3 HUGE successes in 1 day!

After being off work with sick kids for a few days I returned to the classroom yesterday.

Success Story 1.  After morning Karakia (prayers) and morning notices we headed back to class straight back to class routines.  As we are a collaborative learning space we have 2 teachers (3 from 9 some mornings each week) one teacher takes the morning roll and discusses what will happen throughout the day (also time to share news), The other teacher (me) runs a very short sharp accelerated writing group session (10 mins).  Today after not having this morning writing routine the group of students who I work with were Very eager, Very excited and Very motivated to write!  in their own words "We love writing" and "We missed this writing".  And ALL the students achieved their writing goals during this writing time and were ready to share their examples with the rest of the class to help their peers succeed in their writing today.  4 of these students went on to exceed the writing goals and pushed themselves to write more than they were expected.

What makes this even more of a success story is that at the beginning of this term (only 6 weeks ago) these were our Year 1 writers who we had identified as targets because we didn't think they would be able to write at the level we would want them to be at, by the end of the year.  1 child has been diagnosed with Autism, ADHD, and began school a year later than his peers (still classified as a year 1), 1 child normally spends more time distracting those around him and himself.  All 7 children had previously struggled to either formulate or retain a simple sentence they wanted to write, and only 1 of the 7 children knew all of her alphabet letters and sounds prior to starting with this group.  This meant that sounding out words previously had been VERY hit and miss.

Success Story 2.  This relates to one of our Autism children.  We have had a teacher who has been doing her masters on Austium, observing and doing a case study on this child as part of her masters.  Today her message was quite clear... "I can't help you or suggest anything more than what you are already doing as a team for this child.  He is highly supported and has improved immensely from when he started at Ohaeawai Primary".

This type of feedback affirms and validates all the extra effort and time we have spent in integrating this child into our classroom, and provides reassurance that while we will still have battles ahead, as long as we all keep our mind on the prize we will get there together.  It also helps us as educators to actually sit back and actually go ... Yes, big changes have happened.

Success Story 3.  Recently I posted a blog post to our Kaikohekohe Google+ Community and also shared it on twitter, although I received some feedback from this sharing, following the toolkit a teacher brought up this recent sharing and discussed reading through our blog.  She had been able to find writing exemplars and resources that we had made in class and that we had posted onto our class blog so our students could share and help each other.  This Teacher then went on to ask if I thought it would be OK if she used this to help her class learn about this topic.  My response of course was ...

"OF COURSE - THAT'S WHAT HAVING A BLOG IS ALL ABOUT!"

The first and third success stories relate directly to my MIT inquiry and the tool I am creating help myself and other teachers within the Kaikohekohe Cluster to accelerating our children's writing.



Watch this blog for updates over the next mouth or so for on my tools prototype as I will post it here and ask my readers for feedback/ideas/feed forward on how to make it more useful.  EXCITING!!!

KPMG - Day 3

Today was our third KPMG day in Auckland.  No agenda was shared with us so we were all a little excited (and nervous) as to what was in store for us.

When we arrived we were greeted with the fresh smell of coffee (and tea) and we set ourselves up for the challenges we knew were ahead of us.  

Today’s session had been devoted to listening to each MIT participant shared the progress you have made within their inquiry and also with the tool that each were making.  Following this we were asked if we would like to cross blog our feedback - Of course we said YES what a great idea.

So we then used a random name selector to determine whose tool/inquiry we would comment on.  I was very lucky to draw Danni and interestingly she got me as well.

Danni’s inquiry started off focusing on literacy learning in years 7 & 8 and how that school and cluster data was showing that the rate of learning in many senses was stalling or dropping.  Her inquiring focused totally on what she could do to prevent this in her classroom.

Today Danni started out by sharing her site - a resource bank of texts she has created and used in her classroom.  This was broken into different pages relating to Text Analysis exemplars, Writing Techniques and Connecting Reading and Writing.

This provided us with rich examples and questions based around different genre/examples.  This looked like a fantastic tool at a glance. When we delved deeper it appeared to be even more of a rich tool.  

