Whanau Kauri After school promo video

Learner Agency Interview Summary

Rob 4/10/19

Affordances

Limitations

Goal setting 1:1 time reading/writing/maths Students decide what to focus on based on progressions developed by teachers, displayed Aspirations: goals linked to curriculum, getting external experts (eg sports coaches) to support goal setting Whānau aspirations Having strong relationships Engagement in child’s learning supporting their child Experts in their child Balancing with curriculum expectations  Ss must demonstrate learning with evidence using SC Provide authentic learning opportunities and voice for learners  Student started club around ducks Engaging with local business and community  Students need to have dispositions Mana Resilience Growth mindset Ako - sharing learning (Whangarei girls, tuakana/teina Support students to be the expert Teachers  give away power/control, learning is messy, learning is non linear Dispositions  - reflective, innovative, excited, varied, having strong relationships with each other Knowing learners Where they’re from, where they come from Trust in the teachers Relationships key Start with what students know, enjoy, bring in, springboard from that What they need (eg being outside). Use the local environment  Learning being visible Exemplats Expectations Evidence Feedback Ss & whānau to teacher Report on teacher, skills Catering for diversity Blended approach (DI/PBL) Ss learning at own pace Flexible timetable Leadership - teachers being given permission to try something new Beliefs of school strong PL&D Teaching Assessment (formative, individualised testing) Teaching as Inquiry Reflection - what worked, didn’t Outside experts in LA School having clear, agreed expectations about LA Lesson study RBL - identifying bias Technology Speech to text Flipped learning Slides Only as good as teacher pedagogy Ss can work at home Ss have choice/control  Collaboration Teachers Students  Integrated curriculum Teachers having a critical friends, coaching buddies, drop ins, setting and achieving small goals, being flexible Training teachers - T as role models, regular catch ups

Being unable to articulate learning  Teachers  fearing chaos - the unknown, the not knowing  Using timed testing, data walls Not personalising learning  Doing things the way they have always done it, easier Staying safe Developing a competitive model Teacher bias Resistance/being slow to change Views about technology Mismatch between feedback and learning focus Deadlines Timelines Whānau expectations Group work/problem solving not same as their educational experiences  Teachers cultural capital different Teacher expectations Lack of relationships  Ss not feeling safe, welcome Ss being ashamed to share their successes  Lack of resilience Ss expectations about what school should be like, feeling fearful Lack of PL & D Too many new initiatives Isolated school Assessments Focus on testing Timed testing Standardised testing

Top affordances Teacher willingness to take risks Teacher willingness to share power Knowing learners

Top limitations/barriers Leadership lacking focus/emphasis on LA Teachers not reflecting on practice LAck of teacher buy in/belief in LA

Transcript of Learner Agency Interview

Learner Agency Interview full transcript

Learner Agency Questionaire

Learner agency:

A teacher oriented exploration into the affordances and limitations to developing learner agency in years 4-8 Aotearoa/New Zealand classrooms.

Semi-structured questions for interviewee participants

1.    What is your understanding of learner agency? (definition)

2.    Why do you think it is important for teachers to develop the skills of learner agency in learners? (purpose)

3.    What are some effective ways you have developed learner agency? (actions, examples/scenarios, artefacts)

Student goal setting

Real life contexts - storybook, outdoor learning space, planting manuka/kawakawa, bees, ducks - breakfast club, chair making, pest trapping, school welcome film.

Passing on this knowledge to younger students (and older - Whangarei Girls)

Cooperative learning, problem based learning, high expectations, habits of mind, g/mindset, 

Whanau Kauri after school groups

4.    What has been the impact of developing learner agency? (outcomes for the teacher and/or the learners?)

5.    What are some factors that have supported you developing learner agency? (enablers)

6.    What are some factors that have limited/been barriers to you developing learner agency? (barriers)

7.    Do you differentiate opportunities for the development of learner agency? (cultural, special learning needs) How?

8.    What has made the greatest/least impact? Why do you think that is?

9.    What other comments do you have regarding this area?

Relationship Enhancing Practices

Yesterday we had a full collaboration between teachers (Mrs Bates, Mr Pickard and Mr A) and students (Cory, Luke, Tyler, Tazman, Lyrik and Peter). We all worked together to create our first breakfast club duck scrambled eggs on toast.

Cory, Luke and Tyler collected the eggs and fed the ducks, while Mrs Bates, Mr Pickard and Mr A made the toast and guided, and Tazman, Lyrik and Peter cracked the eggs and mixed the cheese, milk and pepper, and helped with cooking.

