Learning from Eachother

Senior Hub Visits the Junior Hub

We are now teaching in two significant hubs, being junior and senior.  With the move of the Years 0-3 students being moved to the open space within the hall, the senior school teachers have felt the need to understand what is happening within the junior hub and gain some understanding of programmes and structures in place.  

We see this as being important so we know what students have been learning and can make connections for when they come to the senior hub.  It is also good to have consistency across the school and will help develop our learning programmes.

For all of us, this visit was very positive and informative.  We were able to see the beginning of the day routine, Numeracy and Writing.  We are intending to visit again in term 3 as three interns were teaching so we need to see how things are managed when just the four teachers present.  

Here are a few snippets from what we observed:

Teachers situated in different parts of the room.  One child chosen for karakia.  One student says the first line and hub repeats.  Hub then sings waiata Ko Mātou.  Sounds so lovely.

Children work independently one to one on iPads with Mathletics.  Children are still in the learning stage so are working out what to do with some activities.  Some swapped and asked each other for answers.  

All instructional groups had a high level of engagement.  These are not currently indicative of how the hub normally operates as there are currently three extra people.  Average of 6 kids per group.  Follow up type work is done at the instructional group.

Actions stations are levelled at three different levels. Activities include:  Peg boards to develop fine motor skills and making patterns, missing number whiteboard sheets, forming numbers.  A buzzer goes and children move to their next station.  Some move to a mat area and then a teacher directs them where to go.  As they change fortnightly, as groups change and teacher role changes.

Some students working on the mat using text books.  Setting out of books is being put in place and some are neater than seniors.  This is deliberate in getting students ready for senior school expectations.

Building Blocks- This is significant for us as we are looking at implementing some aspects of this programme to help tend to needs of out senior school learners.

A mammoth chart of skills needed to be curriculum ready.  Action stations are designed to develop these skills.  Domains are focussed on each term.  These include Talking, Print, Listening, Looking, Moving.

Where to next?

Our next step in understanding and working collaboratively across the school, will be for the junior teachers to visit the senior hub and for us to visit the juniors again and look specifically at how literacy is covered and organised.

Hornby Cluster

Hornby Cluster Schools Get Together

Today the Hornby Cluster Schools gathered at Hornby High to hear Pat Sneddon, the chairperson of Manaiakalani speak and share the story of the Manaiakalani journey.  

Brief explanation of what Manaiakalani is:

In 2007 our initial cluster of schools wanted to find a way to engage the children in our mostly Decile 1A community in their learning. Digital Learning proved to be the ‘hook’ to guide our whole community to better educational outcomes.

Some of the crowd ready to get into it.

Pat began with sharing how the Manaikalani Journey began and took us through to where it is now and where it is going.  He shared stories about the Tamaki area and how the need for liberation of the low income learner emerged. One concept from stories of the time was around Rangatiratanga, taking charge of your own circumstances.  The tangi of Te Arikinui Dame Te Ātairangikaahu led to thinking about how we can be as good at educating the living, as we are at burying the dead?

The Tamaki Transformation Programme which included  Glen Innes, Panmure and Pt England, identified that the infrastructure had many issues and the area had a number of things that were not right.  A group was put together made up of government, community groups etc. who looked at infrastructure and what was working well. 

In 2009, Principal of Pt England School and Manaiakalani Convenor Russel Burt, invited Pat to visit his school.  He was greeted by children who then told him about their learning. They shared about how they were beginning to learn digitally.  It seemed too good to be true as the learning taking place was astounding.

Some reasons for everybody not being involved at the time, included issues such as cost of retraining teachers from an analogue to a digital world and finance.  Pat's response was if I get it for you would you come?  He did, they came and here we are.

Pat shared this video from Russell Burt which looks at moving from subsistent living to capital building by design.   Move out of subsistence to capital building.  This is significant as this is part of the purpose and goal for Manaiakalani schools.

Stuart McNaughton and Wolf Fischer Research-significant research has and continues to take place within Manaiakalani and outreach cluster schools.  Click here to read research findings to date.

We are part of five clusters across the country.  These include schools in the West Coast, Papakura, Mt Roskill and Kaikohe. Thirty eight schools across New Zealand are currently on the journey to use digital technology to accelerate learning for their students.  

We need to know what we are trying to achieve with being part of this outreach.  

Collaboration across schools and boards is essential.  Some things that have been put in place such as wireless in homes, could not have been done without collectivity.  

Within this process, opportunities for creativity and collaboration are abundant.  Positive for teachers to be able to learn from each other.  Learning is visible.  

Initiatives to support and develop teacher capabilities:

*innovative teacher

*digital teacher academy  

This process is built on this structure:

Whanaungatanga-Relationships

Kaupapa-Purpose

Putea-Resources

Where to next?  Outreach+ is the outreach programme being made available to all New Zealand decile 1-2 schools.  Our performance as leaders and teachers counts.  We need to be able to prove the case that what we are doing is working and we are achieving our goals. 

Key focus: 

What happens to and for the learner?

We can't do this alone...so we collaborate.

Hornby Cluster Schools...a positive start and well into this new journey.

Associate Teacher Workshop

Associate Teacher Workshop

8 June 2016

Sharon Feiman-Nemser

Degrees

Columbia University, Ed.D.
University of Chicago, M.A.
University of Michigan, B.A.

Expertise

Jewish education; curriculum and pedagogy in teacher education; learning to teach; mentoring and new teacher induction; professional development of teachers.

Last week, UC held a workshop for Associate and Mentor teachers.  It was a mix of people with the majority being from Early Childhood, some Primary and one or two Secondary.

Sharon started by sharing a story and Kathy and Debbie.  Kathy was the classroom teacher and Debbie was her student teacher.  Kathy was struggling with handing over her class to Debbie for a range of reasons.  From this discussion with Sharon, an inquiry which led to reinvent and reimagine student teaching took place.  The role of all involved was re thought.  Large-scale changes came about it in Michigan teacher education.

The problem with the system prior to this inquiry, was that it asked the most experienced teacher to step aside for the least experienced. Teachers had a certain mindset about what their role actually was.  We discussed where this perception comes from?

When thinking about Kathy's case prior and post inquiry, thinking about the role of an associate teacher or mentor looked like this:

Before:  Institution & own experiences and expectations. 

After:   Teach together, learn from each other, approach children together, have many conversations about the why.  Model and explain pedagogy.

Kathy's thinking turned from seeing the students as hers, to ours,  This led to a more collaborative relationship with the focus being on the children.

'All I see are the actions so I need to break these down and see what the thinking is around this is.'

Checking out ideas from within the group.

We need to learn how to talk about teaching in ways that are not judgmental.

We looked at the need to find more precise and descriptive language for when we discuss what we do.  Never assume people know why we are doing what we do when in the classroom.  

We listed ways we can do this:

OBSERVE RESPOND REVISIT BUILD AND MAINTAIN RELATIONSHIPS BE AWARE OF ALL CHILDREN AND THEIR NEEDS UNDERSTAND CURRENT TEACHING PEDAGOGY QUESTION BE DESCRIPTIVE CONSISTENCY BE VISIBLE BE PRESENT

Although this course was designed for associate and mentor teachers, I think there are elements and ideas that we can all benefit from and help to improve our own effectiveness and that of those around us.  

Lee-Anne, Sharon and Samantha...what a great sport stopping for a selfie.

Teaching is relational.