Day 30 - Fearless Educators

I've always thought of myself as a fearless educator, pushing the limits and doing something different with my class, as I'm not afraid to get it wrong and say I'm sorry.  I love the feeling you get when you push it that little bit further, the excitement in the class when they are doing something different.

Reflecting upon this, it has always been within the limits of the school.  So, to answer the final 30 Day Reflective Blogging Challenge topic - what would you do as an educator if you weren't afraid?

*Skype experts across the world
*Tweet more often
*Share with the world the amazing things we do
*Present at a conference
*Ask why more often

Imagine what the world would be like if we were all fearless educators!

D24 - Educational Trends

Educational trends or initiatives come and go all the time.  As educators we like to keep up these as we all know education is forever changing.

Today's post from the 30 Day Reflective Blogging Challenge is what educational trends captures your attention and why?  I know for me it is anything where I can teach more meaningful for the students such as the work from Jeff Anderson or personalising learning with a strong link to LwDT.

However, I think the bigger question isn't about what educational trends that capture you, is how much of it do you get to try out and use authentically to make it your own before moving onto another trend?

For me and my experiences I have seen a lot of trends come and go quickly through our school.  For the trends that have stuck with me, has been the PLP (personal learning plan) which the children have all their individual targets to work on and how Jeff Anderson delivers his lessons with a strong reading/writing link.

It is up to the schools to take a good look at these trends, see how it fits them, and give their staff enough time to experiement, get it wrong, play around further, discuss it, make it their own, keep the parts that fits, then move onto the next.  The saying that springs to mind is: quality not quantity!

 

Day 23 - Community Involvement

As a school we always have someone coming or going through the school whether it is to support the Environmental Group, talk to a syndicate, view the school, or support learners in their classes.  

Reflecting upon how I meaningfully have the community involved I instantly thought about social action. As an teacher I haven't had much success with social action.  We've always thrown the idea out there and got the children working away at it but they loose steam as they are waiting on a response from someone or it didn't quite workout the way they wanted.  This is all a part of the learning process with social action however can feel like a waste.  Again throwing caution to the wind, social action is on the cards again for next term!

So what do I define as meaningful involvement?
This can come in multiple forms:

• Sending an email to gain knowledge/information from an expert
• Visiting a site to learn more about what they do and/or help out for the day
• Experts coming to visit us
• Children getting involved in worth causes like the SPCA cupcake day 

And the list goes on.  I believe community involved is a vital part of learning.  A lot of children want to change the world, for our social action this year we are looking what we can do either at a class/syndicate, school, or community level. The children are looking to change the mindset of it's not just about fundraising it is about doing more.

A bit more information about our Social Action for Term 4

As next term our overarching theme is "Let's get Accelerated" instead of doing careers, like we normally do, we thought it meant using their learning targets to do more, push more.  So to motivate the children we watched a TED talk:

Stephen Ritz: A teacher growing green in the South Bronx

Session 2:
From there we got the children to complete a Bronfenbrenner style diagram with them at the heart of it.  Each level being: me - class - syndicate - school - community.  They were to list the things that concern them.

Session 3:

The next session we got them to get their diagram out again and have a think about what learning they were going to get out of it and tentatively choose a topic.

Session 4:

We emphasised the choosing of a good group that these were groups of 3.  They then chose a topic that they would like to do and start to map out the following:

• Timeline - what were they going to do when (8 week window)
• Holding time - what are they going to do while they are waiting for responses etc.
• Targets - what targets were they going to achieve?
• Learning - what learning are they going to go from this?
• Workshops - what workshops would they like the teachers to run

We are looking towards this week getting the children to cement what they did in session 4 so we can match them to one of the teachers in the house to be their mentor and who they work with for this project.

Day 19 - The Power of Reflection

Reflection is a powerful tools we use as teachers to ensure we are doing the best job we can.  Teaching kids to reflect and see the value behind it at times can be very hard, especially when they have either done it before but ineffectively or haven't experienced it at all.

Some of the tools I use for reflection in my class is:

• Checklists and TimelineWhen undertaking a longer unit of work such as an inquiry topic, I like to use checklists paired with a timeline.  This helps teach the children to:
  - make sure they've fulfilled all the criteria
  - map out a long term project, meeting milestones
  
  I always begin with very structured to model to the children how to do this then as the year goes on they take more and more responsibility for their own checklists and timelines.
  
