Our MIT Team had the privilege of sharing our "final" presentations for our inquiry at the Manaiakalani Wananga last week. Our challenge was to create a Pecha Kucha of 20 slides of 20 seconds each to capture nearly a year's worth of inquiry!
It was quite an intimidating experience presenting to everyone, but also awesome to share the occasion with my MIT buddies. The presentations were awesome. A reflection of some amazing work being done by a group of educators who are passionate about making a difference for students across the country.
Monday 28 October 2019
Friday 6 September 2019
Practice Analysis - “Encouraging students to talk about their learning to promote deeper understanding”
As part of our professional inquiry, our school uses practice analysis observations. We introduced these to Pompallier in 2015, as part of Literacy professional learning and development. At that time I was working as a Literacy facilitator with the University of Auckland. Practice analysis conversations were developed in the literacy professional development project which included over 300 New Zealand schools over a period of seven years. Pompallier School was one of those schools.
The conversations occurred in four phases:
As part of my reflective practice this term, my principal and I used practice analysis to investigate aspects of my inquiry focus - encouraging students to talk about their learning to promote deeper understanding. In particular I asked her to ask students about the SOLO poster tool and to discuss with them how it is helping with their learning. Kathryn is familiar with the SOLO poster tool. We have regular discussions about my teaching goals and the MIT journey. She recorded in her practice analysis notes that “you keep me up to date with your thinking and how you are changing your focus with the poster construction and the learning conversations. You seek input and feedback”.
Student voice collected during the observation confirmed a shared locus of control in the class, with students enjoying using the class Google site to make choices about their Literacy learning. They knew what they were learning, what they needed to do, and what would be successful. They were using group modelling books to help with this. She noted that my “think aloud” statements were good models for the target students.
The students were able to talk about the SOLO poster. They were most used to seeing it on the TV screen - when we have used it as part of our end of day reflections and plenaries. Some students could articulate their thinking more clearly than others.
Kathryn’s conversation with two boys is recorded below - Student A was a target student in 2018, and for the first half of 2019. Student B was a target student in 2018.
Kathryn - What is SOLO?
A - “digging deeper in your learning. Down the bottom (of the poster) you are cracking the work and you have deep thinking.”
B - “You can get better and better”
B- “Developing knowledge”
A - “Yeah - Developing knowledge”
Kathryn - Do you think this will help you
B - totally - it tells you what to focus on.
Our post-observation conversation led to the following thoughts about future actions for me:
The conversations occurred in four phases:
- Establish learning goals and co-construct criteria for evaluating the effectiveness of practice prior to the observation.
- Observe using the criteria as a reference.
- Analyse relevant parts of the lesson using the criteria.
- Co-construct new ideas for practice based on the analysis.
As part of my reflective practice this term, my principal and I used practice analysis to investigate aspects of my inquiry focus - encouraging students to talk about their learning to promote deeper understanding. In particular I asked her to ask students about the SOLO poster tool and to discuss with them how it is helping with their learning. Kathryn is familiar with the SOLO poster tool. We have regular discussions about my teaching goals and the MIT journey. She recorded in her practice analysis notes that “you keep me up to date with your thinking and how you are changing your focus with the poster construction and the learning conversations. You seek input and feedback”.
Student voice collected during the observation confirmed a shared locus of control in the class, with students enjoying using the class Google site to make choices about their Literacy learning. They knew what they were learning, what they needed to do, and what would be successful. They were using group modelling books to help with this. She noted that my “think aloud” statements were good models for the target students.
The students were able to talk about the SOLO poster. They were most used to seeing it on the TV screen - when we have used it as part of our end of day reflections and plenaries. Some students could articulate their thinking more clearly than others.
Kathryn’s conversation with two boys is recorded below - Student A was a target student in 2018, and for the first half of 2019. Student B was a target student in 2018.
Kathryn - What is SOLO?
A - “digging deeper in your learning. Down the bottom (of the poster) you are cracking the work and you have deep thinking.”
B - “You can get better and better”
B- “Developing knowledge”
A - “Yeah - Developing knowledge”
Kathryn - Do you think this will help you
B - totally - it tells you what to focus on.
Our post-observation conversation led to the following thoughts about future actions for me:
- Continue to build on the locus of control through using the SOLO poster with the students;
- Add visual cues and colour to strengthen student knowledge and understanding of the poster (especially for target students);
- Add more blog reflections about the student use of SOLO.
I have created several updated versions of the SOLO poster to trial with students - including more clear colour coding of the different levels; inclusion of SOLO symbols to assist with understanding for students; and a "student speak" version for student reflection and goal setting.
(see the new trial Teacher and Student versions below)
Thursday 15 August 2019
MIT Session 3 at Auckland - 12th August
It was great to get together with the team at KPMG again… our first gathering since the Sydney Summit. This time there was an opportunity for us all to share the progress we were making with our tool development. Everyone presented their tool in its current stage of development, and discussed how it was being used with students. It was valuable to hear everyone’s stories - including the things that are working well for them, and students, as well as the challenges. The change for collaborative critical inquiry into both the tool, and our development process for me is invaluable. The opportunity to be involved in a professional learning community that extends beyond my own school provides a greater scope for challenge with regards to how I might change my practice to improve outcomes for my students. During this gathering, we acknowledged that the time away in Sydney together has strengthened our relationships with one another. I feel this has helped to nurture a high trust between one another, which was present in open and honest discussions about both our tools and the next steps in our development journey. We were more prepared to challenge and stretch our thinking about what changes need to be made.
