Maths PD with Diane

Last week we had Diane Ogle visit again (CORE EDUCATION).  Something that was very clear from this visit is how far we have come from the beginning of our Maths PD Journey.  It will be interesting to review our school wide data to see how this PD has impacted our student's achievement as a whole.  

The 'Maths Journey' began in January 2019 with a TOD focused on teaching maths to mixed ability groups using rich maths tasks.  This was something Maunga Team had at times trialed and tried to make work within our classes in 2018.  We had seen how mixed ability groups worked well within writing and I had heard about 'Bobby Maths' or 'DMIC' so we had done a little research together.  We were all excited and nervous about this journey.  A key phrase that Diane kept telling us on the day was "It's not a sprint, it's a marathon... You will get there in the end".  Speaking to Diane on her last 2 visits it has become apparent that we have reached this point.  

In the past 2 sessions she has been in Maunga she has recorded the teaching session and then snippets of what the children have been doing in their groups.  After the 1st recorded session, we sat down together to go through the recording to analyze the teaching sequence.  Although we didn't get to analyze all (due to technical software issues Diane was having) the message was clear that what we were doing was working from her maths consultant point of view.  This was great as it supported our observations and data to date as well.

Following this recorded observation, SJ and I then presented at the NMA maths conference in Whangarei based on our maths experiences and tasks this year especially.  This went well and Diane also informed us that she was bringing teachers to observe our teaching on her next visit.  When she arrives for this visit she also asks if she can record the session again.  On this particular day, we do not have time to be released to discuss the recordings.  After school, I was able to catch up, as I wanted to discuss the next steps and her recordings (I am keen to be able to review these myself).  She has promised to send these through, and just discussed keeping on with what we are currently doing as it is working.

She also turned the conversation quickly to the next NMA conference and how we should present something around what our next maths tasks are e.g maps and coding.  This is where our learning is going over the next few weeks, so will be interesting and exciting to see how this goes.  This week we will be re-introducing BeeBots but with the focus on Maths Learning, and getting Student to find different things in the class that can represent the same distance as a Beebot moves.  We will also be re-introducing the language of directions.  This is important for us as SJ has many new Students and many of my students have either moved up from Iti (NE room) or moved into Maunga Nui (Y2-3 space).  We are also planning to make our little maths groups a bit bigger to trial running this maths learning as a collaborative Maunga/Iti learning experience.  Especially in the first few sessions when we do more of the unplugged learning.  We will be very interested to see how this goes... I know Diane is waiting to hear as well, so fingers crossed.

KET PLG @ Kaikohe West School

So on Sunday morning I get a call from my lovely partner in crime (Teaching buddy) asking... "did you know you are listed as presenting on Tuesday?"  UMMM NO!  I even had to ask what was I actually meant to be presenting, as I had no idea.

This was a chance to share our mini-inquiries that we completed last year.  I was partnered up with Debra Wallace from Kaikohe West and she did an amazing job of operating the technology, time keeping, and adding little bits as we went.  Thanks Deb!

Initially Jane talked to us and led us into our PLG presentation today, she shared with us a snapshot of our collective data that we would then look over in greater detail.  Teachers then split off into 2 groups that were to swap over mid way. 

Student Agency - Raewyn and Mattie

First we listened to Raewyn and Mattie present their mini inquiry on student agency.  

It was great hearing others ideas on what student agency looks like and how it aids both learning and students perception of themselves.  Great presentation too!

Vocabulary and Language building - Kariene and Deb
 This presentation went well.  It was great hearing about the different levels and ways to enhance language across the curriculum and also across the different age ranges and schools.  It was fantastic to hear how we have all begun moving our practices to those that encourage and enhance this language.  Was blown away by many of the secondary schools and how they also were continue to extend vocabulary even a their level.

Lots of focused discussion and sharing.

KET 2019 - Teacher Only Day @ Waitangi

Pat Snedden welcomed us in via a link and we were able to hear him inspire us by talking about about the importance of our work in the KET and how it supports the wider network.  He discussed the importance of both our MET and KET vacancies and the need we have to fill them so that we could access as much support as possible.

Following Pat's welcome, we had Mark Osborne as a Key note speaker.  He discussed the 'maker movement' and again inspired us all to be not consumers of technology, knowledge and everything that this world has to offer but rather creators/innovators of it.  He further inspired us to do this in our classrooms and to get our kids inspired and motivated in this endevour.

We then broke into our first workshop.

