Miss Corry presents to the Nation

Wow what an experience!

 In the second week of the last school holidays I had the opportunity to attend the national educators conference “uLearn” in Hamilton and present the project that I am working on with other teachers from our community.
 I was overwhelmed with the number of people who were there. I didn’t quite know what exactly I was going to. There were over 1500 educators, 250 presenters and over 300 breakouts to choose from It made it real seeing my name listed in the book .

I was lucky to be presenting on the first day of the conference. Thank goodness for that too! The morning of the presentation I was so nervous! I couldn’t eat lunch as I was going to be presenting straight after. When we arrived at the room that our presentation was going to be in…It felt so real seeing the sign with our names on it.

We had a good number of people choose our breakout session and we delivered our presentation over the next hour and half. Boy time flies! It was crazy that I was so nervous to start off with as once I began speaking it was so hard to stop...I guess when you know what you're saying and when you are really passionate it is very easy to keep talking.  The people who attended were intrigued and really interested in what we were sharing. It was good to get great feedback afterwards.

Thanks to Kelsey Morgan for the support at the session..she was great when the IT started playing up half way through. It was such a good feeling being able to share what I have been learning and I am really proud of myself for stepping up and going outside of my comfort zone.

   

Presenting on the first day allowed myself to relax for the rest of the conference and really enjoy myself and be able to attend other sessions and give all my attention to them.

This is the slides that we used for our presentations. We used them to inform people what our research project is on, the background of project, the screening tool, initial data summary and the teacher inquiries and where we are heading next.

We had key note speakers that everybody could attend and then we were able to choose other sessions that were of interest to us.  There is so much I could share!

The main message from all of the speakers was about relationships and how important relationships are and how they are the key. This related and really stuck with me as one of the main things learnt from our inquiry so far is that “It’s not okay to not have a relationship”

I attended a breakout session run by Sally Peters on Compassion, care and curiosity - Powerful drivers of teacher research. I was really engaged through her entire presentation, as I am currently undertaking teacher research and I could directly relate to everything she said. Sally Peters is one of the key gurus in New Zealand for transitions to school from ECE also. Her work and research is well worth the read!

Here are the links to the main key note speakers: Each speaker spoke for an hour.

Eric Mazur was the first key note speaker

“Innovating education to educate innovators”

Brad Waid was the second key note speaker

“Engaging the globally connected student of today: A look at emerging technology, gaming and digital citizenship”

His presentation had me hooked for the entire hour..so much to think about.

He had so many quotes throughout this one in the photo has stood out.

The last key note speaker on the final morning was Dr Ann Milne. Her presentation got the crowd really thinking and she had a standing ovation at the end.

“Colouring in the white spaces: Cultural identity and community in whitestream schools”

I came back home buzzing after attending this conference...

I thank the CaWS project for making this happen and also Andrew and the Gilberthorpe School Board for allowing me this amazing opportunity to attend this national conference. I hope to be able to attend this again in 2018 and present our findings.

IYT - Incredible Years Teacher Programme

Incredible Years Teacher Programme

This year long course has certainly been one of the best PD opportunities that I have had this year. Through seven sessions of videos, information, readings and group discussion with other teachers all in Junior level classrooms I have learned so much and had many aha moments. The IY programme is based on a pyramid and throughout the weeks we worked our way from the bottom to the top, from strategies that should be used first and most at the bottom, to the least used final steps at the top.

The six sections of the pyramid are broken down into:

-      - Building Positive Relationships

-       - Being a Proactive Teacher

-       - Giving Attention – Encouragement       and Praise

-       - Motivating through incentives

-       - Decreasing inappropriate behaviour

-       -  Negative consequences

It is hard to put into words all of the great things I learned this year so here are just some of them...

