So much to reflect on! What a busy place our great school is. I really struggle to find time to get all the great things written down, due to all the amazing things we are doing.
I know our most important reflections are undertaken around our Inquiry, which this year is focused on improving student achievement in literacy and numeracy through improving teacher knowledge and application of assessment processes.
To be honest, it's been a constant struggle to be making big gains in target groups in three different areas of the curriculum, particularly with taking on the Accelerated Literacy Learning programme later in the year. This feels like added pressure I didn't need. My primary concern are my learners.... all of my learners and although I'm learning lots, it feels like a battle to be working so hard on a few learners and maintaining focus on the rest as well. Hopefully in the long term it will pay off.
I feel like I've had greater success in getting my numeracy programme working well earlier in the year and some of the things I think have made a difference include:
Making an effort to continually upskill myself by using some of the NZ maths modules, the Pearson teacher books around Fractions and Decimals, always looking for new games to support the kids and undertaking more analysis into our different assessments. I've gone back to using e-asttle now that our infrastructure is better supporting of this (internet is now amazing!) and it's been great to look at that data mid-year and use it to enhance planning. I've also been using the e-asttle 'What Next' and ARB as additional forms of assessment. What I'd like to do next for these learning areas is to have a goal set for the kids every week, which they know will be assessed at the week end in a snapshot, so they have a better idea of how they're tracking in achieving their goals. I'm also working on student toolkits to help them to understand concepts, videos that they can return to, watching repeatedly until their understanding is consolidated.
In literacy, I must admit I struggle to get consistent time with my reading target group kids as two of them are absent more often than I had realised originally. I have enjoyed using our silent reading time to work with the kids on quick reading workshops and hope to do this more consistently. The start to the term has been quite busy with build-up for our school Olympic Day, which has taken more time than I'd like to admit. This has certainly eaten into our literacy and numeracy time and I need to be more mindful of not allowing this to happen (though with Olympic speakers, Attitude speakers and Life Education I'm not sure how to go about this). It's a busy place with loads of great opportunities for our kids.
Meetings for ALL have helped to clarify what we are expected to do for this professional learning and I find myself seeking out lots of learning around the teaching of reading in order to continually upskill. For example, in the past two weeks I have found myself reading The Book Whisperer, Learning in the Fast Lane, Essential Literacy Practice and Sheena Cameron's Reading Handbook. If only there was more time for learning!
Two points of interest that I've come across include:
Ignition is important - how we start the reading session matters in terms of how engaged we will get our students (Learning in the Fast Lane)
Much of the comprehension follow-up work we do with our kids in reading actually turns them off reading... many kids just want to silent read and enjoy the simple joy of reading (The Book Whisperer). This one really spoke to me - as a reader! How can we help our kids to love reading? I wish I could sit down and read this book until I was done as I feel like I am failing the kids in not knowing where to start!
I'm so excited by much of the learning we're doing.... time is the challenge, as always.
Sunday 7 August 2016
Friday 10 June 2016
What, When, Where Next.... and How?
WWW
Whatever
Whenever
Wherever
Golden Circle
Why, How, What.... Simon Sinek
Getting this thinking out and visible in learning spaces at our school.
Essentialism
What is my most important role and the role that will contribute as much to our forward movement as effectively as possible?
What can I focus my attention on that will effect the most change?
Hypothesis:
Making the PL around e-learning as relevant to assessment for learning and school strategic direction as possible.
Whatever
Whenever
Wherever
Golden Circle
Why, How, What.... Simon Sinek
Getting this thinking out and visible in learning spaces at our school.
Essentialism
What is my most important role and the role that will contribute as much to our forward movement as effectively as possible?
What can I focus my attention on that will effect the most change?
Hypothesis:
Making the PL around e-learning as relevant to assessment for learning and school strategic direction as possible.
Connected Learning Advisory Professional Learning Day - Lytton
Supporting Teachers through Change
Presentation here
Link to collaborative notes here:
Learning is useful when it's:
Just in time
Observations and real life stories
Time for reflection and feedback
Link back to Universal Design for Learning:
1. Provide Multiple Means of Representation
2. Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression
3. Provide Multiple Means of Engagement
The Innovator's Mindset
Presentation here
Link to collaborative notes here:
Learning is useful when it's:
Just in time
Observations and real life stories
Time for reflection and feedback
Link back to Universal Design for Learning:
1. Provide Multiple Means of Representation
2. Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression
3. Provide Multiple Means of Engagement
The Innovator's Mindset
Tuesday 31 May 2016
Where to next?
31st May 2016 - Mindlab Graduation Celebration
Winter will be here tomorrow so this is a good checkpoint to stop and reflect. I'm celebrating the fact that I'm not studying at the moment and that I've thus had more time with my class and to concentrate on the kids' learning. I'm really enjoying the work I'm doing with my focus group kids at the moment, particularly in maths, as the kids are responding so well.
