Teacher Only Day: Animate a Poem

To finish off a very informative day we had create workshops. In this time we shared ways in which we create with our student in Literacy and in responding to or engaging with texts. 

What I really enjoy about this time is have a chance to share practical examples of what we are actually doing in our classrooms. I love poems and it was great to share that with others. 

Finding Out More

 To understand more about the school-wide problem of mathematics we worked collaboratively together to create three surveys. These Surveys looked at teacher opinions and thoughts about mathematics. The thoughts of the senior management team about mathematics and our school. Most importantly for me what the children felt they're learning in mathematics and how important it is to them. By collecting this data we are getting more perspectives and understanding the problem from a range of point to point of view.

Survey for Senior Management

Surevy for teacher: Surevy for Children:

Thinking about the problem

The challenge in student learning that I have identified for this inquiry is the ranging abilities in maths and how do we address these within the classroom setting while drawing the strength of all students. 

This is important to me because initial testing with the children along with Manaiakalani data has shown that there is an increasing gap between the ability of children in mathematics.  This is representative of the wider issues in New Zealand education. Overall this leads to a problem of data suggesting that children are failing in mathematics when in fact what I've noticed in my classroom is that many children are excelling in particular areas of mathematics while others are struggling in the same areas.

Over the years many teachers have identified the complexity of language in mathematics and have explored this in their inquiries. Over the past few years Manaiakalani has identified a shared pedagogy for reading and writing. At the school we are aware of the increasing challenge and catering to all students in mathematics and making sure that learning in mathematics is accelerated over the year. As such, Danni Stone, Hannah West and I have come together to think about the way in which we can accelerate mathematics by using opportunities for extension groups and collaboration within the classroom. 

Our initial plan: In her role as creative space teacher Hannah has the opportunity to pull children out and work with them on specific targeted projects which will allow them to accelerate. As such we have discussed that she may take out a group of extension children from year three and four to work on their gaps and push them to think creatively in mathematics. From this wonderful opportunity I hope to draw what she is doing in her extension program and look at ways to create collaboration within my maths classroom. I believe that there is a real need for children to be aware of their gaps and strengths and how these can be developed over the year.

 I wish to include more assessment and discussion with children about their learning and gaps in order to make sure that they are able to fully understand their next steps. At this stage in my inquiry I'm looking at gathering data to fully understand each child's gabs and strength and formulate a plan for sharing these with the children in a way that is meaningful. Look forward to continuing to collaborate in this inquiry and hope it will provide a way forward for maths in a diverse classroom.

Chit Chat about Math

We discussed a number of challenges that we felt were important to student learning and I've left of these below.

- Children having a range of knowledge but not being able to apply it correctly.

- Children revert to early number strategies as these are the most prominent in their brain even though they have more effective ways of solving problems.

-Children having gaps in knowledge either from Covid or from not retaining knowledge from previous years.

- Children not understanding how they can move onto the next step in their learning.

- Children not having the self-confidence or self-efficacy to learn from others and apply that learning in different contexts.

As we reflect on the many challenges we have identified in mathematics we realise that this is a massive area to study and look into. We wanted to choose the biggest ticket items for each class or group and really understand how we can make a difference for the children and there is. I told her up, perhaps looking at children understanding the gaps and their next steps as being something I could do in my classroom. I also discussed how building self-efficacy, self-confidence and sharing of knowledge could link nicely to Hannah's extension group.

Why this challenge?

Describe how and why you have selected this challenge of student learning. Locate your inquiry in the context of patterns of student learning in Manaiakalani overall. 

It is never easy selecting only one challenge when I am thinking about inquiry. I always find myself asking what will have the most impact for my learners, my teaching and support other teachers. 

It became very clear at our sense-making presentation at the beginning of the year that there is a lot of work to be done around drawing on what we already do well in writing and capitalising on this in reading. It is also clear that my class fit the the pattern of reading data from Manaiakalani as a whole and our school data. They have not been making accelerated progress but are making small steps in the right direction. 

We chose to look at the critical thinking and creative responses as we saw from the data shared by Rebecca that while we as teacher feel this is an area we do well in it is really not at this stage. We theorised that if we put more responsibility on learners to think and create they will think more in depth about the texts they read. 

 

Hapara Certified Champion

Becoming a Hapara Certified Champion has been a goal of mine for a while. In fact I started the course last year but sadly could not complete it due to other commitments. 

This time around I was determined to do my best and show what I know about Hapara while hopefully learning some new tips and tricks along the way. 

I found the course very good and learned a lot of cool tips and trick while reminding myself about the power of this platform for support student learning and increasing visibility for teaching and learning in the classroom. 

