natural part of the process.  Over the term break, I will start to analyse the data collected from this term so hopefully some other insights will spring from that.

I feel that I have grown the most in my practice in relation to teaching writing.  While I enjoy writing, I need to realise that it can be a difficult process to others and feedback from both the learners and their families is that they are unable to see progress in their writing (in contrast to both reading and writing).  This has made me think about how I can use the tools available to help learners see their own progress but also celebrate shift more.

Another takeout I have taken from gathering this feedback is that I am working with a group who may not enjoy writing and how can I make this more enjoyable or the learning not as teacher directed as it may have been in the past.  I was fortunate to go and observe a colleague as she used stations to keep the energy high when teaching phonics so I will look into how I can incorporate movement and rotations into teaching aspects such as handwriting and spelling more. 

Mid Year Reflection: My Practice in Numeracy

Similar to the learners I work with in reading, I collected voice from my numeracy groups to analyse both engagement and shift.

In relation to results, all the groups have maintained their 'At' call in National Standards as they are all now working towards operating at early Level 2 of the NZ Curriculum.

Term One was about consolidating all the learners knowledge and strategies at Stage 4 as I had learners working at all different parts of this so this term has been developing and building their confidence in Stage 5 Number Knowledge and introducing them to a number of the strategies for both Addition/Subtraction and Multiplication/Division.  As you can see in some of their responses, some of these strategies have really stuck with them.

One of the main differences that I did this term was to create four sub groups within the group so I could differentiate learning to the level appropriate for the learners.  This helped me challenge particular learners as well as support and develop confidence in others.  Here is the snapshot at where the current engagement levels are at:

This goes with my gut on how I felt learners were feeling about their numeracy learners.  The four learners (21.1%) are learners who have developed the confidence to tell me when they are stuck in their learning and this has taken a couple of terms to build this ability.  

The biggest learning curve this year in numeracy has been my own PCK - last year I was working more with our Year 2 learners in Stages 3 and 4 so moving into Early Stage 5 has been both exciting and challenging as I think of ways to engage with learners.

Using the kids love of Pokemon to teach place value was something that I thought was a bit random at first however the kids loved it and I managed to help some learners overcome the obstacle of regrouping with this activity.

That is the key to keeping thing fresh - teaching numeracy can be black or white.  Either you know the strategy and get the answer correct or you don't.  So my personal challenge is to look to develop my creative skills in teaching numeracy to continue the engagement for both the learners and myself!

Mid Year Reflection: My Practice in Reading

Following on from last term's reflection, I reached out to my learners in order to gauge their voice in my teaching and to analyse the shift.

I chose to add one question to the ones I asked last term, this being:

• What are some things that you have learned this term?  This was more out of interest to see what learners could remember from this term.

The first question I ask of the learners is how much they have enjoyed the learning this term, with them being able to rate it on a likert scale from 1 ("I haven't enjoyed it!") to 3 ("I have enjoyed it a lot!").  

Great to see that 4 learners (16.7%) are sitting between the two choices, this means that I still have a bit of work to build engagement with reading.  This group of learners are very engaged with their reading to the point where they are planning their own time when it comes to reading.  Here is a slide that I add to each groups modelling books to help them do so.

It was great to read what learners had both enjoyed reading and learned this term.  I had worked to have learners make connections through different texts, using both readers and journals alongside using apps like GetEpic!.  The learners have really enjoyed using this as an additional resource for books and I have used it to build collections on similar topics so they can analyse and decided whether texts are appropriate for their use.

It is also great to see that some of the additional writing activities made the lists like our alliteration activity and you might notice that a lot of the group mentioned learning about Haikus which was a follow activity where we looked at syllables and how we can use this knowledge to help us when we need to chunk new words we encounter in our reading.  Check out the groups great poems below (note two links due to labels):

Reading through the challenging comments from the learners, great to see that learners had reflected on some of the learning that I chose to focus on this term.  We spent a lot of time working on the differences between retelling and summarising as a lot of the group found it difficult being able to identify and utilise these skills.  We also spent time developing our word attack skills so activities like the ones above helped learners build their confidence in these strategies.

