As part of our cluster work with Carol from edLead we combined our two Term 3 sessions into one trip away. The focus from Carol for the trip was to have a look at Leading Change at one school, and the development of Professional Learning Communities at the other.
I was looking forward to the first school as the principal had been a 'critical friend' for Douglas Park, and my own appraiser for several years. He was always very challenging to work with...in a good way. He often made me question my beliefs about teaching and learning, the choices I had made, or pathways I was heading down. He often asked...is this good for the teacher, or good for the learners?
He shared his recent leadership journey with us, he has been at the school for 18 months now. He was typically challenging and hard-nosed, had made some tough calls to get things moving in the school. He talked about:
- Really reflecting his school community. His parents can see their kids in the school, but can they see the culture. He mentioned hiring Indian TA's as he has a large Indian community, promoting the Pacific Island Language weeks, Diwali, and making the cultures visible...little things like Cook Island posters in his office window, or using Indian, Pasifica and Maori designs in his new uniform logo.
- Satisfactory Teachers aren't good enough anymore...a classic statement. Good is the enemy of great is something else mentioned. He wants big things for his learners, and they are challenging...so 'good' won't cut it. He has moved all his 'resistor' teachers into one Learning Community...he would 'rather they piss each other off, than piss off the others'. You are paid 70K a year, 'get over yourselves'.
- He believes student leadership shouldn't be exclusive. All his Year 6's and some Year 5's have roles...librarians, patrollers, councillors, peer mediators...all of them. Everyone is a leader. Any change to the school goes to the student council at the same time it goes to staff for input...powerful.
- The school has developed trading cards to reward behaviour...collect all 6 and get a gold card! Gold card means you go to the principal, and he can discuss the ways you have been meeting the school values
- No normal CRT for teachers...they get 6 chunks a term, and their class goes to Robotics and Coding. Massive engagement, and teachers now plan use of CRT better. Will carry on next year, but expectation that teachers learn from afterschool workshops about coding so that the following year it can be seen in normal learning programmes.
- Self-Directed teachers...some staff PLD is compulsory, but the weekly sessions are mainly optional. 3 sessions are run on a Tuesday. You earn points by attending, more for running a session. He gave out a minimum expectation of points...but doesn't track it. Him and his DP get out to classes, and if they see something awesome they shoulder-tap that teacher to run a workshop.
The second school was a small rural school, with a first time principal (4 years in). She spoke to us briefly around the development of Professional Learning Communities at her school. They have two teaching teams, and they get release from 11-3pm fortnightly to meet as a PLC. The have a process to follow, based on the work of Alma Harris. The leadership team meet weekly from 9-11am. The aim of all this is to develop leadership within the school, and to give time and resource to those meaty discussions that we need to have as teachers. That had 'monitoring' meetings in the past to discuss target children, but these were 'once over lightly', with no real depth. She has given us some further information to go and look at.
She also talked about Writing PLD...and how they actually focussed on Reading. Got their reading programmes improved, which exposes the kids to better language and model, which then transfers to their writing. An interesting approach.
She also spoke about PLD...its no good having one-off sessions. The best PLD is when the team pulls apart the data to find the needs, they research what best practice is, experts can be brought in, and they must have followup...observation, evaluation and reflection. She didn't go deeper...but that has given me plenty to think about.
Overall the day was great, some interesting things to consider and be challenged by. I'm intrigued by the Year 6 leadership challenge, the trading cards and the optional PLD...but the PLD idea clashes with the good process advocated by the rural school. Lots to consider.
Tuesday, 13 September 2016
Sunday, 4 September 2016
eLearning PLD. Addressing the Specific Needs of Learners
Our third session looking at learner need vs technology. We wanted to carry on with the theme that we are trying to change teacher mindsets away from 'I have this technology I want to use' to 'I have these learning needs, I wonder what technology can help enhance this learning'. It's easier said than done.
After discussing the reading (see blog post), we thought it was important to re-introduce the idea of the SAMR model. Its not new, but the message that we can be using the technology for more than just digital worksheets is an important one. We quickly took the staff through a learning activity (publishing writing) at each step of the SAMR model. Again, nothing earth-shattering, but it showed people that with a little thought a common learning activity can become much more collaborative, creative, and be more readily shared outside of the classroom. We used Explain Everything as the technology as it is something our staff are familiar with.
We had asked them to bring along some use of e-learning from their everyday practice. Not the fancy, awesome one-off thing that had been amazing...just something that they do often. In pairs we discussed these...the person had to share the learning need, and explain how the technology helped address that need. We then discussed against the SAMR model, where was the learning sitting. This was good, it made people think about what the actually did...and make some judgements around that.
We then shifted the conversation to be more future-focussed...how could we take the same learning, same use of the technology, and more it further up the SAMR Model. The example I had brought along was using Padlet for generating and brainstorming words, and ideas, in writing. We thought that as it was able to be accessed from anywhere, and that the kids had made sentence examples for each of the words that it was probably A on the model, augmentation. Better than paper, but not heaps.
The next steps for me are to try and use video/audio in the padlet to show how the words sounded, or to illustrate the words better. And to think about embedding the padlet in the boys blogs so a) they can access it readily, and b) their audience can see the types of words/ideas they should have been attempting to use.
After discussing the reading (see blog post), we thought it was important to re-introduce the idea of the SAMR model. Its not new, but the message that we can be using the technology for more than just digital worksheets is an important one. We quickly took the staff through a learning activity (publishing writing) at each step of the SAMR model. Again, nothing earth-shattering, but it showed people that with a little thought a common learning activity can become much more collaborative, creative, and be more readily shared outside of the classroom. We used Explain Everything as the technology as it is something our staff are familiar with.
