Kahui Ako- 11 March 2021

MLC PD 4 March

 We began the day with a warm up:

• Favourite numbers: compare and contrast.
• Greater than/less than
• Single/double digit numbers
• increase use of maths vocab
• include 3 digit numbers as a way of assessing (reading 3 dig numbers)

And explored some dice activities:

• 2 dice problem- with addition for junior students. Roll number and use equipment to make: groups, tens frames etc, PV equipment (intro to mult/div, PV)
• 2 dice multiplication- write as many as you know- affirms double and halving
• 6 sided dice problem- opposite sides equal 7.  "If you have 3 on one side what is on the other?"

Helen Teal from NZMA shared PD opportunties for me to share with staff

• Algebra Yr 5-10 (25th March or Sat 13th March)
• Outreach: Maori students with promise Yr 7-10
• Scholarship for 27th March- Auckland

Useful resources:

• Sort the street- nrich
• Reminder: modelling problem solving Biscuit decorations
• Notice and Wonder prompts- reflecting on Iris
• NZ maths- picture books
• Equipment- Diane will provide list.
• Manipulatives (e.g numbers as shapes)
• multiplicity lab
• https://www.boromi.co.uk/
• App: stick and split

Ratios: must be multiplicative to think in Ratios and Porportions, this is where we start in the Junior school

MK Principal/LT meeting: 30 Oct

 MK Principal/LT meeting.

Joanne reporting back on Wananga Woolf Fisher Research Summary from all the Regions

Link to Overall presentation: 

Dominant themes from Surveys

Link to dominant themes from Academic & Class Obs Data  WFRC

Reading focus for 2021 waiting on end of year data to plan this. Early year progress to good flattens out as students move through the levels. Students not retaining practice of skills. Possible need for deliberate teaching acts of effective literacy practices e.g sentences structures. HLP in jr classes that are effective.  E.g Oral rich programs, play based learning. Explicit links to reading and writing strategies. Multi opportunities to discuss text with peers, planned opportunities, large range of texts available .

This made me reflect on some of the reading/literacy programmes in senior classes: Mark (Novel Studies) Rob (talk to write) could be things that we may need to share in the senior school.

Reading texts seen in the online obs:

Text reflect dominant cultures.

Mirror text: reflect your word

Window text: see the rest of the world

Need to balance both

Purpose and audience- lacking from planning as well as language features.

No evidence of metacognition- thinking about one's thinking

Blog posts evident of lower level thinking

HLP evident in planning but room for improvement- discussion time.

More agency needed in types of tasks rather than just time.

Where to for 2021? (Nationally)

High level thinking- metacognition, self regulation/agency, revise basic literary skills

Planned exposure to diverse text types

Deliberately teaching audience and purpose

Blog posts: more inclusive high order thinking.

Digital Learning Objects- MK lead teacher meeting 18/9

Maniakilani Meeting 18/9
Student Design for Learning Presenter: Dr Naomi Rosedale
In this presentation we looked at what was a DLO.

I now understand that it is not just a digital presentation of a child's learning but to think of it as a student created teaching tool. It is something to learn from and it is rewindable. Students to be the experts.

There has been a big reliance on Google Slides as DLOs thus far. Often teacher templates are used. 

It would be more engaging and meaningful if students had more agency in what/how they shared their learning. Often they will create objects with learners in mind which are more powerful than teacher created templates.

To ensure that the DLO's are quality think about:

developing a S/C 

It is important to ensure that students understand the purpose of their DLO, why are they creating it? They need to think about their purpose and audience.

A takeaway for me it to think about developing a pedagogy within the class/school where DLO are respected and students understand the use of them. If they become comfortable recording themselves and blogging these could be powerful learning tools.

It would be great to develop this within our syndicate. I think it could marry well with our moderation/Pact focus for digital examples. They will provide valuable examples for our digital reports as well.

Deb from Paparore School mentioned doing a "Blogging Blitz" on Fridays where students can look at other classes blogs, might be something our syndicate could think about. This would develop students fluency in how to present in a variety of ways as they would see ideas from other students.

Target Students- Action Plan for term 4

 After our syndicate meeting today I am setting myself some goal to meet my students needs in term 4.

The focus for my target students will be reading.