Looking at shift, the majority of the group have maintained their skills and I have mapped out their shift based on a resource our SLT helped created for us and reflecting on this, some of the comments about how I can help learners progress stand out for me.

A few of the learners mentioned about how they would like me to help them further understand their follow up activities so I will reassess how I am creating modelling books and ask my mentor to come observe me in relation to instruction with these groups.  Great to see the honesty with some learners requiring further assistance with summarising - this was a note that I communicated to whānau these holidays along with the links to the resources to help learners practice over the holidays if they wanted to.

In summary, I am very fortunate to working alongside this group of learners as they are so engaged with their readers.  Stay tuned for an update on what Term 3 is going to look like for my reading practice!

Noticing Shifts in Writing

Today I ran a second writing sample as part of my data collection for my dissertation focus.  I was quite nervous about this as it meant asking these learners to sit and write for 45 minutes.  I chose to give these learners a visual prompt along with some of our guidelines that we have used for our narrative writing throughout this term.

When I spoke to the group about doing a writing sample, I was met with excitement and questions. The prompt seemed to excite everyone in the group and the questions ranged from surface features to wonderings about how they could link the various parts of the picture to their narratives.

During their planning, I noticed that a lot of the learners were discussing their ideas.  While not an official e-assTTle writing sample, I intended to run the session as similar to the first writing sample as possible, however seeing the excitement and enjoyment that the kids were getting out of sharing their ideas, I chose to following some of the advice from the passage below from TKI:

When the planning time was over, I again thought it would be difficult for the learners to move into their independent writing but I was greeted with sights below.  These photos are not staged, in fact, no one noticed me taking these.  They were so engaged with getting their pens to paper.

The only protests I got through this session is when I told the group that the time was up due to us moving into reading.  What the learners do not know is that as a 'reward', I am planning to publish these and gift them to them in our end of term writing ceremony so they can go home to celebrate with their whanaus for the upcoming holidays.

My Spirit Animal is a Duck!

It is a strange title for this blog post, however, it is timely as I reflecting on nearing the end of registration.  With two terms to go, I am three quarters of the way there and am looking forward to the remainder of my time as a PCT.  I had written in a previous post about sharing my story about how I chose to come into teaching so thought I better make good on that promise!

The initial passion for teaching came from doing a special topic paper at the end of university where I helped create a pilot programme for the pastoral care of International Students.  Part of the criteria for the paper was to design and run weekly workshops for groups of 10-15 students on aspects of university life for example, how to use the systems at the library or how to set up your printing account.  While to an outside eye, this was probably mundane - I really enjoyed seeing people growing in confidence.

Working in admin type roles after graduating, I decided that I wanted to explore both this aspect further as well as the world so combined the two and that is how I ended up teaching English in Japan.  I bounced around different schools in Tokyo before settling into one in the suburbs bordering the city centre.  Due to its location, I ended up teaching children from the age of 2 (yes, you read that right) to 13 when they moved into the adult classes.  I moved into the lead role for the school during my time there for the children's learning programme and opened two junior schools before leaving to come back to New Zealand.

It was my intention to go back to university when I came home, however due to the time of year and financial reality, I took a job for a corporate and fell into a career pretty quickly.  The passion for education was still there but it had morphed into an appreciation for capability and training and I found myself excelling in roles where I was supporting others be their very best.  Towards the end of my time in the organisation, I even stepped into a leadership role to gain experience and realised that this was a different set of skills required for this and was fortunate enough to build my knowledge about coaching and mentoring.

An organisation wide restructure helped me stop for a minute to reassess where I was heading and opened up a few home truths about how I was feeling (this is where the title comes into play!).  I have picked up my work ethic from both my parents who had run and operated their own businesses for most of my life.  I was fortunate enough to work alongside them (not that they would probably say that at some times!) and saw that in order to make things work, you had to put the effort in.  At work, I tend to agree to things and would find myself spinning lots of plates.  On the outside I appeared that I was under control, however like a duck gliding along the water, no one sees the legs kicking like anything to maintain that graceful glide.