I shared my first SOLO poster and analysis tools to our MIT session in Auckland to share with the rest of the MIT team. It was good to get initial positive feedback about the concept and the tool - especially as a way of adding to the stories we can tell about student progress.
I shared my first SOLO poster and analysis tools to our MIT session in Auckland to share with the rest of the MIT team. It was good to get initial positive feedback about the concept and the tool - especially as a way of adding to the stories we can tell about student progress.
Friday 9 August 2019
MIT Tool Development - SOLO For Student Talk
My focus for my MIT journey is to gather and use student voice collected from interviews, written reflections, classroom oral reflections and student blogs alongside student achievement data, to establish links between the quality of student voice and improved student achievement.
I planned to create a tool, using SOLO taxonomy, to measure the quality of student talk. I wanted to create a tool that could be used to gather measurable data, so that shift could be seen, monitored and celebrated as part of the story of improved learning for target students. I was particularly interested in doing this, as it is often challenging to demonstrate shift using normed assessment tools. Teachers will often observe changes in engagement and improved student talk during learning that assessment data does not show. These teacher observations form an invaluable part of the narrative of target student progress.
I have been gathering student talk about learning, as part of our class reflective journal since the beginning of the year. Our “NZ Enterprise 2019 Kea Class Captain’s Log” records afternoon plenary sessions. The students take turns with being the Captains. Those of you that are familiar with Star Trek, will understand the concept! I act as the recorder of the entry notes as the captains use named stick in a jar to randomly select students to answer questions and prompts about their learning from the day.
Initially my idea was to create some way of analysing statements using SOLO vocabulary, with a particular focus on verbs and adjectives used to describe learning. After the Sydney conference, I realised that I was over complicating what I needed to do. I had forgotten the KISS principle!
I then thought of developing a simple rubric to unpack what the learning talk might look like/ sound like at each SOLO stage. I developed a simple Google Sheet to record this data over time. I then used my trial rubric to analyse student statements from our class, and record it in the data sheet to track progress for individual students. I took these tools to our MIT session in Auckland to share with the rest of the MIT team.
I planned to create a tool, using SOLO taxonomy, to measure the quality of student talk. I wanted to create a tool that could be used to gather measurable data, so that shift could be seen, monitored and celebrated as part of the story of improved learning for target students. I was particularly interested in doing this, as it is often challenging to demonstrate shift using normed assessment tools. Teachers will often observe changes in engagement and improved student talk during learning that assessment data does not show. These teacher observations form an invaluable part of the narrative of target student progress.
I have been gathering student talk about learning, as part of our class reflective journal since the beginning of the year. Our “NZ Enterprise 2019 Kea Class Captain’s Log” records afternoon plenary sessions. The students take turns with being the Captains. Those of you that are familiar with Star Trek, will understand the concept! I act as the recorder of the entry notes as the captains use named stick in a jar to randomly select students to answer questions and prompts about their learning from the day.
Initially my idea was to create some way of analysing statements using SOLO vocabulary, with a particular focus on verbs and adjectives used to describe learning. After the Sydney conference, I realised that I was over complicating what I needed to do. I had forgotten the KISS principle!
I then thought of developing a simple rubric to unpack what the learning talk might look like/ sound like at each SOLO stage. I developed a simple Google Sheet to record this data over time. I then used my trial rubric to analyse student statements from our class, and record it in the data sheet to track progress for individual students. I took these tools to our MIT session in Auckland to share with the rest of the MIT team.
Saturday 3 August 2019
Te Hiku Cluster Schools Teacher Only Day with Christine Rubie-Davies
Our learning focus with Christine Rubie-Davies at the beginning of the year had been on "High Expectations and Classroom Climate". Key themes included: teachers having high expectations for students; grouping for learning; setting a positive classroom climate; goal setting with students; teacher self-reflection and monitoring student learning.
None of this was new at the time. I was already using mixed ability grouping in Literacy and Mathematics, and had been doing so since returning to classroom teaching in 2016. But I did make some goals at the time prompted by her session:
In Christine's session on 22nd July she continued with this theme. She spent quite a bit of time going over what she had covered with us back in January. Some of the data, the research and the solutions she presented in this session seemed dated. In addition, much of her data related to her research which was conducted primarily within urban settings, and with a large proportion of the teachers presented in her data being secondary based. Most of the teachers in the Te Hiku cluster are primary school teachers who use either chrome books or i-pads with their students as part of every day teaching and learning - we haven't used tools like on "OHP" for quite some time...
It was a frustrating day - I guess it is comforting to know that teachers in the Far North are well and truly on track with the professional learning that encourages improved learning outcomes for students. I sat at a table with three other teachers. We had in excess of 100 years teaching experience between us. We were a little bemused by the notion of cultural bias with regards to our students. Most of the teachers nearby had classroom with the majority of students on the roll being Maori. We acknowledge the strong cultural bias within our education system. A great example of this, is the assessment tools we use to track and monitor the progress and achievement of our students. These tools are primarily white middle class assessment tools. And yet, as we sat and talked at our table we came to conclusion that we didn't actually use ethnic labels with our students, or think about their achievement from this angle. We might consider other circumstances and issues that relate to specific children, but not use a "Maori" label to explain lower achievement. Target students in my classroom are simply that - students who need an extra boost with their learning, in order to help them to be on track to achieve at the same level as their peers.
