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 21 - My Hobbies and Interests into the Classroom

Whales, UK

One of the first things we are taught when learning to be a teacher is knowing your students is the most important tool you can have.  Know them as a person and as a learner, use their interests to hook them into their learning.

I have had an interest in photography since I started university - never been any good at it but do get a few gems from time to time.

The other interest that I have is baking and cake decorating.  Something that started when I was younger, standing on a chair watching my mum bake cakes and cookies for school lunches.  It wasn't until last year that I was able to bring those actual skills into the classroom through an options class to this year doing Sugar Figures.

Reflecting upon the skills needed to bake and decorate cakes reflects much of the learning process:

• Topic/Plan - what do I want to achieve?  How do I want it to look?  What do I want to be able to do?
• Skills/Questioning - what do I already have/know?  What skills do I need to have?
• Source - find resources and information to help learn the new skills
• Practice - refine my skills and go back and modify my plan if need be
• Present - put together my final product
• Reflect - what worked?  What didn't?

I had been able to use these skills all along, the context maybe different but the skills are still the same.

7 layer rainbow cake

I am very lucky to have a sugar figures and photography options group this term as well as step into the soft materials teacher's shoes when she was away for the contributing school visits - this was a lot of fun!

No matter what interests or hobbies you have, you can always bring them these into the classroom whether it is through a different context or as it is itself.  If you're interested and motivated this is always a great thing for your class and always has a positive effect.  It also allows the children to learn more about you which is always a good thing!

Day 20 - Curation of Work

Sharing and celebrating the learning of your class is an important aspect of learning however sometimes never gets any further than the walls of your classroom.

Technology has been one way to curate students work and as it becomes more and more accessible the limits is becoming boundless.  Over the years I have experimented with Wiki's, e-portfolios, and last year with a class Weebly.  To be honest, a person who isn't ICT challenged, I found it like putting another subject into my classroom that I didn't have time for.

This year, with the new found motivation through my lovely LwDT teachers Leigh and Barb, I have started up a class blog through Blogger, as we are on the Google platform, to each child having their own blog.  The children are starting to want to blog things about their learning.  

Now the next step is how to build our audience!

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 17 - Challenging issues in education today

Education is forever changing and since graduating in 2006 the following issues have always been the same for me.  My biggest issues in education today are:

• Paper work: many questions spring to mind...
  Who is this for?
  When am I supposed to have time for this?
  Why do we all have to have the same format?
  Can't I personalise this to suit me?
  Why does this feel like no one trusts me?
• Class size:  there is a lot going around about class size and I sit on the side that it does matter because of the following reasons:
  Getting more 1:1
  Making stronger connections with students
  Ability to personalise every student
  The time need for: paper work size, report writing, assessments, moderation, etc.
  
  I know that if you're a good teacher it doesn't matter what size class you have however it does beg the question of if you have 30+ students in your class how much authentic time do you spend with each of them over the period of a day, whether it is 1:1 or in small groups?  For me my answer would be not enough.
• Demand on teachers to do more and more is too much - something has to give.  As educators we are expected to not only do a great job at teaching students but we're also expected to be a coach, nurse, councilor, mentor, teacher of values and manners, keep up with the latest trends in education, and the list goes on. 
  
  My question is:  When is there time to do all this?
  
  We are all human, we too have a family of our own, and too want to have a balanced life where we can go and exercise, have hobbies, and so on.  So, when is enough, enough? 
  
  Don't get me wrong, we do love our jobs and going the extra mile for the right reasons is always necessary, my issue is balance for teachers are way out!  How can we get this balanced restored?

There is so much more that is out there that is working against us but I'm reminded of we can only do what we can do, but make sure what we do is the best that we can do.

Day 16 - Super Powers in the Classroom

My son is a huge Marvel and DC fan, along with many of the students in my class.  I had used this interest to do a Super Hero activity through Maths Shed where the children learnt about multiplying/dividing/rounding/subtracting decimals and mode/median/mean.

When I read this yesterday I started to think about the different super powers I'd like such as invisibility, super speed, etc.  I decided to have a real think about it and had a look around the internet where I came across this website - IGN's Top 100 Coolest Super Powers.  Going through the list to find a "cool" super power there were the usual ones you know of however there were other powers like self confidence, empathy - isn't it interesting that these are considered super powers.

Back to which one I would like and how it would help, it would have to be...

PHYSICAL DUPLICATION

It doesn't seem so exciting but being able to duplicate myself so that I can work with all the groups in my class.  The ability to personalise everything in the class would benefit all the learners as I would be able to workshop for them, give 1:1 help, the list of what I could do was would endless!  

It would be slightly scary for the children to have so many of me but I think they would get used to it!

Day 12 - Back to the Future

I like to plan for the future and look to what I want to do next.  As we all know education is forever changing, just like taking on a university paper this year was something that was planned to do but changed.

The question today is how you envision your teaching changing in 5 years?

• Children will be blogging their achievement/learning progress - or sometime similar to this
• Classes will have their own PLN to source experts to help them develop their projects
• Workshops would be something everyone does - children nominating workshops they need for their learning
• Children being actively involved in the decisions made for their learning and how they're going to learn it based on their needs and interests

A part of this question brings up thoughts of what would I have done, thinking about that, this is what I would like to have done 5 years in the future:

• Ra and I would have developed our version of personalising learning.  This is something I am passionate about and would like to see this well developed and in use.
• Presented this to a wider audience other than the staff
• I am unsure if I am meant for the classroom or management, I would love to have done some time in a curriculum role as a deputy principal to further develop staff professional learning
• Grown my PLN 
• Become a competent blogger to continue to share my love of teaching

We never can plan for what will happen and how things will change.  But for now, this is the plan, the hope.

Day 9 - Nothing is earnt without a bit of hard work

I think one of the things that spring to my mind about one of my biggest accomplishments that people may not know, and I can't take all the glory in this as Sandy the TA in my class played just a major role in this success too.

This child struggled with all learning and a lot of support was put in place for him however, only small gains were being made.  We managed to work out a lot about this child such as he was getting up in the middle of the night to play on his PlayStation which led to him being exceptionally tired in class and sometimes falling asleep - mum was great, sorted that one out!  This was one of many that we had to get to the bottom of in order to get him moving.

The break through happened when we discovered that he saw the world like a comic strip.  We knew he enjoyed drawing and would do this all day if he could but we know this isn't the case.  He always had really out there ideas and could articulate them reasonably well with some muddled parts in there - fantastic sense of humour!  So, when we understood how he saw the world, we were then able to use this information to get him writing.

Comic book character by a student

All his writing/planning was done through a comic strip.  He first started off doing full comic strips, progressing to strips with writing under each slide, increasing words until it was no longer needed.  His spelling was an issue, so we got him to make up the words until he was able to spell them himself or was able to find them. 

The other barrier that we found was that because he wasn't able to keep his words on the line or in it, we started giving him blank pieces of paper and he was away.  His writing was amazing, he had all aspects that writing should have - beginning, middle, end.  To then developing his characters and setting.  His spelling and reading improved, his motivation for writing and all things English went up, and attitude towards school became positive.

I believe this is one of my accomplishments so far for my teaching career as we had a lot to overcome first in order to get to the bottom of what was going on, and of course I couldn't have done it without Sandy who was there to push him along.  We both still talk about him and wonder what is he doing now.

So, I suppose when reflecting upon accomplishments all the ones I can think of are the ones that I've worked the hardest for - but definitely worth it!

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!