Coaching Session with Su 22/8

Today's coaching session with Su was helpful for me to come up with an action plan for all of the things I would like to achieve this term.
Here are the notes for my reference: Coaching Notes 2019

Ultimately here are my next steps:
- Create Visual aid for  quality blog posts to be put on classroom wall and on class blog
(end of week 6)
- Timetable in weekly blogging session to ensure students are publishing a quality blog post once a week. Week 6= Maths
- Share self assessment report format with students, they will reflect on what they have been learning, how confident they felt about it, if they enjoyed etc etc. This will be shared on Monday, Week 6.
- Alim group will continue to articulate goals, I need to ensure they can post about goal also, this will need to take place during an Alim session.
-Target writing students will make writing goal in Week 7 after they have been exposed to Explanation exemplars and been given the chance to write one draft sample.

Kahui Ako/Manaiakalani Lead Teachers Mtg 16/8

Main points from today's meetings:

Manaiakalani
- Cybersmart Wall: area in class rooms to promote quality blog posts/comments, cybersmart. I will need to follow this up. Get students to compete these posters. Share with staff.
- Visible Professional blogs- Te Hiku. It was decided that it will be an expectation for lead teachers to have their blog links on the Te Hiku site.
- Tui Mai tui atu: Pilot teachers from the previous year will be encouraged to share blogs with another classroom within our cluster.
- T Shaped learning- this was brought up again today, it may be something that we want to look into as we reflect on our reading practice (as this came through in our data). I wonder if this may be something that we look at with Rhona?
T Shaped Literacy Slides


Kahui Ako
- I need to reintroduce blogging time at staff meetings again to encourage more reflection on professional blogs.
- Story Hui- some schools are using this as a part of their Inquiry. I think the way we use coaching conversations is similar to this and I am feeling appreciative that we have acquired these skills from Susan.

We discussed how our Inquiries are working in our school. I reported back on how our Inquiry sat well under the the student agency results. I think the 1:1 meeting with staff members went well and I will set another day for Term 4. The focus will be on checking, set goals with teachers on how they can gather evidence as to weather they have made a difference.

Writing was discussed again as this is a constant issue. How can Inquiries focus on writing in a new and innovative way as this is something that we are constantly faced with?

Inquiry Term 3: Taking Action

Goal Setting Term 3

Goal Setting

Teacher Only Day- Manaiakilani 22/7

We have discussed goal setting in relation to our Inquiry focus. The results from my student agency results showed that students understanding their next steps was an area I need to reflect on and think about how I can improve this in my practice.

Following are some slides from today's presentation that relate to this:

Sharing with whanau allows them to understand what are common goals for each age group. How can they help at home? Small/specific tasks e.g. 7 times tables, spelling words. This reminds me of our ALIM Inquiry which we discussed with Jenna. This may be an area we need to address again as a staff.

My SMART goal for this term in relation to my Inquiry will be:

My ALIM students and target writing group will have a learning goal for the term.
I will need to:

Writing
Give writing group an exemplar (narrative) to read a discuss. (WEEK 3)
They will then co construct success criteria and develop goal together based on exemplar.
Goal will be displayed/shared with class.
During writing we will be referring to goal. They will self/peer assess against goal. They will reflect on goal on blogs at end of writing.

ALIM
Provide ALIM group with elabouration of AOs around fractions, decimals, percentages (WEEK 3)
Group to self assess where they are and what they need to learn next.
As a group choose a goal, my teachings will come from the goal.
Once we have met the goal we will discuss/ show evidence of being successful. Share on blogs.

Teachers - Film Making Workshop with Harley Alexander from Creative Cavalry

Learn - Fundamentals

SOUND
Filming on phone- landscape
Recording sound on phone- voice recorder with "boom"

Monopod for Audio Recording ($55): 

https://www.rubbermonkey.co.nz/Velbon-Unipod-UP-400

Grip Mount for attaching Smart Phones to the Monopod ($56): 

https://www.rubbermonkey.co.nz/Joby-GripTight-PRO-Smartphone-Mount

VISION

Tripods are essential.