•  Building strong relationships is the most important thing “a nurturing teacher-student relationship built on trust, understanding, and caring will foster students’ cooperation and motivation, and promote their learning, social and emotional development, and academic achievement at school” (Incredible Teachers, Carolyn Webster-Stratton, PH.D.) Building strong relationships doesn't take a lot of extra time. A simple 2 minute conversation every morning with a student can go a long way to strengthen a relationship. I found it very powerful with a few of my students to do some child-directed play during break times. They enjoyed being in charge and getting me to do whatever they wanted in their games.
• There are many skills that can be coached by a teacher: social, emotional, academic and persistence skills. Coaching academic skills can be done by simply naming the things that the students are doing while they work. Giving them the language (can be very beneficial for ESOL students) and is not demanding anything from the student, as questions would. Through social coaching you can label the skills they a showing and praise them at the same time e.g. I can see that (child) is sharing with (child), great job this way you both get a turn. Coaching persistence can give the child the encouragement they need to keep going e.g. I can see you are really focusing so well, even though it's getting tricking you are still working on those maths questions and now you're halfway!
• Social skills, emotions and solving problems are things that need to be explicitly taught so students can understand and learn how to self-regulate, learning how to calm themselves down, how to make friends and deal with others. 
• Incentives can be a really powerful tool for a class (like fish tickets), for a group, or an individual. Working with a student and their family to come up with an individual incentive system and goals when necessary is so much more powerful than me just thinking about what they need to work on and what I could give. This gave more ownership to my students, who had already come up with the positive things they needed to do instead of the undesirable behaviour.
• "Ignoring muscles" are really important things for both you and your students to develop. They need to know why we are ignoring and be praised for it when they're doing a good job. Once a child has stopped the behaviour they then need to be re-engaged into the class/group. It was also really powerful for me to learn that it is important when a child is having a negative consequence (something taken off them etc.) to always focus on the first thing they did that caused it all and not act on any secondary behaviours. Ignoring the secondary behaviours that arise is a very important thing, because when you are ignoring it always gets worse before it gets better.
• Always focus on the positive! I was amazed with the way we saw teachers in the videos responding to so many different things in a positive way. Something that will stick with me was a video we saw of a teacher dealing with a tantrum. Just the way she could deal with something so frustrating, in such a positive manner amazed me.
• Natural vs. logical consequences - some consequences happen naturally without any intervention, e.g getting wet clothes when they go down the slide after being told not to. Whereas the logical consequences are those that are made by an adult to fit with what the student did.

Throughout the year we also chose one student that we would learn to build a behaviour plan for. I chose a child that was having difficulty regulating his emotions, who often became quite angry without knowing how to direct or control this. The behaviour plans had nine different steps, which we filled in as we learned about the pertinent strategies.

-      Step 1: Identify the negative behaviour

-      Step 2: Functional assessment (identify some reasons why you think the behaviour may be occurring)

-      Step 3: Positive Opposite behaviour

-      Step 4a: Relationship Building Strategies

-      Step 4b: Proactive strategies

-      Step 5: Teacher Attention Coaching and Praise

-      Step 6:  Motivating children through incentives

-      Step 7: Decreasing inappropriate behaviours… ignoring and redirecting and reengagement

-      Step 8 Decreasing inappropriate behaviour…following through with consequences

-      Step 9: emotional regulation, social skills and problem solving.

I started with building a stronger relationship with him at the beginning of the year and then we worked together to address the negative behaviours. He now has his own incentives chart, which he is responsible for, with goals we decided on together (phrased as the positive opposite that he is learning to be able to do e.g. I can choose a good learning spot)

 and a reward he has chosen (stickers of cars, motorbikes and superheroes :) He also uses a calm down thermometer to take some time out to calm down when he becomes angry. He has worked incredibly hard this year and his behaviour now certainly shows this.

I am now proud to be an Incredible Years trained teacher, and I can definitely say that I have the confidence, skills and knowledge to build a great classroom culture and to know what steps I can take when any issues arise.

Cluster Writing Moderation

Writing Moderation 2017

Our session started with introductions of our fellow cluster leaders of Literacy.  

We then looked at one piece of writing and marked solo.  As a group we discussed similarities and differences in our scores.  

We then looked at samples of writing from across the cluster and worked together to determine scores using the e-asTTle Rubric.  Scores were entered into a sheet which identified the marker from each school and the moderator's scores.  When marks were different, we then looked a little deeper and had more input from lead teachers.  

The rubric we use:

Two pairs discussing writing samples.

A lot of thought and discussion goes into this process.

Lead Teachers from Gilberthorpe with flash sign in stickers.

So how did we compare?

The charts below show the mark given by the teachers of our school (A), the moderator's score (B) and the difference between the two (C).  