I found it interesting learning more about workspaces as these are something used more at often in Manaiakalani high schools. Create my own workspace was a lot of fun and made we think about elements I could be adding my own site design. 

I want to give a huge shoutout to the Hapara team especially Randy Fairfield for all his support and positive feedback during this course. I really think that is one of the things that sets this course apart from other free professional learning you have a mentor guiding you as you develop your skills and Randy was excellent reaching out with offers of help at every stage and letting me work at a pace that worked for me. 

This is not an advertisement for the course but rather a reflection on my learning but might I just say if you have not done this course and you use Hapara teacher dashboard, I so recommend it. 

It feels great to finally have taken the time to do this and to be able to proudly say "I am a Hapara Champion Educator!" 

A gift for me and Room 21

This term I have had the wonderful privilege of working with Debbie, Karen, Aamel and  Lucy during their two week online practicum.

From the moment we first met on Google Meet I could tell they were a hard working bunch of ladies who were eager to learn all they could on their journey to becoming incredible teachers.

On Thursday the 25th of June at 2:35pm just after saying Good Afternoon to my outstanding year 3/4 class I open my emails and ran full of excitement to show my Co-Teacher what my student teacher had created.

In just two weeks they had clearly taken all we had talked about, looked closely at my class blog, the learners blogs and the curriculum and this had lead to a very special and exciting gift not only for myself but for the learners of Room 21.

This site aptly named Maths Fun, is a sequence of learning for the topic of position and orientation. From the moment I opened the first page I was filled with excitement for what the learning would look like in my classroom. Like I said to the training teachers "I am in love with what you have created!"

Here are the reasons why:

The home page has the cutest  introduction videos from each of them really letting the learners see who made this for them. 

The topic of the site is clearly introduced. 

They have used Kahoot, which they knew from discussion is engaging and exciting for my class. 

The topic is broken up into clear parts which would make up lessons or week long units. 

Topics:

Each topic is engaging with awesome activities such as battleship, find the Pokemon (using the children's own creations), Movie making with positions and a Quiz about directions in our very own school. It is clear to see real thought has been put into this. 

I want to once again thank these wonderful training teachers for their hard work. I can't wait to test out this amazing site with my class and I am sure they will love it as much as I do. 

I will share how it goes later this week. 

Online Student Teachers

Ever since my first day in the classroom I have waited eagerly for the day I would be able to have my own student teacher.

I guess this is because of all the amazing Associate teachers I had and the many mentors who have supported me since then. Looking back I know that each one of those people gave me a gift. From all I have gain curriculum, from some I learned patience from others I learned to have high expectations and from all I learned to be a teacher is so many other ways.

So when the opportunity arose to be an online Associate Teacher for the group of training teachers in the graduate program I literally jumped for joy. This was it, my chance to give back the gift so many wonderful teacher had given me. Little did I know that I would get a much greater gift from my student teacher than I could ever give them.

Before our first meeting I emailed the training teacher to set up a time and shared with them this video that the children in room 21 helped me to create to give the teachers a feel for our classroom.

This movie is movie is just for your Debbie, Karen. Aamel and  Lucy.

Only moments after I sent the email I had response and the lovely ladies had commented on our blog.


Only a few days later we met on Google Meet for the first time. Our meeting was a whirlwind of ideas, information and conversation.  I tried my best to collate all we talked about into a Google Doc so that they could refer back to it. I also gave them their task description, as these student teachers could not be with us in person they were asked to look through the kids blogs, comments and collaborate to create a set of learning activities to meet the students needs.

I asked for, During level 2 we look at position and orientation. This proved to be a challenge for the children. They struggled with the vocabulary of position: in front, behind, beside, under, over etc North, South, East, West and so on. They began using grid coordinates and needed more work on this. It would be great if they could have a learning experience using a range of positional language and working with grid coordinates. This will be with the learner in my class working at and above a year 3 level.

From this we discuss them each taking an area and creating a task for the learners. We talked about games as a way of engaging the children. We talked about the interests of the kids and how these can be motivating factors in learning.

During the two weeks the training teachers had to create their learning activities I had a range of questions from them. However these questions for the most part were content and learner focused and not digital skill focused like I had expected.

Reflecting back I remember 3 days before our second meeting feel concerned that I had not supported them enough when I heard other teachers talking about their training teachers asking for digital support.

What I learned was that if they had needed it they would have asked but they like any great team had been drawing on the resource of each other, the internet and the university and had save only the questions about my learners that no one else could answer for me.