With ipad clamp.

CLAPPER BOARD

Clapper Loader- snap makes a marker "spike" on imovie. Allows you to sync up audio and visual when editing.

DIRECTOR

Onset phrases:

• “Turn over” (the Director saying: ‘please start recording video and audio’) 
• ‘Quiet on set.” (usually said by the 1st Assistant Director)
• “Camera speed” (the Camera operator confirming the camera is recording vision)
• “Sound speed” (the Sound Recordist confirming the sound is being recorded)
• “Scene 1, Shot 1, Take 1”  (the Clapper Loader identifying the shot for vision and audio)
• “Marker” (meaning: ‘that was the sound of the clapper board, not another background noise’) 
• “Camera is set” (the Camera operator confirming the camera is in position)
• “Action” (the Director saying: ‘actors, go ahead and play out the scene’) 
• “Cut” (meaning: ‘actors, camera, and sound recording can all stop’)

Different kinds of shots:

-Establishing Shot: used to set the scene, establishes the geography.

-Wide Shot: Closing in on actions- drawing viewer in, showing layout.

-Medium close up / Mid shot: someone from waist up. Drawing view into to focus on character.

-Close-up: belly button to head. Focus on dialogue.

-Extreme close up: showing emotion/facial expressions.

Avoid zooming and panning. Hand held shots.

Learn - Basic Camera Techniques 

Composing a Shot:

- Rules of Thirds:

screen divided into grid of 9. Put point of interest at intersecting point on grid.

Rule of thirds egs

Eyes should  be on top line.

Power side is right. Vulnerable= center of frame.

- Crossing the Line / The 180 degree rule

ensuring that the action is always filmed from the same direction.

Crossing the line egs

- Stable camera: Letting the action happen within the frame

- Don’t Pan. Don’t Zoom. 

- Do track. Do slide. (why gimbals are becoming essential tools) Hold camera still when operator is moving. Used to reveal something new/dramatic.

- The importance of controlled camera moves

- Stillness is power (for an actor)

Action!

Janet and Anna

Film Group 1 - Conversation

Film Group 1 - Rats

Our Movies!

Reflections

Today we learnt so much about camera shots and sequences. It was great to share the roles to try them all out and see how each role is very important. Taking the production right through to editing was helpful because you could see how you would improve your shots and media collection/storage next time. There are so many steps that go into movie making. As we were taught today you could see how you could also use the same exercises with children. I think they would really benefit from working with a professional but as a teacher I think Mark and have gained so much knowledge to carry projects on with our kids.

Link to Agenda for reference and links.

Inquiry Update Week 7 Term 2

This week Petrina and I discussed where we are at in terms of our Inquiry and make a SMART goal for the rest of the term.
I talked about how I had been reflecting with students on what they were learning and the purpose of it but I had been doing this very sporadically and not in a planned/intentional way. We decided as I was setting up my student blogs at the moment that I would utilise them for learning reflections as well. Therefore my SMART goal for the remainder of this term is:
- To ensure that each students makes at least one blog post per week
- Each post will include the following reflection:
                        What were you learning to do?
                        How successful were you? How did you know?
                        Next time I will...



Further discussion among staff stemmed from Robs goal to ensure he had visual aids in his classroom with the learning progressions for reading, writing and maths.
We discussed how did kids feel seeing their own work up as exemplars at each stage. It was mentioned that maybe it was easier in younger classes where the gaps between learners was not so wide? We also discussed how classroom culture, habits of mind and growth mindset impact this. We wondered if this may lead to more of a school wide collaboration around having the same visuals, progressions school wide might benefit our learners as they moved through the school. Something that has come up before but not progressed. This is something that we may come back to...

Kahui Ako Hui 23/5

In this role as Kahui Ako within school teacher I am developing a better understanding of Inquiry. I realise that a true teacher driven Inquiry is established from a need within your own classroom and school community rather than about setting goals to meet targets or about utilising PD that is already in place in our school. However it is creating more questions:

- What is the difference between Inquiry and Goal setting? Does everyone have a shared understanding of this?
- How does Inquiry (that comes from learners in your classroom, fit under CoL Aims and Goals?
-Can we assume that PD that is taking place in a school is a result of a wider inquiry that has already taken place to meet school targets?
- Teachers are willing to be enquirers but how do we ensure that it is a positive thing rather than more (paper) work?