It was exciting to finish MindLab, having developed a different perspective, and be moving into yet another phase of our great profession. Learning and teaching is a challenging business to be in and I'm always growing as a result. Learning alongside some great teachers over the past year has given me different experiences and I feel grateful for all my learning.
Looking back on times like these I wonder where I'd like to head next.
I particularly enjoyed studying and stretching myself into new learning territory. I'm still interested in taking on a TeachNZ study award to try to go further with my learning. I'm really interested in Leadership and in Change Initiatives in particular. I had some interesting conversations with my ex-Principal, Nik House last week, when I visited him, and would love to continue to learn from him and his experiences. He had a lot of important information to share and I would be interested in how I could best utilise this knowledge over the course of our change toward modern learning environments at GisInt in the future. Collaborative teaching could be a great move for many of us.... AND will need significant scaffolding, support and inquiry learning processes to be in place in order for us to be successful.
He mentioned Michael Fullan, who writes on change leadership, so that will be an interesting next step.
Winter will be here tomorrow so this is a good checkpoint to stop and reflect. I'm celebrating the fact that I'm not studying at the moment and that I've thus had more time with my class and to concentrate on the kids' learning. I'm really enjoying the work I'm doing with my focus group kids at the moment, particularly in maths, as the kids are responding so well.
It was exciting to finish MindLab, having developed a different perspective, and be moving into yet another phase of our great profession. Learning and teaching is a challenging business to be in and I'm always growing as a result. Learning alongside some great teachers over the past year has given me different experiences and I feel grateful for all my learning.
Looking back on times like these I wonder where I'd like to head next.
I particularly enjoyed studying and stretching myself into new learning territory. I'm still interested in taking on a TeachNZ study award to try to go further with my learning. I'm really interested in Leadership and in Change Initiatives in particular. I had some interesting conversations with my ex-Principal, Nik House last week, when I visited him, and would love to continue to learn from him and his experiences. He had a lot of important information to share and I would be interested in how I could best utilise this knowledge over the course of our change toward modern learning environments at GisInt in the future. Collaborative teaching could be a great move for many of us.... AND will need significant scaffolding, support and inquiry learning processes to be in place in order for us to be successful.
He mentioned Michael Fullan, who writes on change leadership, so that will be an interesting next step.
Tuesday 17 May 2016
Flexible Learning Spaces and Learning Design
I've been continuing to look at Learner Agency as I'm evolving throughout this year. It's exciting being able to work with a great group of enthusiastic learners this year but I'm still struggling to nail down the "how" of undertaking the Learner Agency learning in our environment and to be honest I'm struggling particularly this how to be progressive when we are continually pulled back and reigned in by all the necessary deliberate acts of teaching and assessment that comes with a classroom. At least unpacking our assessments (where possible) help to increase the agency in the classroom.
I've just been watching some amazing Core education Enabling e-Learning clips that have got me thinking and enthusiastic again, though still not sure if the "how" of Innovative Learning Environments is made explicit.
There's potential for us to move towards ILE's next year and this will be an interesting challenge for many of us. I wonder what kind of learning we might need to do in order to be ready to move towards this with confidence. I have the benefit of working closely with two of our ILE teachers and I know for them, there have been countless facets that have challenged them beyond what they thought the roles would bring. Not insurmountable challenges, but challenges just the same. There is also a lot of groundwork necessary in terms of the leadership throughout these change initiatives in order to teachers engaging in this huge Inquiry learning process to be adequately supported to do what Inquiry Learning requires by design - to fail. We must feel safe to fail and to fail miserably. To be trusted with the responsibility of identifying our most pressing need and the necessary future progressions in this process and to be able to fall over, reflect, stand up, re-plan, practice, trial and fail again. Our success comes in what we learn. It is not success to check all the boxes of a traditional classroom as that is not the future model in an ILE. The measure of success in these situations, I feel, is to begin to develop learners who are conscious of their role in the learning, developing the capacity to monitor and manage their own learning and to fail in the process so as to learn. For if we are not letting out teachers fail and model failure and the resilience to continue, how are they able to demonstrate this, practice and perfect it with their learners?
