2017

Wow it's hard to believe that 2017 has come around already!

Things to recap at this point:

Collaborative learning, New School Organisation, Deliberate Acts of Teaching, Digital Assessment to Support Math and Writing Development.

Collaborative Learning:
This has been awesome!  I'm so enjoying working with other people; bouncing ideas off each other, sharing successes and challenges, and getting to know the kids together.  I love that we're going about this process slowly, getting to know each other and undertake collaboration within curriculum areas one at a time.  At the moment we're more cooperating than collaborating for maths, but I think we'll evolve as time goes on.  This will present a bit of a challenge in maths around Student Learning Conferences... so we'll need to think about that.  Best practice would suggest that we should all be seeing the kids all of the time, so it will be interesting to try to work out out to do that.

New School Organisation
Glen and Herman and I had a productive and exciting meeting today, deciding on what our direction could be next for e-Learning.  My focus will be on how to integrate e-Learning with our other curriculum areas.  Now that our Learning Pathways etc are all up and running, it's going to be an exciting thing to work through.  I've started already and it would be amazing to design some samples that students could work their way through and track their own progress.  I'm also looking forward to designing an independent programme for our extension writers that would be motivating and personalized.


Deliberate Acts of Teaching
It was great to have this really spelled out in our Team Meeting today.  Many of these things we do already, but it was great to be able to talk through them, reading and sharing back on a section each.  I really enjoyed our Team Meeting Time being more about professional learning and less about the admin stuff which I could read myself.

The link to the TKI site where the Deliberate Acts of Teaching are covered is here

Digital Assessment to Support Math and Writing Development
This has been quite fun.  I'm trying to design some quite simple formative assessments that cover many of the aspects that our writers struggle with often and use this to support writing and maths.  Now that I have a clearer direction around our e-learning roles, I'm wanting to integrate that too.  It will be really cool to see how it comes together.  I'm hoping that it can be run quite simply and that I can find ways of putting HyperDocs together so that these can stem from our Learning Pathways.  This will help us to personalise the kids' learning.

It's been a busy term so far, but with camp and assessments done, it's really awesome now to begin to get down to some targeted needs-based group teaching. The kids are much more settled and I'm really enjoying my time with them.

Reflection on Reflection

Wow it seems such a long time since I've updated this blog - which doesn't bode well for my upcoming appraisal and attestation.  However, I think it will be obvious why when viewing my Team 17 blog and Agency to Learn blog - there has just been so much learning going on!

At the beginning of this year, my goals were wide and varied.  I had no real idea what the year was going to bring with:

• Mind Lab Postgraduate study
• e-Learning Co-Lead role (facilitating professional learning)
• a busy class of Year 8 learners
• commitments to Teach Xpo and Google Summit

My goals included:

Goal No. 1

Make learning visible to parents to encourage home school partnerships and increase impact and effective learning programmes.

Goal No. 2

Get students more involved in creation of learning in order to ensure greater depth of content knowledge and greater collaboration (who is working the hardest in our classrooms?)

Goal No. 3

Create positive classroom tone for all members to feel safe and secure.

Goal No. 4

Create a classroom where students are involved in facilitating their learning and have ownership over their learning.

Goal No. 5

Ensure adequate time is available and time management is well-planned in order to manage and balance:

Class learning

Team commitments

Any necessary professional development workshops for ICT/Chromebooks

MindLab commitments

Google Summit commitments

TeachXpo commitments

I remember when meeting with my lead teacher, Rae Black, at the beginning of the year, that Rae was concerned that there were too many goals on my list.  At the time though, I felt they were all viable and important and so persisted with them.

Reflections on these goals can be found on my Professional Goals document

One major reflection I have is that it's been challenging to be updating these regularly with all I've had on as my learning has raised new and interesting sidelines for me and I am not secure in my Inquiry Process. So that is one need to address next.

Student Teachers!

