Teaching and Learning ... Am I Going the Right Way?

What Matters Most in Learning, Teaching and Leading

Andrew (Andy) Jones / Facilitator  

https://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi? article=1320&context=research_conference 

Learning Science:

Context is key ... professional practice, colleagues and community in our setting is pivotal when looking at development and change.

Sharing a short story with a beginning, middle and end (2 minutes) about someone in our community that we have made a difference for is very powerful in summing up what we are in education for ... acknowledging that we have and do make a difference. This would be a very valuable activity to carry out with staff and teams to keep us in the positives!! 

Episodes for Learning

1. What are we talking about here? School improvement research and practice
2. What makes you say that? Leading evidence-informed teaching practices across the school
3. Teachers make the Difference: Teacher learning and the science of professional learning
4. Team work makes the Dream Work: Enhancing teacher collaboration
5. Being Clear: Coherent and Intelligible
6. Are you paying Attention: Mindful Leadership

Mindfulness is the new BLACK!!

Why the School as a Learning Organisation?

• Who Killed Nokia? They were big and now almost extinct! Why? The leaders weren't listening to change ... APPLE arrived on the scene .... Apple leaders were programmers ... involved in how the systems work. In Nokia the leaders were removed from the systems. In school we need to make the decisions as we know education, we are at the front of change, we are an integral aspect of the puzzle ... we make the difference to the future here and now ... we are part of the change. We also have an interest and investment ... we are connected.

Just because you sit on a toilet does not make you a plumber!

  What do we as architects of learning want for our learners?

• To keep the wonderment of learning alive ... intellectual and emotional ability to engage on society... 
• Connectivity, with each other, their community and beyond.
• Creative, Curious and Innovative
• To keep the love of learning alive ... confident, connected, active learners.
• Happy ... knowing where to go when the going isn't going right.
• To have choices.
• To be resilient, ... This is a direct correlation to mental health. 
• To be good humans ... to add value to their community! This is what creates self esteem, self worth 
• To know who they are!! To feel valued, listened to and that they matter
• Passionate and kind.

Within the Room these are the qualities that we wish for our students in Gisborne.

Leading International Trends in School Improvement

1. Teacher level leadership
2. Networked Improvement Communities 

"Communities of Learning are struggling to find the leaders and teachers to lead these. Failing as they have been imposed from Top Down" ... These are Andrew's thoughts.

In Medicine ... the leaders growing the concept are in medicine ... In education it is the Ministry telling us how to run these, they are not teachers, principals or leaders in education.

How do schools Improve?

1. High quality teaching practice
2. Powerful Home / School Partnerships
3. Educational Leadership
4. Professional Development
5. Teacher Teams

Teacher-Level or Middle- level School Leadership

'Teachers who maintain classroom-based teaching responsibilities, while also taking on leadership responsibilities outside that of the classroom.'

Leading Ideas

Most systems that invest in their school invest in principal leadership ... 

The STRENGTH of the Middle Leaders

• Managing the stresses/difficulties - wellbeing/impact
• Changing relationships with peers and administration-identity
• opportunity for increased positive feelings and professional growth
• Harnessing the potential of an untapped resource- career teachers

ALL / MST support the development of teacher leaders, leading from the classroom empowers the teachers.

The classroom teacher has the integrity among their colleagues as they are doing the 'mahi' ... a leader that leads from the classroom are facing the challenges in the room alongside their colleagues, they are in the reality of today's classroom. 

Teachers as Leaders / Collaborative leadership for Communities of Learning / Vincent Anfara.

                                                                                                                 
  

 The Stresses of Leading is REAL

What is Mindfulness?

• Mindfulness is about paying attention to the present moment with openness, curiosity, and without judgement.
• Present in your body
• Paying attention
• Building a positive culture with deliberate actions, acknowledging the importance of all in the team, the community and the class.

It's not whale music, caftans and candles ... 

Smiling Mind 

This app is a possibility for the school to follow. There is a free education programme for the whole school to follow.

Is there merit in providing our students with this tool? ... Nathan Wallis believes that teaching our students the practice of mindfulness is the best gift we can give them for their future!!

Acknowledge our feelings as feelings and not out reality!

Sharing this app with families to support them and their children at home is also a worthwhile practice.

4. Teamwork makes the Dream Work

Children grow into the intellect that is around them ... the teacher has a significant impact on this in their modelling and the values that they engage in and give students exposure to.

Teacher Collaboration

• Connections
• Inclusiveness
• Collective Conversations
• Collective Ownership / efficacy 
• Improvement
• More than cooperation
• the union of ideas
• SHARING
• Respectful nature of the relationship
• Interdependence- creating new knowledge - valuing others
• Relational trust 
• Synergy - connections
• 'We'
• Goal directedness / purpose / focus
• Collective understanding
• Bringing it together!

Lyn Sharratt ... 

Collaboration is ... goal-directed action that empowers teachers and leaders to construct new knowledge together, that builds and shares understanding about practice and most importantly, that outlines specific strategies for improving the quality of students lives.

What is the nature of teacher collaboration in our schools?

