Ken Robinson - Are you in your element?

I was searching around the blogs I follow and came across this video clip on Think Beyond (thanks Cheryl) Ken Robinson asks are you in your 'Element' are yo doing what you love doing?  Am keen to share this with colleagues, am convinced it is an important contributer to well-being and fulfillment.

Click on the link to take a look

Teaching Strategies = Learning Retention

The following triangle model has been reproduced in various formats.  Source is National Training Institute - Bethel and Maine.   The essence of what it represents is significant in informing what should be going on in classrooms.  Students can spend quite some time sitting on the mat watching and listening.  How do we intentionally increase teacher modeling time to increase student participation through opportunities to 'discuss' with a neighbour or provide opportunities for small groups to 'teach each other'.  As you can see from the model retention rates increase significantly the more the student is an active participant rather than a passive observer.  

What percentage of a learners day is spent where on this triangle?

How can one's instruction be modified to increase the learning potential in the classroom by teacher predominantly in the bottom part of the child.  

It resonates with what we believe around locus of control - the more the student is in the driving seat the more the student owns the process and the more powerful the learning. 

Keen to ponder on this some more.  Your thoughts?

Digital NZ - Check this out

Have you checked out Digital New Zealand.  It aims to make NZ content easy to find, share and use.  It includes content from a range of content repositories.

Click here to start searching

Performance Management - Have we got it right?

If our beliefs about assessment are about informing the learner about how they are going? where they have come from?  and what their next learning steps might be, how does that align with what how we conduct appraisal for adult learners.  It has so often been an event, something you work up to as a teacher to put on the show for who ever is coming in to visit.  We all naturally like to perform well, however in a one off hour window anything can happen as we well know!  

How do we adopt the definition of formative assessment outlined above and ensure there is rigor around goal setting, professional learning, feedback and evidence gathered to ensure real learning for our teacher learners.  

Importantly our visits to one anothers classrooms need to be valued and occur frequently.  Opportunities to reflect and dialogue with one another to question and shift practice is essential.

The next question I guess is "What do we collectively look for when we observe one another's practice?  What signs do we look for that show a depth in the learning occurring.  We can quickly identify colorful walls, quiet child, busy learners - doesn't always mean deep learning is occurring though.

As Tony Burkin stated at a PD session "We are great at stoking one another as teachers" The strokes don't always provide the reflection and where to next steps.  We are currently working on developing a common understanding and clarity around what it is we might look for in relation to what we have identified as effective teaching practice when we visit one anothers classrooms.  We believe if we can gain clarity we can capture patterns and evidence over time that will enable more effective feedback to our colleagues.  Will keep you posted on developments.

I think our Pedagogical practice has changed somewhat from this example Ma and Pa Kettle

Tools to Enhance Teacher Effectiveness

I am convinced teachers wake up everyday and come to school to do the best possible job they can.  What has got me wondering in the last year or so is how can we be more transparent and give clarity to what 'great' teachers do.  How do we move good teaching practice to great teaching practice?  We have learnt huge amounts from professional learning and readings in recent years such as Assessment for Learning PD (ATOL, AFL) and 'The Best Evidence Synthesis'.  These learnings have been significantly influential in developing a one page continuum incorporating both teaching responsibilities and teaching practice.  The indicators are deliberately on a continuum not a matrix.  The purpose of the tool is to stimulate reflection, dialogue and form the basis of goal setting - we are reluctant to box people.   We want to flag how am I going?, where am I going? and where to next steps for teacher learners.   

In using the tool for the first time today with teachers I think we are headed in the right direction.  The key from here is to ensure that the use of the tool is formative, ongoing and not an event.  

Leadership - Tools to enhance leadership capability

In reflecting on 21st century leadership models a colleague (Kathryn Hodgson) and myself sat down to brainstorm the key dimensions of leadership.  Our notion of leadership at the time was not restricted to adult leadership, it was also encompassing of student leadership.  During the synthesis we arrived at 6 headings (Change agent, Big picture, Communicator, Nurturing talent in others, Decision maker, Continuous learner).  The next challenging step was to create a tool to stimulate reflection and trigger shift in leadership effectiveness.  Key indicators were then described to give clarity to emergent, shallow deep and profound level of leadership under each heading.  The idea was to create a continuum not a limiting matrix that tends to box individuals.

We are keen to receive feedback - any comments greatly received.

