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!

Student Self Assessed Reports

I am going to share reports with students next week. They are going to save a blank report to their blog or drive. Then I'll model writing a report in first person and get them to use the exemplars and wall displays to guide them, as well as using their reports. Will be massively scaffolded but a start. Aim to ask Diane if they can trial this for class end of year reports. Will also think about printing them and displaying as it is student led so perhaps not fixed mindset?I want to make it multi modal, so the students can embed and link their work into each sentence. Makes it meaningful!The report doesn't have to have the same format. Could have video, audio embedded and a different look to the traditional report.

Whanau Kauri Partnership

We had and awesome turn out this week, despite the weather. We discussed sharing learning success on the class site and student blogs and how I will be updating the class site with work each day that can be re visited at home. We also talked about the power of self assessment and student goal setting.

The students shared with their whanau where they are at in reading and maths and their next steps.

DFI 3

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

The presentation given by Mat this morning clarified my understanding of create. I think that as a school collective we were getting too hung up on following a linear progression of first learn, then create and then share. Today I saw the learn create share pedagogy as a more homogeneous arrangement. The video on one of the slides was of Oruaiti School in the 1960's when it was an experimental school. The clip was used to demonstrate creating and the enjoyment of active integrated learning. We are continuing on from Elwyn Richardson at Oruaiti now with projects such as the duck pond for eggs, making hinaki to catch eels, bees to make honey and beeswax, and the fantastic art through screen printing.

• What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

I created a screencastify to my mihi on my class site. I have recorded audio over the original image. I just hope that my pronunciation is as sharp as the site! I was quite pleased with my About Me blog picture as well!

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

I have started to look at how my students will effectively access their work on the class site. Also how to manage the student blogs a little better.

• What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

Still not sure how this helps my personal life.

Wall Displays

The chalk pens arrived and I have finished laminating...for now. The exemplars are all taken from the gloss tests (I decided not to use student work as I want it to remain neutral). The stage didn't come out well in the photo but stands out nicely in the classroom. I have started to discuss the displays with the students and they are getting excited about finding their levels from their reports so that they can place themselves and start to chart their growth.

Student Survey

I wanted to survey my class to find out how they like to learn.  Students were asked to order their top three learning preferences. It was interesting that the top two were slightly contradictory and that the top three were the top three on the list however, it was a useful exercise in promoting student agency and allowing students to reflect on how they learn effectively

Whanau Kauri Partnership

So, yesterday was our first meeting since inviting more parents and whanau. It was great! We went through introductions and the student's talked briefly about their learning before I ran through two short sessions in reading and maths.

In total we had six families there and I have invited a couple more. I think the parents have gone home happy that they can be more active participants in their childrens' success.

We looked at times tables practise and spelling. I wanted to dispel myths about rote learning and the evidence behind it.

Everyone has gone away to practise, new ways of teaching and learning, particularly the parents, which I believe is the key to the success of this programme.

DFI Cohort 2 Session 2

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

Today I dabbled with google hangouts, with limited success! I found that google keep was a useful tool for

notetaking. I found benefit in updating calendars, bookmarking websites and even little things like adding

a signature to my email.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

I suppose today was a great admin sharpening day! Streamlining and organising workflow!

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

Not a huge amount that I would feel confident introducing to the class tomorrow.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

Streamlining and organising workflow! Perhaps allocating particular times to emails.

Buddy Coaching Session

After today's meeting we got into our buddy coaching groups to work on short goals relating to our teaching as inquiry focus of greater student agency in terms of knowing and demonstrating what they have learnt, the task and what their next steps are.

I am getting really close to achieving my smart goal. Today I spent the afternoon laminating the maths progressions for my class. I am getting through a lot of laminating sheets and velcro tape!

 I have had to use window space as well as the back wall. The back wall is only reading levels!

I have decided that as I am finishing mid year reports at the moment. I will share the levels with students in short conferences. They will then have a clearer picture of where they are going into the holidays. I have started to put some examples of work up as exemplar bench marks, however I am struggling to reconcile fixed mindset levels, particularly with students that are well below their expectations for age.

As advised by my colleagues today,  I will most likely use exemplars from the web...or other classes maybe?

DFI Cohort 2 Session 1

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

Learn: I learnt heaps today. Probably the most exciting for me was how to effectively use
read-writer for students. I also learnt a few tricks to assist with my mini ALIM inquiry
towards increased students learning outcomes trough improved home/school partnerships and
increasing parent efficacy and understanding of reading, writing and maths levels and what they
mean.
Create: I created an awesome group with my parents, for them to communicate with me, and
me with them
Share: So, I created a google group to share info with whanau and also a snappy poster to make
it feel less confrontational for harder to reach parents. The poster is advertising my after school
student/parent refresher sessions which are really working at accelerating below and well below
student outcomes.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

Loads of useful things, especially how to use Google groups. This will be useful to build transparency and whakawhanaungatanga with my students' whanau.

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

I learnt about using voice type properly and to use it as a tool for greater efficiency for

all students, and not just reluctant writers.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

Not sure, about this one yet. I think it is still early days and I still feel far from confident in terms of digital fluency.

Wall Displays

So, I have finally got around to making the wall displays. I decided against doing them myself from scratch and used the best of what was currently around.

Mark gave me an awesome maths progression, Diane gave me a similarly good writing framework and I used our reading walts Jess discovered a couple of years ago that Kara re-found for me. What an awesome team!

The displays all needed to be printed in A3 and some blown up and printed twice, which took ages. I started pva gluing them to cardboard, but that looked really rubbish as the paper crumpled and absorbed the colour of the backing paper. Plus it took me four hours just to do one maths level.

After a night to think about it, I decided just to laminate and velcro fasten them to the walls. The problem I now have is that the back wall isn't going to be big enough, as I want to follow the linear progression of the bump it up wall displays. I may have to either take classroom furniture out like cubby boxes and bookshelves or reclaim window space.