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”.

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

Design thinking Cont

Design Thinking 101

Leslie McBeth explains design thinking in 5 steps as well but uses different terminology.

Discovery

Becoming human centred.  Learning as much as possible about the problem as well as the context (or from the perspective of the 'user'.

Interpretation

Collaborating with others (including experts from different disciplines to come up with a "how might we?"  question.  (the word Might is used instead of can, should and could we as it infers that there is more than one answer, and that no answer is right or wrong in this stage.

Ideation

At this stage it is important to keep an open mind as the main focus at this stage is to come up with multiple solutions (where there is no right or wrong answer).  It is also important to keep the user in mind as well as focusing on their needs.  Crazy, out there ideas are also encouraged at this stage, as this might encourage other ideas.

Experimentation

This is were you experiment with some of the many solutions you came up with in Ideation.  Mkae prototypes or models and use them to gather feedback from their users.  Focus is not on creating the perfect finalized version but as a spring board to gather more and then build on ideas 

Evolution

This stage blends with the Experimentation phase as through the experimentation process solutions evolve and become more refined products.

This is a repeatable process as it is Cyclical and continuous.  

Design Thinking in 5 Steps

Step 1:  Empathize

Interviews so you can find out what do people really care about.

Redo this with many people so you can really understand the problem.

Step 2:  Define the Problem

Look at interviews, underline verbs can help.  

Formulate a problem statement.

Step 3 :  Ideate

Problem on problem statement.  Come up with ideas that solve problem.  Come up with LOTS of ideas, Sketch up best ideas and show to people you are trying to help.

Step 4:  Prototype

How does your prototype fit into peoples real life, it might be a combinations of what is alreay used and things you have come up with.

Step 5:  Test

Test with actual users - don't defend your idea/prototype, learn what works and what doesn't.

Then go back to Steps 3-5 until you 

Now you are ready to change the world!

Short video that explains each step in a little more detail.

Focusing on the WHY! - DESIGN THINKING

Here is a quick video I have found that very quickly explains Design Thinking in Education.  It briefly explains inquiry through 'Design Thinking' and one of the points that Tom Barrett makes is the importance of keeping the inquiry process in the questioning stage.  This links to the WHY of this posts Title, as this process makes you question the problem more, which in turn helps you to develop a better understanding of the problem and the implications that both the problem and solution has.

This year as part of the MIT process we have been working on the 5 Why's.  Here is a link to a reading we have done on the origins of this process.

Below is a brief video that explains the 5 why's if you are short of time.  Although this is a business focused example it does illustrate the process and benefits of using this process.

One thing I can quite honestly tell you is that although it is very challenging answering some of the Why questions that get thrown as you in this process it definitely challenges your thinking and makes you look into the problem deeply and helps you to narrow down what the problem actually is, and who it affects.  

Another thing I can quite honestly tell you is asking these 5 Why's can also be just as challenging.

Whangarei EDTech 2018 Summit

As a School group we attended this event last week.  I have to say one thing about these events is that you ALWAYS come away feeling inspired.  Inspired not only by what is said but by the sharing of resources and ideas from others as well as through the connections that you make with each other.

So as a result there are some things I have taken away to hold onto (you can't do everything!!!).  So this years take away ideas are... (and why)



Idea to hold onto No1:  GROWTH MINDSET.

While in our class we have already been focusing on changing mindsets from "I can't do something" to ... "I can try".

Change to implement (or add).  :  Instead of  "I can't do ...", to "I can't do ...YET".



Idea to hold onto No2:  BREAKOUT edu

In our class/school/cluster we already know and use Breakout EDU's and we have already been experimenting with ideas on how to make these more digital.

Change to impelement  :  Use Sites/Google Forms to help make Digital elements to BREAKOUT EDU's. - So watch this space.



Idea to hold onto No3:  Sharing

This is probably the biggest and hardest one for me.  Often we do things in our class, school and even cluster that are worthy of sharing. - and within this context I do share.  Often I am presenting at toolkits, PLG's ... but I am always reluctant to share outside of this circle.  SO ...

Change to implement : Make sure I am keeping this blog up to date, Share at Edtech Sydney, Submit at least 1 Breakout I create with the Breakout EDU site before the end of the year, and share 1 thing to Twitter at least every month.



Idea to hold onto No4: - DESIGN THINKING

I kept the best for last!  Michael Davidson ran us through a Design thinking presentation.  This was like CONNECTING THE DOTs for me.  This is the approach we are using with MIT this year, but at a classroom, student level.  It will build on what we have already been implementing but it should take our kids to the next level.

LOVING OUR LEARNING CONTEXT THIS YEAR! 

LEARN FROM YESTERDAY, CHANGE TOMORROW.

Ki akoranga i mua, kia whakahuri apopo

Better late than Never - Catching up in AKL.

 Despite having a LOVELY cold and feeling really yuck.  I arrived at the airport in time to check in and board my flight scheduled to leave at 6am.   6am came and went (but the fog did not) - First Delay notice beeped on my phone, followed by an announcement over the loud speaker.  6:30 came and went, another announcement ... followed my another and other.  I logged onto my computer and started revisiting my moonshot and by 9am I was still stuck in Kerikeri Airport.  After messaging Dorothy, and Anne I decided to follow the document by tethering to my phone.  This was definitely not the same as being there in person.  10am came and went, along with a bus load of people sceduled to board the 7 am and 8 am flights.  I was beginning to think I was completely bonkers for even being at the airport, but instead of going home I popped another pill (or 2), and waited for yet another delay.  Finally rang Dorothy again (only to be put on loud speaker for everyone in Auckland to hear) and it was decided that I would still catch the plane, then a taxi to KPMG headquarters to touch base for a few hours.  So off I go, across the tarmac and onto the plane.

Flight down was BEAUTIFUL, with very little cloud and lots of viability.  My tissue box and Vics  vapour drops were my friend, the entire flight.  LOL.

Arriving at the airport, I excited the Domestic terminal and hailed my very first taxi (I had only ever been on one before and that had been about a month ago with Heather from MIT- when we were heading off to the Coromandal Hui).  Again Tissue box was my friend.

On arriving at KPMG we all briefly caught up before continuing on with the days program (of which I was feeling substantially behind in).  The next thing on the agenda was to discuss the EdTech Summit in Sydney (in July this year).  We all started working on a shared document to outline what our proposals were so we could support each other in this process.  Love how people from different teaching positions, levels, experiences and parts of NZ can work so collaboratively.  Then it was Lunch time.

 Following lunch we had a guided tour of the ______ building including its creative spaces and nooks and crannies ... Very exciting BUT OOOOOOOOHHHHHH so quiet!

 After the guided tour it was back at it and as I had missed the mornings session Ann whisked me away for some 1:1 catch up!   Although I still had a foggy head as I was unwell, and my ears made me feel like I was in a underwater bubble, this was totally worth my time, and I came away with ideas swirling around.

More delays when heading home (due to the earlier delays in the day).  So I had time to catch up and do some more editing of my prototype offline.  lucky it wasn't delayed as long this time!

Note for next time: Don't joke on Friday afternoon that it your flight will get delayed (or stay the night before hand).

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.