There's potential for us to move towards ILE's next year and this will be an interesting challenge for many of us. I wonder what kind of learning we might need to do in order to be ready to move towards this with confidence. I have the benefit of working closely with two of our ILE teachers and I know for them, there have been countless facets that have challenged them beyond what they thought the roles would bring. Not insurmountable challenges, but challenges just the same. There is also a lot of groundwork necessary in terms of the leadership throughout these change initiatives in order to teachers engaging in this huge Inquiry learning process to be adequately supported to do what Inquiry Learning requires by design - to fail. We must feel safe to fail and to fail miserably. To be trusted with the responsibility of identifying our most pressing need and the necessary future progressions in this process and to be able to fall over, reflect, stand up, re-plan, practice, trial and fail again. Our success comes in what we learn. It is not success to check all the boxes of a traditional classroom as that is not the future model in an ILE. The measure of success in these situations, I feel, is to begin to develop learners who are conscious of their role in the learning, developing the capacity to monitor and manage their own learning and to fail in the process so as to learn. For if we are not letting out teachers fail and model failure and the resilience to continue, how are they able to demonstrate this, practice and perfect it with their learners?
Monday 4 April 2016
Reflecting on Reflection
Over the past year I've undertaken a wide range of new or continued learning, including Mind Lab, TeachXpo, Google Summit and Joan Dalton Learning Talks workshops. A central theme throughout them all - as well as running strong throughout our school-wide expectations and teaching practices is the idea of Reflection.
When I encountered this concept again through the MindLab, I began to unpack what Reflection really meant for me and to attempt to determine a process that I could undertake in order to be critically reflective of myself, my practice, our classroom and the process that I undertaken in order to self-assess where I'm am, how I feel about my role as an educator and attempt to determine my future direction.
One article that's really stuck with me throughout this learning has been Finlay's (2009) Reflecting on Reflective Practice. See link here
Reflection, as we're asked to undertake it, can be such a tedious process. With a directive to reflect, a process to follow and questions to cover, any attempt at joy could be utterly removed from what can also be a wonderful experience.
Like yoga, the poses (questions) that are the hardest to hold our attention on are sometimes the most important. Joan Dalton says the challenging conversations should be known as important ones. Likewise, the challenging questions we really need to ask ourselves are the important ones too.
Questions for me like:
What evidence do I have that I am not discriminating against any students in our classroom, that in fact I AM providing equal opportunities, equal support and equal relational time for each of our learners?
Questions like, how is my planning best enhanced in order to accurately target learning needs and ensure completion, coverage and deliberate acts of teaching? And am I reflecting on whether or not I made a difference? What evidence do I have of that?
To be honest, my brain boggles when I begin to reflect, because the longer I remain in teaching (ten years and counting, last month), the more I realise I don't know. The more I realise that a 100 hour work week might (just MIGHT) be enough to make a difference. But that a 60 or even 70 hour week often doesn't seem enough and does leave me just short of a marble run without a marble.
What questions should I ask next?
When I encountered this concept again through the MindLab, I began to unpack what Reflection really meant for me and to attempt to determine a process that I could undertake in order to be critically reflective of myself, my practice, our classroom and the process that I undertaken in order to self-assess where I'm am, how I feel about my role as an educator and attempt to determine my future direction.
One article that's really stuck with me throughout this learning has been Finlay's (2009) Reflecting on Reflective Practice. See link here
Reflection, as we're asked to undertake it, can be such a tedious process. With a directive to reflect, a process to follow and questions to cover, any attempt at joy could be utterly removed from what can also be a wonderful experience.
Like yoga, the poses (questions) that are the hardest to hold our attention on are sometimes the most important. Joan Dalton says the challenging conversations should be known as important ones. Likewise, the challenging questions we really need to ask ourselves are the important ones too.
Questions for me like:
What evidence do I have that I am not discriminating against any students in our classroom, that in fact I AM providing equal opportunities, equal support and equal relational time for each of our learners?
Questions like, how is my planning best enhanced in order to accurately target learning needs and ensure completion, coverage and deliberate acts of teaching? And am I reflecting on whether or not I made a difference? What evidence do I have of that?
To be honest, my brain boggles when I begin to reflect, because the longer I remain in teaching (ten years and counting, last month), the more I realise I don't know. The more I realise that a 100 hour work week might (just MIGHT) be enough to make a difference. But that a 60 or even 70 hour week often doesn't seem enough and does leave me just short of a marble run without a marble.
What questions should I ask next?
Wednesday 16 March 2016
Math Inquiry - Learner Agency?
One major question I've been asking myself is how do I build our learner's agentic practices while still covering all the content we need to and engaging our learners?
I've tried a number of approaches lately and feel like I need to nail it down to one or two. Today's experience left me feeling excited about the progress the kids have been making already. I took an old favourite - maintenance questions (!!!) and revamped this to be a problem challenge with a group focus.
Taking our name cards and placing students in groups (success - they form these mixed groups without complaint or excluding others) the kids worked their way through the questions posed here, to earn points. They were hugely motivated to improve and talked through their processes and answers with their collaborators. Ninety percent of the students were participating in the group effectively and this was evident in the learning demonstrated when the kids shared back at the end. Most of the groups got to the last question and many completed all the questions successfully. What was great about the questions was that the progression built on knowledge throughout - so in order to answer question two, question one had to be complete and correct. These were a great way of building on the kids IKAN gaps as well as exposing those who were working on place value and not fractions, to begin to move into fractions.