However, at the end of the day I did find a couple of good "takeaway" points to consider, and think about in terms of both class and school-wide programmes. For the classroom there were several things I came up with to continue to develop a "high expectation" climate within Kea classroom:
None of this was new at the time. I was already using mixed ability grouping in Literacy and Mathematics, and had been doing so since returning to classroom teaching in 2016. But I did make some goals at the time prompted by her session:
- To purposefully plan opportunities to build positive peer relationships;
- Review groups on an ongoing basis to make changes that would enhance and improve effectiveness of group teaching and learning;
- To plan station activities that would provide choice and/or challenge to enhance student agency.
Since then I have regularly reviewed my classroom programme, either personally or with the students, to check on its effectiveness for students - especially my target learning students. Most recently I changed my target groups to being a "boy's group" and a "girls group" and planned for learning tasks and activities appropriate to this. The boys like a competitive edge to some tasks and activities. Whereas the girls seem to prefer tasks related more to social aspects of learning.
In Christine's session on 22nd July she continued with this theme. She spent quite a bit of time going over what she had covered with us back in January. Some of the data, the research and the solutions she presented in this session seemed dated. In addition, much of her data related to her research which was conducted primarily within urban settings, and with a large proportion of the teachers presented in her data being secondary based. Most of the teachers in the Te Hiku cluster are primary school teachers who use either chrome books or i-pads with their students as part of every day teaching and learning - we haven't used tools like on "OHP" for quite some time...
It was a frustrating day - I guess it is comforting to know that teachers in the Far North are well and truly on track with the professional learning that encourages improved learning outcomes for students. I sat at a table with three other teachers. We had in excess of 100 years teaching experience between us. We were a little bemused by the notion of cultural bias with regards to our students. Most of the teachers nearby had classroom with the majority of students on the roll being Maori. We acknowledge the strong cultural bias within our education system. A great example of this, is the assessment tools we use to track and monitor the progress and achievement of our students. These tools are primarily white middle class assessment tools. And yet, as we sat and talked at our table we came to conclusion that we didn't actually use ethnic labels with our students, or think about their achievement from this angle. We might consider other circumstances and issues that relate to specific children, but not use a "Maori" label to explain lower achievement. Target students in my classroom are simply that - students who need an extra boost with their learning, in order to help them to be on track to achieve at the same level as their peers.
However, at the end of the day I did find a couple of good "takeaway" points to consider, and think about in terms of both class and school-wide programmes. For the classroom there were several things I came up with to continue to develop a "high expectation" climate within Kea classroom:
- In our Captain's Log plenary - continue to model and prompt questions related to what students are doing well with, or are pleased with.
- Create a classroom brag wall for display of work - in addition to the class blog, as the students do like to see their work on display.
- In the RE corner have a gratitude wall space - this could also be added to morning prayers, or included in Captain's Log (or instead of). Time for students to acknowledge the things and the people that make them feel grateful.
- Spend regular time focusing on different role models or special people. The examples from the RE day with Richard Leonard would be a good place to start.
With respect to the whole school. Christine made passing mention to the notion of mastery goals that focus on the development of new skills, rather than just performance goals, which are focused on beating something or someone. Assessment goals often focus on the latter. I have noticed in my classroom than many students often lack basic skills - art skills, craft skills, life skills... I have also noticed that they enjoy learning new skills, and are really pleased when they have opportunity to show their learnt skills - for example in our Google Doc Ninja activities! I think we do need to think more about this, and what types of skills our students need to become resilient future-oriented learners. There is a big gap in their learning here, that we need to consider. Are there ways in which we can plan to teach some of these skills that students need to master in order to be fully creative amazing 21st century learners?
Friday 12 July 2019
Sydney EdTech Summit Day Two
She also challenged us all to find time for ourselves and our students to pursue passions. This learning time can be incredibly powerful.
I attended three workshops on the second day of the summit:
- Apps and Tools for Making Thinking Visible - Kimberley and Lorinda
- Shifting Maths Teaching and Learning for Modern Learning - Sandra Chow
- Put Students’ Stories on the Map… Literally - Kim Pollishuke, Ontario
All three workshops focused on the use of quality apps for making learning both accessible and visible for students.
Kimberley and Lorinda shared a variety of apps including Answer Garden, the Visible Thinking website, Flipgrid, the Talk and Comment Chrome extension, Screencastify, EdPuzzle, Peardeck, Quizlet, Canva and the Dynamic Learning Project. Peardeck is add-on for Slides and looks useful. It can be used to make Slides interactive - it can be set up with questions for students to answer or discuss in an anonymous forum.
Canva looks like a great publishing tool - it has a little more to offer than Google Docs or Drawings. Answer garden uses questions to create word cloud type answers. It was fun to use and would be useful in the classroom.
Sandra's presentation was very comprehensive. She focused on apps and sites to use for different aspects of Mathematics education - Mathematical Investigation; Consolidation; Manipulatives; Authentic Maths Problems; Coding; Game-based Learning; Media; Differentiation; Formative Assessment; Prominent Maths Thinkers; Amazing Websites; and other hot topics. Lots to process and think about...
The last workshop I attended was lots of fun. Kim's aim was to use geography tools to tell stories. She wanted use to gain an understanding of the tools and how we can share personal identity through stories using these tools. It was a hands on workshop using My Maps and Tour Creator to create stories. This would be especially great with students to create mihi and pepeha to share at the beginning of the year.
This was another great day of learning. The two days with my MIT colleagues were an awesome time of learning and fun spent with a great team of individually amazing professionals. There is a lot to reflect upon - what professional learning is going to make the biggest difference to my practice? What changes do I now need to make to my practice? What tools will make the most difference for my students? What do I share with my colleagues?