Draft leadership continuum

Assessment - Thinking about John Hatties 'Visible Learning'

In the last 12 months I have been doing some serious thinking about assessment.  Our assessment methods at times seem so 20th century.  Our notion of intelligence continues to broaden which is heartening however our strategies and tools to show growth in what have been categorized as soft areas are in infant stages.  It is critical to get parent buy in to 21st century approaches to learning, however this is challenging when we are just starting to experiment with and create means to show growth and progression in key competencies such as 'Managing self' and 'relating to others'.  It has been said time and time again 'what is assessed is valued.'  We are currently grappling with ways of sharing assessment data with parents in a timely manner.  More importantly the assessment information we are keen to share with parents is broader than the traditional information shared around curriculum content knowledge.  We hare starting to find the greater the students assessment literacy the more self motivated the learner becomes.  No more 'guess what's in the teachers head',  these kids know what they are learning, why they are learning it and how they will know they are successful.  The clearer we are with students about the progressions in foundation areas of learning the better.  Students can take more charge.  As Hattie puts it 'When students SEE themselves as their own teachers.   The teachers role is fundamental and must be acknowledged.  Importantly John Hatties 2009 research points out that teachers are far more powerful and influential when they are activators of learning not facilitators of learning.  Learning occurs when teachers understand their learners and '`See learning through the eyes of the student.

Some important messages to reflect on when undertaking an assessment review to see if practices align with beliefs!

Hatties latest book Visible Learning makes for good reading.

Learning Management Systems

I believe much consideration, time, thought and dialogue needs to happen around the functionality and role of an LMS, the reason being it is an essential tool in realising many schools dreams around personalising learning. In a permissionable, secure environments schools have the potential to meet the needs of all stake holders. Learners, teachers and parents. Attached is a draft outline of how such an environment might look and function.
Importantly the learner needs to be at the centre encouraging ownership of his or her learning. In order for students to experience s-t-r-e-t-c-h and continue to be motivated we need to collaborate to build on the national innitiatives of the Numeracy Project and Literacy progressions to create progressions in learner speak. I see these progressions as being the overarching unbrella in which digital learning objects, web based games and content is linked to specific learning intentions.

There is nothing more delightful than a 6 year old running up to you with their writing book saying 'Look I achieved my goal'. I was on the simile rocket and look I can use similes in my writing. When quizzed on what a simile was I was told that it is when something is like something!' What is your next learning step I ask? Off she went to the wall where there was a picture of herself sitting on the next rocket learning goal. This individual was 6 - she was in charge of her learning!
An LMS is the perfect environment for these progressions that can be reflected on - clicked - automated dating and the next click links to possbile resources to support the learner with their next step, as and when needed. that learning might take place at home or school or gran's.
Children are our best advocates in teaching and sharing with our parent community what learning is all about in this 21st century.

Reflecting on 2008

I am sitting on a hill over looking the Kai Iwi Lakes.  The sun is piercing hot, view unbeatable and have managed to get enough coverage to dial up and write  a reflection to see 2008 out.  What a year it has been, it has passed with great speed and I continually tell myself that more focus should be spent living in the now, living in the moment.  Being present.  Instead ones mind darts to the future and over analyses the past.  Obviously need to work on stilling the mind into 2009. One place that does that beautifully is Omamari Beach.  No shop, dirt road, fabulous small community, plenty of fish to eat and guitars to strum.  As I have unwound from the year at Omamari Beach it doesn't take long before thoughts leap into planning for the future year to come.  Hoping the balance is right.  Ensuring there is the right amount of challenge, happiness, learning, leisure,  etc.

The big challenges I feel we face in Education is keeping that balance right between the front and back of the new curriculum document.  In the endeavor to unpack and teach content we must not loose sight of building students competencies, capacities to learn and confidently face the demands of their future world.

Getting the assessment right - valuing what is powerful learning and effectively communicating relevant evidence with all stake holders.

Doing less well - embedding what works and abandoning what's out dated, irrelevant and often unquestioned as to it's value add.

Nurturing and developing cognitive, thoughtful teachers have have scope to innovate and become true difference makers.

Well the list could go on and on and that's where prioritizing and being strategic is just so important.

Here's to a fabulous 2009!

It's all about Organizational Culture

I continue to be reminded just how lucky we are.  I sat yesterday at an induction day for our newly appointed staff, where a relatively new staff member openly shared and reflected on their first impressions and experiences entering our school.  She expressed how supported she was, how she had learnt more in the time she had been at Red Beach than her entire teaching career and she had been given permission to focus on talking about learning with her students.  

There has been incredible change and shift in the culture of our school.  As I reflect back it hasn't always been like that.  It wasn't a place where one could openly say 'they didn't know, or I've made a mistake'.  I was reminded of how things were when I was recently asked by a colleague 'how did you get your staff to buy into a recent professional development initiative, I am getting resistance.  

There have been many contributing factors to enabling the shift in our school culture.  Our effective leader, being intentional about talking about the hard to talk about stuff, valuing all staff's voices, verbalizing the unspoken rules and questioning them, flattening hierarchy .... to name a few.  I guess importantly a significant one has been the shift in locus of control towards students having a voice that is increasingly more valued and deeply listened to.  Change happens when kids are in the driving seat.

It does however boil down to our staff, they are incredibly open and reflective.  As suggested in 'God to Great'  The right people are on the bus!   They truly make the difference.  They are difference makers.