I plan to:

• ask these students the reflecting questions about their reading.
• update their running records
• ensure they are reading daily with teacher aide (where possible)
• include target student in planning

Inquiry Focus for 2020 (Update Term 2)

At the beginning of Term 1 we had a PD session with Su Arrowsmith around where our we thought about what was on top for us and our inquiries for this year. There were a few of us (including myself) who were interested in how we could adapt our school reporting system.
There were a few reasons which had lead us in this direction:
- as teachers we felt that we spent a lot of time writing reports and that these comments were not necessarily being read by whanau. We felt that whanau were more interested in the teacher's general comment at the end of the report.
-we felt like our students were completely removed from our reporting system and that our current reports had minimal influence on student learning and achievement.
-we knew from the results of our "Student agency Survey" that our learners were still not confident to articulate/demonstrate what they were learning and were unsure of their next learning steps.
-part of our strategic goal is to strengthen our communication and engagement with our whanau (in particularly by utilising our digital platforms: class blogs, seesaw)

Some teachers had tried a self assessment type tool with learners in 2019 and found this to be useful when coming to report writing time. As a staff we discussed how this could be formalised and potentially strengthened to use as a way of reporting to families.

Term 1 started to take momentum at the chalk face and our personal Inquiries were only just starting to develop when Covid 19 hit and all schools were forced into lockdown for 8 weeks.
As teachers came to terms with this new style of teaching and communicating with students the recording of our inquiries was put on the back burner.

However, some interesting conversations were starting to occur. As a lot of our staff are also parents we were in a position to understand how our children were learning from both perspectives. Could we capture the knowledge that our whanau had about what their children were learning, what they found challenging and what successes they had, and use this to contribute to our reports that were due to come out in a few weeks? Why are we reporting to them, when they could quite possibly know more about their child's learning than we do at this unique time?

During our staff google meets we discussed this a length. We knew reporting was coming up in the mid year and decided that this might be a great time to trial a different type of reporting. We have decided to share a document with students and then whanau which they will contribute to about what their child has been learning and what their next steps may be and we will use this document as a basis of discussion in a 3 way conference at the beginning of term 3.

How will this impact on student achievement?
How will this support us to meet this strategic goal?

Strategic Goal:

1. To plan programmes to lift the achievement of all priority learners. 

With particular attention being paid to Maori students.


Hunch:
Since returning to school we have noticed acceleration in some learners who have worked closely with their whanau during distance learning. Rob has seen acceleration with his learners due to "Whanau Kauri". Our hope is that a clear understanding between teachers, whanau and learners about what and how tamariki are learning at school will develop student agency and ultimately lift student achievement.

My role as WSL.
We are well on our way to rolling out this trial reporting system for the mid year.
As WSL my role is to lead inquiry. I think it is important for me to ensure we have a system of reflecting on how this trial goes. Ensuring that teachers are thinking about how this reporting system is impacting on student achievement. What worked? What didnt? How do we improve it as we move towards the next reporting cycle.
Our staff is very reflective as a group and open to new ideas so it will be exciting to see how the next step of our Inquiry plays out.

Distance Learning Term 2

Due to the Covid 19 Lockdown we have spent the past 2 weeks teaching online from home. To begin with it was much more difficult that I thought it would be. This was mainly because although I had been using my Class Site with my class for over a year, I realised that I rely a lot of being able to talk to the site when instructing the students on what to do.
I had some feedback from parents that they and their child were feeling a little bit our of their depth with all of the linking, sharing and storing documents. I took this feed back on board and started to use a lot more screen castify videos. Previously I had been going through my class site during my class hangout but my doing it through a video it allows me to add more detail and more importantly students and their whanau can rewind and watch the instructions in their own time. I am able to explain other things as they come up with whanau as well using screen castify. Initially, I felt very self conscious about making videos but in these circumstances it is necessary and now I dont worry about it. I can tell that it is working as well as I am getting much fewer questions and confusion.
 I find the process really simple and it is something that I will definitely continue using it even when school returns to normal.

The challenging thing I am finding is creating tasks that are simple to follow but that will cater to the wide range of learning needs and levels with in my class. I have started to introduce a few more leveled tasks this week and I try to add extension tasks where I can as well.

I have been really impressed with how well our class has connected through Google Hangouts/meet and it is great to chat with the class via chat. It is interesting how some students feel more confident communicating in this way compared to face to face. Some of my relationships with students are improving by working this way.

I still find it challenging to meet the diverse needs of all of our whanau but communication is key and this experience has definitely has a positive impact on my communication lines with families (something I always find challenging). I think the biggest positive outcome from this experience will be that parents have a better understanding of school expectations and how and what their children are learning. It would be great if this experience lead to some accelerated progress from some students.