Kimberley and Lorinda shared a variety of apps including Answer Garden, the Visible Thinking website, Flipgrid, the Talk and Comment Chrome extension, Screencastify, EdPuzzle, Peardeck, Quizlet, Canva and the Dynamic Learning Project. Peardeck is add-on for Slides and looks useful. It can be used to make Slides interactive - it can be set up with questions for students to answer or discuss in an anonymous forum.
Canva looks like a great publishing tool - it has a little more to offer than Google Docs or Drawings. Answer garden uses questions to create word cloud type answers. It was fun to use and would be useful in the classroom.
Sandra's presentation was very comprehensive. She focused on apps and sites to use for different aspects of Mathematics education - Mathematical Investigation; Consolidation; Manipulatives; Authentic Maths Problems; Coding; Game-based Learning; Media; Differentiation; Formative Assessment; Prominent Maths Thinkers; Amazing Websites; and other hot topics. Lots to process and think about...
The last workshop I attended was lots of fun. Kim's aim was to use geography tools to tell stories. She wanted use to gain an understanding of the tools and how we can share personal identity through stories using these tools. It was a hands on workshop using My Maps and Tour Creator to create stories. This would be especially great with students to create mihi and pepeha to share at the beginning of the year.
This was another great day of learning. The two days with my MIT colleagues were an awesome time of learning and fun spent with a great team of individually amazing professionals. There is a lot to reflect upon - what professional learning is going to make the biggest difference to my practice? What changes do I now need to make to my practice? What tools will make the most difference for my students? What do I share with my colleagues?
Thursday 11 July 2019
Sydney Ed Tech Summit Day One
The Keynote speaker to start the summit was Jim Sill. He started the day with a short 'Ignite' talk. Jim is the Director of Global Business Development for EdTechTeam, Jim is based out of Melbourne, Australia and works with schools all over the world inspiring new uses of technology in teaching and learning. He is a Google for Education Certified Innovator & Trainer and Apple Distinguished Educator. He specializes in Google’s collaborative tools, project-based learning, and visual / media literacy.
He spoke about tools that lead to change. He used the development of the paint tube as an
example of a tool that led to amazing change and opportunities for all. He then game some examples of 21st century tools that had the potential to create similar change and opportunity. One example of this was the Merge Cube where you can create augmented reality “in the palm of your hand”. The merge cube allows students to interact with virtual objects, rather than simply view them on a screen.
Following this, we had 'stations' where we could wander and explore different things in short sessions.
The Playground Stations I went to were:
Augmented Reality in the Palm of Your Hand - Lorinda Ferry
I really enjoyed seeing the cube in action. The number of different apps available to use with it is
extensive and growing. Merge Things app is a good one to start with. The students would love them.
I have discovered that they are available in NZ through Modern Teaching Aids, and are not badly priced.
The cubes are made from foam, similar to a squeezy ball, so are nice and easy to handle. You can also purchase VR headsets to go with them, but they are not essential. Lorinda showed us a downloadable printable version that is worth having a go with as well.
Coding for K-2 Using Beebots - Sharon Cooper
A Bee-bot is a simple, battery operated (or chargeable) robot that looks like a bumblebee. It’s a
perfect starting point for teaching control,sequencing, directional language and algorithms,
using simple coding instructions. You can use any combination of forward, back, left,right, pause
and clear, to create a sequence of up to 40 steps. They would be great in our junior classrooms .
I could see lots of different ways they could be used. Again they are reasonably priced.
It’s a Wonderful World - Google Maps and Earth Apps with Sandra Chow
There are lots of new features to Google Maps and Google Earth. Sandra whizzed through a few
of these. You can create maps and import them into Earth. You can now play an amazing
politically correct version of Carmen Sandiego (she isn’t an international thief anymore LOL).
You can use Maps to create stories (I got inspired to attend this workshop on Day 2). You can also
use Tour Builder - if you sign in via Google you can publish these on Google Earth.
Mathspace Makerspace - Fiona Thomas
Taster session exploring Equati0 Mathspace to bring maths manipulatives to light - included Base
Ten Blocks and Tangrams. After this session I decided to attend her two workshops later in the day.
I attended two workshops. The first of these was “Digital Storytelling Tools” and the second was “Using digital tools to support the development of problem solving skills”. Both were facilitated by Fiona Thomas. Fiona’s first workshop addressed the issue of “how do we support students that are not average? How do we create “adjustable seats” for learning. Universal design for learning - how do we do this in writing?” She shared a variety of apps and sites that could be used to support and engage students in literacy learning, including: Read and Write chrome app; ifaketextmessage.com; Sizzling Starts; The Most Dangerous Writing app; Mystoryboardthat; Headliner app; Pixton.com; Piktochart… We zoomed through a number of different apps and sites quite quickly. I just need time to revisit some of these to decide which ones would be most useful to use with my students or share with colleagues.
The second of Fiona’s workshops was focused on Mathematics learning. Her main focus was
on introducing her company’s app - Equat10 (Equatio) which works complementary to Google
Apps. Her presentation reflected current NZ pedagogy around Maths and problem solving, and
she did have a heap of resources to share that might be useful. It was reassuring to know that
we are on the right track with how we are integrating chromebook use within our Mathematics programmes.