One of the challenges that Danni had been having is finding/accessing examples of text that will support this resource, some suggestions were made as to who could help including

Mark Milford English teacher

Cynthia Orr

Aaron Wilson

Rowena Clemence

Robin Sutton

During the morning we had discussed her inquiry informally and part of this discussion highlighted how many of her shifts in student achievement was related to her high expectations of her children both in what they will achieve and also in the contexts in which she teaches these through.   We talked with Danni about adding a page on high expectation.

As discussion wound up we also discussed possibility adding in how you might use these resources Multimodally (showing links to resources and sites that she and others used..  An interesting point was also raised about ESOL strategies being something to consider within her resource.

Reflections on my own inquiry were huge.  I will cross share Danni’s reflection here and then add to it my own thoughts.

Thoughts going away from KPMG today…

Learning together is empowering - and connecting with those outside of our normal realm of teaching extends our thinking.   As Zac put it “team work is dream work”.

Other Sydney MIT Trip highlights.

One of the highlights of this trip was being with an AMAZING bunch of teachers who are innovative, inspirational and energetic about teaching, education and life in general.

I have to say I loved spending time with you all and sharing this fantastic experience.  Thanks once again KPMG, Pat Snedden, Jenny Oxley, Dorothy Burt, and Anne Sinclair for making this happen for us all.  Lots of learning and for me, pushing myself outside my comfort zone.

I am not a person that shares very frequently and although I have been challenged to present before I have never had the additional nudge that you have all given me.  Thanks to everyone for your support and also to Tania Coutts who has been nudging and supporting me in taking this step.  

I FINALLY DID IT.  

This event also enabled Dorothy and I to come up with a plan for when Team Maunga use a release day, to pop down to visit some classrooms at Point England, to be immersed in 1:1 device environments, to see what one can look like, and to connect on a professional level with teachers to talk about what works and what doesn't work within their digital learning environments.

Team Maunga are super excited about this as we are seeing more and more opportunities for devices to be used to extend and enhance learning, but as we are not 1:1, we don't know what we don't know.  

The only way to change this is to immerse ourselves in experiences, literature, and inquiries, that will shift our current ideals of how to use devices to improve learning outcomes for our students.  As a team we are already doing things that extend us in all of these areas but we feel that this visit might be a catalyst for further change and shifts in our teaching practice/ideals.

Further things to take away from this experience...

Share More:  Both the positives and the struggles.

Although within the Kaikohekohe Cluster I share HEAPS, I need to push myself to present more at these kind of events.

Tell my story and encourage students in our learning space to tell their stories.

<<<Other things>>>

Sydney's train system is FANTASTIC

Uber app now installed on phone (Don't think Kerikeri is ready for this however), but though it might be useful when getting from Parramatta to Sydney Airport by 7:30 Wednesday morning, and also when attending next MIT meeting at KPMG

I MISS MY FAMILY

My room buddy was amazing to talk to.

Engaging Students in Writing

Session 8 - Jacobs session - engaging students in writing

Jacobs session was really interesting.  I went along to support him in his presentation but found that he had lots of innovated cool ideas and tools linked to his presentation and planning.  However many attendees were more focused on creating a site rather than thinking about the content that was embeded in it.  Made some great connections with other teachers and one in particular who taught in a year 2 classroom in Sydney.  Hoping that we can connect our kids up when we go back to school.

She loved looking at our Team Maunga site as it was a bit more Junior focused rather than intermediate focused.

4 Tips for creating websites

3 clicks max

Use white space

Less is more

Be consistent

As with all site creation ... you must PLAN IT FIRST. Plan what you want it to look like, what pages you want and what you want on each page (keeping in mind the 4 tips mentioned above). This will help keep your site simple to navigate and user friendly.

Other things to pear in mind...

1080 standard size of header/page

Digital Storytelling

Session 7 - Lindsey Wesner - Digital storytelling

This was a really exciting and innovative session focused on story writing. This session fitted really well with my MIT inquiry and I can't wait to get back to class to try some of these things out.