We had asked them to bring along some use of e-learning from their everyday practice. Not the fancy, awesome one-off thing that had been amazing...just something that they do often. In pairs we discussed these...the person had to share the learning need, and explain how the technology helped address that need. We then discussed against the SAMR model, where was the learning sitting. This was good, it made people think about what the actually did...and make some judgements around that.
We then shifted the conversation to be more future-focussed...how could we take the same learning, same use of the technology, and more it further up the SAMR Model. The example I had brought along was using Padlet for generating and brainstorming words, and ideas, in writing. We thought that as it was able to be accessed from anywhere, and that the kids had made sentence examples for each of the words that it was probably A on the model, augmentation. Better than paper, but not heaps.
The next steps for me are to try and use video/audio in the padlet to show how the words sounded, or to illustrate the words better. And to think about embedding the padlet in the boys blogs so a) they can access it readily, and b) their audience can see the types of words/ideas they should have been attempting to use.
Thursday, 1 September 2016
Shared PLD with Hadlow School: Creativity in Core Learning
Term 3, Week 6. 3rd session for the year with Hadlow. This time Jane and I chose to focus on creativity. She has been reading some of Sir Ken Robinson's work, and we chose Creativity as one of our school's 4 Core Beliefs last year. We wanted to focus on the 'core learning areas', as we felt that it would otherwise be too easy to say the children have Art opportunities, music, singing, Options etc...but to me this is 'timetabled' creativity...you're only allowed to be creative at 1.30pm on Fridays.
Robinson's TED talks, and an article (see professional reading log) were the pre-reading,and gave staff something to discuss as we had afternoon tea. The videos worked well, enough content while being fairly entertaining. After the starter we ran a quick exercise...everyone was given a sheet of paper with a triangle on it. Half the staff had the instruction to 'complete the painting, you will earn points the closer you get to the correct answer', and half just had 'complete the painting'. The idea was meant to be that having a correct answer would limit thinking/creativity, whereas the more open/free task would encourage it. As an exercise it didn't quite work that way, but the message got across.
As with the last two sessions we split into discussion groups, and had a recording sheet to try and structure the discussion. Some good ideas discussed and debated, in particular...what do we mean by creativity. As always, not long enough for these discussions. Ended the session with a quick look at Creative Flow (see other blog post).
My takeaway from the session came as people were sharing what they do to promote/allow creativity...and all were describing either open/rich tasks, or setting conditions for the learning and then getting out of the way. Either way, it was releasing the responsibility back onto the learner and allowing them some freedom. After the sessions I've decided to have a 'blank' task that my literacy class have, they can choose what the task will be and how it will look.
Robinson's TED talks, and an article (see professional reading log) were the pre-reading,and gave staff something to discuss as we had afternoon tea. The videos worked well, enough content while being fairly entertaining. After the starter we ran a quick exercise...everyone was given a sheet of paper with a triangle on it. Half the staff had the instruction to 'complete the painting, you will earn points the closer you get to the correct answer', and half just had 'complete the painting'. The idea was meant to be that having a correct answer would limit thinking/creativity, whereas the more open/free task would encourage it. As an exercise it didn't quite work that way, but the message got across.
As with the last two sessions we split into discussion groups, and had a recording sheet to try and structure the discussion. Some good ideas discussed and debated, in particular...what do we mean by creativity. As always, not long enough for these discussions. Ended the session with a quick look at Creative Flow (see other blog post).
My takeaway from the session came as people were sharing what they do to promote/allow creativity...and all were describing either open/rich tasks, or setting conditions for the learning and then getting out of the way. Either way, it was releasing the responsibility back onto the learner and allowing them some freedom. After the sessions I've decided to have a 'blank' task that my literacy class have, they can choose what the task will be and how it will look.
Why Instructional Design Must Focus on Learning Outcomes
Our e-Learning focus for 2016 continues to be around Addressing the Specific Needs of Learners using technology. We have promoted this as a mindset change from "I have this technology, what is something cool I can do with it" to one of "I have this learning need, how the the technology help address this".
Essentially, if we are to become effective at using technology, it has to be a purposeful change in the way we teach.
A reading we have used was a blog post on Ed Surge. The article is clear in its message...if technology is just used as a tool to engage our students, then the learning will not be successful. The learning activities need to be designed learning need first...technology second. The author has a great example of 2 possible txt conversations between home and student
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| Click the image to go to the reading |
Essentially, if we are to become effective at using technology, it has to be a purposeful change in the way we teach.
A reading we have used was a blog post on Ed Surge. The article is clear in its message...if technology is just used as a tool to engage our students, then the learning will not be successful. The learning activities need to be designed learning need first...technology second. The author has a great example of 2 possible txt conversations between home and student
It may be hard to see, but the left column...the conversation is all about the technology and how cool it was, the right column is all about the learning, and what the student gained from using the technology. By focussing on designing lessons to meet students needs, then think about possible uses of technology to enhance the learning...the 2nd teacher has created a wonderful learning focussed environment.
I've been guilty in the past of wanting to use particular tools just for the sake of it...Minecraft is often the example I use. I wanted to use it, so shoehorned it into lessons...focussing on using the game, rather than the learning needs of my students. It is much harder to reverse that process.
The article ends with two great points..."Date the tech, but marry the ability" and "Student growth is the result of the practice, not the product". In other words...don't get hung up on the technology, concentrate more on what it can allow you do to with students, and don't think that the tech can be the saviour. We are the educators, we have to modify practice and focus on the learning needs of our learners if we want to see change.
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