I am noticing...

I am wondering ... A way to share thoughts and ideas to encourage growth ... prompting conversation ... thoughts on a topic.

I am noticing ... stronger teacher relationships in our HUBs and am wondering is this a reason for the shared consistency across the school not being as strong?

I am noticing that we are very predictable in our school for children and wonder if this is a barrier to them learning to adapt to change.

Collective Efficacy is the most powerful aspect to improvement across the school ... the leaders and teachers in the school have a shared understanding of what we all believe!!

Peter Senge: Mindfulness as Key for Personal & Organisational Learning (Chap 3) 

The health of the community is reliant on the whole community ... if one aspect is not strong the other areas are affected. 

Peer Observation...

We often watch the teacher during an observations ... learning is invisible, observing the learners is key to knowing what is being taught and how effective the teacher is. 

Ask the learners the questions... 

• What are you learning?
• Why are you learning this?
• How will it help you in the future?

A wondering I have after my time with Andrew is why am I in education? 

What difference am I making or wanting to make?

What do I believe and want to see for my school, my students, my team?

DFI- The Data Deal

The Data Deal

The Manaiakalani ethos ...

 of connecting all to enable strength through collaboration is reflected in the power of blogging! A successful example of this is our DFI groups weekly reflections through our blogs ... this enables us to share our weekly creations. thinking ans skills for others to return to to deepen our thinking and skill!

Google Maps ...

 is an underutilised tool in our classrooms and one that can bring the world, our place and our country into the classroom.
This is the beginning of My Digital Pepeha supported by Google Maps.

Google forms ...

 are an easy and effective way to gather information for a class, school or community. Quick to make and information being easily gathered, aggregated and shared makes this a valuable tool for me as a teacher and leader in our school. Here is a quick sample of a Google Form I have made to gather student information for my class. 

Google Sheets ...

Google Sheets is an area that at this stage I have not used or had the need to use. I have however discovered Steve Dotto from dottotech on youtube. I have the confidence through DFI to know that if I was required to create a google sheet for a task that I would be able to locate the information I require. In fact ...  I have such confidence in Steve that with the skills I have learnt through DFI that I have made a youtube playlist of the relevant clips I require to make the learning more accessible!

This is all part of the Manaiakalani philosophy that supports learning being accessible to ...

... Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere!

I have been mindful of the rewindable learning for my students and their families through the use of our class Google Site! I ensure that I share the learning for all to revisit so that they can deepen their understanding, share their learning and show their families their thinking!

DFI- Collaborative Sites ... Collaborating Life!

Working Smarter / Living Smarter

Using digital technologies to smarten up the way I live and interact with teaching and learning will not only make my life smarter yet the learning more real and connected for the learners and their families.

The class web-page is the beginning of this for my new entrant room as it is a way of sharing the learning for home and school, making it visible for the families and rewindable for the learners. I have created for the first time an assembly page under Term 1 to make the running of the presentation to the school smoother yet sharing it with families earlier would mean the children can practice at home during the week so they are better prepared!

Multi-modal Literacy's - Design ... window dressing ... making the learning inviting ... with the support of Hapara you can give the children focused browsing time where their screens are locked for a selected amount of time so they can only work with the desired work.

 There are so many supports to keep our students safe and to make learning achievable and connectable. The focus on Ipads today introduced the many ways for new learners to record, review and share their thinking with others. 

Explain Everything is the next new skill for our classroom. I look forward to introducing this to our class as I feel it will add value to their thinking and learning and is very shareable for our families. 

We are currently accessing apps on our IPads to support us with letter formation, numeral recognition, subertising and now we will use the Makaiakalani philosophy of CREATE and SHARE.
It is a fabulous feeling to be at a place where technology is supporting me!!

DFI - The Final Frontier - Week Nine

Revision

Today was all about reviewing the distance traveled after Nine INTENSIVE weeks of ICT learning. The Manaiakalani kaupapa of making learning visible, rewindable and equitable has certainly been reflected for me in the past few weeks as I have built up to taking on an exam.

I was able to use the skills that this DFI has taught me to view youtube, rewind skills taught in prior focuses and to save information all in readiness to sit the Google Level One exam! While not achieving the exam this time I am certainly close enough to had a resit in 14 days time. The challenge was real and my efforts stellar!!

I have learnt that learning is never ending and with the support of GOOGLE and a network of colleagues every challenge is achievable ... if not at first most certainly soon after!!

I learnt that the struggle is where the learning takes place and it is through the struggle that we achieve. It has been too long since I was last challenged in the way that I expect my learners to be challenged and this was a good feeling and a timely reminder how good ... no great ... achieving feels after the struggle!!

The skills I have learnt in applying the different tools and apps to assist me in keeping order in a busy life have been invaluable. Thanks to a fantastic SMART phone support, advice, planning, assessment and lists is never far away. Sharing across many devices and with teaching colleagues life is certainly much SMARTER!
 These pictures are a reflection from last weeks learning where I introduced my class of 5 year olds to CODING UNPLUGGED! Such fun ... I could see so many curriculum skills being covered as well as collaboration and communication. The list of learning skills was endless!!