That was me and it had caught up with me.  I nearly burned out and ended up going to counselling for a while to help put strategies into place to help me restore the balance.  Finding the moment to breathe is key if only for five minutes in the day.  Stopping also made me realise that I was not following my passions anymore and hence came the call to resign from work and go back to university to become a teacher.  You know the rest as my teaching journey started in this blog.

Now this is when you could say: "Heath, you realise that teaching is no different from your previous job.  If anything, it is probably going to be just as busy, if not more."  Others did and looking at it, they are right to a certain degree.

The reason behind this post was that a few weeks ago, the wheels did fall off and I found that I had been reverting to old habits to get through.  If I am model how to be a learner to my students, then I do need to live true to what I tell them about asking for help when they need it.  I also need to more transparent with people so they understand what is going on, rather than me just bottling everything up.  This transparency is a key factor to collaboration and being my best self as both a teacher and a person.

Getting Our Write On!

I have written earlier about how my dissertation focus will be around building both confidence and engagement in writing and seeing if this has a link with achievement so I thought it may be timely to discuss the approach that I am using with this.  As mentioned earlier, our hub has already undergone our Term One inquiry into writing so my individual inquiry focus is a continuation on that.

I am currently working with a group of learners which are working towards the Year Two or Year Three writing standards.  The standards for each are as follows:

YEAR TWO:

YEAR THREE:

With these in mind, I am exploring the links between students' non-cognitive skills and both engagement and achievement with their writing.  Each week learners will be reflecting on the following:

• Which of our seven learner qualities did they use in their writing this week?
• How did they feel about their writing learning this week?
• What help do they require in their writing learning from myself for the following week?

I am using Explain Everything to help learners both articulate and record their thoughts.  Learners are able to highlight and record their thoughts on each of the above questions which I am transcribing and using to help to inform the following week's planning for their writing sessions.

Already two weeks in and I can already see how this is impacting my practice as I listen to the reflections - learners are taking the time to really be honest in how they are going with their writing and what parts of their learning that they require further assistance from me.  This has helped me already craft some workshops where I can spend time with learners on particular skills that they feel they need a boost in.  I will be examining these feedback loops in more detail in Term 3.

I am very lucky to be working with such a great bunch of kids - check out some of their description publishing below and if you can, please feel free to leave a comment on the blog post!

Changing Spaces 2017

This year I decided to take a risk and present at Changing Spaces - I attended the day last year and supported but watched all my colleagues speak about their practice and how we operate in an ILE and thought that this would be a great goal for my second year.

I was fortunate to attend the keynote by Chrissie Butler where she challenged us to take a mental walk around our schools and their environments as she spoke.  She spoke of us as educators as developing an acute sensitivity to individual differences in order to drive design decisions.  This means that we should be looking for a framework to support the deliberate design for variability.  As a teacher, I should be providing options for recruiting interest, optimising individual choice and selecting options to help minimise distractions.

She really challenged me in my thinking of how am I using our environment to do so and as I was frantically tidying up tables and chairs after our presentation, I stopped and thought about some of the following points in her presentation:

• What defines the bicultural space?  How are the learners' individual stories being represented?  Are there spaces for everyone to make connections?  Does it feel like a safe environment to meet the needs of the whole person?
• This safety extends to both gender and sexualities - Chrissie challenged us to stop speaking in the binary and more as a 'we'.  This also links with being a community.
• Equitable access for all - she shared a great quote from Timoti Harris: 'Steps will naturally exclude some, a ramp allows all to enter'.  Again I have started to look at our space with a new lens and will continue to observe throughout the first few weeks of this term.
• Sensitivity to sensory needs - it was great to be reminded of this as I feel that I have become accustomed to the background noise in the hubs.  For some learners, this is a major distraction so how can we use the space more effectively to support them with their learning?  It also made me more mindful of the learners that use the noise to slip into the background.  Are there ways that I can connect with these learners in a way that enables them to feel comfortable but also makes me more aware of their needs when teaching?

