So today I'm learning about FlipGrid online. I've been wanting to learn about this amazing tool for months now and couldn't manage to find the time to read about how to use it, despite the fact that I'd signed up for it all. Amazingly, up popped up this incredible webinar in my email. I've been watching this in my free lunch/intervals and am so enjoying the concept - not just a webinar about how to use FlipGrid, but a step by step talking through why we should look at the DOK (Depth of Knowledge) being utilized in effective digital tech.
Holly Clark features here and she's one of my favourites.
Check it out for more info:
FlipGrid webinar here
Takeaways for me included:
Link to Jo Bowler's Mathematical Mindsets book - I have a great Jo Bowler book somewhere - where have I put it? I must get it out again.
Also using Chatterpix and iMovie with FlipGrid to share math concepts or professional learning
Holly Clark talked about how:
"Effective technology integrations happens when we make student thinking visible".
She also talks about how important Students Voice and the Sharing of Student Work is. I'm excited about where this could lead.
I'd like to create a FlipGrid for illustrating a process of the students to go through. Looking forward to this one!
Friday 27 October 2017
Tuesday 24 October 2017
Target Group Review - Inquiry Learning Process
At the beginning of the year I was really looking forward to making a difference for our priority learners... but I have to admit, I was quite challenged by how I was going to make this work from a workflow capacity, with all the paperwork expectations accompanying priority learners.
I wanted to try to follow an inquiry process that was more user-friendly than the haphazard approach I'd used in the past.
While I like the concept of the TKI model we use here:
(http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/var/tki-nzc/storage/images/media/images/tu-images/teaching-as-inquiry2/34163-1-eng-NZ/Teaching-as-inquiry_reference.png)
I feel like it needs to be more simplistic.
What's one thing I'm going to change?
How am I going to change it?
How am I going to make sure it happens?
How will I measure change / progress / achievement?
Did it work? In what way? How do you know? Would you do it again?
How does our Target Group work stack up against this.... up next.
I wanted to try to follow an inquiry process that was more user-friendly than the haphazard approach I'd used in the past.
While I like the concept of the TKI model we use here:
I feel like it needs to be more simplistic.
What's one thing I'm going to change?
How am I going to change it?
How am I going to make sure it happens?
How will I measure change / progress / achievement?
Did it work? In what way? How do you know? Would you do it again?
How does our Target Group work stack up against this.... up next.
Sunday 22 October 2017
Deliberate Acts of Teaching Continued - Collaborative Spaces
Leading on from the past post, my colleague and I got together, feeling like we might be more effective as a team in looking at our target group kids collegially. This also made sense as we all need to know who our target group kids are and what we're doing with them, as they will rotate amongst us this term. We felt concern around how we could support the kids as base group teachers when time is precious and it's tricky trying to fit all our learning in, even before we attempt to find 'additional' time to work with these targeted learners.
It was great to work smarter by being collegial. We came up with a series of lessons we could implement with the kids as well as use across our Hub. We wanted to keep the planning quite simple and ensure that we had all our resources ready to do and we could simply sit down with the kids every day and get some learning done with them. Inquiry time is often quite useful for this as our learners are working towards a project that requires a lot of research. In term three, they were creating art and inquiring into the reasons for The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, as well as looking at Innovations such as the Great Ocean CleanUp to see what positive impacts individuals and projects have also had. This was great timing for us to be able to work with these priority learners. Scheduling the time with these students was what really made the difference as we were finding that otherwise they weren't getting any extra teaching time.
The planning we did included a planning and reflection sheet for the kids, to scaffold them to see how they were being positively impacted by the extra time too and to help us to use their student voice in future planning.
We were also feeling overwhelmed by the need to ensure we were utilising our Learning Pathways, OTJ Sheets, Achievement Objectives and the areas that covered both PR1ME and our learner pathways. Mrs Barclay had also helped us to identify areas the students needed support on and we were keen to ensure everything was being covered without the need for everything to be done multiple times. It was heartening to see there was considerable overlap and we were covering a lot more than we'd thought. Planning in this way from the beginning helped us to see how the pathways and OTJ sheets aligned and we felt secure in the knowledge that we were meeting our targets.
It was great to work smarter by being collegial. We came up with a series of lessons we could implement with the kids as well as use across our Hub. We wanted to keep the planning quite simple and ensure that we had all our resources ready to do and we could simply sit down with the kids every day and get some learning done with them. Inquiry time is often quite useful for this as our learners are working towards a project that requires a lot of research. In term three, they were creating art and inquiring into the reasons for The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, as well as looking at Innovations such as the Great Ocean CleanUp to see what positive impacts individuals and projects have also had. This was great timing for us to be able to work with these priority learners. Scheduling the time with these students was what really made the difference as we were finding that otherwise they weren't getting any extra teaching time.