There was a really great feeling of shared success and excitement after waiting so long. For a couple of students it was an opportunity to shine outside of the classroom.

DFI 9

Today we had our end of unit exam. I have to say that it was generally okay but I got caught out on graphing and youtube videos. I am one of the few that didn't pass the exam, but I am still more than happy with what I have got out of the course. I have embraced the Manaiakalani kaupapa and feel empowered to create more transparent and differentiated learning, for students to share with their whanau and their peers. A great experience, and one that will last through my teaching career.

One great thing that came out of today was discussing keeping in contact with Dave at Mangonui and establishing greater links between the two schools. We thought about a termly catch up at the Waterfront between all staff.  Possibly collaborating between schools with lesson study, looking forward.

Learning Conversations

Yesterday I had a meeting with parents to discuss next steps with their son. I decided to run the meeting as a coaching session. Instead of setting goals based on my experiences I just listened to their concerns and took notes. At regular intervals I clarified what had been said. In a relatively short time we had established a workable goal.

A couple of important things were missed; specific goal, time frame and measurement of success. However I think that they can be quickly covered off next week with a quick phone call or email.
 

Monday Reading Observations

On Monday myself and the principal will be doing reading group lesson observations with the teachers.  This is the first time I will have done any observations on whole school teaching practices. The closest was RBL observations, but that was only with the senior syndicate. Below is a slide of the criteria we will be providing feedback and feedforward on.

DFI 8 (Sheets)

This afternoon my head was truly scrambled. I finally got there and with a lot of support created a graph to show my blog post totals by month.

DFI 8 (Whanau Expectation Survey)

This week on the penultimate DFI course we learnt to create a google form. I took the opportunity to create a whanau expectations survey to get some fairly specific feedback from students' whanau. I asked my Whanau Kauri Partnership group to fill out the form and started to get some really meaningful data back with next steps for me.  Below is a photo of three generations of whanau filling out the form .

Student self assessment

In Kauri class students are leaning to self assess their work and measure their progress through critical reflection. First they highlighted their success from success criteria writing.  Then they found their current level for punctuation, and then they checked their next steps.

DFI 7

 Today was a great opportunity to try lots of new hands on tools. I gravitated towards Scratch. While I didnt achieve a huge amount in terms of animated output. I was lucky to sit next to Ruth. I found it really interesting connecting with Ruth and listening to her back story. It was this back story that prompted my next steps using Scratch.

Kerry reminded me to connect with Kent at Point England. He has set up online blog student reporting as an alternative to bi-annual written reports, so I am keen to see how this looks and feels...and how it could look and feel at Oruaiti School.

I am now thinking that for student reports we could think about coding spoken sentences into icons/photos designed by students to demonstrate what the students can do and what their next steps are.

Kahui Ako with Meg

Student self assessed reports

So, my teaching as inquiry focus seems to be making an impact with my students, and particularly my target students. In the last week of last term I gave the students their levels, showed them how to use the exemplars on the walls and got them to start creating a 4 stars and a wish style report. The four stars were what they could do well and the wish was in effect their next step.

The language we used for the 4 stars was:

I can...
I am able to...
With help I can...
I am working hard to...

The wish was:

I am working towards...

This is one example from my target students' self assessed reports

Whanau Kauri Partnerships

Last week's Whanau/Kauri partnership was possibly the best yet. It seems each week at our DFI training sessions I take away a great new idea to trial with my WKP group. Last week was no exception. I learnt how to create a bookmarked table that all students are allocated to. They have their own space so are less likely to be sabotaged by off task students. The benefit though is that they can support each other without even saying anything! Reluctant or stuck students are supported by seeing everyone else's work on their screen, as well as my comments as they are working; both roving in person and on screen.

Whanau loved it and were impressed by their tamariki's stick-ability, time spent writing and the quality of their work. Diane even came in with fruit and cookies, and to support a student who's whanau are unable to attend.

See the students' awesome work here

Outdoor Learning Space

Please find the outdoor learning space proposal here

DFI 6

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

Today we had a deeper look into class sites. It was great to see everyone's sites get some awesome

feedback on mine. We heard from a teacher at Tautoro School who had a great writing set up on her site.

Essentially it is a shared doc with a writing prompt. The difference to my shared docs is that the writing is

contained within a table and each student has a row which is bookmarked. This way no one can interfere

with anyone else's writing but students can see each others as they are being created. Awesome!

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?
Hopefully learning a bit more about creating a nicer looking and easier to navigate site I have
created a more streamlined and user friendly experience for the students and their whanau.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  
See above

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life.
I suppose this new found digital confidence is beginning to make me confident generally around google
and all things digital!

