Link to Professional Discussion
4 August, 2015
As part of the Personal Growth and Development process at school, we undertook a peer-appraisal process. Part of the report from this process told me that I need to work on how I engage with learners in order to help them understand how to take the next steps in their learning.
2 June, 2015
We have noticed that some students just aren't getting trough their work. We are thinking that some of the students just don't understand the quantifiable nature of work. So we have started asking, 'how many numbers have you written,' maths. 'How many words have you written,' during literacy. By giving students quantifiable targets, they are more likely to get work done.
12 June, 2014
I began the process of increasing the amount of student agency by creating and publishing videos that other students can use to increase their own skills. Alan November talks about using students as teachers and by creating short videos on what students have learned, it helps them to strengthen what they know.
This is the first of (hopefully) a lot of short maths videos that can be used by other students to learn the skills.
28 May, 2014
As part of the LCN we are being asked to critically inquire into our own teaching practice. Follow this link to see one example of how were sharing our knowledge with others.
23 May, 2014
I'm not sure quite how to use this page, but I thought I might start with a reflection.
I was trawling through twitter last night and found a tweet from one of my twits. It was a link to his blog on his teaching reflections. Reading through the blog, it set out his journey through the e-learning maze.
That made me think, I am at a place where I wouldn't have even comprehended 3 year ago. Here is my own journey...
At some stage, it would have been early 2000's, the teachers went to listen to **** about skills for the 21st century learner. Most of the discussion was around ICT tools and how to get them into the classroom. Unfortunately, the discussion stopped as soon as we left the room. Although I felt excited at the concept, I think I felt quite alone. Many of the comments were, 'more work' and 'the ministry trying to get a new curriculum in' and 'yeah, who's gonna pay for that'. So that was my introduction to the 21st century learner.
It must have in 2009 that I went on an Apple Bus Tour. Two of us went and for us, it was a bit of a piss trip. We hadn't been sent away on anything before and we did cut loose. However, I did come back to school and try to implement a few things. We tried to use computers in the classroom, but we only had 3 of the older G4 iMacs. We didn't have wireless; the system couldn't be implemented because it wouldn't be secure enough. We tried to get a system for getting kids onto the computers, but that didn't work well either. In the end, it fell over.
Later that year, I was made the ICT Team Leader, a rather dubious position whose main task was to ensure the laptop agreements were signed and that students were working towards completing their checklists (each student had a sheet of tasks to complete by the end of the year). Wow, did I feel a bit let down.
It wasn't until I joined Maungaraki School that I felt like I was really getting somewhere. The board listened to what I was saying and with their help we managed to increase the number of devices available to the students.
The past two years have been a period of immense learning and some pretty big revelations for me. I remember hearing about how teachers at Amesbury School put their planning online and how shocked I was that they would do that. I remember being amazed that some schools had actually organised themselves to roll out a 1:1 programme. I thought things like this were a long ways away, almost unattainable. And yet here we are, weeks within our 1:1 programme being rolled out.
I think I have come a long ways.
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