LOTS of playing around with. I am extremely excited about adobe spark - a story telling tool. as it works on iPads as well - So perfect for in Team Maunga!

Socrative

Adobe spark

Can use on computers … also can use as part of Adobe Spark Video APP (on ipads…).

Story spine

Good for icebreaker - Teaching children what makes a good story - fun

Six word stories

(alternative version of 14 word stories)

With 6 words you can say - so very much

Combine 6 word stories with 6 shot videos.

Book creator

This is now available on chrome

Student Voice

Recently I have been questioning children around their use of digital technology to support their learning.  Obtaining student voice and perspective is hugely important in this inquiry as they are the intended audience of this inquiry.  If they are not engaged and buying into this approach to raising achievement then its not the right direction to take.

• It’s very useful.
• It helps us remember.
• Because its fun.
• Because I get better at learning, and it helps be get better at remembering.
• I go on the blog and share what we are up to.
• Sharing our learning with them (mum and dad) by showing them things we have made at school.
• I can use it in the holidays and when I am sick to keep learning
• Everything on there is about our learning.
• The best thing is when Mrs G puts my work on the blog.
• I share my work by someone putting my work on the blog so the whole world can see it, then other people can see my work and what it is about.
• When people ask questions on our blog it helps my learning.

Students perception on what would make it better is to have more blog posts.

Already this year we have been trialing lots of things with improving this last perception and this is paying off from the comments we received above.

One strategy for increasing blog posts is to make it easier for students (and teachers) to access devices.  As we are not a 1:1 device classroom this presents us with many challenges as we complete our work digitally.

Additional challenges relating to access

1. Remembering which device they were using.
2. Charging of device
3. When work is in progress quick saving is a better option as you don't end up with multiple copies of the same Explain Everything but at different finishing points in G-Drive.
4. Not enough for 1 device per child

Our action to minimise as many of these issues as possible.

Knowing that something needed to change to reduce these issues and make it easier for children to access their learning on the devices I labeled iPads with students names.  These students were the ones in my morning 'Accelerated Writing Group', and also our top reading groups as they are capable of completing work more independently on them and can then support others to complete their tasks.  

This was a huge step for me as I was really worried that this would make these students who had name labels on iPads become very possessive of  'their iPad', and those students who didn't switch off from using iPads as they might feel that they weren't able to use named devices.

I guess as this was a massive concern for me I made sure that this was not the perception that either group of students took on.  As a result of introducing it to students in the way we have, the students whose name is on the iPad almost is the person that others go to for support when they are working on it.  This adds Mana (Value) in the work that they all complete together.  This is also helping the students in the accelerated writing group feel more of a leader and adding more Mana again to the work they complete within our morning group time.

Also students that use them remember which iPad they are using better than the number system we used last year (this is still on each iPad - but they DO NOT use it), weather it be a device with their name on or another students name.  It is also much easier for Teachers to support children with getting their posted onto the blog as the labels make it easier to find devices that work is on.

This has been a good change!  

Coromandel Hui

What an amazing experience this Hui has been.  Was fantastic to connect with this group of innovative and inspiring teachers.  I was extremely nervous (as I knew no-one) but I have to say I quickly started to see why we have been grouped together.

I have to say that my Moonshot now needs a lot of rethinking, mainly around narrowing down and making it much more achievable and measurable.  Planning to now link this into my appraisal, so will be a great opportunity to get our new principal involved.

Bring on our next session in AKL.

Moonshot MIT Assignment

As part of Maniakalani Innovative Teachers (MIT) 2018, Dorothy presented us with a Moonshot Assignment.  This was around looking at the idea/resource we are going to investigate, and create this year.  My MIT project is based around Accelerating Writing and helping teachers in particular to facilitate this accelerated progress.

This Moonshot thinking project involved looking indepth at; why we are focusing on this particular problem, and coming up with at least 2 different proposals/solutions

Thought provoking.  Thanks Dorothy.