My Workshop
In between the two workshops I attended, I facilitated my workshop on Using Google Drawings in
the Classroom. Nicola was my awesome “wingperson”. I had nine people attendees - so it was
quite small. My aims in the workshop were to look at a variety of ways that teachers and students can use Google Drawings in different curriculum areas to express their thinking and learning; and to explore how the tools within the app can be used to create posters, word frames, flowcharts, diagrams, glossaries and other presentations, as well as to practice basic skills, such as spelling, and express mathematical thinking and ideas.
The teachers at the workshop taught in a wide range of learning levels - some taught juniors within
primary settings, and others taught older students - including two who were secondary teachers.
The examples I had were mainly at primary level, but I was able to talk to the secondary teachers
about what some of the examples might look like at their level.
It was great having Nicola in the room, as it helped having her to flick from slides to
working examples, and turn the problematic projector on/off when there were issues with that.
I was really pleased with the feedback that the EdTech team sent through after the summit.
I got an overall average rating of 4.33 out of 5, scoring best with “Did you learn something new
(skill, perspective, idea, strategy)?: 4.50” Feedback comments included - “Found it useful to
learn about importing video clips and changing page by clicking into the bottom corner.
Gained confidence in using draw. Learnt about shortcuts are available through the help Menu
and great to see so many examples Thank you” and “I will be able to get students to create
projects using this platform”. It was great to read that people had learnt something, and that
they would also use Google Drawings with their students.
Saturday 22 June 2019
Hapara Toolkit with Kerry Boyde-Preece June 18th
My focus with Hapara earlier in the year had been on basic use of both the Dashboard and Highlights functions within Hapara. Since then I have used it to monitor student files and drives. I was able to track and monitor student learning and activity - which was especially helpful for conversations with target students about their learning and the amount of independent tasks they were managing to complete.
In this toolkit my plan was to extend that knowledge more. My focus during the session was on learning how to use different functions for grouping students, and assigning work. I learnt how to use the "Guide browsing" function within Highlights to set up focus learning sessions for groups of students. I was able to plan a session for the class focused on Matariki. Kerry's tips for populating the tabs suggested that sites selected included the class site, Docs and Drive, so that students could then access learning tasks and create their own files to complete these. That leaves seven free tabs to populate with other relevant sites for students to browse.
The focus session can be set to a specific time of the day for a specific length. This is great as it means you can set the time for a specific learning block - in my case Literacy learning time. For that session the students can then only access the selected tabs. As some of my students discovered they cannot delete those tabs, and they can't access other sites either.
My planned focus session was so popular and successful with my class, that I immediately planned a follow up session for next week. Student voice comments about the focus session made during our end of day Captain's Log reflection were positive. Students liked that the sites guided their learning. One of my target students commented that it meant he could not get sidetracked. Other students agreed, and said that having all the sites chosen for them made it much easier to get on with the task. They felt that having seven sites to look at was a good number. One student said that she and her buddy found that two of the sites were most helpful, so they spent most of the time on them. Another target student liked the site that included some video clips, as he learnt lots of facts from them, without having to read much. Again, working with their learning buddy helped the students. I did have to swap two students, as one of my target student decided that he didn't want to work with a girl that day! He worked well with his buddy for the day, and they produced a great set of slides.
Target Student's Matariki Slides
In this toolkit my plan was to extend that knowledge more. My focus during the session was on learning how to use different functions for grouping students, and assigning work. I learnt how to use the "Guide browsing" function within Highlights to set up focus learning sessions for groups of students. I was able to plan a session for the class focused on Matariki. Kerry's tips for populating the tabs suggested that sites selected included the class site, Docs and Drive, so that students could then access learning tasks and create their own files to complete these. That leaves seven free tabs to populate with other relevant sites for students to browse.
The focus session can be set to a specific time of the day for a specific length. This is great as it means you can set the time for a specific learning block - in my case Literacy learning time. For that session the students can then only access the selected tabs. As some of my students discovered they cannot delete those tabs, and they can't access other sites either.
My planned focus session was so popular and successful with my class, that I immediately planned a follow up session for next week. Student voice comments about the focus session made during our end of day Captain's Log reflection were positive. Students liked that the sites guided their learning. One of my target students commented that it meant he could not get sidetracked. Other students agreed, and said that having all the sites chosen for them made it much easier to get on with the task. They felt that having seven sites to look at was a good number. One student said that she and her buddy found that two of the sites were most helpful, so they spent most of the time on them. Another target student liked the site that included some video clips, as he learnt lots of facts from them, without having to read much. Again, working with their learning buddy helped the students. I did have to swap two students, as one of my target student decided that he didn't want to work with a girl that day! He worked well with his buddy for the day, and they produced a great set of slides.
Target Student's Matariki Slides
Wednesday 12 June 2019
Online Toolkit Presentation for Manaiakalani - Using Google Drawing in the Classroom
As preparation for the Sydney Summit I volunteered to facilitate an online toolkit on Using Google Drawing in the Classroom. Dave Winter provided support via a Google Hangout for preparation for this. Setting up included developing a slide deck; setting up a calendar event with an invite for participants sending the link within the invitation. Via the calendar event I sent an e-mail invitation to all the participants - easy when you know how! The toolkit ran on Wednesday 5th June for 45 minutes.
I decided to include some slides on basic Google Drawing skills at the beginning of the deck, then have the bulk of the deck filled with illustrations of student work highlighting how the tool can be used to learn, create and share in a variety of different ways across a range of curriculum areas. I linked my thinking around these slides to key skills and competencies in learning, that related to areas within the Australian Curriculum, ready for submission for the Sydney Summit. These included - Knowledge and Skills; Problem Solving: Critical Thinking; and Creative Thinking.
