Mid-year reflection

Where has the time gone?! It is crazy to think that we are half-way through the school year.  With the end of term two quickly approaching, it has been a good time to reflect on how it has been going.  

I created a Google Form to gain insight into the feelings and opinions of my learners.  I stressed the importance of my students taking their time and answering the questions as honestly as possible.  I explained that the purpose of the survey was to see what was working well in room six and what I could do better. It was very important that my kids felt comfortable to be completely honest. There is always room for improvement! 

The feedback I received was really heart-warming.  When asked the question Do you like being in room 6? the students had to rate between 1 and 5 (1 being no, and 5 being yes).  It was awesome to see that the general consensus was that my students enjoyed being in the class.  This question was followed by Why do you/ do you NOT like being in room 6? I did this because I wanted to know why my students liked or didn't like being in room 6.

Here are some of their responses: 

 I like being ing room 6 because we always learn new stuff everyday.

Because it is cool and I got a cool teacher...

I like being in room 6 because I have lots of friends and I learn more

It depends on what we do.

I do like being in room 6 because miss tries to make learning fun. She makes it so that we want to learn and no one is forcing us to learn.

We learn a lot of things 

because my teachers kind and I learn lots of things

I like room 6 because Miss D makes learning fun 

because we hardly get free time

I like room 6 because we can talk about our feeling about each other. Room 6 is the best classroom ever. Give things a go. 

I like being in Rm6 because I got a awesome teacher that helps me learn and achieve my goals now and for the future. 

I am so glad that my learners feel that learning is fun in room 6.  This is something I am always trying to keep in mind when planning. At the start of the year, most of my learners were well below national standard. This had meant that I have needed to be creative in my approach to teaching the class. I had wanted my class to be engaged and to enjoy learning. I love that many of my students feel they are learning heaps in my class. 

Another firm belief I have is that in order for kids to learn, they need to feel happy and safe (because who wants to learn in a class where they are miserable and uncomfortable?). I think the responses clearly show that I have created a safe, happy and positive classroom environment. This makes me incredibly happy. It is something I have continuously worked on throughout the year.  Whenever the wheels started to fall off, we would revisit the key ideas of discipline, collaboration and kindness. We also celebrate shift and small victories. I have chosen to focus on shift rather than national standards, and as a result I have seen my students confidence and self-efficacy rise. I believe these things have made a huge impact on my students - academically, socially and emotionally.

The responses in blue are the two students who rated 3 on the first question.  The student that said it depends on what he does is one of my top students.  This makes me wonder whether he is possibly bored/not challenged enough.  I am going to have a discussion with him so I can figure out what he would like from me.

Reading, writing and maths in room 6

I wanted to discover my students attitudes towards reading, writing and maths.  I asked them a series of questions, with likert scales and open-ended questions. As you can see, the majority of my class loves maths, and feels okay about reading and writing.  

I also asked my learners what they liked, didn't like and what I could do differently for reading, writing and maths.  The responses were mostly positive.  The main negatives I got was that they hate sitting on the floor for maths, and a lot of my students don't really like writing.  With respect to writing, I think I need to be a bit more innovative.

Here is the link to the survey results.

What's working well

• Students feel safe and happy in room 6
• Room 6 loves learning maths
• lots of accelerated shift in achievement - yay!
• An increase in self-efficacy and confidence in students learning and ability
• Students enjoy using digital tools to help them learn (blog post coming soon)

What's next?

From the feedback I have recieved from my class I have formulated a few questions which will help to refine and improve my teaching

• How can I use digital tools to increase engagement and understanding in writing?
• How can I help to excite my learners about reading and writing? 
• How can I engage one of my high achievers?
• How can I continue to accelerate my learners achievement in maths?
• How can I make sure that my use of digital tools and lessons are deliberate and effective? 

The past two terms have been challenging but so incredibly rewarding.  It is so great to be a part of my learners growth and development.  We have come a long way from day one and I am very proud of the effort that every student has put into their learning.  I am looking forward to seeing what the next half of the year brings!

Parting words from my learners...

Finish this sentence: I want Miss D to know....

I want to do basketball sometimes when we go out for PE.

that I love being in her class

that we like spending time with Miss D

"that I want to do more fitness and I don't like writing. sorry miss"

do fitness in the morning 

i don't wanna move classes because i like it in this class

How I love this class

What I am doing

i hate writing

she is the best teacher

That she is the best teacher ever off my life.

I want Miss D to know that she is the best and funny teacher I've ever had.

I want Miss D to know that no matter what she picks for next term for the class I support her 100%.

Summer School '17: Digital Tools I am Excited to Try

This week I have not only come away with lots of knowledge about learning theories, pedagogies, and affordances related to digital technologies, but also an array of apps and programmes that can enhance the learning. It is easy to get stuck in your ways and use the same tools, so I'm glad I learnt about some tools and their uses in the classroom.  Here are some tools which I am excited to try this year in my classroom.