When sharing back, we talked about who was challenged by the questions, what they felt they'd learned and the feeling of success. Many of our more hesitant math learners were contributing in positive ways and demonstrating enthusiasm for math! Lightbulbs!
Taking our name cards and placing students in groups (success - they form these mixed groups without complaint or excluding others) the kids worked their way through the questions posed here, to earn points. They were hugely motivated to improve and talked through their processes and answers with their collaborators. Ninety percent of the students were participating in the group effectively and this was evident in the learning demonstrated when the kids shared back at the end. Most of the groups got to the last question and many completed all the questions successfully. What was great about the questions was that the progression built on knowledge throughout - so in order to answer question two, question one had to be complete and correct. These were a great way of building on the kids IKAN gaps as well as exposing those who were working on place value and not fractions, to begin to move into fractions.
When sharing back, we talked about who was challenged by the questions, what they felt they'd learned and the feeling of success. Many of our more hesitant math learners were contributing in positive ways and demonstrating enthusiasm for math! Lightbulbs!
Thursday 10 March 2016
Math and Learner Agency
Daily at the moment I am having these amazing math sessions with our learners.
Why is it amazing?
The kids are engaged, stretching themselves, seeking help and expressing their enthusiasm through their voices and faces. As they are enthusiastic and stretching themselves, we're able to see how they're learning, how they're challenging themselves and to have important learning conversations around how that's happening and the impact it's having on the whole class.
Why are they doing this?
I can only offer an opinion on this one but I feel like they're doing it because many of them have already come with a great foundation. On top of this though - we're providing explicit opportunities to learn, we've built on this learning from their assessments (IKAN) and are showing the application to real life and thus, demonstrating its relevance.
In fact, two of our boys stated that when they could see the question (context), they could see WHY they were learning about (for example, how to convert between fractions, decimals and percentages; or how to divide by ten by moving the decimal place). One of them threw up his hands in horror at the idea of working with fractions or percentages, but when applied to a context he knew (buying and selling Speedway Stock cars) he intuitively knew an answer.
Following explicit opportunities to learn, and links to relevant real life contexts, we are also talking a lot about the process. We have discussed what's important in math. We've talked about how sometimes we feel nervous, decide we can't do it before we start, read a problem and read it wrong and so misinterpret it or make an error and decide that that x instead of tick means we can stop the learning there, instead of returning to the problem and reworking it. So we are developing a culture of accountability, expectation, challenge (I know to learn I need to be in the PIT and it will feel horrible but that is where I learn - so I'm going to choose a hard problem to challenge myself and if that's too easy then when I'm finished I'm going to choose another one!
Why is this working?
Again, I can only offer an opinion, but I'd like to put this back to the kids to answer sometime in the future. Perhaps it is because our feeling successful is not just dependent on our right or wrong answer, but is in fact partly determined by our willingness to build our learning habits and as such, our agentic practices. Also, we are building our knowledge slowly through games, activities, problem solving etc, so we are having many opportunities to practice our learning habits and our new knowledge.
It's exciting seeing our nervous learners making progress and being willing to share their challenges and their progress. Smiles and lightbulbs all round!
Why is it amazing?
The kids are engaged, stretching themselves, seeking help and expressing their enthusiasm through their voices and faces. As they are enthusiastic and stretching themselves, we're able to see how they're learning, how they're challenging themselves and to have important learning conversations around how that's happening and the impact it's having on the whole class.
Why are they doing this?
I can only offer an opinion on this one but I feel like they're doing it because many of them have already come with a great foundation. On top of this though - we're providing explicit opportunities to learn, we've built on this learning from their assessments (IKAN) and are showing the application to real life and thus, demonstrating its relevance.
In fact, two of our boys stated that when they could see the question (context), they could see WHY they were learning about (for example, how to convert between fractions, decimals and percentages; or how to divide by ten by moving the decimal place). One of them threw up his hands in horror at the idea of working with fractions or percentages, but when applied to a context he knew (buying and selling Speedway Stock cars) he intuitively knew an answer.
Following explicit opportunities to learn, and links to relevant real life contexts, we are also talking a lot about the process. We have discussed what's important in math. We've talked about how sometimes we feel nervous, decide we can't do it before we start, read a problem and read it wrong and so misinterpret it or make an error and decide that that x instead of tick means we can stop the learning there, instead of returning to the problem and reworking it. So we are developing a culture of accountability, expectation, challenge (I know to learn I need to be in the PIT and it will feel horrible but that is where I learn - so I'm going to choose a hard problem to challenge myself and if that's too easy then when I'm finished I'm going to choose another one!
Why is this working?
