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!

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.

Google Forms are Choice!

I am a big fan of using Google Forms in my practice.  It is a great way to capture voice, check for understanding and gain feedback on lessons.

However when I did my Level 2, I learned about how you can maximise the element of choice in your forms.  Prior to this, I had created forms that took learners through a series of questions from start to finish.  However now I can add sections to a form and have learners go to different parts based on responses that they give.

This has helped me support learners who may struggle with a concept so rather than just have them answer "no" or "I don't know" to a question, I can now take them to a different part of the form where I can ask specific questions to help me gain further understanding of what I might need to assist them in their learning.  I also learned how to add videos to help learners build their knowledge of concepts before answering questions.

I have updated a lot of the current Google Forms that I use with my groups and now really enjoy seeing how learners are making choices and decisions and then justifying these decisions.  Here are some examples of how I have updated these forms.

Reading:

I have been getting the groups to evaluate their texts this year by rating it on a likert scale, however this term I chose to change it up and allow learners the chance to give a more definitive answer which is closely followed by the chance for them to justify their decision based on their response.

Numeracy:

I am revisiting a lot of the Early Stage Five Addition and Subtraction strategies with my groups so have been giving them some activities and videos to help me gauge their understanding before moving onto the Stage Five equivalent strategy.  This helps me to structure the learning based on which learners are feeling about the current learning.

Writing:

Similar with my numeracy groups, I am trying to do some refresher workshops with my writers on how we refine (edit) our writing.  This also gives me the chance to see what learners need assistance with their current skill sets or spot opportunities for future workshops or sessions.

To sum it up, I think my title of the blog post hits home - I do find using Google Forms a key part of my practice and am looking how I can continue to challenge my skills in this area.  Stay tuned for future updates!

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!

Exploring New Ways for Publishing

This term, we have been exploring how to write information reports that links in our learning about the forest.  Most of the writers I work with have not had much exposure to report writing so I thought if we started with looking at the structure of a paragraph would be a great start.

An opportunity that I wanted to explore with the group was thinking about both the purpose of their writing as well as their audience.  We decided that we wanted to create information for visitors to our school and this got me thinking, how would we be able to share these with others as well as demonstrate our skill in writing paragraphs.

Looking at some of the senior hubs blogs, I noticed that they had been using an app called Thinglink that allows you to turn images into interactive graphics.  With this in mind, I chose to model an example first to see what the response from the kids were:

There was a buzz of excitement when I showed the kids this and lots of questions about where I had
chosen to place my paragraphs and then I noticed, that they were reading the paragraphs and giving me feedback.  With this goal in mind, everyone set off to create a Thinglink of their own.

When it came time to take their photos, I saw a great deal of care from the kids to make sure that the image not only suited their writing but also demonstrated empathy for their audience by considering what message they wanted to portray.  These are kids who normally can't wait to be finished with a piece of writing however they were analysing their photos and retaking after having conversations with one another.

Check out their finished pieces on our hub blog:

The Power of Padlet!

I have used Padlet as an information collection tool in my practice - mainly for me to capture voice from the learners and use it as a visual brainstorm.

This week I went and observed one of my colleagues, Mel, who teaches in one of our Year 4/5/6 hubs. My observation focus was how she teaches Year 4 literacy as I now have learners who are accessing this area of the curriculum.  One thing I noticed and liked was how Mel used her modelling books as an interactive tool with her learners, enabling two way communication between herself and her learners.

Reflecting on this, I really wanted to see how I could try something similar with my literacy groups so I thought about how Padlet may allow now only me to see how the kids are engaging with their learning but also with each other.

This week, I reintroduced the idea of quad blogging to my reading groups as they seem now more interested in engaging with other blogs.  We discussed why we had a hub blog and I let the kids write their thoughts down on this padlet.

There was an instant buzz in the air as everyone started to write their ideas down however the really cool thing was when they noticed that they could read each others ideas.  Questions sprung up straight away to one another about why they would write that or noticed similarities or differences in their comments.

With this initial excitement, I have decided to incorporate Padlet into the Build Knowledge element of my reading programme where learners can write their predictions down in a Padlet and we will use this as the springboard into our guided reading sessions.  I was conscious that I may need to give the groups time to experiment more with Padlet so was glad to read this blog post from Troy on allowing sandpit time with new apps, with a focus on Padlet.

Looking forward to seeing how this encourages collaboration between learners!

How to teach spelling like a pirate?

Roll on Term 3 and Hub Whenua are already into assessments with our mid year snapshot of learners spelling ability.

The learners who I am supporting with their writing have come such a long way with their spelling as detailed in this graph where I compared their result at the beginning of the year to what they were able to achieve this week.