The site they create is exceptional and therefore deserve a blog post all of its own. I feel so privileged to have had three amazing student teacher, who are self driven, hard working, thoughtful teachers  already. They have shown me they take children learning seriously and what to use all they know about a group of children to create content that inspire and challenges them.

Thank you so much Debbie, Karen. Aamel and  Lucy for inspiring me with your passion and commitment to children's learning. 

Digital Fluency Intensive at a Distance

This week on Thursday I had the wonderful opportunity to support teacher in creating a multimodal site as a coach for the digital fluency intensive.

First I connected with the awesome teachers from the West Coast of the South Island. It was inspiring to hear them discuss the leap they had made into distance learning with kids. It was also heart warming to hear their challenges and what they were doing to over come them.


Later in the day I worked with the wonderful Alisha and Helen. Both of these teachers jump straight into planning a site that they could actively use in the classroom or through distance learning with their children. They took the material I offered and added to it and each site had a different focus.

These ladies inspired me to make another site. To take what I have learned this far about good distance teaching and learning and incorporate that into a resource that I can use and share with others going forward.

Here is my site

It is not finished an I have number of videos I want to had. 

This day reminded me again of the passion of teacher and their drive to do all they can no matter the situation. So thank you to all the teachers out there making their classrooms accessible digitally and from a distance. A thank you Alisha and Helen, you are both an inspiration.

A Big Change: My thinking behind online teaching

If you had asked me in January if I could teach online I would have said "no" or maybe "I am not sure, I could try." But back then how could I have anticipated what this year would bring.

We as teachers face many challenges each day and as a result are constantly changing the way we teach, but it is not often a change this big happens, this fast.

As I looked back at what I did as a result of the sudden change in our society I wondered if my thinking would be of us to others.

This video shows the thought process I went through to get to the current asynchronous model of online teaching.



This will be the first of many blog post on the topic of my online teaching and my learners response to this. My hope is that it will provide a platform for discussion that will lead to a continuing though process and the most robust approach to learning online we can have during this challenging time.

Class Onair: Making Skittles

This is my most recent Class Onair Lesson.

This is a reading lesson with year 4 children reading at blue (level 11). The focus is on understand the purpose of a text and thinking about the decoding strategies they are using. Our learning intentions were:

• We are learning to re-read and read on to fix our mistakes. 
• We are learning to identify and discuss the main idea in a nonfiction text.  

To see the lesson click here

Reflection:

This group are amazing. They have a level of excitement, engagement and a positive attitude towards learning that not all groups have. I am also very lucky to know this group really well. They were all in my class last year, so I am aware of the strength they bring and the challenges they face. This group have been going great this year. They are behind where I would like them to be but they are constantly making progress which I am very happy about. This book was a little easy for them and did not provide enough challenge to tackle our decoding learning as I would have liked. However it did provide a great context to create and an opportunity to look at a style of text they were less familiar with. They have now moved up a reading level. 

Manaiakalani Class Onair

This year I am continuing my role as a Manaiakalani Class Onair teacher. I am excited to keep sharing the learning that takes place in my classroom and extend on my won learning through watching myself teach on video and hearing feedback from teachers. 




This video shares a bit more about what you will see on my Manaiakalani Class Onair page.

There are many amazing teachers taking part in Manaiakalani Class Onair this year and many teacher who have contributed in the passed. You will find episodes ranging from year 1 to year 13 in many curriculum areas.

Here is a link to the site. I hope you will visit.

Across schools Col teacher Role

What do people want?

Supporting with Cybersmart Kawa of care 

I have worked with a number of teachers and classes using iPads for the first time. This has involved modelling lesson or supporting lesson around the the skills they will use everyday in explain everything. 

In one lesson we used the skills of taking a photo, cropping, duplicating, moving and locking to to build a Castle. 

 

See this blog post for more.  

Support with creation of class sites

I am privileged to work with Dorothy Burt, Fiona Grant and many others over my time teaching. Due to this I have a good understanding of the elements of class sites and how to make them appealing for learners. I have worked with a number of teachers to help them develop their class site and discuss the content they create for their learners. 

Creating with iPads

Getting started with animating 
This animation was created by a child in my class. I have used examples from the children in my class and modelled in classroom and supported teachers in 1-1 iPad classrooms. I this has helped to to enhance their use of iPads for creation.

Getting started with coding
I have also worked with teachers to impanelment the digital technologies curriculum. This has focused on using Scratch junior and the directions used.
I also have this Manaiakalani Google Class Onair lesson to support others wanting to use scratch junior. 

Blogging App

Many people have come together to create the Manaiakalani Blogging App. This App makes sharing simple and straight forward for our year 1-3 learners working on iPads. See this blog post for how to use the App. See Fiona's Blog for the journey of the blogger app. 