Again, I can only offer an opinion, but I'd like to put this back to the kids to answer sometime in the future. Perhaps it is because our feeling successful is not just dependent on our right or wrong answer, but is in fact partly determined by our willingness to build our learning habits and as such, our agentic practices. Also, we are building our knowledge slowly through games, activities, problem solving etc, so we are having many opportunities to practice our learning habits and our new knowledge.
It's exciting seeing our nervous learners making progress and being willing to share their challenges and their progress. Smiles and lightbulbs all round!
Tuesday 8 March 2016
Inquiry Reflection Update
As part of my learning around Learner Agency I've been looking at ways to help the kids to develop their ability to know where they're at, self-assess and how to move forward from here. On reflection, one thing I was confronted with quite strongly was that I was not providing enough formative assessment opportunities for our learners, so they were quite negative about assessment processes. They often walked away from a test feeling anxious and that they had not been prepared well, even when I felt I had prepared them.
I've been working on finding short, sharp modes of assessment that enable the kids to have checkpoints in their learning. One example of this is that following a couple of days of learning around a topic, I've begun the lesson with a little formative assessment where the learners pick the level they feel they can stretch to and complete the task, assessing as they go.
In working through the answers, I used our student name cards (a set that is laminated and put in a container by my front computer for ease of use) to select students for answers so most people had a turn even if it wasn't at their stage.
After a while I just went around the room asking kids in turn and the positive mood improved. When Jasmyn nutted out a problem beyond the stage she was working and I congratulated her on "the stretch" she was visibly excited by her ability to move forward.
Following this, I worked with those kids who have set Fractions as their goal based on their IKAN assessment results
and we made links between fractions, decimals and percentages, celebrated how using intuition helped the boys to solve problems, discussed how our attitude to a challenging subject helps / hinders our learning and demonstrated how applying a context (fractions) to a real-life subject (% off the price of a Stock Car) helped Seth to grasp the relevance of fractions and be willing to have a go...... and was successful instantly.
A $50,000 stock car is 75% off - how much will you pay?
This was an awesome math session with Malakai, Seth, Daniel, Josiah and Tapa - lightbulb moments were going off everywhere! Loads of the boys were saying "I get it now!"
My heart is happy.
I've been working on finding short, sharp modes of assessment that enable the kids to have checkpoints in their learning. One example of this is that following a couple of days of learning around a topic, I've begun the lesson with a little formative assessment where the learners pick the level they feel they can stretch to and complete the task, assessing as they go.
In working through the answers, I used our student name cards (a set that is laminated and put in a container by my front computer for ease of use) to select students for answers so most people had a turn even if it wasn't at their stage.
After a while I just went around the room asking kids in turn and the positive mood improved. When Jasmyn nutted out a problem beyond the stage she was working and I congratulated her on "the stretch" she was visibly excited by her ability to move forward.
Following this, I worked with those kids who have set Fractions as their goal based on their IKAN assessment results
and we made links between fractions, decimals and percentages, celebrated how using intuition helped the boys to solve problems, discussed how our attitude to a challenging subject helps / hinders our learning and demonstrated how applying a context (fractions) to a real-life subject (% off the price of a Stock Car) helped Seth to grasp the relevance of fractions and be willing to have a go...... and was successful instantly.
A $50,000 stock car is 75% off - how much will you pay?
This was an awesome math session with Malakai, Seth, Daniel, Josiah and Tapa - lightbulb moments were going off everywhere! Loads of the boys were saying "I get it now!"
My heart is happy.
Thursday 25 February 2016
Blogged Down by Your Reflection?
Knowing how deep to reflect, the questions to ask and what purposeful reflection is is always a challenge. Thinking about the levels of professional learning and guidance in the meeting that I attending with the other professional learning leaders was so exciting. Exploring the tiers of professional learning was interesting and I enjoyed what was said about 'asking why five times'.
I want to explore that today.
One of my huge challenges is making phonecalls home.
It's not that I don't see the benefit of them - I really do.
It's not that I don't have time, though admittedly, sometimes the calls are a little further down the list of urgent priorities - especially at this time of the year.
The conflict lies in the fact that making phone calls scares me. Even as a little girl, I hated making calls. I always felt I was interrupting people, I'd make a mistake when talking to them or that they wouldn't hear who I was. These are all still concerns today.
Despite this, I know that this is an important goal of mine and my colleagues and I who call find this task rather arduous are working together in a supervisory role to make sure our calls still happen. Today I had a great time, celebrating a chase on the sports field, the fact that a child was not more badly hurt when they were knocked off their bike on the way to school, and the effort and determination a child puts in at school, including her courage in attending camp when she had been hesitant to do so. I made some great connections with parents and it was awesome to hear their tone change from nervous and defensive to buoyant and celebratory. I'll keep it up.
