Online/Home learning during level 4 lockdown

The level 4 covid-19 lockdown has proven to be a success for Oruaiti school in a time of relative instability. We have managed a high level of communication to whanau and students both in terms of learning, feedback and resolving questions and queries. We have been prompt and precise with our communication and it has been a credit to our teachers' dedication to the well being of their students and their whanau.

That being said, we can all make improvements. Over the past week few weeks I have asked for and received some really constructive feedback. Whanau Kauri feedback form

Some of the biggest challenges have been getting whanau up to scratch with what we are doing. After all, kauri class have been doing this for most of term one on their own devices in school. I also noticed that, just like in Whanau Kauri after school groups, parents bring a certain amount of fixed mindset. For example, spelling online lessons that focus on sounds are difficult for parents to grasp. Therefore, I began each day in google running through a mini lesson and success criteria, aiming the instruction at parents more than students. It worked! I then did the same with writing and saw a big jump in quality and output.

One thing that I am trying to change is the level of parent competition in our shared writing docs. I noticed that the spelling and punctuation started to improve and that meant that parents were doing more of the work than the students. I parked it for a bit as I considered the benefits of their support massively outweighed the negatives.

The other thing that I have become aware of is that some parents find it difficult to just stick to the success criteria when giving feedback to their children. For example, in a writing lesson focussing on first person pronouns a handful of students had their spelling underlined. These are things that we have been addressing in Whanau Kauri and I have to let go and not sweat it I guess right now!

It has been really cool sharing each day in google meets with everyone. I think that the support from whanau has been exceptional and has made a world of difference. One example is Clive Walden asked if I could add text boxes to the slides where a response was required. It meant that students saved lots of time and focussed on the task rather than the format. It was a really easy fix that took me no more than 5 minutes each day.

These are the things that I will miss when we get back to normal. In this reflection I have weighed the pros and cons of distance learning as I have seen it so far; the loss of teachable moments against the advantages of timely parent feedback. Its a no brainer, this is a formula for success across the board. Korbin is a great example of how distance provides opportunities to shine.

Sharing Whanau Kauri questions with Petrina

Maths Discussion with Sue Holmes

I had a great chat with Sue Holmes about teaching and learning in maths last week. She looked at my lesson plans and we have sharpened it up a bit. We looked at Learning Intention and Success Criteria and how a subtle shift in focus can change outcomes for the students.

We agreed that the LIs were to focussed on a particular skill and could be broader to show connections to other universal skills and have a direct relation to our local curriculum and enviro focus. In other words, highly motivating and relevant links that are integrated with other curriculum areas.

I have also shortened the lesson and have cut out practice questions. Students now just have two word problems to discuss in flexible groups. They then show their working out on the board. We go through the thinking and I pick out what next steps and feed forward from there. Also no success criteria until after the guided lesson as otherwise they are not thinking freely and truely problem solving, just complying!

The first lesson was great and we are now adding more elements of cooperative classrooms.

Senior Syndicate Meeting 1 18/02/20

Draft front of report

Draft report

The group discussed the new format of the senior school reports. We were unsure of how to report levels while maintaining a student voice.

We are moving towards more agentic reports, written by students and genuinely goal set by students.

examples of reporting graphs

Oruaiti Coaching and Inquiry 2020

Add link to slides from meeting with Su

What next?

What questions to ask students?

How does this apply to emotional intelligence/mana potential? How can mana potential support students to describe/demonstrate their learning? How can they make more connections to problem based tasks?

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

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.

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

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

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!

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.