Inquiry Conversations
I have worked with a number of the CoL within school teachers and other teachers having discussions about their inquiries. I have also visited classes to see their inquiries in actions and provide questions, ideas and support wherever I can to help them.

Opening up my classroom to others
I have also welcomed many people into my classroom both physically and digital through (Manaiakalani Google Class Onair) to share my practice and discuss what I do in my classroom.

I'm here to help please book me using this form, leave a comment or email: ccarruthers@ptengland.school.nz

Northland Digital Fluency Intensive

Today I was privileged to spend the day with the wonderful people at the Northland Digital fluency Intensive. We talked about the importance of CONNECT and how we can gain so much by connecting with others and build on and learning from each other.

If we are all paddling the Waka the same way we can achieve great things.

I really enjoyed sharing this will these wonderful teachers who I hope to stay connected with for a long time.


Throughout the day we worked on sites and I shared this presentation with them.

It was so wonderful seeing them take all we had talked about and achieve their goals on their class sites. I am starting to see some wonderful visible learning and great thinking about why they are using their sites and what they want to do next.

I feel so humbled having watched and helped these teachers tackle their site problems and find creative and clever solutions that make their site easier to use for their students.

Manaiakalani Staff Meeting- Creativity Empowers Learning

Creativity is one of the key values that underpins all we do as teachers. We want our learners to be doing with their hands but in the end we want to scaffold and support creative thinking.

As part of our meeting we looked at this add and the fact that it took the key message of the company and make it modern.

Here is a link to the article that describes what they did.

We talked a lot about how the history of New Zealand school is creativity. We often see our learners in the early years of their educations being very creative and often they are expected to grow out of this by WHY? This article talks more are this idea.

Create is a Doing word. We should be thinking about how we can help children create with their bodies.

This year Manaiakalani explored the ideas of what teacher believe create looks it in their classrooms. This lead to the document that explored all the ways teachers create with kids. You have seen this image before but it seemed important to share again the image created to show this idea behind create.

Choice is always a key elements. How to we provide choice in creativity? 

Creativity Empowers Learning

This term our Manaiakalani focus across the cluster is on create and more specifically how creativity empowers learning.

To start off term to with a bang Ms Eadie and I applied these principles to our first week of term. We wanted learners to create to see the different simple machines and focus at play. We thought carefully about each tasking making sure we were using the senses to engage the learners brains.

Throughout this immersion which took place over a number of day with students working in small groups. Learners created physically and digital. Here are some examples of the activities they engaged in.

Art
We had three activities that I could call art activities however I they were also about thinking, folding and testing ideas.

1. Paper plane, a tried and true way of examining focuses and motion.

2. Marble run piece, Each student design their own piece which would later become a large marble run on our classroom wall.

3. Simple machines, learners thought carefully about what pathways in their brains might look like if depicted by a range of interacting simple machines.

Building
We had three activities I would call building. These were all very different from each other.

1. Creating ramps for car. This was a very open task and different group made very different things. They explored how different slopes could change the speed of the car.

2. iPad building task. These were Apps design to provide simple machines that student could put in different orders to explore how movement occurred.

3. Marble run, students used the pieces to construct their own towers and test them to see how the marble moved.

Movement, well there was movement in all our activities. In the art activities through learners hand and arms. In the building tasks moving around to find the material and creating with them. The last task was design to be a movement task.

1. Ten Pin bowling, students engaged in ten pin bowling aiming to use their bodies to throw the ball and hit the pins. It was great to see lots of creative thinking about the best way to bowl the ball.

Writing really matters to me!

When I was at school I remember writing things and wondering why am I doing this. I would think no one wants to read my retelling off the New Zealand land wars when they can read a book written by a professional author, so what is the point.

Now that I am a teacher moments like these pop back into my mind from time to time and they made me do things differently. I am lucky and as is my class that our writing goes up in places like this. On a blog, a site or in a video that the world can see but is that purpose enough? This year I really wanted that kids to make meaningful connections with their writing.

So what was I to do. These kids had been blogging for year and well this was great they didn't see it as as meaningful as it was to those who read it. So I capitalized on what was most important to 8 year olds and we made new friends. We decided to write letters to a class in Rotorua about 3 hours drive South of us. I organised with a friend who teaches down there to buddy our kids so they could write to the same person many times.

A video we made:

Example Letter:

Dear Kate,

Kharizma left this school so I am going to write  a letter to you. My name is Kiarah, this term we have been learning about music. We have been making instruments and making music. We found out what sounds the musical notes make. Our class have been  playing recorder’s and it has been so much fun. We played these notes with the recorder's, a, b, d, c and g.

