I was lucky enough to take part in Sonya Van Schaijik‘s initiative “TeachMeetNZ” on the weekend and presented a little 3 minuite presentation titled Youth and (relative) Inexperience in Education. My slides and notes are below if you are intereted in my experiences of being a new, young teacher in New Zealand. Youth and (relative) inexperience …
I was recently interviewed by Peter Nelson, Director of Education at TTS (Telco Technology Services) for their 2013 Roadshow – ‘The way forward. Enabling Modern Learning Environments’. In doing this, Peter gave me the opportunity to capture on video what I believe 21st century education is all about. It does had a technology bent but might be worth watching…
Interestingly, when I’ve spoken to the students in Year 6 lately, they’ve told me that they have lots of control in the classroom. I can’t say I agree, though they may well have plenty of control compared to previous years at school. So, to give both myself and the kids in my class a better idea of who had …
It is interesting to ask students what successful learners do – you always get students who say the secret to success is to concentrate hard or work hard. I agree this is important, but is there more to a really great learner than that? I wanted to pose this question to the students in my class to …
I recently visited all 3 Year 6 classes and spoke informally to randomly chosen students. I had decided to do this to get an idea of where the students were at with their learning and what our next steps as teachers were. This is what we came up with after reflecting as a team on the students’ responses: …
How many times have you attended a conference, PD session or seminar and ended up doing the most meaningful learning through informal discussions with fellow educators? How often have you wished you had more time to meet up with other educators to discuss issues face-to-face? How often have you wanted to connect more with like-minded educators beyond …
This year, the Year 6 syndicate started off the term with an intense focus on learning. We have focused on the following ideas: What successful learners do. What switches us on and off learning. What meaningful learning is. (Useful, get a sense of accomplishment out of it, enjoyable, interesting and …
I’ve been so very slack with my blogging so now that I’m back into it, I have an awful lot to share from the past few weeks. So I thought I’d write a series of posts about all the exciting things that have happened this year. Today: A Survey of Year 6. At the very …
“There’s zero correlation between being the best talker and having the best ideas.” (Susan Cain) I’ve been wanting to read Susan Cain’s book Quiet for a little while so, when I saw her video on TED talks laziness prevailed and I decided to watch it. The talk really resonated with me as I would consider myself more …
I’ve been asked by a few people lately how I go about conferencing with students. Despite the fact that the word comes up with a wiggly red line when typed into Word, it’s a vital part of my classroom program. It’s much of the difference between well behaved, engaged, self-directed time wasting and ensuring productive …
I gave an “Ignite” talk a couple of weeks ago on how I have developed, and am continuing to develop, the pedagogy in my classroom. How My-learning came to be, if you like. If you are interested in this, please excuse the fact that I am obviously no public speaker! Ignite Talk Auckland I Emma …
I was lucky enough to attend ICOT in January and got some great ideas and food for thought. One such idea that grew as the conference went on was to create a wall of skills and tools I thought the students needed to be great learners. The idea was to add skills/tools as the year proceeded and … Continue reading »
At the Emerging Leaders Un-conference in the holidays I was lucky to hear Claire Amos discuss her experiences in the Self-Diredcted schools in Canada. A lot of what she discussed was very much secondary focused but one particular idea stuck with me and I decided to see if I could primary school-ify it and see if I could make it work in a … Continue reading »
A little while ago, the class reflected on whether there was more to being a successful learner than concentrating hard and working hard. They decided that there most definitely was! From this came the idea of ‘learning buddies.’ Students would tell me what learning skills they were good at and which they needed to work on (such as … Continue reading »
I was lucky enough to attend the Springboard Trust’s Leadership in Education Forum recently where global, national and local education issues were discussed. The day begun with a McKinsey and Company representative guiding us though their report “How the world’s best school systems come out on top“. This was followed by a talk from Cathy … Continue reading »
To sound like an A.A member, “hello, I am Emma and I haven’t blogged in weeks and weeks.” Except this is not a good thing! The reality most teachers face of being much too busy to do the things we enjoy has kicked in for me this term. I’m sure many of you can understand … Continue reading »
I was lucky enough to be taken along to the International Conference on Thinking (ICOT) held in Wellington over the summer holidays. I say lucky as there were so many inspiring minds there, both in the education field and beyond, from New Zealand and overseas, from higher education as well as practitioners. I was humbled to hear … Continue reading »
Well, it’s been a lovely summer holiday so far here in New Zealand but the sun isn’t shining all that much today, so it’s a good day to get back into the swing of things. As I’m sure all teachers do, I have been relishing the long break we are lucky enough to get whilst … Continue reading »