This final quote from the presentation really stuck out for me - 'Nothing for me without me.'  I do centre my practice around using student voice however as I was putting the tables and chairs back into the spaces that they sat for Term One, I had to walk away.  This notion is key as I am not the only individual in the space and our learners needs to feel that they have a voice in the design of their space.  So instead of finishing the task, I just made sure things were back in an orderly fashion where we could use some time next week to look at the design and see if we can improve on anything for Term Two.  I am looking forward to the learners' input and feedback as I know they will have some great insight into how they want this to look like!

After the keynote, Latai and I were able to share with a group about our journeys so far as beginning teachers in an ILE.  This was the 2.0 version of a presentation we gave last year at the University of Auckland We asked the group to share with us the reasons why they chose to attend our session and it was a mix of those who were also new to teaching or those who had or were transitioning into an ILE setting.  Feedback from the previous year was that people appreciated the stories that teachers told about real life situations so one of the main activities we ran was giving groups scenarios that they discussed and brought back to the wider group to share.  These scenarios were examples from our first year and after everyone shared, we gave our insights based on our experiences.

I was grateful for the opportunity to present as I do need the practice of public speaking however co presenting takes a bit of the nerves away and this was a good example of how hub teams work together to complement each others' abilities as well as the generating and sharing of collective insights.  

Term One Reflection and Next Steps for Term Two

Something that I have noticed Ashley do really well is reflect on each term using the voice from her students to help her take stock of her teaching practice and help inform her next steps.  It was something that I wanted to put into practice for this year, especially with my dissertation focusing on the use of feedback.

This term I chose to do this with both my reading and numeracy groups as my writing groups will be focused on next term with my dissertation intervention.  With each group, I asked the following questions:

• How had they enjoyed the learning this term?  Learners could rank this on a likert scale from 1 to 3.
• What did they enjoy during the term?  This is free text where learners could give me some insight into what they enjoyed in the particular learning area.
• What did they find challenging this term? Again free text response to help me understand if I need to clarify or revisit some areas.
• What can I help each learner with in Term 2?  Hopefully getting some voice from the learners on areas that they felt they needed assistance from myself on.

Learners were given time to reflect through the term using both their progressions and modelling books and then could respond via a Google Form that I had set up for each group.

READING

I have really enjoyed the term with my reading groups.  We have managed to click as a wider group and each group has formed a close bond even with learners moving in and out of groups based on their current reading level.  In regards to levels, 85% of the group have moved at least one reading level and I am now looking at how I bridge some learners from the end of Year 3 standard into the beginning of Year 4 standards.

In relation to engagement, this graph shows that 74% of the group scored 3 meaning that they have enjoyed reading a lot this term.

From the responses, I seem to be hitting the mark with the texts I am selecting and the follow ups that I am creating however I was more excited to read some of the comments with what the learners were finding challenging or required assistance with next term.  A lot of the learners are developing their awareness as readers and I had noticed a trend with them that our word attack strategies were an area that we needed to develop further so this is a great goal for Term 2 to achieve with the learners.  I also need to look at how I am modelling and giving instructions with the follow ups as a lot of learners remarked that they were finding these difficult.

NUMERACY

It was interesting to compare the responses from my numeracy learners.  In regards to engagement, the number of learners that enjoyed it is sitting around 60%.  As the learners are at a similar stage, I had been doing a lot of whole group teaching and running opt in workshops for those learners who wanted further assistance and my gut is telling me that this approach may not be hitting the mark with some of my group.  What I have decided to do for Term Two is create numeracy groups and I will work with these groups based on their needs.  While this may require more planning time, I should be able to focus the time with each group better.

I felt that the responses from this group have really allowed me to see where I need to focus on the learning for next term.  We are all moving into Stage 5 number knowledge and continuing to develop our multiplication and division strategies.  I found it interesting that both Kahoot and Prodigy (read Chelsea's blogpost on it) had got a few mentions seeing how I had only introduced both to the group in Week 8.  I have shared Prodigy with families as a way for the learners to practice their maths skills at home so great to see that the engagement with this tool at home.