Today we looked at: Why Collaborative Inquiry?
Things that stood out to me:
-everyone being a learner, feeling safe to try new things
-owning professional learning, relevant to our learners and school. This gives us motivation.
- Student engagement- everyone learning together (promotes agency)
- Being co reflective allows us to see things from multiple perspectives, different viewpoint make different conclusions.

How can we record inquiry?
I would like to see other templates but hoping to find a way to record everything on out blogs.
I will make a plan to meet and discuss this with Diane so that I can make a time line/document  for reflections based on stages of Inquiry.

Spiral of Inquiry (made my teachers)



My reflection/action plan from end of Hui

Alim Week 4 Term 2

My Alim group has been going reasonably well this term. I am finding that absences are causing a few issues with this group. There is never a day when all of these students are all at school together.

I started the group with a mixed range of ability in the group. I found this challenging as the more capable students would dominate the target students. I am tending to just stick with the target students now.

I am doing my Alim after morning tea each day. We are focusing on problem solving. The group is given a similar problem that the rest of class will look at the following day. We look at breaking down the problem: What do the words mean? What is the problem asking you to do? What information is given in the question? This is often the stumbling block with this group.

We look at a range of strategies that we have to approach the question. The group has been impressing me with the knowledge that they can draw upon.

The group generally needs to work on applying the pre loading they get in Alim to the class problem solving the next day. They are not naturally recalling what they have learnt and applying it the next day. This is our next challenge...

Ubiquitous DFI Revision #9

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

I am interested to see the data on Summer Learning Journey, I am wondering how many students would be interested in this? It is interesting to hear from other Primary schools who have encouraged their students from Year 4-8 to purchased their own Chrome Books, as this is something our school is planning to do.
Tui Mai, Tui Atu: I am also interested to see how engaged the students will be by this once we get into blogging.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?
I need to continue to reflect on the SAMR model ensuring I am using the device to a more complex and creative way rather than just to replace traditional pen and paper methods.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  
I am starting to use rewindable learning I hope to continue to develop this so it becomes a regular part of my practice as I think it is invaluable.
I would like to look into the T shape learning model and try to develop my Literacy programme to be more multi modal.
Some literacy links for my reference:

NZ Readaloud
www.getepic.com
Audio Books

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

Yay! I passed my Google Certified Educator Level One Exam :)

Empowered

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa today - specifically empowerment?

Today Kerry spoke to us about Empowerment. She talked about how Manaiakilani promotes equity within our low socioeconomic community. We thought about how our learners are disempowered and how Manaiakilani can help with this. One thing I am noticing in my own class is high absenteeism which is a common problem in Northland. Hopefully the development of my class site can help me bridge a gap to learners who are missing school regularly.

I am conscious of empowering learners to become creators rather than passive consumers and the more I am learning the more confident I am feeling about doing this. This will be a continual challenge. Another thing I look forward to learning more about is helping students to understand the difference between social and professional life I think this is a vital skill required for this generation to ensure they develop confidence on line. However, it is also necessary for them to develop skills to cope with success and failures that people will encounter when putting themselves "out there" online.


"know how it works so you are not a victim of other peoples choices"

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

I would like to invest in some movie making ipad apps for our school. Apps I am interested in are:
-greenscreen app
-stop motion sudio
-imovie
-flick
We used these apps to make the following movie. I was pleased to learn how to publish the video to You tube also, which made it easier to load on to my blog.

Demonstrate vs Articulate

Inquiry Update 14/5

After our TOD we set a goal to scan with our learners, to gather information on whether they could articulate their leaning.
I asked my students:
What are we learning to do?
What was the most challenging part for you today?
What do you need to learn to more successful (find this easier)?  I asked my students this in a variety of ways: to discuss with a partner/group, report back on a post it and electronically.
I discovered a few things:
-when the LI was written on the board, they students could generally rattle it off
-when it wasn't their answers were generally task driven
-when I was confident of the intention for learning and the PURPOSE for it my learners found it easier to articulate their learning.

