This blog was created in 2016 with the purpose of documenting my professional journey. Unfortunately, administration deleted my Google account, rather than archive it. As a result, many links to media are no longer available. While frustrating, I hope my ramblings and wonderings provide you with a picture of this #Oresome journey.
Sunday, 31 January 2016
What does PB4L look like @OrmPS?
This programme started running in the foundation year. I can see it's good points as it's always great to be recognised for the good, rather than the bad. Who in their right mind would want to be made a spectacle of when they're in the wrong?
PB4L is managed in the following ways:
#Orestome tickets
School-wide - rewards
Focus Assembly - recognition (certificates and pens)
The following are areas that the Learners can be recognised in:
These areas help to guide our talking and thinking. It's explicit and easy for the Learners to understand which area they have shown #oresome behaviour in - at all ages.
The tickets and small prizes may seem like intrinsic rewards and I know that some people don't agree a rewards system, but rewards are what many of us come to work every day for. Although I thoroughly enjoy my job, I would certainly not be working full time if it wasn't for the money. Is that not an intrinsic reward?
I for one am looking forward to using this language and developing positive relationships with all Learners through the use of this reward system.
Another day jam packed with information... at least I have the above document to refer back to so that I don't have to S-Q-U-E-E-Z-E anything more into my head. It's great to have everything set out clearly and to also have the opportunity to question and add to the document.
I'm excited to be Talia's mentor and consider myself fortunate to be working in a school who acknowledge that mentor's need release time to work together, share and grow so that they can provide the best support to their PRT.
Sign Language
Kaori provided us with some #oresome PD in sign language. She has a very humorous nature which made the learning process less intimidating and daunting. I've learned how to sign my name and have a short introductory conversation. I'm looking forward to learning more about sign and I'm sure this will happen with the way that it is immersed in the OrmPS culture.
It was interesting to learn how to get the attention of a deaf person when they are further away and/or not looking at me. At this stage, I don't think we have any Kdec learners in our habitat, but I will be working alongside others through cross-habitating. This is another new learning curve for me to negotiate as I begin working at OrmPS.
First thing is to learn reading the alphabet when someone else is signing their name.
Moving on from 'industrial-aged' thinking to "what does today's knowledge look like?"
It is no longer a noun. It is now a verb.
"Knowledge is in the space, not the individual."
Emphasis on:
connectivity
relationships and connections
spaces between
working in third spaces (communities, clusters, collaboration)
innovation
"We can open up the space, but we need to open up the mind as well."
If....
New schools are the hardware, with teaching staff as the software. The infrastructure is there, but who is updating the software?
Complexity Thinking
Looking at things not as individual entities, but as part of much bigger systems - the interaction between the 'things/parts'. Simultaneous interaction, not just adding individual parts.
Small changes can make a big difference
How do we build on collective intelligence (matter)?
quality of the elements within the system
interactions between the elements
diversity within the system - bringing in outside intelligence to disrupt and raise questions
Strong collaboration is important, not just sharing of ideas.
New ideas need to be discussed, questioned and debated upon to 'teased' out before considering as a change to current status.
Wrapping up
Reflecting on the day:
New thought - that there is a space in between
New action - discussions across habitats to help to understand 'how things work at OrmPS'
Where to next (what support would be appreciated) - understanding more about 'space'
Reflecting on 'post-it' thinking from the beginning of the day:
Although I understand this, I'm finding it difficult to think how we can better connect with a space, rather than the person. Is it by listening carefully to others and thinking about what they are saying, rather than what I want to hear? If this is the case, then how can I support learners to value this 'space'?
Can standards follow the learning? Will discourse and a focus on the key competencies to develop the child as a whole be more beneficial to learning? This thinking aligns with my Post Grad 'Teaching as Inquiry' assignment where I would like to explore further the inclusion of play-based learning and development of language, rather than placing an emphasis on reading writing and maths in order to achieve a standard.
Activity: Polarising thinking to explore +ve and -ve
Read:
Evans, R. (2012). Getting to No: Building true collegiality in schools
A story about each learner's learning. These make the learning visible and transparent for student and parent.
The narrative assessment has been derived from ECE. It is a way to record the learning (more important than the outcomes). 12 narratives per learner, per year (3 per learner, per term).
The purpose for today's learning:
WALT: describe the purpose of and write timely and meaningful learning stories.
TIB: @OrmPS we:
Guarantee every learner engages in innovative, personalised, world-class learning.
The narrative assessment is a story about the learning that was taking place and digital capture (photo or video) for support. Some LHs use Comic Life to create a visual narrative story, others use the Google doc template. All narrative assessments are loaded to the learner's blog and parents are notified via email. A schedule is kept up to date to ensure that all learners have a range of narrative stories and we are up to date with posting to their blogs.
* would be a great idea to add a 'follow by email' gadget to each learner's blog, then enter the parents' email address(es) so that they are notified when a post has been made to their child's blog.
We moved around in a rotation to hear how each LH managed their narrative assessments. It was interesting to see the differences, but will most likely follow what took place in LH2 during 2015 as this seemed to work well.