In the Junior Hub, marks given by teachers and the marks given from the cluster lead teacher moderators are very consistent with very little difference.  One sample caused quite a it of discussion.  Unfortunately scores were not added to the cluster sheet so we will add these later.  

In the Senior Hub, three teachers marked the samples individually.  For the moderation session, the middle score or most common was used.  As a hub, we have some more discussions ahead as some of our scores varied and in some cases had a difference of three marks.  We can now use the moderator scores and our initial thinking to make clearer and more consistent decisions around marking using the e-asTTle Rubrics. 

I think it is really important to be aware of the inconsistencies in interpretation and marking of writing samples using these rubric.  Below is a table showing scores given by two different moderators at the cluster moderating meeting.  The variations in some marks given in sentence structure and punctuation in particular, show that the scores given by the lead teachers are not necessarily the correct score.  These show we still have much discussion to do.  

I wonder also, do the rubrics need to be updated and made clearer?  The tools we use need to be fair and consistent in order for our children to be getting accurate information about their ability and achievement in all areas of the curriculum, and in this case in particular, Writing.

Designing and implementing Change ideas, with NoTosh

So, this hit my Facebook feed this morning. I duly saved it, along with the screeds of other "Saved Stories" that sit in limbo until time (Or holidays) afford them attention. A sick son intervened today, so I was able to afford it the attention it had been seeking... The immense productivity that can be achieved on a "sick day" is cause for far more in depth self assessment and a further blog post!

I have been a fan of NoTosh since having the pleasure of professioanl development around Design Thinking, as well as attending 2 ULearn Confernce Worshops around it in 2014. I really identify with the lens that they view education through.

This video has some great quotes along these lines:

"Education is about evolution. If you're not changing, what are you doing?"

Speed of Change:

The speed of change is often bandied about as an excuse to place a boulder in the water. I challenge that, when that overwhelming sensation begins to set in, when there is so much going on all at once... Perhaps we just need to take a step back. Change the lens that we are viewing through... Think of the changes we are implementing as "prototyping".  

Some people are quick to adapt a mindset where they view the amount of changes taking place in education as "treating our åkonga like guinea pigs". We want our children to learn to test theories and make mistakes and then learn from them... Why are we afraid to do this as teachers. We are no longer the keeper of knowledge that we were, even just twenty years ago. We are no longer delivering education from the front and centre of the room. 

This video prompted me towards a number of considerations, which are very topical at the moment. We have been in our new space just a few weeks, heading into the holidays. We have the luxury of a term where we can begin to set some key objectives for the term. We often set objectives for what we want the students to achieve... but why not what WE want to achieve, in terms of pedagogy and practise.

If you are making structural changes, you are making pedagogical changes.

• What are the "Pain Points"?
• If you are making structural changes, you are making pedagogical changes.

"If you're making structural changes, you're making pedagogical changes." Teaching in post quake Christchurch, has enabled a transformation of learning environments. The schools who have been fortunate enough to front-load the transition with developing the pedagogy have, I believe, been far more successful in implementing change. So many changes have taken place, all in one hit. Those who have been fortunate enough to view it with a "prototype" mindset, who have perhaps been more open to adapting to change, have been far more successful in the way structural change has occurred. There is some fantastic stuff going on down here, in little ol' Christchurch New Zealand. Flexible bell times; play first, eat last initiatives; modifications toward ILE or MLE or whatever we want to call it next week... Most of these schools are sharing their journey too!

Prototype Culture

Heading towards planning for Term 4, I prototype mindset makes logical sense as a lens for mapping out what needs to be covered: Curriculum coverage; AO's; Topic/strands etc... The ability to map out when this "might" happen in terms of timetable or term plan... Stressing the word "MIGHT"! By mapping things out... Prototyping, it gives clarity on what the outlook is, providing frameworks for all teachers to work within. We all need fences sometimes. Some who get intimidated by change or new thinking ideas etc, are made more comfortable by knowing the perimeters that they are working within... Some of us, probably need the framework to minimise the tangents and keep us on the same track as everyone else (Which probably helps everyones ability to cope with us and our foibles too!)

Incubator

"What do we want to change and let's change it."

Set key objectives for Term four.

• What do we want to achieve in terms of Teaching and Learning?
• Prototyping Teaching Approaches?
• Developing Student Voice?
• Assessment Capability?
• Shaking up the programme?