This left me with a few questions:
- How useful is it for students to read the LI off the board? Does that demonstrate that they understand what they are learning? Are there other ways that students can DEMONSTRATE their learning rather than just ARTICULATE it?
- How can ensure that more learning in our class room has real purpose so that learners can understand what they are learning and why it is necessary?

My coaching session with Susan  (14/5/19) looked at this.
We discussed how gaining a better understanding of the Manaiakilani Kaupapa of Learn, Create, Share will help me to focus on thinking carefully about my learning intentions if I am thinking about how it will lead to Creating and Sharing and that being the purpose for learning and vice versa.

How can I incorporate Learn, Create, Share into my classroom practice?

The following staff meeting allowed us to discuss further. What is more important? Articulating or Demonstrating?
Moving forward with the spiral of Inquiry we looked at:

Focusing : Where do I think concentrating my energy will make the most difference?
- I will be focusing on finding purpose to learning. Why is what they are learning is important? Can I give learning a real life context?
- I will continue to co constructing S/C with students but begin to record this digitally on the class site.
- I will be looking for evidence of how learners demonstrate their understanding of learning. How can I record this? Blog?

DFI# 7 Maps, Forms, Sheets

What did I learn that increased my understanding of being connected with Manaiakalani’s kaupapa and pedagogy?
My homework is to look at the explore the following links to become more connected to the Manaiakilani community and make better use of these resources:

• Manaiakilani Toolkits
• Google + community

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?
I have always shyed away from using Google Sheets as I have never known how to use them well. I have picked up a lot of basic tips to make my data collection more streamline. I should try to start using it now, so I dont forget! Here is a link for me to refer back to:

Spreadsheets and forms to support teaching and learning

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

I am looking forward to integrating Google Forms into our classroom. They can be used for the following purposes:quizzes, reflections, preview of learning and also to upload files as a way of handing in assignments
Alicia introduced us to Breakouts as an interesting idea for students to record their learning. These could be used to prepare students for online testing preparation as well.
Following are links for my reference to examples of these:

• Number Knowledge
• ANZAC Breakout using a Google Form
• Reading and Answering Comp Questions
• Mark Maddren’s Pick a Path
• Digital Breakouts

Here's my example of a Break out.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?
Use My Google Maps.

Below I have been practising how to embed maps and active charts.

DFI #6

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

Today Kerry spoke about Visible Learning she shared the benefits of making planning visible to learners being beneficial to those learners who might be disengaged or distracted while the teacher is orally delivering lessons. I am noticing that often my learners do not read instructions clearly and are lacking the agency to follow directions with out my support. I am finding that I need to have expectations that my learners will access their learning through the site, I need to ensure I provide "wait" time to allow them to think for themselves rather than rely on me.

It also makes me aware of the clarity of my instructions, often what makes sense to me is not translated into what my learners understand.

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

professional?

I have made my class blog more organised and I am trying to make it more multi

modal

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

Vanessa has taught me to set up a google sheet with restricted access to each
row. I will create one of these this week as a way of tracking my learners as they
complete tasks and record.

Here I am sharing my class site to the DFI group.

Teaching as Inquiry TOD 26/4

This morning we broke down and summarised the Spiral of Inquiry with Susan. 
As a staff we had rich discussion on what each stage of Inquiry means and how we can incorporate this into our
practice. We then established a direction for our collaborative inquiry that worked underneath the
Ka Hui Ako overarching question:
How can I use rich tasks and flexible groupings to promote critical thinking?

Oruaiti School focus:
How can learners use a range of ways to demonstrate their learning?

Why? 
We have noticed a school wide gap in students not being confident to articulate the direction of their learning.

Seven principles of learning.
We identified Learners at the centre as our areas of focus.
These reflective questions are what we are focusing on:


We understand that there can be a range of ways that learners can demonstrate their learning.
We are interested in discovering which ways learners can currently articulate their learning goals,
needs and next steps and how we can support them to do this better.