Workshop 1 - Enhancing writing

This is one that I got asked to run, initially back in November 2018, following my presentation in AKL at the principals wananga.  This was a great opportunity to present the tool I had created in 2018 to teachers within our cluster and to have them work through a portion of if.

Unfortunately due to WiFi issues at the venue this was more frustrating than anything.  We had lots of people attend this workshop, but only some were able to access and begin using the framework and support materials within the site.  

However Feedback from those that were involved, enjoyed the workshop, were excited about the framework and resource, and could see lots of opportunities to use this in their teaching practice (regardless of the age they were teaching).  So this was a success.  SHAME ABOUT THE WIFI!

Workshop 2 - The Maker Movement (Mark Osborne)

Following this workshop my next workshop was to attend the one by Mark Osborne based around the maker movement.  This was lots of fun, with lots of hands on examples and problem solving.  Can't wait to get my hands on the presentation he shared with us, so watch this space.

GarageBand workshop

Last night was our our Kaikohekohe Clusters Term 3 Tool-kits.  This continues to be a great opportunity to connect with other professionals from within our cluster and across a wide range of year levels and experiences.  Last nights tool-kits included;

Although there weren't a huge amount of tool-kits the tool-kits on offer reflected our clusters current needs and also offered opportunities for professional growth for everyone.  Kaikohekohe Cluster ROCKS!  

On Friday afternoon I got the call from the amazing Raewyn, asking me to run a tool-kit on GarageBand.  So in between having 3 sick kids, doing GST returns, and trying to catch up on MIT bits I also created a presentation to use for this Garage band workshop.

Below is a link to an 'answergarden' brainstorm that anyone who is reading this blog can add their ideas to (for the next week).  It asks the question "How could we use GarageBand in our classroom?"

At the end we had a bit of fun together recording us having a conversation about who we were, what we were doing and why we were in the GarageBand workshop.  Will upload this over the next few days.  

Thanks to all the attendee's

Please make sure you share them to me - I would love to hear your personal & classroom creations!

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”.

Maths Week Preperation

This term I have been given a unit to take on Maths as a curriculum leader while our DP is on Sabbatical.  When discussing as a school if doing mixed ability groupings would work as a maths week approach (similar to what we do for Matariki days and a few other days we have throughout the year) and it was agreed that we would do this.  The trick with doing this however was how to cater  for the mixed ability groups that we would have in our rooms.  BUT ... I HAD A PLAN!!!

So rather that just do the normal thing for maths I had an idea that this might be a great opportunity to trial some of the ideas that I have heard other schools using.    So like with everything in teaching you need to do a little research and a little investigation as to what approaches and ideas to utilise.  So onto the web I went.

Here are some helpful links I found

• Bobbie maths - Raising pasificia achievement, 
• Mathematics inquiry communities, 
• DMIC - Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities, 
• DMIC Best Evidence Exemplar, 
• Videos series on DMIC in NZ schools, 
• Another book chapter about DMIC.  

That same week an article was also presented about "stunning results from cultural responsive maths".   Talk about perfect timing.  So I shared this with the rest of our staff.

This research highlighted the sorts of problems that needed to be asked and how they needed to have scope to support and extend students within the problem.  It also highlighted the need to use authentic context to engage and provide a challenge.

As I continued to look into this I formulated a planning template and added this to my ideas presentation to take to the staff.  From here we came up with contexts to investigate but as staff meeting was full that week I took these ideas home and worked on them until I had the makings of some good questions.  At staff meeting the next week we reviewed them and added a few extra details that I didn't have that would make the context/problem all the more authentic (e.g. how much Team Moana still needed to raise for their ski trip).

The next step was to make these problems user friendly - so to google sites I went (was my first real play on the new google sites - as I'm an Old Sites kinda gal).  Below are links to the sites I ended up creating.

        

Past students inspiring visit

Today our school had a visit from a past student who shifted away from his beloved Kaikohe town to live in Abu Dubai with his family about 5-6 years ago.   He spoke to the whole school about how when he left our school he felt like he was 'the man' and that he could do anything.  When in-fact he still had a lot of learning left to do.

He is now 15 and has done much of that learning, and wanted to give back to a school and community that he and his family hold dear.  While he realises his learning journey is not over he wanted to inspire the children in our school that they to had a lot more learning to do and that it is something to embrace.

He also told stories of many of the teachers who are still there, and how they had inspired him as he undertook this journey and how they have helped him to reach his ultimate goal.  Hearing him talk about the brief period of time I had taught him (while doing a 5 week stint of relieving for another teacher) truly made me feel humble and honoured.  Humbled that he had remembered me and honoured that I could have been apart of such an amazing learning journey.

