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