This success has come from the learners being determined, fantastic support from whanau and the inclusion of spelling into my practice each week.  However while these results are fantastic, I am not seeing the transition of this confidence with vocabulary when the learners are crafting their writing.

This has got me thinking about how I can redefine the spelling component of my practice.  How can I turn something that has the potential to become 'boring' and 'repetitive' into something that learners want to engage with and can make links with while writing.

I am currently reading "Teach Like A Pirate" by Dave Burgess and one of the first areas of passion that he writes about is content.  While I consider myself to be a confident speller, I really need to up my game with knowledge to be able to confidently pass these skills onto learners.  I am fortunate to have worked with our PE specialist Rachel and she has introduced me to activities to help develop confidence with spelling but I feel that I need to continue to explore this area too so I have a kete of resources to use.

Stay tuned - this pirates spelling ship is just setting sail!  Always grateful for ideas or insight into others spelling programmes.

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.

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 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:

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.

Year 2 - 2017 - It has started...

When the alarm clock went off this morning, I will admit that I looked at it in disbelief as we started our week long EDCURRIC 720 course.  This paper is focusing on digital pedagogy and how we will incorporate this into our practice not only for the upcoming year but further in our practice.

To begin with, our cohort was asked to reflect on our first year and shared an insight from this time.  Have a look at what the team came up with:

We were set with the task to present an activity based on one of nine readings that we are to complete for the course.  I chose a reading that looked at the role of minimal guidance and some of the thoughts behind whether this is beneficial in inquiry based learning.  I chose to run a few different tasks to help the group see what insights I had gained from the reading.

After our presentations, we looked into learning theories to help us build the foundation for the remainder of the week.  After the shock of having to rely on an alarm clock again, I am grateful for the combination of running the activity and building my knowledge of learning theories as I am feeling that this week is really going to kickstart my practice this year.  Stay tuned for some more instalments from this week!

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.

PLG - Visible Teaching and Learning

Today's PLG was an insightful one as it challenged my thinking as a teacher.  When designing learning, am I creating experiences that will inspire and empower my learners or am I tailoring these lessons for a style of learning which mirrors my own?  Interesting to stop and ponder on this as I feel that I am defaulting to the latter subconsciously.

The focus of today's session was to help us understand further on how visible teaching and learning could help accelerate shift.

We were fortunate to watch a short video from Chrissie Butler from Core Education where she spoke about the Universal Design for Learning and this stuck home with me.  Was I limiting my learners ability to learn by only offering them a choice of two to three resources and if I were to create more multimodal learning opportunities, how would this impact on my learners?

I particular enjoyed this next slide as it helped give me more awareness and confidence to use more resources when designing learning.

By recognising the use of texts in these different formats, I could then support learners better by offering them a choice of how they would prefer to engage with the topics.  Please note, where you see the word "text", this does not mean an actual book - it may mean a video, an audio file or an article online.

The remainder of the day was left to us to use some of this knowledge to help develop some tools that we could use for the remainder of the year or next year in some cases (check out Georgia's post about her plans for next year!).

I chose to look at some elements to my literacy programme that could open up links to other curriculum areas which again is something to aspire to.  We are focusing on reading picture books to our learners at the moment to develop their discussion skills and I was very keen to read them some stories that I read when I was their age.  I did stop here for a moment and thought about whether I was defaulting to a learning style that I enjoyed however thought that this could be the springboard to some different elements.  Here is the initial brainstorm:

Next steps is to discuss this brainstorm with my mentor and look at creating some different resources based on the feedback from that conversation.  Stay tuned for an update on how this may look - I'm pretty excited!

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!

PLG - Ignite Talk with Keynote

Today we were able to build on our knowledge of Keynote to both create and present an ignite talk.  I had seen these presentations in life at the recent Manaiakalani Hui and had marvelled at how deftly the presenters were able to get through their presentations so confidently.

An ignite talk is where you are given five minutes to present 20 slides (each 15 seconds long).  The presentation automatically runs through so you have no control on when it may change, ensuring that you are prepared and can deal with with the sudden change of slide.

We each got to randomly draw a topic to present - there were a series of readings and our presentation was to help the cohort understand the reading without having to read it.  My reading was if we should use Pokemon Go as an educational tool in the classroom.  This was quite interesting as it was something that a) I had prior knowledge of and b) had already brought into the classroom for both literacy and numeracy.  So I was able to draw on some of my own experiences towards the end of the presentation.

While I have no problems presenting to others, I did find it challenging to find what content needed to be displayed on each slide and I think this is an art within itself.  Pictures do speak louder than words so it is key to have strong and easy to understand imagery to help support your message rather than detract from it.

Unfortunately I am having a few technical issues at the moment and I cannot load up my keynote so will work on this over the next few days and see if I can share it.