Answer Garden

I came across AnswerGarden thanks to Ashley and her activity on Growth Mindset. It is a great little app that could be used in many ways.  If you want a smaller version, or want to conduct a poll where participants can't see the answers, use MicroGarden instead. This can be done when selecting 'share' on your AnswerGarden. If you want to share your finished AnswerGarden you can export the data to Wordle or Tagxedo, which creates pretty Word Clouds you can add on your blog, or print out.  If you want to read more about AnswerGarden, read this.

Mentimeter

Latai introduced me to Mentimenter, and I am so glad she did! It is her favourite app and I can definitely see why. It will be a great tool to use to check understandings, share ideas as well as serve as a brain break. There are many pre-made examples from different categories too.  This tool can be used by teachers, as well as students.  Its really easy to use, and getting your learners onto your Mentimeter is easy. All they need to do is jump onto menti.com log on to and put in your code.

Special mentions

LinoIt

LinoIt is a collaborative multi-media sticky note tool which Georgia suggested the MDTA cohort to use. I am already quite a fan of Padlet, since it is pretty user-friendly and offers a lot of the same things as LinoIt.  Both tools allow for collaboration and you can add in images, videos and other links.  

Here are a few aspects which set LinoIt apart from similar tools.

• Different coloured sticky's - this can be helpful if you want to colour code ideas under different subgroups.
• Anyone can move a sticky note - unlike other tools, which only allow the poster to move their sticky note.
• Tagging feature - the tags are like hashtags, which helps you quickly see sticky notes which have the same tags. If you click on a tag, the sticky notes with the same tag are visible, while the others are blacked out.

As with similar tools, LinoIt has many uses in the classroom.  Click here to read an exhaustive list. If you want so see an example of LinoIt's use, check out Georgia's LinoIt. Her students have colour-coded their sticky notes and used tags to share what they know about the Olympic Values. They have also used various modes to show their understanding (images, video clips and text).

Trello

Trello was introduced to me by my lecturer who used it to show the outline for each day. Trello is a collaborative tool which helps you organise your projects using a board with lists and cards. It shows you what is being worked on, who is working on it and what is completed.  You can organise your board with a series of lists, and can add 'cards' under each list. For each card, you can add labels, due dates and attachments. Make your Trello a collaborative document by adding members. You can see what group members (and you) have done by looking at the 'activity' section, which shows the board's history. You can learn more about Trello here.

This tool can be used by both teachers and students.  I am keen to use Trello as an online to-do list to ensure I stay on top of my workload this year.  I would also like to encourage my learners to use this tool when working collaboratively in groups.

I am looking forward to seeing how my new classroom responds to the new digital tools I will be using in my teaching!

When the Learning Keeps Going: Ubiquitous Learning

The 'learn' component of this weeks digital immersion was all about ubiquitous learning. This is about ensuring that our students can access their learning anytime, anywhere and any place.  E-Learning and the use of Google Sites (that are open to anyone) allows for extended learning times. 

How learning is ubiquitous for my students

Class Site

As we are a part of the Manaiakalani cluster, all schools and classrooms are required to have a Google Site, which is accessible to all. In Manaiakalani schools the expectation is that learning is visible.  This means that every link needs to have the sharing permissions as "anyone with the link can view".  To make this easier we create a main folder in our Google drive that has the permission "anyone with the link".  This means that

Screencasts

I have recently created a Google site for reading and writing. To help ensure my students understand everything, I have included a range of screencasts.  The screencasts help to the explain tasks and reading comprehension strategies

Teaching DLOs 

I always ensure my teaching DLOs are linked into our class site.  These DLOs are quite comprehensive and cover everything I am planning to teach. This enables my learners to revisit the learning anytime they need.

'Modelling Books'

They are not quite modelling books, but they are my take on it.  Whenever we are learning something, I take photos of the students work.  This is then uploaded onto a shared folder onto Google drive, which the students have full access to.  A next step would be for me to add these folders to the site.

My Takeaways from Manaiakalani's Annual Hui

On Friday the MDTA were very lucky to attend Manaiakalani's 5th annual Hui - a place where teachers and learners across Manaiakalani celebrate and share their accomplishments.  

This has ended up being a rather lengthy post, as I gained many new insights from the teachers, researchers and learners at the hui.

In the morning

First up we heard our Manaiakalani student ambassadors share their learning.  It was really interesting to hear from students how they learnt in their school.  What I like about Manaiakalani is that every school is different.  Although we are all following Manaiakalani's 'Learn, Create, Share' pedagogy, each school is able to put their own spin on it to reflect the community they are in.  There were plenty of ideas that I will borrow and repurpose in my classroom, like the use of a 'Goal Wall' to make goals visible to learners.  

Following this, the Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher's shared their inquiries with the insights they gained along the way. I came away feeling inspired to give my own teaching programme a shake up to ensure my lessons are engaging, motivating and using digital technologies as much as possible.  Whilst I do believe I use technology a lot in the classroom, these teachers had come up with ideas that I had not thought of before.  Check out my infographic to see my main takeaways from the MIT.