New Zealand Principals' conference 2017

The recent conference in Queenstown, which was attended by over 600 principals throughout the country was fantastic, on a number of levels.
There was great mix of quality speakers, time with colleagues and an opportunity to refresh and learn in order to grow!  I had several lightbulb moments at this conference and I intend to put much of my thinking into action immediately.

I will briefly outline some of the key messages and their impact on my own thinking below.  I will also include some quotes that resonated with me.

Dr John Edwards
The learning pit was discussed again with Dr John Edwards, he stressed the importance of teaching students about why the pit is so important and that everyone goes into it when learning new things.  We need to make students feel comfortable in the "pit".  This develops resilience and confidence, core skills for being a successful learner. This made me reflect on how often we actually , explicitly teach students about meta-cognition and how they learn and the thinking process.  My feeling is we need to do this more often, showing them strategies and allowing them to gain the understanding that this is normal behaviour and what to do when this happens.  We need to remember that above all else, we are wanting to equip our students with skills for life, not just skills to get a task done.

Staff discussion-  What evidence to we have that we are teaching students how to learn?  What do we need to put in place?

"Work out what a student already knows and teach accordingly"  Do we do this authentically enough?

"Get close to them, ask great questions and listen" John Piaget.

Judge Andrew Becroft - NZ children's commissioner.

• 23% of all New Zealanders are under 18
• There is NOTHING more important than having children actively engaged at school
• Talk to students more, get their voice, at all levels.

There were some alarming statistics around ethnic groupings and various ages but we must be focused on the students in front of us, create passion and excitement.  The children we are teaching are the future, don't underestimate the enormity of that statement.

Mike King

I was completely captivated by Mike's speech.  I am sure most are aware of the work he is doing to work with our youth around suicide prevention.  Having lost friends to suicide when younger, and also students, I could relate to what he was saying.  Far too much of what we do is ambulance at the bottom of the cliff, waiting for something to happen then reacting. We must be pro active about this, fencing off the top of the cliff so that no one falls.  How can it be that in a country as beautiful as ours, we have the worst youth suicide rate in the world? We need a complete attitudinal shift here.  We need to be more and more positive, finding the good in every child.  Help them discover what they are good at and allow them to develop this.   As parents and adults, we need to let children, adults and friends know that we are there for them, that we love them and that if they need to talk they can, unashamedly and without judgement.

According to his findings, talks etc... 95% of people have had a suicidal thought at some time in their life.  It may have been once and fleeting or recurring.  Clearly the recurring thought is a major concern.  How often do we hear at a funeral "He was such a fantastic boy" "She had everything in front of her"  This effects everyone! We need to do better.

I also believe NZ's tall poppy syndrome has a role to play in this.  Too often when someone tells you their success, be it a colleague or a friend, people shoot them down or choose not to celebrate this.  We shouldn't show our envy and begrudge others, let's celebrate with them and build a new culture for the next generation!

Mike also spoke about the teacher that he loved and cherished.  He never skipped her class, he wanted to succeed because she believed in him, versus the teacher who he hated, he repeatedly skipped his class, failed tests and would avoid him at all costs because he made him feel stupid.  No one wants to be that type of teacher.

Self esteem is the solution to this problem, let them have a voice, listen, we need to create a society where it is ok to ask for help. Kids want permission to talk and express their feelings but they are following what US the adults do... we need to role model more positively.  Students learn by what they see, not by what they say or are told.  An unbiased view is important, what you would say to your best friends child is quite different to what you would say to your own...

Mike speaks with  thousands of students and there are two things they want :

1) They want to be loved

2) They want to know that their thoughts and opinions are valued by adults.

Staff discussion- Are any children without a friend?  Do we know what each child is good at?  How to we capitalise on this knowledge? Children in our community are dying, this is real,  enough is enough, we must do more to be pro active in being part of the solution.

I personally am going to reach out to more people and as a father I intend to do my best to role model for my boys... I will also be more deliberate in my discussions with others, especially students.

Dr Melinda Webber, researcher involved in MACS- Maori Achievement Collaborative's

MACS have been established throughout the country to lift the achievement of our Maori students. Schools are working in clusters, together to drive this.