To put it all into practice, we were then required to write a learning story on heath's Learning Model presentation. It was a little tricky to include vocab from the OrmPS principles, but I think I managed it quite well for my first effort.
This morning Heath shared the OrmPS learning model with the new Learning Coaches. He began with two videos about what it means to learn - today, and in the future; which created curiosity from the Learning Coaches. This lead to small group discussions where Heath joined in with and made connections to the language in the videos. He was able to clearly articulate the four areas of the model and how they can become part of our everyday language.
Evidence of learning
Heath used various visual tools to help encourage thinking and participation from the group of Learning Coaches.
Next Learning Steps
create A3 copies of the OrmPS learning model for all the Learning Coaches
discover other amazing videos to share with others
Next Step:
To think and note who to assess when I'm planning and remember to keep my camera/iPad handy for capturing those learning moments, especially the impromptu ones.
The purpose to have a learning model is to keep us unified, here at Ormiston Primary. If it is that language that we all use, then we are consistent, no matter where the learning is taking place.
What does the logo mean?
The circular logo represents our view of school's journey -
the four groups connect to the school - learners, educators, parents, community
the koru represent the various cultures from the four corners of the earth
the four areas of hauora recognise the whole person
the four principles represent what we value in learning
This will be useful language to help explain the meaning of our logo design to the students and parent community.
How do we measure the 4Cs?
Look at ways to include the language throughout the day, linking it via skills.
Idea: create a visual tool so vocab (verb words) can be taken off and focused on, as the learning require it to be.
Activity:
If we were to be practising skip counting in 3s, then which parts of the learning model would we be using? Can we justify why we would be using each part of the learning model?
Firstly, the LC would need to check their capabilities (where are they at?). Then connecting with prior knowledge - how did they practise skip counting when learning 2s and 5s? Is there a way to develop curiosity and question - Why do we need to learn to skip count in 3s? Is there a way to make the learning exciting? Practising together with another, collaboratively (supporting each other).
Values
There have been discussions with the community about what values they wanted the learners to have by the time they left OrmPS. 'Confidence' was the most widely selected word. Today, we had an opportunity to review the values that were identified by the community in 2015, then wrote what we felt were significant indicators for each value:
RESPECT: learning NZSL, cultural awareness, considerate of others' property and the environment, honesty, belief in self
INTEGRITY: telling the truth, making the most of opportunities, keeping it real!, being reliable/responsible.
RESILIENCE: never giving up, looking for new ways to do things, bouncing back
KINDNESS: helping others, understanding, being accepting/inclusive, considerate, helpful, thoughtful, courtesy, compassionate. It will be interesting to see where our ideas go from here and how the school's values are developed and integrated within the daily learning.
What is Learning?
Heath kicked off this session with two videos. These raised our awareness about the changes that are being made to education. We were then asked to share what our thoughts were about the videos.
"The problem with old schools is that they were teaching answers."
I felt that learning can be like a Rubik's cube. We think we have the problem solved, but find out that it's not right, so we go back a few steps and try another way. There may also be more than one way to learn (and solve a problem).
The next video provided an opportunity to hear from many people about the need for a change. It will be a video to return to later and encourage me to question whether I am supporting the learners in our habitat to learn through change.
"Knowledge should not be about knowing facts."
"It's not about reform, it's about transformation."
How easy is it to access learning?
We carried out two exercises in small groups:
Write a sentence to explain what learning is... This required brainstorming words, then selecting what we thought were the best to be included in a sentence.
If you could draw learning, then what would it be? The following image was shared and we had to select one that metaphorically explained learning for us.
Which was more accessible?
The second option was definitely more accessible for me. There was a picture to link my thinking to, rather than a set of words from which I had to then construct a sentence. If I have to write, then bullet points are my preference. Will my learners be thinking the same way? I will need to think about how I am wanting the learners to connect with new learning - with visuals or prompting ideas through text.
It's 4:14pm at the end of my first day of learning at #OrmPS. My brain is feeling rather frayed at the edges, and more so as I push my way back through what I have learned today... right back to the beginning at 8:00am this morning.
Various acronyms - both already known and new, e.g. WALT, WWLF and TIB became part of our dialogue as we covered the vision, vision principles and learning model which is the backbone of who we are at Ormiston Primary.
Simon Sinek's 'Golden Circle'...
...will become a frequent 'go to' as idevelop, iexplore and iexperience so that 'i' can:
Guarantee every learner engages in
innovative, personalised, world-class learning.
We will use the Spiral of Inquiry cycle to design the learning the teaching.
This new
framework is the involvement of learners, their
families and communities, underpinning and
permeating each of the phases shown, from the
beginning and throughout the whole process (Timperley et al, 2014).
A learning activity to help understand the Spiral of Inquiry cycle
Learning and reflective tools such as Google Sites, Hapara and Blogger will become part of our daily practice. My Google site will be a place to embed videos, insert photos and link to the Practising Teacher Criteria. This blog will be my place to reflect and capture all the wonderful learning opportunities and reflections.
References:
Timperley H, Kaser L and Halbert J, (2014). A framework for transforming learning in schools: Innovation and the spiral of inquiry.