At the end of my slide deck I included a couple of slides, with extra tips on using Google Drawing - including a trick for inserting video; changing canvas size; inserting diagrams; changing backgrounds; and using Word Art.
Despite having 26 people register for the online toolkit, only 14 participated on the day. I had set a colleague up as wing person - which was great. She was able to monitor comments and questions as we went. It was really difficult to monitor the session as it proceeded - very different to a face-to-face workshop, where you can see participants and make changes accordingly. The participants were very quiet, but most seemed positive with thank you comments at the end. I had great face to face positive feedback from one participant a couple of days later, when I bumped into her at the supermarket. Another participant sent me a piece of work that one of her students produced when she planned a task using Google Drawing the day after the toolkit. That was encouraging!
Like other MIT colleagues, I found it useful to do the toolkit. It was a good opportunity to trial the material for our Summit workshop, with plenty of time after to review the slides and think about changes needed. I have decided I need more examples with a bigger range of learning at different levels. I also need to plan for "play time" during the session, so think about when to schedule that into the workshop presentation.
Friday 31 May 2019
Raranga Matihiko in the Classroom
The students loved the two days based at Waitangi - the journey on the bus; the visit to the museum; the hikoi around the treaty grounds to see the treaty house, the whare runanga, the waka taua (Ngātokimatawhaorua), the flagpole, the bush and the gardens; but most of all the learning time in the digital classroom.
Each student worked with a learning buddy. I had been mindful of capability as well as co-operative learning behaviour in selecting the buddies for the two days. It has been interesting to note that back in the classroom at school, the students have continued to work with the same students for buddy tasks - mostly by their own choice.
The students rotated through fairly fast sessions at each learning station: Wonderbots with block coding on iPads; SculpGL (web-based tool) on Microsoft Surface Pro 4s; using Paint 3D on Microsoft Surface Pro 4s, then attaching images to mixed reality; Tinkercad - which is a chromebook app - but this app does have advertising on it, so we won’t use it at school; Sketch Fab (another web-based app); Stop Motion; Green Screen; and Virtual Reality.
A lot of learning, packed into two days.
Students used some of the apps to start creating trees for a virtual forest,
Each student worked with a learning buddy. I had been mindful of capability as well as co-operative learning behaviour in selecting the buddies for the two days. It has been interesting to note that back in the classroom at school, the students have continued to work with the same students for buddy tasks - mostly by their own choice.
The students rotated through fairly fast sessions at each learning station: Wonderbots with block coding on iPads; SculpGL (web-based tool) on Microsoft Surface Pro 4s; using Paint 3D on Microsoft Surface Pro 4s, then attaching images to mixed reality; Tinkercad - which is a chromebook app - but this app does have advertising on it, so we won’t use it at school; Sketch Fab (another web-based app); Stop Motion; Green Screen; and Virtual Reality.
A lot of learning, packed into two days.
applying learning about New Zealand native forests and trees, from our classroom focus.
Back at school we were able to continue using SculpGL plus Google Drawing to continue
to build our file bank of trees for our virtual forest. By linking the Google Drawing work to
Maths learning, we had really rich discussions about 2-D and 3-D shapes, and how they
were placed together, or manipulated, to create trees. This task provided lots of opportunity
for all students to use geometrical vocabulary as part of their talk.
to build our file bank of trees for our virtual forest. By linking the Google Drawing work to
Maths learning, we had really rich discussions about 2-D and 3-D shapes, and how they
were placed together, or manipulated, to create trees. This task provided lots of opportunity
for all students to use geometrical vocabulary as part of their talk.
Wednesday 22 May 2019
MIT May 20th - Using Catalyst
Catalyst is a collaborative inquiry game developed by CORE Education. Modelled on Kaser and Halbert's Spirals of Inquiry, Catalyst is underpinned by the OECD Seven Principles of Learning. Teams use a game piece to move along the six phases of the Spirals of Inquiry. Each team member is assigned a role and uses role cards to prompt learning-focused conversations and provoke new thinking and learning. The process encourages deepening learning-focused conversations, while allowing everyone to be an expert inquirer.
At our MIT hui this week, we worked in small groups using the game to help promote discussion about what was happening with our learners; to identify teaching practices that were helping/ not helping; to think about what research was linked to our thinking; and problem solve together. The game is linked to the OECD's principle's of learning.
The OECD’s work on innovative learning environments was led by Hanna Dumont, David Istance and Francisco Benavides. Their 2010 report “The Nature of Learning” identified seven key principles of learning:
• Learners at the centre
• The social nature of learning
• Emotions are central to learning
• Recognising individual differences
• Stretching all students
• Assessment for learning
• Building horizontal connections
The Catalyst game encouraged each of us to ponder our inquiry, thinking about:
• What are we doing well that is promoting learning and how do we know?
• What are we not doing so well that isn’t promoting learning and what evidence do we have?
• What do we need to think about next?
My inquiry related mostly to thinking more about student voice. How could I access and use voice collected via the recent Woolf Fisher survey? What about data from the Kahui Ako student surveys? In addition to ongoing collection of data via Kea Class Captain's log recording student voice on learning, what other ways could I collect and monitor student voice related to learning, that would help to track progress and monitor key aspects of learning that students are finding most helpful.