Next up

After morning tea we heard from Rachel Williams about her holiday intervention programmes 'Summer Learning Journey' and 'Winter Learning Journey'.  Rachel's aim is to help lesson the 'summer drop off', where learners achievement declines between T4 and T1 after the school holidays. Her results show that students who participated in the 'Summer Learning Journey' had less of a drop compared to students who did not participate in the intervention.  Rachel's data was very compelling and I am excited to encourage my learners to participate in 'Summer Learning Journey 2.0'.

Next Woolf Fisher researchers, Rebecca Jesson, Stuart McNaughton and Aaron Wilson shared their insights gathered from observing teachers, and challenged us to consider what we are doing to accelerate our learners achievement.

Lastly

Dorothy, Russell and Pat Snedden spoke about where we are now and where to next for Manaiakalani.  Although we are doing a great job accelerating our student's achievement, we need to continue to reflect, refine and improve our teaching. We have a series of outreach clusters which are looking at us and using what we are doing to accelerate their learners achievement too.  Therefore, we need to be at the forefront of change and be constantly seeking ways to help our learners achieve.  Pat Snedden's talk was the most inspiring of the day.  He is so passionate about lifting our learners out of subsistence to capital builders.  I think Pat Snedden gave me the kick I needed to ensure that I am constantly doing my best and seeking ways to improve my teaching, because it is what my learners deserve.

I also used Twitter when I heard something which resonated with me.  Here is a collation of my tweets from the Hui.

Grow Your PLN with Twitter!

Today's learning was all about the affordances of Twitter an educator.  James Hopkins joined us via Google Hangouts to chat to us about his journey with Twitter.  James spoke about Twitter being the catalyst behind his 'year of change'.  He firmly believes that he learnt far more during his first 10 months of using Twitter, than he had during his 10 year teaching career. Check the presentation James shared via screensharing during our Google Hangout to find more information about James' journey and the affordances of Twitter.

Why use Twitter?

• Find and share resources
• Connect with like-minded people
• Find 'critical friends' who will provide professional and honest feedback
• Twitter is accessible anytime, anywhere, to suit your needs and preferences
• Soundboard your ideas

#MDTAchat

Following James' thought provoking discussion, the MDTA participated in our first Twitter chat, using the hashtag #MDTAchat.  Anne gave us a series of provocations and questions, which we had to answer via Twitter under the hashtag #MDTAchat.  We also had to reply to each other's tweets to keep the conversation going.

Find me on Twitter!

Infographics: a fun way to display data

Unfortunately I was absent during last Friday's Digital Immersion day, recovering from a procedure on my jaw. After looking at Dorothy's presentation and blog post,  and the blog posts from the rest of the MDTA team, I knew I missed out on an awesome learning opportunity!

Creating to share with infographics

The create aspect of the day was about creating to share using infographics. Infographics are a visual and fun way to present statistics.  It goes without saying that people respond better to visuals than a lengthy piece of writing.  The average human attention span is only 8 seconds, and our brains process visuals 60,000 times faster than text.  This makes me question who wouldn't want to use infographics to show data!

Having a go

I created an infographic to display the data from my professional blog. There were so many infographic creator sites online, but I chose to use Canva.  Instead of using a template I decided to create mine from scratch as I had an idea of how I wanted to lay out my infographic.  There were lots of icons, images, charts and shapes to choose from, but the only thing that bothered me was that the charts were not editable, I had wanted to use a Pie Graph to display the countries of my visitors, however I discovered it was a set image that could not be edited.  I had heard that Piktochart allows you to edit your charts, which I will keep in mind for the future.

Why use it in the classroom?

• Fun way to display information which would normally be in the form of lengthy sentences.  
• Infographics grabs readers attention through its use of images and colour and short pieces of writing. 
• You don't have to be an artist or very creative to feel successful in your creation.
• You can choose from a wide variety of templates to get you going and get some inspiration.

Student's perspective

I actually finished creating this infographic whilst supervising a group of GIS students at a chess tournament.  When they saw what I was creating they were all really interested in what I was creating.  They liked the way it looked and had said they would like to do something like this in their learning.  One of the students said an infographic about their blog posts would be a cool thing to create and have on their blogs and classroom. Such an activity could empower, excite and motivate my learners to continue to share their learning on their blog. I am looking forward to finding more ways to use infographics in the classroom.

Health & Safety PD

Today during our staff meeting we had Maddie Worker  from ADHB come in and chat with us about Child Protection.  This was a really worthwhile PD session as a lot of questions were answered and protocols were clearly explained.  


It is so important for teachers to recognise and respond to the signs of trouble in our learners lives.  Students spend a lot of their time at school so teachers may observe that something does not seem right with a learner.  I feel teachers have the responsibility to ensure their learners are safe and happy and need to to speak up if they notice that their learner may be in an unsafe environment at home. It can also be hard when confronted with the realisation that a student is in fact in an unsafe environment at home, so it was really helpful to be informed how to maintain effective documentation.


This PD session made me feel much more confident about how to identify signs of abuse (physical, mental and emotional), what steps to take to ensure I document information correctly and how to ensure my learners are getting the help they need.  Unfortunately I may need to use this knowledge during my time as a teacher, so it is very important that I know what to do to ensure my learners have a safe, happy and loving home lives.

Here is a link to the doc I took during the PD session.