A HUGE thank you to our fabulously patient and knowledgeable facilitators Maria, Amie, Step and Herman. Meeting new faces and learning partners has also been a highlight of the DFI experience!!

Computational Thinking ... Where will it take ME?

My Digital Journey

Magic Moments at 

Gisborne Mindlab

Getting my head around the new 'Digital Technology Curriculum' for me is a NOW step. Fortunately we have supported PLD through Cognition. 

Listening to Dorothy share with us today of the challenges of equity across our communities is such an eye opener every time. The positives today is thanks to being able to connect digitally we are able to keep our communities connected no matter where they be!

Digital devices are so much more than a tool! They are windows to the world!! Keyboards to collaboration and connection!

The Mindlab

What a fabulous space The Mindlab is to work in. Great to revisit and reconnect. This time round I feel much more digitally proficient and the new learning shared made so much more sense!! I was able to listen to and learn new skills and then adapt them to suit my age group so look our Room 7 Makauri School ... we will be learning to code!!

Playing KAHOOT! was a real heart pounder ... not a good thought when the Google Level One exam is 3 hours of STRESS!!!

Practicing Coding with real live ROBOTS. To achieve this successfully with 5yr olds I would tape the grid on the floor, provide left and right arrows to assist with not knowing left and right while they are learning this. We will explore coding using our Duplo blocks too.

'Lightbot' is an app for the ipad to teach children the beginning of programming. Great for covering the Mathematical terms for left,  right, 1/4 turn and 1/2 turn.

Such fun collaborating with a friend ... risk taking and applying new skills is so much easier!!

My first steps to begin the learning of coding is introduce the concept through materials in our room. Creating a grid on the carpet and one on the wall are places I am going to start ... watch this space as I will post pictures of our progress!!

Booking times with The Mindlab for our class is the plan for Term 3 !!

A great step to wean me from Manaiakalani and to keep my skills rolling!!

Next Week ... Google Level One Certification time!!

DFI - Daring to Dabble with Devices

Digitally Smart- Cyber Smart ... skills for life!

The Cyber Smart curriculum enables us to learn the skills to keep ourselves. When we teach learners to be Cyber Smart it takes away the opportunity to be UNKIND to others.
Using the Cyber Smart slides we explored the importance of Being Cyber Smart. Using Screencastify I created a video to share the learning around our 'Digital Footprint'.
Thanks to my new learning skills becoming part of who I am I now as I am more confident with HTML i have embedded my video, moved it around and added breaks.

Our online footprint ... what is my profile like? Watch this clip below to see how we would explore this with our students at school.

Hapara

A fabulous way to ease the monitoring and managing of students on devices. I can see current work, shared work, stored work and where the children have been on devices both at home and school Emails can be seen, passwords reset for the children and group emails sent to the children. This is a service that will support me once I have moved into 1-1 Devices with my class on ipads. This is tool I can see will enable me as a teacher to ensure that my students are being Cyber Smart! I will also be able to see all the children' ipads at once on my screen so at a glance can see where they are all working. I will be able to see their folders also to ensure that they have saved their work accurately.
The image below is a little something to think about and reinforces the purpose behind all our students using Chrome Books and encouraged by Manaiakalani. Manaiakalani carry out trials in classroom to ensure that we are using the best and most up-to-date devices! 

Explain Everything

This is an app for our ipads that I have been wanting to become more familiar with as it is highly recommended by Manaiakalani as a tool for Years 1-3 to use to share their thinking. I believe as I become more confident in this app that I will be able to create activities for the children to work with during learning time.

In my personal life gaining the knowledge and supporting information provided by Manaiakalani in SLIDES around Cyber Smart will help me to check my digital footprint and ensure that I am portrayed in a professional manner. 
I am also very excited about the fact that I am gaining the skills and practices of the Learn, Create, Share with Manaiakalani ahead of time before 2020 when my students and I will be supported in the 1-1 Device Programme.

DFI - Connecting with Each Other

Connecting with Each Other

Today my skills with google drawings increased as has my understanding of and ability ... you will notice this wee gem I created on google drawings has been added to this blog. Manaiakalani's kaupapa is all about empowering, challenging and added value to our personal and professional lives digitally and now after 3 sessions I am beginning to feel a little more accomplished!

Thanks to the assistance of a passionate blogging colleague I am also acquiring the skills to begin personalising my blog which I am now becoming more connected to.

I am beginning to add to my google slides skills in which I am creating my digital pepeha. I have added this below so you can see I am very basic at this stage. The great thing about everything connecting is that as I work on impact for my Digital Pepeha in drive it will also update here ... now isn't that clever!!



My challenge that I am continuing to solve is how best to communicate with my families and the purpose of BLOGGING!!
Til next week team...

Flag the Bag

Eliminate Plastic Bags 

My moonshot for elimination is to be creative and not confined with the idea of a bag yet more a vessel e.g. Buckets, baskets, laundry basket, wheelbarrows.

My safe bet is keeping a variety of re-usable bags in my car, my handbag and my classroom.