CONCEPT

I am starting to investigate our Term Two concept of "being our best self" by looking at the school's wellbeing progressions - we are meeting next week for our planning days but I am excited to be delving into this part of the curriculum.  Stay tuned for an update on both this and how I am going to be planning for my writing groups.

Term One Inquiry

Today we had to present our Term One inquiry to the wider staff.  This was introduced to us as a "sprint inquiry" which seemed a bit daunting at first however in reflection, this was a good exercise to really analyse our impact on our learners.

Hub Whenua chose to analyse the impact of experience in relation to learner's success, achievement and engagement in writing.

The group of learners that I have been working with are currently operating at below national standard or have expressed that they either do not enjoy writing or feel they lack ability when it comes to planning and crafting.  This meant that I had to really dial up the celebration of success both at school and at home.

Here are some of their artefacts from the experiences:

Play Dough Recounts:

Oobleck Recounts:

While there has been a positive shift in engagement and success, we have yet to measure achievement through assessment, however, I do feel that this will also be similar shift when we do examine this. This experience has really challenged me in how I am currently structuring my writing programme and I will add more elements of oral literacy and experience based learning into my writing plans for Term Two.

Here is the full inquiry document from today's session:

Know Thyself Before Know Thy Learner.

Working in a hub means that you need to get to know your colleagues pretty quickly in order to establish team norms to get the systems and processes running for the design of learning.

A focus of our teacher only days this year was that of collaboration as all the hub teams this year are new, therefore it is imperative for us to get to know each other both professionally and personally before we enter the hubs and begin interacting with our learners.  Part of the collaboration activity was to determine our current personality type and we had to answer a range of questions to establish this.  I came out with the ISFJ or "The Defender" personality type as did both the other members of my hub team.

After determining our personality types, we shared with each other and had to do a SWOT Analysis for our team and think about how this might impact on both our relationships with each other and the learners as well as our design of learning.  This was a pretty powerful activity as it got me thinking about some of my personal goals for the year and how I may accomplish these.

One of the opportunities for development of the ISFJ is that we can be reluctant to change and reflecting on last year, I think that this is something I should remain mindful of as I begin to plan for 2017.  Just because something has worked in the past does not guarantee repeated success and as I get to know my learners' needs, I will have to differentiate activities based on their skill levels.  Continuing to take risks with my planning and trying new things is a key focus of this year, especially as I am no longer in a full time team teaching position in the hub.

With teaching and my dissertation, I do have to realise that it will be another busy year meaning that I need to continue with the disciplined thought and disciplined action.  I will be at school five days a week now (no more MDTA Fridays) and am more involved with extracurricular activities throughout the year so remembering to be open with how I am communicating and my workload commitments will be paramount to my success.  A key trait of the ISFJ personality trait is ensuring that others needs are met, however, as my colleague Latai tells me: "You can't pour from an empty cup" so I also will be mindful of my own wellbeing.

I will share these goals in a later post, however, thought the concept of knowing yourself first is key to how you plan to set up your classroom, relationships and routines for the school year.  I imagine that I will be reflecting on this post more as I get into the year so will look forward to seeing how I am tracking further in the term.

Here is a brief snapshot of what the ISFJ personality trait means.

Summer School Reflection: Affordances & Design of Learning

With one assignment down and two more to go, I felt that it would be more beneficial to comment on some aspects of the week that resonated with me as I move into preparation for the school year.  The timing of this course was pretty spot on as I move into my second year of teaching as it helped me reflect on some decisions I had made but more importantly challenge some aspects of my practice that I may have left to habit if I had not taken part in some of the activities.

AFFORDANCES:

As a group we took part in an activity where we listed all the potential ways in which we use technology in our programmes and what affordance the use of this technology has both on our students and our practice.  We were then asked to begin to classify some of these into groups.  What was interesting was the high percentage of affordances that we chose to classify as "creative" yet we found it difficult to come up with many affordances that help us with assessment or streamline any tasks within our practice.  I feel this speaks to how we are wanting to create exciting opportunities for our learners.  Something that I will be thinking about creating in my practice this year is looking to see how I can use some of these affordances to bridge the gap with assessment and can I use technology better to help build the capability of my students to gain confidence in not only recognising their own assessment data, but how we can use this together to identify ways in which we can address gaps in knowledge and work towards those goals.

