DFI - Day 2 - Workflow

LEARN, CREATE, SHARE

Learn - AKO                               Create - HANGA                                      Share - Tohatoha

Recognize                             Creativity empowers                         Connected learners share
Amplify                                  learning

Turbocharge

Effective practice

Great teachers + Digital Affordances = Acceleration

Words above used from Manaiakalani- DFI workshop.

Merging my Pedagogy with the Learn Create Share.

Recognize

Teachers' actions promote student learning.

• The teacher is not replaced by technology - Teachers promote student learning and this is very important.
• HLP - High leverage practice is key.  Woolf Fisher research helps us to ensure that what we are doing is indeed high leverage practice.

Amplify

• The whole world is at our door now that we can harness and use technology

Turbocharge

• Transform practice - harness the opportunity to do the things we weren't able to do before technology became a tool in our Kete for teaching and learning.
• Use the technology we can get our hands on to redefine teaching & learning.
• Offer new experiences and opportunities.

Harness the affordances of technology - REWINDABLE LEARNING IS SO IMPORTANT AS PART OF THIS!

Over my time within Kaikohekohe Education Network and with PD both within and beyond this network.  I can honestly say that although I can still learn more about the LEARN, CREATE, SHARE pedagogy, it is my understanding that this pedagogy is one that not only enhances engagement but also enhances student empowerment.  This empowerment is through giving students the choice and strategies to create and share their own developing understandings.   

This pedagogy also moves along the lines that we need to empower our students to become creators.  Creators of their own learning, creators of their own solutions, and able to reflect and adapt what they are creating constantly as new knowledge and further opportunities arise.  The sharing of these creations is also a vital part of the process as it enables further adaptions to learn and knowledge and also provides opportunities for students to see and own the outcomes they are creating.

In this ever-changing world we need our students to become creators and not just consumers of knowledge.

Diving deeper

Today we also had a play around in Google Meet, organizing Gmail, and google calendar.  The great thing about this was that it was great to be reminded of these and to actually have the time to do an update and organize these areas.  Gmail is always something I get hassled about as I read the emails I need to, and just leave the rest sitting there as I don't like deleting them.  I am a search my emails person and this I can manage pretty quickly so has never been a priority.  At the end of each year, I go through and archive.  One bonus is I found that I wasn't the only one with LOTS of emails in their inbox.  Lots of filters later it is looking much more organized but I still have lots of emails to archive.  Goal for the week is to finish this while the momentum is on!  

One helpful tip I found for this archiving task was that if they are all labeled then they are still easily searchable. - So I now have more labels.  

In the afternoon we were looking through blogs that had been published in the sharing the hook (a great place to find examples of good practice).  For this, we had to set up a calendar event and add a meet link.  When in our meet we had to record our session and also share the screen we were talking about.  We have been asked to share this video below.  This is not a video that I would normally share but have included it here for the purpose of the DFI task.

Early Literacy Workshop - Day 1 - Kerikeri

Today a group of teachers attended an Early Literacy Workshop run by the reading recovery centre.  Today's session was based around shared book and the value of shared book.  

A common thread of thought that came from this workshop was that Shared book is a social experience and one that engages people.  Books offer a wealth of language through connections, language, involvement, engagement layout questioning and enables exposure to work that is more challenging through scaffolding that teacher use.  

As we have been currently working on engaging boys in writing as a schoolwide focus and on empowerment through our current readings, my thoughts coming away from this was that in addition to the above common threads, shared books arouse interest and the desire to find out more.  When we couple this with student agency and the freedom of choice we will move beyond engagement and move towards empowerment in learning.

READ, WRITE, INNOVATE!  

During the discussions, we were introduced to an Educational expert Don Holdaway.  According to Don Holdaway the Shared Book Experience should include...

• Observation of the demonstration
• Guided participation including, guided thinking and questioning
• Unsupervised role play and practice-based around the story and the ideas of the story.
• Performance - the sharing and celebrating of accomplishments.

Empower - John Spencer

As part of our unitholders meeting in the holidays a book was shared that we as a staff will work through.  So with only a few days before school started 2 of us started reading this text.  It was a surprisingly easy read with many powerful quotes to think about.  

• "Empowering students means giving kids the knowledge and skills to pursue their passions, interests and future."  Bill Ferriter.
• "The people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world are the ones that do."  Steve Jobs.
• We don't have to change the entire system in order to give our students a different experience.  Instead, we only need to change one thing.  - Change the mindset from compliance and engagement TO EMPOWERMENT!
• Your legacy as an educator is always determined by what your students do.  You change the world by empowering your students to do the same.

As an educator, its easy to think that compliance and engagement are good but without the empowerment that goes alongside it is really just another way of replicating the education system we already have.  Change is the only certain thing and without empowering our students to live, thrive, and change the world they live in we are not equipping them with the skill or mindsets that they need "to be the best that they can be" (our school saying).  

In John Spencers' words... Our job as teachers, parents, and leaders is not to prepare kids for "something".  Our job is to help kids prepare themselves for "anything".

Day 1 DFI Term 3 2020

DFI - Day 1 Core business

Teaching is about being in the moment and being passionate about what you are doing.  We as educators need to be not just ready for change but actively looking for change, and have the growth mindset that we can and will make it happen.  With this in mind, I was really excited to be able to start this DFI journey today.

Although over the years I have been involved with KEN (in a number of roles) which works with Manaiakalani, it was really interesting to hear about the journey of the Manaiakalani cluster as there were many aspects of this initial journey that I did not know.  Seeing and hearing the insight and struggles these initial schools had, made me realize again how lucky we have been to be able to tap into their expertiese and experience again.  

Even before I started working at Ohaeawai School, I remember long conversations with a previous principal in 2011-2012 about the Manaiakalani cluster and even back then it was held up as a model that other schools could use to enhance and engage student learning.  As such it is a cluster that has just always seemed well set up and so far ahead in this journey that it was inspiring to see the challenges they started with.  If you are reading this Dorothy, thanks again for the run-through.

A few take away points.

1. Share, share, share (always my battle!)
2. Teach the basics from an early age.

Our creative task today was to get creative in google docs.  This is not something I normally would do (as I prefer to use Slides or Draw) this was a refreshing task to see all the changes that have happened within docs.  

Earlier in the day Dorothy had walked us through the need to specifically teach about naming and getting children to use headings from a young age.  When I think about this, it is very simple but also an area that we don't as teachers focus on.