The research is showing that increasing whanau engagement is the key to success, empowering them to support the learning process, vital.  Give them the skills that they need.  Lots of positive communication helps develop that bond between whanau and school.  Typically we contact whanau when a student is in trouble or we want something.  Let's turn that around and ask whanau - What can we do for you? How can we support your family?  Positive communication and dialogue increases the chances of them engaging with us much more often.

It also made me reflect on the type of student we want to leave our school, let's brainstorm what that would like like and ensure we are giving authentic opportunities for this to develop.

The final speaker was Sir Graham Henry.  A man who has developed arguably the most successful "team" in the world and there are huge amount of similarities between the two professions.
It is also worth noting that he, along with Mike King and Judge Andrew Becroft described principalship as the most important job in the world.  Food for thought.

I really enjoyed the blunt, matter of fact way that Sir Graham spoke, "be solution focussed" "no excuses" "get it done" "do the business" if there are issues with staff or performance , ask the question- "How can I help?, what's holding you back?"

"What do you need to do to be the best that you can be?"   He made a strong connection between the physical and the mental, we need to be on our toes, have a spring in our step.  His leadership team exercised daily in order to be physically fit as well as mentally fit.  This hit home with me and I have made my own goals here. For me personally, too many excuses, for too long.  I need to "do the business" I need to "get it done"

"We need to be careful that the little things don't hold us back, what are the things that are going to make us go faster?"

The All Blacks use a simple system to reflect on performance - Keep doing, stop doing, start doing.  I am going to use this with our staff, a great chance to be able to stop and reflect under a simple but effective framework.

The more that our staff are empowered, the better they perform.  The All Blacks look out for each other, they want to support each player to improve their performance, they are held accountable when this doesn't happen, within a supportive environment. Sounds pretty to similar to school if you ask me!

All in all, a great few days of professional development.  Several goals and targets set for myself and I look forward to getting stuck into them.

Uru Månuka Student Summit

Twelve Gilberthorpe students were privileged to attend the first inaugural Uru Månuka Student Summit, at Hornby Primary today. 6 students presented Toolkits to other åkonga in pairs. 

They attended (and presented) Toolkits on topics ranging from robotics, voki, scratch coding, using apps... 

Afterwards, the 90 students were able to take their new knowledge back and share it with the åkonga in their classrooms.

Check out the article!

You can read our earlier posts about the Student Summit here.

Unpacking Learn Create Share in a way thats not so scary

Recently, I ran a staff meeting around Learn Create Share.

Ironically, it was the first staff meeting that I'd attended since joining my new school. The upside to this was that there was no precedent to follow... No pre-existing notion of what it "should" look like.

Here's the basic presentation to guide the discussion:

We looked at each definition, without the "Learn" "Create" or "Share" attached to it, in order to ensure that we weren't overthinking it. 

Within our cluster, our Uru Manuka Leaders of Learning PLG has identified that we do have a shared understanding of what Learn Create Share is... it just differs slightly from what it should be, by the Manaiakalani definition. After much robust discussion, we came to the conclusion that the initial definition was accurate and we needed to align our own understandings with it. After all, the immense research that has gone into the concept backs it up... who are we to question it through our own ignorance!

What next... How on Earth were we to take this eye opener back to our schools!

We were all in agreement that going back and telling our colleagues that everything we had thought about what Learn Create Share was wrong (after two and a half years of building that pedagogy, I might add...) was not an appealing option.

My approach, was to utilise the feelig that I had that everyone was doing a lot of things already, but they didn't understand how their great practise actually aligned within Learn Create Share.

I decided to take each definition and put it to the teachers: 

What happens in your hub that falls under this heading?

We compiled our ideas onto large sheets, using post-it notes...
Here's what we came up with... Compiled into a piktochart Infographic:

My next step is to align my Critical Inquiry etc, with a lens that accommodates a Learn Create Share view, from a teachers perspective also:

Learn Create Share fliped on its head

So... it's Friday. You walk into a room of your colleagues, leaders of learning within your cluster. You all have like minds; excitement and passion to drive successful practice etc... Within an hour, we were all sitting back thinking we'd all been on the wrong mindset for the ast two and a half years!

We cracked a can of worms (which obviously needed to be cracked!) around whether, as a cluster, we had a shared understanding of Learn Create Share.

On the bright side... It was quite apparent that the schools across the cluster DO have a shared understanding. However, our shared understanding does not align with the Manaiakalani definitions:

Learn: any activity where the objective is to access and engage with existing knowledge.