Asking why of this process is challenging.
1. Why do I still feel nervous about making calls?
I feel as a parent that I don't want to be disturbed at home and as such, don't like to disturb others.
2. do I feel disturbed at home?
Because I feel my time with my family is precious?
3. Why do I feel my time with my family is precious?
Because I have so little of it.
4. Why do I have so little of it?
Because I'm spending time working all the time.
5. Why am I spending time working all the time?
Because I have an amazing class and want to do well by them this year.
So the phone calls are important. They are building relationships and connections with parents and celebrating kids successes.
I want to explore that today.
One of my huge challenges is making phonecalls home.
It's not that I don't see the benefit of them - I really do.
It's not that I don't have time, though admittedly, sometimes the calls are a little further down the list of urgent priorities - especially at this time of the year.
The conflict lies in the fact that making phone calls scares me. Even as a little girl, I hated making calls. I always felt I was interrupting people, I'd make a mistake when talking to them or that they wouldn't hear who I was. These are all still concerns today.
Despite this, I know that this is an important goal of mine and my colleagues and I who call find this task rather arduous are working together in a supervisory role to make sure our calls still happen. Today I had a great time, celebrating a chase on the sports field, the fact that a child was not more badly hurt when they were knocked off their bike on the way to school, and the effort and determination a child puts in at school, including her courage in attending camp when she had been hesitant to do so. I made some great connections with parents and it was awesome to hear their tone change from nervous and defensive to buoyant and celebratory. I'll keep it up.
Asking why of this process is challenging.
1. Why do I still feel nervous about making calls?
I feel as a parent that I don't want to be disturbed at home and as such, don't like to disturb others.
2. do I feel disturbed at home?
Because I feel my time with my family is precious?
3. Why do I feel my time with my family is precious?
Because I have so little of it.
4. Why do I have so little of it?
Because I'm spending time working all the time.
5. Why am I spending time working all the time?
Because I have an amazing class and want to do well by them this year.
So the phone calls are important. They are building relationships and connections with parents and celebrating kids successes.
Wednesday 10 February 2016
Getting to know my learners....
It's day 6 of the school term. Our learners haven't read a piece of text yet (unless you count instructions on the board, Scavenger Hunts or Digital Device and Camp Agreements). They haven't done any math (unless you count using their ruler to measure out spaces for letters in their Paul Klee name artwork) or writing (unless you count formulating their 2016 aspirations to share with their whānau or coming up with Two Truths and a Lie for our ice-breaker).....
This aside, the past week has been one of my most fun, heartwarming and successful starts to any school year. Why? I'm sure it's down to a number of factors (not least that I have a simply
A-MAAZING class this year) but one of these reasons is that we have slowed down.
Hitting the pause button has allowed me to reflect on this process and what I think slowing down has sped up......
Taking time to play games has meant I've seen more smiles and watched our learners grow in confidence. Developing confidence in the fact that they are safe... with me, with our learning whānau, in our routines and in our space.... as well as in the games we're playing.
Taking time to undertake some integrated activities slowly, such as our name art (math, art, spelling, celebrating diversity, managing ourselves, developing patience, practicing persistence, aiming for excellence) have enabled us to discuss how each of these activities helps us to Grow Great People.... espousing our new school vision.
It has helped me to see where our strengths lie; who can ask for support, who is a perfectionist that never finishes and which of us are the procrastinators who never start. Who can use a ruler. Who can follow instructions. Who has their own high standards and who is still moving along that continuum.
Taking time has given me time to sit with our learners, to get to know them as people and to share of myself in order to encourage them to view me as a person too.
Taking time has meant we've all enjoyed our time together more without feeling stressed or pressured to complete endless activities at speed.
We've had time to talk about checkpoint assessments... about taking the time to reflect on what we're doing well, where our next step on the continuum might be next and how we might get there. It's allowed me to have time to ask our learners what they've tried, rather than giving them the answers. This time has allowed me to connect with learners I might usually struggle to get to know and to build strong trust relationships early. It's allowed the kids to see that I know they're a person first and a learner next and that I value them for who they are, not what they can achieve on any one particular test or activity.
Taking time has meant I have had time and energy and enthusiasm for emailing and calling and texting parents. Calling parents at the beginning of the year is one of the most rewarding things... because the short amount of time it takes leaves a big boost for whānau and learners. The value in this is phenomenal. Some parents don't answer the first time. Taking the time to let them know your call is positive and calling again has meant that I've experienced some lovely moments where parents are truly surprised and bubbling with happiness at the fact that I've made time to call and tell them what a great kid they have. They are great kids.