The OECD’s work on innovative learning environments was led by Hanna Dumont, David Istance and Francisco Benavides. Their 2010 report “The Nature of Learning” identified seven key principles of learning:
• Learners at the centre
• The social nature of learning
• Emotions are central to learning
• Recognising individual differences
• Stretching all students
• Assessment for learning
• Building horizontal connections
The Catalyst game encouraged each of us to ponder our inquiry, thinking about:
• What are we doing well that is promoting learning and how do we know?
• What are we not doing so well that isn’t promoting learning and what evidence do we have?
• What do we need to think about next?
My inquiry related mostly to thinking more about student voice. How could I access and use voice collected via the recent Woolf Fisher survey? What about data from the Kahui Ako student surveys? In addition to ongoing collection of data via Kea Class Captain's log recording student voice on learning, what other ways could I collect and monitor student voice related to learning, that would help to track progress and monitor key aspects of learning that students are finding most helpful.
Thursday 9 May 2019
Term 2 underway
Excitement in my class is growing as we anticipate our class participation in Raranga Matihiko. As part of the Ministry of Education Digital Technologies for All Equity fund, the programme delivers a range of innovative technologies, as well as allowing our class to access the Waitangi Treaty grounds and Museum, as part of our students' learning about their local history and heritage. Click on the link , if you wish to read more about Raranga MatihikoOur onsite learning will be linked to classroom learning about looking after God's creation and Sustainability.
We have been learning about plants, and the growth of plants. Our science learning has included growing seeds and monitoring growth; observing water movement in plants; and investigating the properties of plant materials such as wood, paper and cotton.
This term we have been learning more about how different plants are used for different purposes. Our key inquiry questions are:
Why are plants important to people? How do different groups of people use plants in different ways
Classroom learning site
The students are gaining confidence and competence, with their use of the Kea Class Site to direct their learning. In Literacy learning most students are using the site to guide their independent learning and sensible choices about this each day. They are completing a range of reading, writing, spelling and vocabulary tasks and activities linked to shared and group instructional reading. I have just begun to introduce external links to video clips and other learning sites. This seems to be working well. The Make a Robot site worked well. The students were able to save their work as a png which could then be inserted as an image on a google doc. Some we will be able to share on our class blog.
Because of this confidence and competence, I have now set up the Maths page with four areas of learning for students to choose from during independent Maths learning, when I am working with groups. I have included a Maths Eyes section, a Weekly Maths Challenge, a section linked to book work for practice and a direct link to e-Ako Maths.
Change to classroom learning groups
This term I have changed the structure of my instructional groups for literacy. In Term One I had a target group that I met with every day and four other larger mixed ability groups that included the target students. This term I have two lower level mixed ability groups - one with five boys, and the other with five girls. I work with these two groups each day. I have three other mixed ability instructional groups that I work with twice a week.
Because there is a boy's target group and a girl's target group, I have been able to make different choices of texts and tasks to engage the different students. The boys enjoy vocab games to support reading, that have pace and challenge. They enjoy having an element of competition to some activities. The girls group enjoy writing more, and are keen to take their time with tasks. I am noticing that the levels of engagement of individual students in both groups is higher than last term. Their verbal feedback on the change has been positive. The inclusion of some fringe lower level learners has provided better scope for discussion, and they are enjoying their "expert" roles.
Thursday 28 March 2019
MIT - The Journey Has Begun
Two days of retreat at Kuaotunu and a follow up day of continued design thinking has ensured that my Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher journey has a strong starting point. We gathered together as a cohort in the Coromandel, to get to know one another and start building relationships as an inquiry team. Ten of us from far and wide, with diverse backgrounds and teaching situations. A great bunch of teachers with a strong commitment to improve learning outcomes for students.
I enjoyed meeting my colleagues, and getting to know them. I am excited about the year ahead of us. I am grateful for this opportunity, and the support of the Manaiakalani team, in particular Dorothy, Anne and Jenny - also to Justine from KPMG in Auckland.
Dorothy and Anne used a design thinking process to kick start and strengthen the foundations of our inquiry. We used our colleagues "How might we..." sticky notes to prompt deeper level thinking about our inquiry story or problem. Their prompts helped to identify what works for the target students; what might be the causal factors to the problem; what strategies and supports might work with these students?
Ideas and thoughts included: finding teaching styles that suit the students; research proven deliberate acts of teaching to address the cause of the problem; how to involve other students; thinking about what resources would have a positive impact on learning for the target students; and how to celebrate and share success.
The purpose of the "Ideate - Crazy 8s" activity was to encourage thinking "outside of the box". In the first instance we were to think laterally from our initial two prototype ideas, and generate more, wide ranging alternatives to what might have a positive impact on learning for these students.
After putting our thinking sheets up, others were able to vote for ideas using sticky dots and special stickers. Interestingly, the others liked my more "out of the box" ideas... including using lego with learning; and identifying and using David Walliams type thinking to engage students.
Back at school, I jumped upon the Lego Enthusiast train, and conjured up all sorts of ideas on how I could link learning to use of Lego. I brainstormed ideas, talked to colleagues at school, and started to look at the availability of resources. As time passed, my thinking changed... and in the end I realised that Lego may provide one exciting context for some of the learning that takes place in the classroom, I needed a more robust model of what would actually make THE difference for the students.
Our hui at KPMG provided opportunity to work in a small group. Thanks to some great discussion with Santi and Hannah, I was able to rationalise my thinking about the challenge and the possible prototype to address this.