  At each milestone, we discuss what they should have achieved and where they should be now - usually this is just small reflection by looking at their checklist and timeline, marking off where they are.
  
• Mid and End of Term ReflectionsThis is common practice in our school.  Some teachers do it weekly where others do it at the mid and end of the term.  I prefer to do mid and end, this is in the form of questions which stay the same throughout the year for them to reflect upon their learning as a whole.  I encourage the children to re-read their last reflection to see if they achieved what they set out to or what they need to continue to work on.
  
• It feels like Punishment!  I feel Successful!Some of the children "coast" through the term, where others put their heads down and work hard.  I work with a level where they are about to be much more responsible for their learning so giving them the tools is necessary. 
  
  I believe a part of that is feeling the "punishment" or disappointment of not doing as well as they could have and the kids who did not "coast" their success is in their work - this is where I feel you get the most powerful reflection and motivation for the next.

As an educator I want the children I work with to think critically about what they're doing, why they're doing it, and how they can do more.

Day 15 - Strengths as an Educator

Today's challenge is to name 5 strengths I have as an educator.  Not always the easiest subject but I will give it a go!

My 5 strengths as an educator:

• Relationships - building good relationships with students, whanau (family), and other teachers.
  It is so important me to me to know who the students are and their whanau.  As well as who the people I work with as people and professionals - this is why I believe I build strong teams.
• Organised - not only having an organised classroom where all resources are easily accessiable by all students, lessons, paper work, activities etc.
• Procedures and expectations - Paul, my second year mentor teacher, taught me: without procedures in place and high expectations no learning can happen.  This is something I take with me and how I set up my team/class each year, ensuring we're all on the same page.
• Open - I consider myself to be an open person to talk to whether it is a problem they are having or need advice, or to try new initiatives
• Questioning - this is a forever evolving skill, that everyone should work on, which I am yet to master.  However, I do believe I have gotten better at questioning the students to get more from them.
  I also apply these skills when unpacking things with the staff which I work with.

As teachers we all have to have multiple skills and abilities.  It is something that is always changing and it is part of why I love this job!

Starting a bit behind the 8 ball! Days 1 - 4 of 30 Day Reflective Blogging Challenge

Hi Everyone,
Discovering this on twitter tonight after a great discussion around e-learning #edchatNZ, I thought I'd give this a go.  So, in the spirit of all things that I will catch up!

Day 1 - My Goals for 2014
Over the year has changed and now that we're past half way through the term reflecting upon the rest of the year I want to achieve the following things:

• Children using their blogs to show their learning, what they're achieving and working on
• Whanau interacting on the children's blogs and the class blog
• Have a planned what personalising learning the NIS way is
• And a personal one: complete my first year long paper in my journey to getting my post grad to then move onto my masters

They don't seem overall big but is a work in progress.  Have been throwing around different ways in which the children can have a more meaningful way to show their PLP (Personalised Learning Plan).  Keep posted about this, it'll most probably come up a lot!



Day 2 - Piece of Technology 
Where do I start!  There is so much out there! I am just a little excited about Google Classroom however, disappointed that it is having so much troubles as this would help me to achieve my goal around personalising learning the NIS way!

Since I first started this journey with two others in 2009 we toyed around with ideas and Google Classroom has given me a new sense of hope for what we want to do.  But waiting to get access to it!


Day 3 - Mention 1 "observation" area that you would like to improve on for your teacher evaluation
I need to get more of a strong student voice.  I am taking steps for next term around social action, what topics they'd like to look into, and now they're working on the steps in which they need to take and the learning they'll need.

In attempt to try to get more student voice took a different approach to teaching mode, median, and mean paired with decimals work of multiplying and subtracting decimals.  Through an activity on Maths Shed around Super Heroes.  The children are giving me the workshops I need to teach however, still getting them to move quickly through the work is giving it's own challenges.  Will find out tomorrow where they are all at!

Sorry just realised I didn't do day 4!

Day 4 - The thing that I love the most about teaching
A very hard question!  I suppose what I love about teaching is those "AH-HA" moments the children have.  When they have been struggling so much, then it clicks!  They're excited, you're excited, the pride they are bursting with - that is the thing I love the most about teaching!