Whanau Kauri Partnerships

Last week's Whanau Kauri Partnership meeting was a great success. We had a visit from our Cognition Education Relationship Based Learning facilitator. I started using screencastify for last week’s whanau partnership session. Whanau loved it and were able to lead the learning session while I stood back and had time to chat and share kai with everyone. The shared doc was visible and totally collaborative which everybody loved.


last week's lesson

Todays DFI 5

• What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?Today we learnt a lot of shortcuts, control f was awesome for searching!

This afternoon I used screencastify to pre-record a spelling lesson for my Thursday Whanau Kauri partnership group.

Whanau Kauri Workshops (Maths)

I am looking forward to seeing how the whanau navigated around the class site and what feedback they have.  I am also looking forward to introducing Jenna to the group as part of our Alim observations.

I think I will get all of my students to work on their personal reports tomorrow, prior to the after school session, and have their levels, where they are at and next steps ready and printed for whanau to see. I will then try and do another shared doc where everyone is working on an activity based on their next steps. I will then put out rotation activities to do after that mini session.
I need to start using google groups for my whanau/kauri partnership sessions so that everybody is ready to go and has a record of what we have done.

Hopefully our dfi work today will hill me to use Hapara more effectively on this!

Whanau Kauri Workshops (reading)

I have been thinking about how to move forward with our Thursday student/whanau workshops as they start to get bigger. I think I might try and ask at DFI today how I can set up a shared doc that will be up on the screen where each student/whanau group can collaborate in real time and can be seen as distinctively their own and therefore differentiated.

This could work really well instead of teacher at front of the class, as the momentum of the group dictates the pace. I might try a spelling workshop based on my usual spelling lesson, but instead of me at the front the students will collaborate and teach their whanau how to do it and therefore take it home to continue.

I will try a range of activities to blend on tables such as rainbow words, backwards words, crosswords and wordfind that the students can do in choice based rotations after the initial mini lesson on the screen using chromebooks and online dictionaries.

High Expectations Seminar

Today we had a Manaiakalani TOD at Taipa. Some really interesting and tough listening around the connection between deficit thought and student outcomes.

While I believe that Oruaiti school has an excellent culture of student expectation I do think that there are some improvements I/we can make:

• Whole school mixed level groups
• Whole school goal setting and student led reporting
• Whole school Whanau based learning 

I think I will continue to keep a record of the relationship based projects and as Diane asked, share back my findings with the team at the end of the year.

I am wondering if we could use our pd funding to combine coaching and our lesson study with Rhona to focus on the Teacher Expectation Project (TEP)

http://www.education.auckland.ac.nz/en/about/schools-departments/ldpp/ldpp-research/ldpp-research-projects/teacher-expectation.html

Intrinsic Motivation vs Extrinsic Motivation

My Show me 5 table reward system is extrinsic so I need to modify this slightly. I might try points based on habits of mind, e.g., persistence for meeting the challenge line in their writing.

Or instead of the Habits of Mind, I could follow a more culturally responsive course!

Whanaungatanga – building strong classroom relationships, collaborating; welcoming, personable, approachable

Kotahitanga – classroom community, sense of unity, respect, committed to Māori student achievement

Manaakitanga – supporting students academically and emotionally, understanding culture, connection with community

Whanaungatanga – building strong classroom relationships, collaborating; welcoming, personable, approachable


Rangatiratanga – responsibility for learning, autonomy, engagement, motivation; teacher monitoring and feedback

Wānanga – joint goal setting, short and long-term goal setting, academic focus, encouraging of questions

Mana motuhake – teachers care about student performance, clear feedback, goal-focussed; self-motivation, improvement-focussed, perseverance and resilience

Whanau Kauri Partnership

Last week's meeting was a real success. I gave the students their levels for reading and maths and then they filled out blanks reports with what they can do and what their next steps are.  It was definitely a step up from reading the learning intention off the board!

DFI 4

• What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

Share is not a linear, tick box idea. It is fluid and prone to change. I love how using flipped learning I can
share at moments that are out of my control, as I am shifting the ownership to my students.

Garden Science Site

          Flipped Maths Lessons

          Class site

• What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional? I feel like I am getting quicker and finding my way a bit quicker. I am more confident with my ability to use our class site as a means for flipped or additional top up learning. I am also using my new knowledge each week with my whanau Kauri partnership group (which is up to 8 families now)

• What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  

I think I have started to tailor my site more to the needs of the learners. More aesthetic and user

friendly, and accessible from home.

• What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life. I am still not sure!