Wow, how exciting to have a student teacher coming to visit Team 17.  I'm so excited about the opportunity to have a real-life daily reminder to reflect on my practice and support the development of an enthusiastic teacher.  I'm so looking forward to the next six weeks.  I'm sure the term will fly by - after all, it's week four already and in six weeks we'll be heading off on Action Week.

Briar and I are going to look at characterisation, settings, puppet shows and measurement.  It's going to be such fun!

Digital Learning Communities

I really wanted to call this post 'brain explosions' as I really feel as though what's in my head is overflowing tonight. I'm really learning this year. 

I'm sure I learn every year, but in my role as co-leader of e-learning as well as facilitator of learning in our classroom (with an e-learning emphasis) I've been thrown: 
* into the Pit
* onto the silly bridge
 * out of my comfort zone

However you want to put it - I'm a learner again in the true sense of the word and it's exciting to be undertaking this journey alongside my students.  We are redesigning learning; together, and as a team. Co-constructing, it seems.

 Today, Saunil Hagler (iseeteaching.com) from Cyclone came to Gisborne to work with us on the next step in our e-learning journey.  (The whole idea of e-learning journey is an interesting one really - as many of us feel that the technologies we're using are simply tools for learning - there is no e-learning anymore, just learning).  We defined, we critically analysed, we discussed, we theorized, we idealised, threw aspirations around and developed and refined plans.  It's an exciting journey.

By the end of the day I'd learned everything from how to fix my GMail problem to how to shut all tabs to the right on my busy browser, to how to create links to learning to autonomise learning for our students in a digital learning community.  Never, have I been part of such a huge paradigm shift in education that has taken place over such a short space of time.  True, my "e-learning journey" began last year, but the bulk of my shifts in practice and pedagogy have taken place in the few short weeks since the beginning of term one.  Seven weeks.  The critical thinking I'm engaging in, the designing I'm doing and the collaboration and reflection in effect throughout this process is phenomenal.  I've never been more excited about my role in our classroom, in education in general.
Daily, life is chaotic, blurry and overflowing with learning.  Daily, I have to mentally 'shut tabs' in my head that force my brain to work overtime.  Daily, I am invigorated by the learning that I am doing.  I'm so encouraged by that, because I know that in order to be enthusiastic about learning, my students need to see I'm enthusiastic in my role as facilitator of that learning.

Saunil was knowledgeable, a patient teacher and an engaging facilitator.  We began the skeleton of our learning community.  As a staff and for our students, this platform could open up learning to all of us.  How effective would that be in terms of shifts in our practices as both teachers and learners.  Giving the steering wheel back to our students means they will regain autonomy in their learning.  It's scary to let go of that wheel for some of us.... but I'm excited about the journey - where will our students' learning journeys take us? I can't wait!

Failure

I could have given up today

Put my lesson down to one learning curve

of something not achieveable with a classroom

of thirty students.

I could have put my enthusiasm aside

cast down my determination to give my students

a voice

and a purpose in what we're doing this year.

Exclaimed that it was just too hard.

That it couldn't be done.

That I was doing my students an 

injustice 

by forcing them to 

struggle through

this difficult space

we have nicknamed 'The Pit'

that I was 'wasting their time' 

or

'letting them down'

But I persevered.

And I will persevere still.

Because when we spoke of the outcome

I saw light in their eyes

and I will chase that light

even though it's hard.

Because if they should fail

along this road of learning

they will simply learn that 

failure

is a necessary part of learning

nay, of life.

And failure is just one step in the long journey we call

learning

and life.

Amie, 2015

On reflection, speaking with a teacher later, who had visited last week and then took some of this learning back into her classroom, she shared with me her experience of starting out with Chromebooks.  About how she said she won't apologise; for noise, for frustration, for it being a bit chaotic to start with.  That they would muddle through because they were learning.  We talked about resiliency.  About how easy it is to ensure there is so much scaffolding for our students that they can't 'fail'.  About how now, they have become so helpless that when they approach a computer and it won't work, they throw up their hands and exclaim, "It won't go!" before walking away.  About how she then asked - "What have you tried?"

What a great opportunity we're now giving our students. 