The planning we did included a planning and reflection sheet for the kids, to scaffold them to see how they were being positively impacted by the extra time too and to help us to use their student voice in future planning.
We were also feeling overwhelmed by the need to ensure we were utilising our Learning Pathways, OTJ Sheets, Achievement Objectives and the areas that covered both PR1ME and our learner pathways. Mrs Barclay had also helped us to identify areas the students needed support on and we were keen to ensure everything was being covered without the need for everything to be done multiple times. It was heartening to see there was considerable overlap and we were covering a lot more than we'd thought. Planning in this way from the beginning helped us to see how the pathways and OTJ sheets aligned and we felt secure in the knowledge that we were meeting our targets.
It will be really interesting to see at the end of the year if we feel this has had an impact on the learners, as it certainly felt like it made sense during the planning phase.
Collaboration Year Review
Wow it's been a big year and a great year professionally. I've thoroughly enjoyed the collaborative nature of teaching, both in terms of organisation and collegiality as well as the wonderful impacts on our great tamariki.
Our team has a positive vibe and we work well together - there have been no disputes and communication seems to happen naturally.
Due to building requirements, we have moved classrooms often and we end up in rooms that require more management to move between. It's been a challenge to our team collaboration and I've been proud of how flexible we've been throughout the process. It is my hope that next year will be more settled, though with continuing building work, this may not be the case. The end of 2018 should see us in our new modern learning environments and having a mutual space will be wonderful. Having our co-joined rooms this year (with holes in the wall through to each other's classrooms) has been really helpful for the transition for both us teachers as well as the kids.
Working together on programmes for the kids has been awesome! I hadn't realised how effective this collaboration could make us. In particular, working on our EOTC planning together was amazing. Being able to plan, undertaken and reflect on the whole thing was amazing. I really enjoyed the opportunities that we presented the students with and many of them were surprised with what they enjoyed. My base group were well planned for The Mind Lab and created amazing animations around protecting and preserving Tangaroa. Later, their visit to the museum meant they were excited to learn about how the Taruheru River has changed as a result of human impact... and they got to learn about where the first settler homes were. This was really interesting for them the following week, when they were in the Lysnar House room overlooking the river, making their clay pots, and realised that this was the house they'd seen in the old-school movie the week before.
Animation Movies about Protecting Tangaroa
This EOTC time was also lovely as us teachers could collaborate on the walk down there and support each other, so many of our challenging learners could still attend.
Looking ahead:
Next year, without all the moving around, it is my hope that our collaboration will improve even more. I've been impressed with what LH1 are doing with their 'Ignition Station'. My son uses this at home and it's an easy way to access all his learning in one place. He always knows what he should be doing next and has access to all the design briefs from the work they're doing. It's a phenomenal way to enhance learning and his self-management has skyrocketed as a result of this. I've been playing around with a Landing Page of our own and I'm really excited by its potential and am looking forward to seeing how we can grow and adapt this across 2018.
Learning Hub 5 Landing Page
Our team has a positive vibe and we work well together - there have been no disputes and communication seems to happen naturally.
Due to building requirements, we have moved classrooms often and we end up in rooms that require more management to move between. It's been a challenge to our team collaboration and I've been proud of how flexible we've been throughout the process. It is my hope that next year will be more settled, though with continuing building work, this may not be the case. The end of 2018 should see us in our new modern learning environments and having a mutual space will be wonderful. Having our co-joined rooms this year (with holes in the wall through to each other's classrooms) has been really helpful for the transition for both us teachers as well as the kids.
Working together on programmes for the kids has been awesome! I hadn't realised how effective this collaboration could make us. In particular, working on our EOTC planning together was amazing. Being able to plan, undertaken and reflect on the whole thing was amazing. I really enjoyed the opportunities that we presented the students with and many of them were surprised with what they enjoyed. My base group were well planned for The Mind Lab and created amazing animations around protecting and preserving Tangaroa. Later, their visit to the museum meant they were excited to learn about how the Taruheru River has changed as a result of human impact... and they got to learn about where the first settler homes were. This was really interesting for them the following week, when they were in the Lysnar House room overlooking the river, making their clay pots, and realised that this was the house they'd seen in the old-school movie the week before.
Animation Movies about Protecting Tangaroa
This EOTC time was also lovely as us teachers could collaborate on the walk down there and support each other, so many of our challenging learners could still attend.
Looking ahead:
Next year, without all the moving around, it is my hope that our collaboration will improve even more. I've been impressed with what LH1 are doing with their 'Ignition Station'. My son uses this at home and it's an easy way to access all his learning in one place. He always knows what he should be doing next and has access to all the design briefs from the work they're doing. It's a phenomenal way to enhance learning and his self-management has skyrocketed as a result of this. I've been playing around with a Landing Page of our own and I'm really excited by its potential and am looking forward to seeing how we can grow and adapt this across 2018.
Learning Hub 5 Landing Page
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