Create: any activity that results in remixing existing knowledge, the development of new knowledge, and the use of imagination.

Share: any activity that involves the sharing of knowledge.

The result is often building new knowledge

We had huge discussions... and came to a few conclusions.We questioned their definition... but by the end, concluded that the definition was sound, but we needed to shift our thinking around our own understandings. We believe that we (as teachers/schools) have been operating under a literal definition of each term, with a heavier weighting on the "Learn" component.
I challenge that, in actual fact, the gold nuggets... the Direct Teaching Practices actually occur within the "Create"phase as this is where knowledge and understanding is synthesised. When looked at with a visual, until now the Learn bubble would have been larger, with the Create and Share bubbles feeding into it and each other... Now It is the other way around.

Under this thinking, If the direct teaching and learning opportunities aren't utilised then the Create phase in just skimmed across the top.

So What...

Well, we are certain that there are a number of teachers who don't understand what Learn Create Share is. They probably believe that they "don't do it". We are quite sure that they do, without realising where it fits.

The danger is that if this was brought back to our teachers, they would freak out!

However, if they were given the definition only (without the title) e.g.:

• Any activity that results in remixing existing knowledge, the development of new knowledge, and the use of imagination. (without the word "create")

and asked to find things that they do that falls under that category...

...Repeated with each of the other two definitions... And then place the "Learn" Create" or "Share" above afterwards, this may draw understanding.

It may still install panic attack or ten!

Uru Manuka Leaders PLG

As always I had another very interesting and motivating session with the Uru Manuka Leaders. It was a fantastic day with the Woolf Fischer Research team providing very clear examples and ways to imbed the affordances of Learn, Create, Share to make a difference for our learners.  

The day began with us looking at and analysing the data from the end of last year. Within the cluster there are some really positive things happening across all learning areas! The focus of the day was "What can we do to change teaching to have the most impact on students." It’s about fine tuning and making things more effective.

Here are the notes I took from the session: 

Implications from the Data - how can we address it - affordances 

1. Engagement - interesting, purposeful, student choice is evident. High levels of “on taskness” - doing learning activities more of the time.  Increased mileage of Writing - shown in data. 
2. Powerful conversations - more interactions, teacher knowledge of what students can do, extending opportunity for thinking by talking. Because of high engagement and complex tasks, teachers have more time to talk with and work with students. Students can give groups full focus because other students are on task. 
3. Complex tasks - learn- reading and writing from multiple places, more scaffolding tools, create- synthesis and evaluation through DLO , share - blogging, authentic audience. 
4. in-site and on-site support - scaffolds in & out, collaboration. As teachers we are better at scaffolding in than scaffolding out - we need to work on this. 
5. Connections and visibility - real audience, inform others about learning, visible teaching & learning, make a difference, purposeful  

Students have to use key comps to be successful in Learn, Create, Share pedagogy. High focus on the first half of the curriculum. 

Purpose of blog posts - we are sharing learning not sharing a finished product. 

Purpose of a discussion - do students understand how to have a discussion? There is an uncomfortableness of not knowing something. Students need to understand process of learning and the purpose of discussing thoughts that are not finalised. 

Feedback - Powerful Learning Conversations 

Patterns of feedback - what we need to know - what our next steps are. 

Data from classroom observations 

Evaluative - e.g. “you have done a good job on this writing” Least effective form of feedback. 

Descriptive - e.g. “I really like the way you began each paragraph ”

Generative - most of this was also evaluative e.g. “You have done well in... Next time it would be good to see… ” - most effective form of feedback 

A lot of the descriptive and generative feedback is also evaluative. The data does not take out the behavioural feedback. 

We discussed how this links to positive, thoughtful, helpful model of feedback on a blog - This is what we are teaching students but do we follow it as educators? 

Page 57 - The power of feedback model 

Feedback is not just what a teacher says to students. It is also what others may say or could be feedback from yourself. 

Page 58 + 59 - as a task we were allocated a statement and then discussed and shared back 

Importance of the success criteria to break down the goal and learning that has occurred. Students can use the criteria to give themselves feedback. 

Transfer - near and far. e.g. Talking about problem + resolution as a goal - transfer from one narrative to another is problematic. Students struggle to transfer feedback across tasks. It is better to give feedback at a less specific task level so that it can be transferred to other situations. Teaching needs to allow for generalisation of the desired skills. 