MY TEACHING AND LEARNING CHALLENGE - underachievement in Literacy learning for a group of Year 3 and 4 students. MY PROTOTYPE builds on my teaching strengths, and the deliberate acts of teaching that are proven to accelerate learning. It involves enabling these students, by using working with them at the beginning of each week (Monday/ Tuesday) to set them up as the experts for our STEM learning on Wednesday. We already have the STEM programme in place with whanau joining us when they can, so this might is a great opportunity. Then Thursday and Friday can be used to consolidate, share and celebrate our learning.
MY PURPOSE is to improve engagement in learning; enhance the students confidence in themselves as learners; and provide a rich and authentic context for learning and using improved vocabulary, talk and language structures.
MY HOPE is that this will accelerate reading and writing progress for the students.
MY GAPS to consider, include thinking more about student driven contexts related to the STEM learning - including Science and Maths contexts, as well as Engineering and Technology. I also need to record current student voice about their learning. AND I need to develop a tool to map progress in thinking and learning using student talk, student reflections, the class reflection book and our class blog later in the term.
MY POINT OF DIFFERENCE - there are two. A strong focus on Science and STEM is not prevalent in primary school settings. But with my Science background, and the work we have done in Science in our school already, this is a logical context. The second point of difference with my Inquiry, is my desire to develop a tool to monitor and track the quality of student talk, as learning progresses. My hunch here, is that the quality of talk will improve. My current thinking involves the use of SOLO taxonomy to assist with this. That is my next challenge...
I enjoyed meeting my colleagues, and getting to know them. I am excited about the year ahead of us. I am grateful for this opportunity, and the support of the Manaiakalani team, in particular Dorothy, Anne and Jenny - also to Justine from KPMG in Auckland.
 |
| Design Thinking Pathway |
Ideas and thoughts included: finding teaching styles that suit the students; research proven deliberate acts of teaching to address the cause of the problem; how to involve other students; thinking about what resources would have a positive impact on learning for the target students; and how to celebrate and share success.
The purpose of the "Ideate - Crazy 8s" activity was to encourage thinking "outside of the box". In the first instance we were to think laterally from our initial two prototype ideas, and generate more, wide ranging alternatives to what might have a positive impact on learning for these students.
After putting our thinking sheets up, others were able to vote for ideas using sticky dots and special stickers. Interestingly, the others liked my more "out of the box" ideas... including using lego with learning; and identifying and using David Walliams type thinking to engage students.
Back at school, I jumped upon the Lego Enthusiast train, and conjured up all sorts of ideas on how I could link learning to use of Lego. I brainstormed ideas, talked to colleagues at school, and started to look at the availability of resources. As time passed, my thinking changed... and in the end I realised that Lego may provide one exciting context for some of the learning that takes place in the classroom, I needed a more robust model of what would actually make THE difference for the students.
Our hui at KPMG provided opportunity to work in a small group. Thanks to some great discussion with Santi and Hannah, I was able to rationalise my thinking about the challenge and the possible prototype to address this.
MY TEACHING AND LEARNING CHALLENGE - underachievement in Literacy learning for a group of Year 3 and 4 students. MY PROTOTYPE builds on my teaching strengths, and the deliberate acts of teaching that are proven to accelerate learning. It involves enabling these students, by using working with them at the beginning of each week (Monday/ Tuesday) to set them up as the experts for our STEM learning on Wednesday. We already have the STEM programme in place with whanau joining us when they can, so this might is a great opportunity. Then Thursday and Friday can be used to consolidate, share and celebrate our learning.
MY PURPOSE is to improve engagement in learning; enhance the students confidence in themselves as learners; and provide a rich and authentic context for learning and using improved vocabulary, talk and language structures.
MY HOPE is that this will accelerate reading and writing progress for the students.
MY GAPS to consider, include thinking more about student driven contexts related to the STEM learning - including Science and Maths contexts, as well as Engineering and Technology. I also need to record current student voice about their learning. AND I need to develop a tool to map progress in thinking and learning using student talk, student reflections, the class reflection book and our class blog later in the term.
MY POINT OF DIFFERENCE - there are two. A strong focus on Science and STEM is not prevalent in primary school settings. But with my Science background, and the work we have done in Science in our school already, this is a logical context. The second point of difference with my Inquiry, is my desire to develop a tool to monitor and track the quality of student talk, as learning progresses. My hunch here, is that the quality of talk will improve. My current thinking involves the use of SOLO taxonomy to assist with this. That is my next challenge...
Tuesday 12 March 2019
Manaiakalani Hui with Woolf Fisher Feb 21st - Selena and Cynthia
Possibilities for 2019 - 3 Tools to inspire improved practice:
2017 Case Studies
Includes a range of examples of good teaching practice - texts, tasks and time.
WF Observations
More examples of good teaching practice to learn from.
T-Shaped Literacy Skills - going wide and then deeper with a narrow focus
Task design is specifically focused on development of thinking at a deeper level. Take students wide by using a range of texts, rather than a single text. Then delve deeper into a text/texts using a range of tasks.
I have begun to trial a simple version of this as part of my Literacy programme on my class site. This is set up as a reading challenge for the week. Group reading, with mixed ability groups, is used to support vocabulary and text understanding, as well as with tasks. Close reading of a group selected text, is used to scaffold learning for some students. Target students have alternative texts to support their learning. I am also using Shared Reading to support the topic, and the development of skills needed to complete tasks independently. Check it out on our fairly new class site :)
It has worked well for most students. The students that are just learning to use chrome books are well supported by others in their learning groups. I have a couple of students that are slightly overwhelmed by the site. I need to think how to cater better for their learning style and needs, in a way that is simpler in presentation, and easier for them to follow, one step at a time.
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