We spent the afternoon exploring the below diagram, based on the work of Cope and Kalantzis (2015).

A lot of the terminology resonated with the goals of the cluster so it was great to get another perspective.  Again this has me reflecting on ensuring that my students have ways in which they each feel confident in approaching their learning.  While the technology is the platform, it is not the centre of focus for our learning and as new forms of affordances become available, it is key to remember that the learning itself is not in the device.

DESIGN OF LEARNING:

We also looked at some different theories behind the design of learning and some of the points really hit home with how I have currently been designing learning for my students.  We investigated the SAMR model which was something I had studied at university however looking at it again after having taught for a year really helped open my eyes to some truths.

I found myself reflecting on how I am tend to bring technology into the classroom as a form of substitution (ie, using Google Docs as a form of collaboration when kids can use pen and paper). Part of this I have attributed to myself learning the various ways in which particular technology works and now that I have that base understanding, I feel that I am more confident to start to investigate on how I can use technology to either augment, modify and/or redefine my design of learning with my students' needs in mind.

SO WHAT NEXT?

I still have two more assignments to complete for Summer School in which I need to explore other blogs to see how I will use the affordance of blogging and information sharing to enhance my own practice.  The final assignment has us looking at how we have been using technology (for example, Google Sites) and if there is anything we would amend or update based on the learning we have had this week.  I will update you in a few months on how these assignments help influence my thinking as Term One approaches.

First Year Reflection

Todays session was about reflecting on the year and how I have grown not only in the pedagogy of "Learn, Create, Share" but also in my own practice as a first year teacher.

I chose to go back and watch my mid year reflection and felt that I was somewhat robotic and not reflective of my true self in that first video so aimed to make sure that my personality came through in this presentation.

Watching through this one, I had to smile at myself at the amount of times I used the word "amazing" (still better than awesome!).

I am looking forward to moving into next year - I have a great foundation year to base my practice on and feel more confident to keep exploring the pedagogy with my new cohort of learners.

Impact Stories

Today I got to share this impact story at our school's Professional Development session where all the staff got to share their Teaching as Inquiry goals and the impact that the inquiry had on our learners.

As a PRT, I do not have a teaching as inquiry goal as I am currently doing a professional goal each term so I shared my Term 3 goal where I investigated the "Learn, Create, Share" pedagogy over different learning areas.

I chose to share this as a personal narrative as I had alluded to my reluctance as a writer when I was the same age as my learners and some strategies we had used throughout the year to help motivate and help learners shift in their writing.

I also decided to have a bit of fun with the presentation and tried out my love for Stopmotion to help illustrate the story from a different perspective.

PLG - Coding To Game

In today's session, we got the opportunity to code.  I am a complete novice to coding - I have heard a lot about coding and the opportunities to bring those skills into the classroom.

We got an Hour of Code where we were able to code in order to create a simple game.  There were two options - a beginners version which allows users to link games similar to Lego blocks and a version that uses Javascript (similar to HTML).  Choosing to stick with the first option, I was able to create a simple game similar to Flappy Birds.  Check it out here:

The discussions that supported this week's PLG is how the skills involved in coding may be valuable for our future-focused learners.  

I have made links with coding with both numeracy and literacy skills.  Using coding to make links with planning for writing is a standout for me - I have learners who struggle with this part of the process so for them to walk through steps in order to create a game would really be insightful so watch this space!

Ten Weeks...

As I sit here, going through my plans for next week, I had to stop and think that I only have ten weeks remaining my first year as a teacher.  I remember people telling me at the beginning of the year that it was going go quick and man, it has flown!

This upcoming term is again promising to be a busy one with reporting, end of year preparations and ensuring that the kids are feeling empowered and confident for the upcoming year.  It is also a time of trepidation as I begin to think about what next year may bring.