Week 1 Scanning:
We will collect student voice
We plan to teach lessons and ask students to demonstrate what they have learnt
(we will try 5 different methods e.g: discuss verbally, write, draw, song/poem/rap, blog reflection, drama, p.e)
We will record data and be prepared to share our findings at our staff meeting in Week 3, this will also be recorded
on our blogs.
What was the most successful method? 
Where do I think focusing my attention would be most useful?

DEVICES

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

I am thinking critically about blogging for students. I understand the benefits; being constructive feedback, feed forward and sharing to a wider audience.
I am aware of whanau concerns with privacy and a lack of understanding of the importance of blogging. I think as a staff we need to have a very clear understanding of how blogging will enhance our students learning so we can best educate our communities' understanding of the Manaiakalani kaupapa that we are investing in.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?
Things to remember with Hapara:
-filter and focused searching times
-using it to check blog posts/comments
I will be encouraging our Junior teachers to look into Explain Everything and hope that Professional Development will become available to them so they can utilise this great app in their classrooms.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  
I will try to remember to use the Cyber smart curriculum resources which are available to use and modify in my classroom. I will use my presentation below with staff to assist them as an introduction to professional blogging.

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

I will be exploring Explain everything with own children at home.

Here is my slide presentation that I will share with staff to get them started on their professional blogs.

Spiral of Inquiry

 

SPIRAL OF INQUIRY REFLECTIVE QUESTIONS.

Scanning   What’s going on for my learners?

Focussing Where do I think concentrating my  energy will make the most difference?

Developing a hunch How am I contributing to the situation?

New Learning How and where will I learn more about what to do?

Taking Action What will I do differently to make enough of a difference?

Checking Have I made enough of a difference?

Reflection and next steps What did I notice and what happens next? What’s my evidence?

Sharing is Caring

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

"Work with learners to establish an authentic audience for their learning outcomes"

Providing my learners with authentic learning experiences is something that I try to consider when preparing learning. I find that learners respond well when they have a real life purpose for their writing in particular. I am starting to see how blogging and sharing learning will motivate and encourage learners.

It is great to provide a local and global audience to our learners who live in a globally remote location.

I will continue to reflect on engaging students so that they have the motivation to stay focused on learning rather than being distracted by device, as this a issue that I have faced ever since having 1:1 devices.

I can also see how sharing will be a  great motivation to finish work, another issue I would like to resolve.

I look forward to developing a strong understanding of supportive commenting to provide feed-forward and feedback from a range of people rather than just the teacher.

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

As we use our professional blogs more I am starting to become more comfortable with sharing reflections with an audience.

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

I now understand how the use of Google Sites can provide an interesting and interactive way to present units of work to our learners.

Here is an example

that I will refer to when I prepare for my next thematic unit or Inquiry.

Sustainability Unit Site PESch

I am pleased to see how this could be used to implement project based/cross curricular units as this is another area I would like to develop.

I hope that by using a site similar to this example can be used as a visual unit plan for myself as well as a resource center for students.

Here is a link to the example site I made today: Gardening example

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

I will definitely be using Google Keep to streamline my sticky notes on my PC and my notes on my phone.

CREATE Googles Slides, Google Draw and Youtube Playlists. #DFI 3

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

I have learnt the 'Create' aspect is at the center of Manaiakalani pedagogy. It is essential to keep reflecting on this and trying to think on how we can hook in our learners and provide a range of experiences that allow learners to create on a range of platforms (digital and non digital).

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional? Today I have learnt a range of features I can use to make my slide show presentations more engaging and efficient. Here is an example of a slide I have made for one of my maths groups. I have used images as link buttons and also embedded videos on to slides, which is something I have learnt today

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?   I plan to share with learners some of the tricks I have learnt in Google Slides and Draw. My students will enjoy trying to make animations and pick a path stories using Google slides. I am also very keen to develop my use of You tube playlists so I can support and direct my students when they are watching videos on the Internet.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life? This week I will be making buttons on Google Draw to embed into my class site.