To struggle...

To try...

To fail...

To try again....

To persevere....

To succeed....

To see the relevance this has to life.

And I saw the light in her eyes too.

We are learning.  Together.  I can't think of a better space to be.

Professional Leadership

Leadership.  

It's interesting what this entails sometimes.  It leaves me wondering if we shared it with our students - our journey - that they may have some insight into where we want them to head?

Today I sat through a photoshoot for my new profile shot for TeachEXPO which I'm presenting at in July.  I find it hard to fathom how I've come a full 360 degrees from where I was at last year.  From struggling to see how my sense of self fit within my teaching persona, to now, feeling that I'm more comfortable and excited about my role than I've ever been.

It's not just the technology.  The e-learning is fun, and important.... but I think it's the fact that through this I feel learning environments are now becoming more relevant to the real world and how it's altered over the past 50 years.  I no longer feel like I'm in the classroom asking students to do something irrelevant.  Now I'm looking for more and more ways to link what we're doing to relevant tasks because it's easier to do so.  I no longer feel I'm asking them to do the impossible... I'm now working through relevant and challenging tasks alongside them and we are all winning.  I'm doing what my Leadership Challenge book suggests - I'm handing over to others in order for them to develop their leadership.  And it's opening up ideas and passion for learning that I thought I'd lost.

I'm thinking about how I'm formulating my profile and thinking about how we could offer students leadership to do the same.  Could we get our students involved in this planning process?  How much more would we get buy-in if we could have students create the learning.  Get them to find the tools, build in their passions, create the plan, develop their profiles and present.  How cool would that be for developing leadership.  Giving our students a real voice.  They could then take this to a class and teach their lesson.  The teacher could be present and they could then learn too.  Maybe we could start with small groups.  My student could be released to work with that class's specialists and the teacher and they could take the lesson back to class too.  Wow.  Potential.  How to make it happen?

Learning Conversations

Our time is so full.  Camps, learning programmes, CAP's, interclass sports, assessment, meetings with parents, meetings with RTLB's.

Now I understand that this is all learning-related.  However, our greatest challenge is that everything we do needs to be related to learning.  Learning-focused.  And the challenge is, to fit the 'learning' into what we do so that it is the central focus.  So that everything we do is learning-focused, not just some things.

We had an awesome learning conversation today.  In team meeting, we discussed the decisions we make in relation to our math data.  We talked about IKAN, Pearson, PAT, snapshots and group learning versus whole-class learning.  We talked group structures - composition.

What really struck me is the fragile nature of learning itself.  As teachers we are hugely aware of the impact of what we do.  That our discussions affect learning, that our groupings affect learning, that our relationships with their students, their parents and their friends affect learning.  That how we act affects learning.

Mindful teaching involves having these conversations.  The most amazing part of it is that we so rarely have time to actually talk about the learning.  And when we do.... we all exclaim how valuable it was.  That we viewed something a different way.  That the opportunity to reflect meant that we changed our practice... or reinforced it.

Engagement

Wow I'm really enjoying this!  My blog really makes me feel like writing!  I'm wondering if the kids will feel the same thing!  Could I find a way for them to create a one page spread newspaper too, which could be added to the class blog? There is so much scope for entertainment and engagment.  And if I'm feeling it - hopefully the kids will too!

We've been really busy with the roll-out of the Chromebooks - so much work to do behind the scenes - unpacking, labelling, allocating, stickering.  I'm so grateful that we have such an awesome team who work together so well, it could be a bit hard otherwise!

I've created a blog for the staff too, to try to put information all in one place.  I'm not sure what will work best yet, but it's all a work in progress while I try to get the role sorted really.

I'm so enjoying the learning I'm doing though and I'm sure it will really impact on the kids too, as I learn and can pass it on to them.

This is such great professional development! MindLab starts in just a few weeks, so it will all be pretty full-on from there!  I can't believe it's week 3 already- next week is camp and not long afterwards we'll be halfway through our term! Time to be pumping out the learning I think!

Are you engaged?