The best thing is that because I've made time to get to know each of these great kids, when I call, I have real information to share. About the student who made a huge community contribution when they agreed to visit other schools and share their violin learning in order to encourage other learners to come to our school for lessons. The fact that they demonstrating bravery on the sports field when I watched their lunchtime game, where a few days before they had hung back, shy. About the student who helped to welcome a new student to the class and show them where to put their resources. About the student who was so helpful to me and offered to tidy up an area or set up our class game. Or the student who picked up rubbish in the school grounds without being asked to. This stuff matters more than what stanine they achieve in a standardized test.
Calling families doesn't come naturally to me. I can be quite shy and when a phone call doesn't get answered or no answer phone picks up, it can leave me even more hesitant about dialing numbers. I know however, that the more I practice this, the better it will get... and that these positive phone calls are so important to those waiting at home. Sometimes it's been a long time since a parent has had a positive call.
Taking time to hold a Meet the Teacher night meant I got a chance to find out important information about our learners and are parents. The school's commitment to trialing a new format for this night meant I spent less time talking at the front of the room and more time chatting with parents. About what is important to them. About their child's concerns and about their aspirations for their children. How many of their parents' goals for their child centred around confidence? They know their child worries. They know there are plenty of things that can (and does) drag their child down. They are excited when they hear someone who's ready to build their child up. Taking time has helped me to see how much of a difference that positive rapport-building time has made. To their children... and in turn to them.... which again benefits their children when they pass that on.
Taking time has meant that I noticed when one of my lovely quiet young men came to me and told me he didn't think his Dad would make the Meet the Teacher night. Stopping what I was doing I noticed how worried he looked as he asked me if his family HAD to come. I told him gently how important it was that they come. He replied, "Dad will probably say... Awww nah!"
I replied with an encouraging smile "Well then it's your job to help Dad understand how important it is. So you can share your goals with him. And so Dad can share with you what he would like for you to achieve in your Year 8 year".
A few minutes later he returned again, looking a little tearful.
"I don't think he'll come, " he told me.
"Just do your best," I said.... "tell Dad it's nothing formal, just a chance for him to meet me so that he feels comfortable coming in to see us - so he knows who I am. And if he doesn't make it, we'll catch up some other time, I'm sure"
This young man and his Dad came along a little later in the evening. I managed to bump right into them on my way back to our classroom from the pool. Dad looked a little nervous. His son glowed with pride. We chatted, they set goals, Dad told me about his son's challenges. They went on their way, into the night.
The next day, I caught up with this young man, who had grown in confidence overnight and patted him on the back. We shared a treat to celebrate his part in encouraging Dad to come to school. He smiled, a little more bravely than yesterday.
The best time has been in taking time to reflect on this. To run through the past week in my head... noting down all the celebrations and positives that have come out of slowing down and making my main focus on the kids. How in doing so I've had time to talk about their goals and aspirations, and to ensure that these are SMART goals. How in doing so we've built in a lot of self-reflection, a bit of peer reflection and some class reflections. How we have discussed assessment for learning and my goals around that this year for them, and alongside this, our new school vision and values. Reflecting, I realise, has given me time to really relive all of these great moments and to consolidate in my memory what has gone well, in order to help me to remember to continue with it throughout this year and into the years to come.
It's time. To take time.
TOD Day 2
Beginning with our School-Wide Goal as set by our Board of Trustees
Theo Akroyd Board Chair introducing the Strategic Direction.
Feeling they need to be instrumental in driving the direction now.
They were looking for something for us all to buy into and be enthusiastic about.
A major part of this is self-review which the board know we do a lot of already and this is something we'll continue to do with this current focus.
"Grow Great People"
Introduction of the Board, who are a wonderful and diverse bunch of parents who are passionate about children's education.
Glen then shared the history behind the vision and mission statement and values in our school. Recently, the Board have met and discussed the new vision, mission and values and have also added some Guiding Principles and some priority areas to target.
Coaching across the school:
* Many more visitors / observers to the classroom
* Glenda and Carrie supporting in their capacities
* Brendon guiding our professional learning across the school
Innovative Learning Pedagogies and Environments
* Movement towards this across the school
* Some concern around how this will look and leaders staying informed in order to field questions and concerns from the community
Finances
Discussion around how finances will be managed and the impact that may have on teachers. Glen acknowledged that the finances are his domain and should be his concern and not ours.
Homework / Home Learning
Huge discussion was had with the board around the concept of homework.
Making contact with families and knowing them so that we can personalise and tailor home learning for the child too. The most important influencing factor is absolutely making connections with whanau so they have a port of call with the school which develops their understanding of 'education'.
Extension
Link here for extension
2016 Honours, Colours and Badge System
Check link here
PE and Aquatics Programme
Brendon shared resources and ideas with the culture of child and teacher
Theo Akroyd Board Chair introducing the Strategic Direction.
Feeling they need to be instrumental in driving the direction now.
They were looking for something for us all to buy into and be enthusiastic about.