However I need to focus on the term ahead.  Stopping this afternoon, I realised that I had gotten caught up in the routines of the school day and I was feeling a bit flat and some of the fun that I wanted to bring to my lessons everyday had been missing.  That is a challenge that I have set myself for Term 4 - to have fun with my teaching and take risks.  I had done this in the last two weeks of Term 3 when my mentor was sick - I did things that I may have been somewhat apprehensive to have tried earlier.  Where did this apprehension come from?  Was it a lack of confidence in my own practice?  Was it me having a better understanding of my learners and their capabilities?  Or was it the perception of my lessons by my colleagues?  All good points to ponder on but not dwell on.

This term's goal is about growing the assessment capability of the kids by sharing assessment data, collaborating with them on success criteria and plotting out next steps and using the appropriate tools to help stretch their learning.  This goal makes sense to me given the focus on reporting and making OTJs for end of year.  It also feels right for the kids to start looking at our tools in more detail now that they have had two terms to learn how to operate the systems.

As a cohort, we have been challenged with making more links between curriculum areas and this is something that I feel will be a constant goal as I progress in my practice.  However if I am to take risks this term, what better way to experiment with these connections and see what impacts this may have on both my practice and my learners!

Stay tuned - I have made it another mini challenge to try and blog more regularly.  I admire people like Ashley and Georgia who do this so deftly!

Film Festival Reflection

I am almost finished with my film festival entry - it has been a great chance to do some different learning with the kids as well reflect on some of my teaching practice!  Unfortunately I will not be able to show you the finished result until it airs at the Manaiakalani Film Festival in November as it is meant to be a surprise for the learners to see a film they helped create and starred in debut on the big screen!

Today we came together to spend the day editing and bounce ideas off each other in relation to our films progress so far.  It was great to see such a diverse range of films and I was really impressed with everyone's ideas and skills with filming and the editing.  We were able to share what we had completed so far and get feedback from the cohort.

I spent most of the day shearing time off my footage which was originally around 20 minutes with the goal to get it under three minutes.  This took a lot of watching and then rewinding, however, I made links with an earlier discussion we had in the morning about rewindable learning.

The concept of rewindable learning is something that we have learned about a lot this year but having to use it myself today to better apply understanding to my growing iMovie skills - I can see the benefit in using in more so in my practice.  I have already started this week to make the use of video more as a resource in my design of learning and have had some success with some workshops we are currently running in our learning space.

By having resources available in a format that learners can rewatch, pause or skip ahead, this allows great agency of how the learner is managing their learning and allows them to become less reliant on instruction.  I also found that learners used these resources to come and have more critical conversations with me when conferencing.  I was hearing a lot of "Why would they say this?" and "What does this mean?" and we were able to use the videos to plan out our next steps.

So what does that mean?  If the design of learning requires it, then I shall be using more videos.  And more authentic ones at that where either I am creating the content for my learners or they are helping me co-construct them.

That brings in a nice segue with my film festival entry - it is a follow on from a video I helped a group create for our recent Break Through Exhibition where we created an educational video for learners.  We wanted to have a bit of fun with the topic and this is how the idea was created.

Reflections:

• It was quite clear to manage the balance between how much of my voice was going into the film compared to that of the kids.  I had to step back a few times as I did feel that I was telling more than instructing.
• I had to take the kids on the journey of film-making - it was an interesting conversation to have with many of them about why we would take multiple shots when they were happy when we did one.
• I really noticed that I need to work on my instruction giving.  At first, I was giving multiple instructions and the kids were getting lost after the second one and because they started off well, I stopped checking for understanding quickly into shooting.  Once things went off track a bit, I realised that I needed to make sure everyone was comfortable with the next scene.
• I actually forgot to have fun at one stage as I was caught up in the filming and directing of the video.
• Finally I lowered my expectations - I know that I am not Steven Speilburg or Peter Jackson and the kids are not actors getting paid for their skills.  The main thing was that the kids were enjoying themselves and communicating the story that they had created.