Praise the effort not the outcome. Otherwise there is a fixed mindset of what the criteria for being intelligent is. 

Give feedback when the students have time to think it through and respond. 

i.e. not before morning tea or at the end of a session. 

Students need to be actively willing to change their mindset (not fixed) and make changes to make it better. All students have things to improve on. 

Affordances of technology and Learn, Create, Share allows for increased opportunity for - face to face feedback, real time feedback, peer and self feedback.

Inquiry questions on giving feedback across the cluster 

Google app that allows for aural feedback to be given - called talk and comment. Record the feedback so that the student can go back and listen to what is said. Audio record - use phones. 

How to find answers to these inquiry questions - e.g. asking students how they would prefer the feedback - record, write notes etc. - could create questionnaire. Students who are being tracked could be used to discuss how they are interpreting the feedback. Observations of feedback - class. Teachers could record themselves giving feedback and analyse how effective it is. 

The reason for the inquiry process: It is important to think about what you want to know and how you will find out before taking on an inquiry. 

Collaboration 

Patterns of collaboration (for students) - my work both using computer (review/feedback), my work discussion (face to face discussion FTF), our work - both using computer, our work discussion FTF. 

What are the theories for more collaboration aiding student achievement? 

Opportunities in digital space for collaboration -   

gifting words - sharing vocabulary, children more likely to take risks when working with other students, use others strengths, key comps - collaboration is what is needed in todays world, quick access to feedback, breaking a task in to chunks, tui mai tui atu.

Cluster twitter - inquiry blog post, google plus community - join other cluster.  

Are teachers capitalising on the affordances of technology for collaboration? 

Depends on the school culture - the type of collaboration that is happening. What the students are seeing is how the classrooms are working. 

Talk about text - affordances and collaboration 

Reading + Writing across the curriculum 

Opportunities for higher quality talk in classrooms. 

We need to channel Discussions - the aim is to explore rather than ‘test’ 

To increase comprehension focus on dialogic not stratgey - have discussions where students talk about the ideas in the text. 

Most students see talk as performance - won’t speak unless it is the right answer, this limits the discussion - Need to use I wonder, or I think… to explore ideas and thinking. 

Properties of really good talk - less of the IRE format - Initiate, Respond, Evaluate - Higher level thinking is authentic and where the teacher does not know the answer but wants to explore the discussion. e.g. “Which character did you find the most powerful and why”. Wait time is given for students to respond. The text needs to be referred to in the discussion. 

Texts used need to have a voice that motivates the students to have an opinion so that they can be an active participant in the talk. Students need to be using the text to support their ideas - the text is referred to and the students use it as a reference point. 

There is a place for stratgey instruction, but there is also a place for using the stratgey to begin a discussion.  

Why multiple texts 

You do not have to have one of each - sometimes you have have two types with multiple texts. 

Students need to be accessing their own texts - link to managing self and increased discussion around language. Ability to criticise texts and judge sources is crucial in a digital environment. 

Scaffolding - can have toolbox at the top which breaks down vocab or video to support or re-written etc. 

Really good resource for teacher - strategies for teachers to use to increase discussion 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B56n24EPZaYGbHY2LU44OFJLcEE/view

Inquiry questions for talk 

International research shows that teachers find this really hard to change - amount of teacher talk vs. student talk. 

We need to nurture talk to arrive at an understanding… Students at high schools are afraid to share ideas- most conversations are being led and moulded by teachers - allow students to give evidence about how their idea fits with the subject. There should be sometimes where discussions are allowed to take their course. 

Digital Learning Objects

Digital learning artefact vs. Digital learning object - transformative nature of the task. 

DLA - record of time/learning - finished - static - summative - finished product

DLO - focus on object of learning not a record of time, created, transformed - in producing the object students learning has deepened. Process of learning  - extended abstract thinking - going further and making connections. 

I left the day thinking about the inquiry and the variability between the classes - tapping in to where the teachers are making the most difference - what is powerful to the students learning? How do I use feedback? Am I giving students create tasks that are challenging there thinking? Are my discussions allowing students to think deeper? 

It was such a great experience to be involved in the discussions in this group. There is a lot to think over.