It also made me remember all the mixed emotions that this brief period of relieving had evoked.  At the time my daughter was only 5 months old and me being me agreed to make this happen.  In hind site this really was crazy, and exhausting.  Between planning, feeding my 3 kids and getting 2 off to a different school, dropping of a baby to my sister in law, Breast feeding and making sure my little one had enough for the rest of the day (which meant extra work during the day and night to make this happen), planning, teaching, doing duties, attending staff meetings and all the other things that go with being both a teacher and a mum.  It really was challenging.

However to have even 1 past student visit who only knew me in that brief instance to remember me (and hug me as soon as he saw me) and be able to reflect on how I had impacted on his life...

It was ...

inspiring.

My six word story for today is ...

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.

Ignite Talks

Here are a few quick notes/thoughts that either inspired me as I listened or that sprung to mind as I was listening. What a great ending to a great conference. A big thanks once again to KPMG, Pat Snedden, Jenny Oxley, Dorothy Burt and Anne Sinclair for making this a reality.

Lots of fantastic learning to take away from this experience. WATCH THIS SPACE!

Kim Sutton - Good Questions

“If I don’t ask questions how do I know how to change the world”.

Who is going to invent ? 

The kids that are asking questions now, are the ones who will design flying cars (and future innovative ideas).

How do kids like these become inventors like this?

It is by teaching them how to question the world around them, and to challenge themselves.

Teaching answer is not as important as teaching questions.

- the rubrics cube is a question waiting to be answered.

Moments like this - google - video

Michael Davidson (NZ Teacher)

Innovation is a state of mind

Jay Attwood

It is far better to do the right thing wrong, than to do the wrong thing right.

3 Lessons from Granny - photo taken.

• Know what is trending
• Learn it.  Share it.
• Everything is hard, before it is easy.

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

Create A Formative Assessment Using G-Suits

Session 6 - John Meing - Create a formative assessment using g-suits

This was a very theory based workshop with lots of discussion around John Hattie - effect size

Douglas Fisher’s - visible learning in mathematics

“Formative assessment refers to to a wide variety of methods that teachers use to conduct in-process evaluations of students comprehension, learning needs and academic progress during a lesson, unit, or course .”

Dillian William (good friends of Paul Black) - discusses the difference between formative and summative assessment.

Proposed Model

Doug fisher - learning can be at any point along the continuum - All 4 components must be present in every lesson at some point - it creates a whole cycle of learning if you do all each day.

Focused instruction -

• purpose, (not intention/objectives - because relevance must be there - e.g. must have intention and relevance (interesting and relevance.)
• Modeling-  open up your brain and talk about the process.  I statements not we or you statements … When I read this … I was thinking about…

When i saw the problem … META-COGNITION should have a because, why or how.

Guided instruction

The strategic use of questions, prompts and cues.

• Ask questions prompt or cues that means that they do the cognitive work not us …
• Insert yourself into the group or take children out of different groups and work with you as a small group.

Collaborative

• Student to student interaction (in academic ways, with academic language).
• No on learns language from listening to language they only use it by producing the language - students must use the language to learn the language.

Independent learning

• In-class we are pretty good at this - we aren’t so good at out of class independent learning - we give homework prematurely …

The keys to making this work within our classrooms

Establish purpose  

School planning template

Teacher modeling

I do it …

Guided instruction

• share 3 different versions easy, medium and hard and have students choose their own - if all choose easy then we know we have a problem
• In google docs - you can set the comments to only the owner and teacher can comment.
• If you design your Kahoot well you can set it up as a good formative assessment tool.
• Google sheets - validation can support - not super interactive but will allow them to check their answer and have instructions on how to add. - also self marking.

Productive group work

• Google suite’s is all shareable …
• Class Dojo - PBL (positive behaviour learning - which doesn’t always work) - however they do have a think/pair/share.

Independent tasks

• Captivate - a new tool.??? Not sure of its use…

Their schools worksheet tool/example. This was interesting but I have to say that I love how as a school and team we plan/talk and together with our children we Learn, Create, Share within learning contexts that relate specifically to our (students and to some degree teachers) interests and learning needs.

This was an interesting workshop to attend as many that were offered were about applying skills rather than the theory behind it. Was interesting to see/hear an Australian schools point of view. John worked at a school that currently has been awarded an innovation award 3 years in a row for their innovation in education.

Side note: Cool problem - see picture (answer is 5 - count the circles)