Closing The Door - My Hunch

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

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

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

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

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

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

2018 - New Year, New Me?

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

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

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

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

Perceptions of Progress

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

NUMERACY:

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

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

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

READING:

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

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

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

Gold 21 and 22 Groups:

Silver 23 and 24 Groups:

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

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

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!

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.

Meet My Guardian Group - Agents Of Their Own Learning!

I wrote an earlier post about getting to know myself before knowing my learners so I thought I would introduce you to my Guardian Group.

While not your standard photo, this does sum up some of the personalities of these kids.  In the hub with 70 learners, I am responsible for the roll and pastoral care of this group of learners.  When I came into this year, I reflected on my interaction with my last year's Guardian Group (that I shared with my mentor teacher) and felt that our time together was quite transactional and dedicated solely to the taking of the roll and the dissemination of information.

So coming into 2017, I really wanted to dial up the relationships with my Guardian Group.  A noticing that the hub team had with all our learners early in the year was that they needed some time after lunch to come down from the excitement of break time so we came up with "Relax and Refresh" - a 15 minute period after the roll where they could prepare for the afternoon block of learning.

Wanting their voice into how to best utilise this time, we discussed different ways that we could continue our learning and after a couple of days, this is what they came up with!

Looking at the activities they came up with, there is a great balance of the initial intention of providing them a chance to relax and recharge, but what I enjoyed seeing more was that some of the activities gives us opportunities to develop our skills of collaboration and finding out more about one another.

I got a great insight into the nature of these kids last week when I shared with them this article.  We discussed the article and how this idea linked in with our Break Through learning (learning spawned from an insight or our passions) and then we spoke about the money.  I innocently asked the question about what they would do if they were offered the $44 million.  The majority of the group spoke about how money does not equal happiness and how aspects such as family and health were important.  I was blown away by the humble nature of their responses and know that by doing future activities like the ones we have planned out, that I will get further insights into how to engage with these learners.

I tell the kids that these 15 minutes are one of my favourite times of the school day and I am looking forward to building further agency with these learners for the remainder of the year.

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.  

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.

Stop, Collaborate and Listen...

You may ask why am I starting this post with the lyrics from a one hit wonder created by Robert Matthew Van Winkle in 1990.  In response, I would mention that these three actions were a huge focus for last week as I came into school to prepare for the first week of term.

Trepidation is a word which I do not use enough, however, that was the emotion fuelling me for majority of the week.  The beginning of the week was spent engaging with my hub team as we prepared the learning spaces and began to work out schedules, numeracy and literacy groups and general housekeeping for the term.  I am fortunate to be working with four other experienced teachers in the hub and this has helped me feel more comfortable as a beginning teacher as they are extremely patient and helpful with all my questions so far.  Arranging the space is somewhat of a blank canvas at this stage as both it and us as teachers need to be reactive to the needs of the learners so there will be a large amount of observation this year.  These two days also gave me great insight into my team and how we work both as individuals and collectively - I am one of those type personalities who enjoys collaboration and the bringing together of different perspectives.


This is a great sedge way into the beginning of the "Teachers Only Days" which kicked off on Wednesday.  We were very fortunate to have Nicky Benson come and facilitate a workshop on building Resilience.  This is where the "stop" part of the title comes in as the main focus from the workshop was building the self awareness so we could focus on managing our own energy - finding those activities, be it physical, emotional, mental or spiritual and using these to refuel our tanks.  We also did some work with communication styles and how this can influence the way in which we interact with others and how to build this awareness into daily life.

The afternoon session moved into collaboration which bled over to Thursday with an Amazing Race event.  I found this a great way to bond and connect with people I have had yet to meet or interact with.  Our locations had us doing challenges around various Auckland landmarks before heading to Ngā Wai o Horotiu Marae where we were welcomed onto the marae and this was our base of operations for the remainder of the day.

We were again fortunate to have another presenter come and present to us - Ann Milne from Kia Aroha College in Otara - where she presented "Leading and Learning in White Spaces: Critical Pedagogy of Whānau", where she showed us the journey of her school and challenged us on our perspective of what does success "as Maori" look like.  I found this presentation very thought provoking and have a lot more that I want to unpack in this space.

After a bit of down time (the Amazing Race had challenged a few of us a bit too much), we were able to watch "Most Likely To Succeed".  The leadership team had chosen this documentary as a way for us to start to dig into one of the strategic goals of "What Learning Matters".  I personally recommend anyone who is working in the education field to watch this as it does make you think (it also made a few of us cry) about what does education really look like.  I particularly enjoyed it as it has given me the confidence to challenge some of the norms that I had perceived around teaching.  I have a feeling that reflecting through blogging will also help me start to articulate some of these challenges more and I look forward to this as I move forward.

After dinner, we practised some waiatas and it was great to see that all the staff members had held onto their energy as this was clear especially when there was a bit of competition on who could sing them better.  We have been challenged to sing at an upcoming assembly to show our community our talents.  Before retiring for the night, there was some reflection on what has challenged us over the last couple of days and I feel that as a whole, there is a real trust between the team as the reflections were very authentic.  It also allowed me to realise that I am fortunate to be part of a high performing team.

Friday morning arrived and after the comparisons of how much sleep you actually got or how many mosquitoes had feasted on you the previous night, we returned to school to finish the last of our professional learning where we got to analyse our graduate learner profiles to see if we are staying true to what really matters for our learners futures.  I do not think the leadership team intended for us to finish this, rather have it as an active challenge as we move into term one to really identify with how and what we are teaching and if it is staying true to the values of the school as well as the changing needs of our learners.

So how was I at the end of this week?  I was pretty tired - not physically (even with the lack of sleep of Thursday night), but more emotionally as some of the activities has challenged my current perception of how I will operate coming into the school year.