Sorry that she left. I hope you enjoyed my letter.

From Kiarah.

This was so much fun, we wrote letters, drew picture, did painting, made videos and even wrote a christmas song for our new friends and the excitement on the children's faces when they received those letters let me know that they felt this writing was purposeful and that it mattered to them!

Here is our Christmas song we wrote for our friends.
This year we have been so privileged to have had to opportunity to write to a class in Rotorua. We have really enjoyed reading their letters and writing to them about our lives. I have been wonderful seeing how different people spend their time and learning about what Room 30 are learning.

Here is a little video we made for Room 30 to thank them and wish them a Merry Christmas. 

 

We hope you like it Room 30!

2 Amazing Years-MDTA Graduation

Last night was the Manakalani digital teacher academy graduation. We were lucky enough to have this wonderful event at the google offices in central Auckland. Standing there looking out over the city and reflecting back in this amazing journey I felt many things.
M
Firstly I felt a great sense acknowledgement, the past two years have been anything but easy. They have been fun, emotional, challenging and filled with new learning and experiences With many momentments pushing my thinking and helping me to grow. I remember walking around the cluster with the other MDTA BTs, Anne, Dorothy and Fiona and this beginning of this journey and seeing many school. Looking back I was seeing the network of people, learners and structures that would support me and that I would support as I began my teaching career.

Secondly I felt a great sense of gratitude. There is a great saying in New Zealand and it goes ‘He Tangata, He Tangata, He Tangata’ and it means it is people, it is people, it is people. While it is easy to focus on the one or two people you see at the front and centre of a program like MDTA there are so many people who make it possible and to everyone no matter their role I am so grateful that you made this program happen for me as I am the teacher I am today because of you!

Being at the graduation I felt a great sense of enjoy meeting some of the people in the background who had made this possible for me through donating time, money and knowledge to the program. Again I can not thank you all enough.

Thirdly, I learnt of the footprint of my action and that fact that even when you feel like you are trucking along alone in your class making shift and having sooo much fun many people are watching noticing and reflecting with you. They might. Be walking past your door hearing your class engaging and discussing or connecting digitally but in teaching especially in Manaiakalani you are never alone. And someone people see thing in you that you do not yet see yourself.

No matter where my life might take me, I will also be a 2016-2017 MDTA teacher and that fills be with great pride and the knowledge that I have skills and knowledge to draw as I continue to grow as a teacher.

Dorothy Burt: Visibility Enables Accelerated Shift

"Visibility Enables Accelerated Shift"

-Woolf Fisher Research Centre

As we head towards the middle of term 4 and the film festival we are privileged to have Dorothy Burt talking to use about the Manaiakalani Kaupapa. It is important that all elements of the Manaiakalani pedagogy Learn, Create and Share are not optional if you want to create this accelerated shift they must happen together to achieve this goal. We also be connected, have ubiquitous, empowered visible learning. 

We can not cherry pick because you can't connect if it is not visible. 

What is the #1 Factor Influencing students Achievement?-Collective Teacher Efficacy!! This is based on a number of researchers including John Hattie. 

At Pt England we have a collective inquiry goal which we all approach in our own ways. By having this shared goals we provided accelerated shift for learner and support teacher practice.  

Evidence and Data provides us with opportunities to teacher better and be the ones the cause accelerated shift. 

-School Inquiry, this occurs at a school, team and teacher level. 

-External Inquiry, Woolf Fisher Research, Auckland University

-Teacher Inquiry, Teacher inquiry 

Celebrating Accelerating Shift for One Learner in 2017 

Creativity Empowers Learning

Today the wonderful Dorothy Burt came to our staff meeting to share with use about how we can inspire creativity in our classrooms.

We need to remember that creating helps learners to embed the things they learner. We need to Hook learners into learning. We want our kids to be "Creators of content, not merely consumers."

When teaching movie making, normally the main focus is the teaching of Key Competencies. This type of learning provides an opportunity for learners to shine.

Sharing work in progress of not even finished work to inspire and celebrate what we have created so far.

Looking back at the creations of the past is inspiring. It was nice celebrating the teacher of the past and they things their classes created. There were so many great reminders of thing that week can do.

Creating is Not just done in the mind. It is the actions of doing multiple things and involves the whole body. Consumers are excited and enticed by: Sight, Sound and Motion.

We need sight, sound and motion to remember things. If we really want to get our kids remembering things and really engaging in learning then we need to think about how we include sight, sound and motion.

Thank you so much to Dorothy and the other teachers who have shared with us their create from the past.