A major part of this is self-review which the board know we do a lot of already and this is something we'll continue to do with this current focus.
"Grow Great People"
Introduction of the Board, who are a wonderful and diverse bunch of parents who are passionate about children's education.
Glen then shared the history behind the vision and mission statement and values in our school. Recently, the Board have met and discussed the new vision, mission and values and have also added some Guiding Principles and some priority areas to target.
Coaching across the school:
* Many more visitors / observers to the classroom
* Glenda and Carrie supporting in their capacities
* Brendon guiding our professional learning across the school
Innovative Learning Pedagogies and Environments
* Movement towards this across the school
* Some concern around how this will look and leaders staying informed in order to field questions and concerns from the community
Finances
Discussion around how finances will be managed and the impact that may have on teachers. Glen acknowledged that the finances are his domain and should be his concern and not ours.
Homework / Home Learning
Huge discussion was had with the board around the concept of homework.
Making contact with families and knowing them so that we can personalise and tailor home learning for the child too. The most important influencing factor is absolutely making connections with whanau so they have a port of call with the school which develops their understanding of 'education'.
Extension
Link here for extension
2016 Honours, Colours and Badge System
Check link here
PE and Aquatics Programme
Brendon shared resources and ideas with the culture of child and teacher
Thursday 28 January 2016
Gisborne Intermediate Teacher Only Day 1: 2016
Assessment for Learning - The Big Picture
- with Ande Ford
Queries around National Standards and how we are managing them.
Discussion around overview of our School-Wide Focus - Assessment for Learning
The huge discrepancies between outcomes at schools mean that the Gisborne Communities of Learning intend to focus on Moderation in order to attain consistency.
Importance placed on Celebration of Learning and touched on the perception that some teachers celebrate more than often.
Ande:
2016 Goal:
To raise student achievement in Literacy and Numeracy by improving teacher knowledge and application of ....
Know thy learner - Hattie
(An activity to do at the start of the year).
Two truths and a lie
Great opportunity to learn about learners by seeing who can follow instructions, who can cope with this kind of activity (off the bat)
Expert Jigsaw
Looked at a reading each through the Clarity in the Classroom book.
Is the feedback from the teacher all the time?
Is sometimes the feedback from the student to you - about the feedback?
Or from the student to another student?
Or internally - reflecting on it themselves and making comments on what they need to do next? Self-assessment.
Student reflecting on the fact that this is quite a good piece of evidence to show they have achieved a level.
Assessment means to sit beside......
meaning we "do assessment with them" not "do assessment TO them"
Glen:
Teacher's reputations are built on the level of feedback they give.
Ande:
Why are we doing assessment?
What?
How?
IKAN, Writing Sample, Reading Comprehension, PAT Math and Reading, Gloss.... all on the schedule again for this year.
https://www.pinterest.com/teachheartsoul/assessment-what-do-you-know/
Assessment for Learning...
Reliability
Validity
Learner Agency
Then watched Austin's Butterfly
Use this for Growth Mindset and assessing ability to persevere etc with Screencast or StopMotion to show progress and have learners explain their process and show their development and explanation of their
- with Ande Ford
Queries around National Standards and how we are managing them.
Discussion around overview of our School-Wide Focus - Assessment for Learning
The huge discrepancies between outcomes at schools mean that the Gisborne Communities of Learning intend to focus on Moderation in order to attain consistency.
Importance placed on Celebration of Learning and touched on the perception that some teachers celebrate more than often.
Ande:
2016 Goal:
To raise student achievement in Literacy and Numeracy by improving teacher knowledge and application of ....
Know thy learner - Hattie
(An activity to do at the start of the year).
Two truths and a lie
Great opportunity to learn about learners by seeing who can follow instructions, who can cope with this kind of activity (off the bat)
Expert Jigsaw
Looked at a reading each through the Clarity in the Classroom book.
Is the feedback from the teacher all the time?
Is sometimes the feedback from the student to you - about the feedback?
Or from the student to another student?
Or internally - reflecting on it themselves and making comments on what they need to do next? Self-assessment.
Student reflecting on the fact that this is quite a good piece of evidence to show they have achieved a level.
Assessment means to sit beside......
meaning we "do assessment with them" not "do assessment TO them"
Glen:
Teacher's reputations are built on the level of feedback they give.
Ande:
Why are we doing assessment?
What?
How?
IKAN, Writing Sample, Reading Comprehension, PAT Math and Reading, Gloss.... all on the schedule again for this year.
https://www.pinterest.com/teachheartsoul/assessment-what-do-you-know/
Assessment for Learning...
Reliability
Validity
Learner Agency
Then watched Austin's Butterfly
Use this for Growth Mindset and assessing ability to persevere etc with Screencast or StopMotion to show progress and have learners explain their process and show their development and explanation of their
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