At the end of the day, I am really impressed with how the kids were able to learn skills such as storyboarding and use their dramatic skills to create a piece of learning that we all feel proud to share with the wider community come Term Four!

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 - Sketchnoting

Today's PLG had us looking at sketchnoting.  For anyone like myself who is hearing this term for the first time, sketchnoting is a process when you create a personal visual story as you either listen to a speaker or read a text.

There are a number of apps that can help you with this process such as flipink (free), Paper by 53 (free) or if you feel like an expert, you can try Procreate  ($8.99 for the purchase of the app).  The cohort spent time looking into this after Dorothy shared her own experience with the process.

The implications for using this process in the design of learning are many - to begin with, this may be a great strategy for learners who process information visually to make meaning of the learning they are engaging with.  Sketchnoting also has a great connection with literacy and how learners can use visualising strategies to help them build confidence in that skill.

As always, the cohort were charged with giving sketchnoting a go with a lot of us downloading the apps and quickly getting into the process.  I have kept it old school with drawing it in a notebook but I will see if I can replicate some of my learning over onto one of the apps.  I chose to articulate my current professional goal for Term 3 so would be keen to see if people who follow this blog are able to decipher this - please feel free to comment below!

I am the first who would not call myself an artist so am keen to try this process further to help build my confidence in my art skills and I feel that it will help me with my university readings.

For those who are keen to try this out, I feel Georgia has summed it up perfectly with her sketchnote below!

PLG - Reflection and Looking Ahead

Today we were given the opportunity to look back at our first six months and reflect on the time. The task was to look at where had I come from, where am I currently sitting and where am I looking ahead for the remainder of the year.

To begin with, I thought about where I was at the end of last year:

• I was very aware of my pedagogical content knowledge (or self-perceived lack of) and was conscious to ask questions whenever possible.
• I had little exposure to a MLE/ILE - I spent some time in Term 4 observing at Stonefields but still did not understand the principles of how the hub actually worked.
• What worked in my favour was that I did understand the principles of collaboration (from work experience) and felt confident enough to discuss and adopt into my teaching practice.
• The use of the technology - I was amazed by how adept the learners were with their progressions and how they used the tools to support their learning - a lot of my questions were about how we as teachers were able to create and nurture this awareness.
• An assumption that teaching is more on the learning in a high decile school rather than behaviour management.

Where am I currently?

I am reminding myself that this is my first year and that the management of my energy is key to maintaining elements such as passion and resilience in my teaching practice.  I am consistently being mindful of this.

I need to stop myself sometimes and reassess - I am my own worst critic so I was saying things like “I don’t feel that I have done much” however when I stopped to take stock - I have actually achieved a lot.  Another thing that I have stopped doing is comparing my experience to that of other beginning teachers.  The jumps I have made with both the use of the school systems and learning process has really helped me to develop strong relationships with both my learners and colleagues and I feel more confident coming into the back half of the year to take risks with the design of learning.

I have developed a strong relationship with my mentor teacher especially with the team teaching now and feel more confident discussing my practice with her as she can see it in action more when we are teaching.

We were asked to share a highlight of the term with our cohort - for me, I shared a couple of different areas which I had worked hard on developing. The work I am doing with my top reading group in evaluating texts with the use of Google Forms is really helping me map progress and shift in their critical thinking skills and giving more insight into other aspects of their literacy abilities. I also shared some of my own creative aspects in teaching numeracy through art.

What are the next steps for me?

• Energy management - it is going to be a busy term with everything so making sure I am looking after myself first.
• To get out into the other parts of the school to observe - majority of my observations have been in our cross hub team.
• Continue to work on the consistent firm but fair mantra - the kids have such keen senses of justice and this often can be the tipping point in relationships.
• There are relationships with some families that need to be built up for the last half of the year - again the constant and consistent messaging needs to be applied here.
• Dial up the active reflection while in practice - I am doing this however not documenting as much and am conscious that this are key nuggets that I need to take into my future practice. Is there a way I can adopt some of the digital affordances in my own practice?
• Continue to challenge and find the “why” in everything I design and engage with my learners.