mylearningdotme

Kids helping kids

emmawinder25 — Tue, 21 May 2013 03:49:23 +0000

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 risk taking and goal setting). From this, I paired up children as a ‘teacher’ and ‘student’ according to their strengths and weaknesses. The teacher would help the student with a skill they were good at but the student needed to work on.

It was a bit of an experiment I really had no idea how this would work: whether the teachers would put enough effort in, whether they would have the skills to help their peers and whether the students would actually gain any learning skills from the experience. In the back of my mind I thought, at the very least, all the children would learn some leadership skills; they’d get a buzz out of helping out their peers with something they were deemed an expert at; they’d have to think of someone other than themselves; they’d have to problem solve and be creative when their teaching idea didn’t work; and they’d have to take on some more responsibility within the classroom.

It turns out all the outcomes I wished for have eventuated. The students are liking the responsibility and the challenge. They are realising that helping others can be difficult but can be hugely rewarding too. Of course there have been children who have struggled to plan and help others but, for the most part, they have solved their own problems with help from their peers. They are basically team teaching at their own instigation.

The creativity in teaching has been great to see too. An awful lot of effort has been put in to designing brilliant lessons. One child had to help another with creativity and designed an activity whereby she would pose a scenario and the ‘student’ would have to write ideas down both within a box drawn on the piece of paper and outside the box. This way, according to the teacher, the student would be able to see clearly and visually what creative thinking was all about.

I don’t think I will keep this exact system going for too much longer but students have started taking their own ‘opt-in’ meetings with small groups and they will also begin taking ‘In your element’ lessons to share their passions too. Everyone is a teacher and a learner in Room 3.

Springboard Trust Leadership in Education Forum

emmawinder25 — Tue, 14 May 2013 03:11:46 +0000

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 Wylie and one from Bruce Adin. Below is a brief outline of the highlights and most interesting points for me.

The most scarce resource in schools is collaboration, not money.
New Zealand schools and classes can be incredibly fragmented, which leads to a lack of collaboration, which is key to improving schools and school systems.
In New Zealand, we have an incredibly high variation in academic performance within schools. We also have a comparatively high effect from socio-economic factors on academic achievement here.
To help improve our schools, teachers need plenty of autonomy to try out small scale innovations. Then we must share these innovations to make ‘micro’ innovations ‘macro’.
Peer accountability and support is key in improving teacher capabilities, as opposed to teacher accountability to a higher body.
The biggest changes in teacher effectiveness come from professional development, not school resourcing.
Collaborative practice isn’t just about sharing, it’s about making practice as public as possible.
Your teaching team is only as good as your weakest member. We’re all good, or none of us are good enough.
There are huge benefits for teachers to have a career pathway for highly effective ‘expert’ teachers. This has been successful in Shanghai.

I couldn’t get over the number of times the experts at this forum talked about the benefits of collaboration when you already have an effective schooling system but want to improve it further. Our schools are incredibly fragmented and if you aren’t on Twitter, don’t follow blogs, don’t attend conferences and so on; classrooms can be pretty isolated places. This really highlighted the importance for teachers to join such networks; to avoid just waiting for school run PD and connective opportunities to come our way; and to be more proactive in our learning and sharing. It was perfect timing for me to attend this forum as I had just started promoting EduCafe – an event which has the (almost) sole purpose of allowing people to connect more face to face outside of the usual boundaries of schools, heirachy, subject, year level and position.

All in all a well worthwhile event to attend. A big thank you to the Springboard Trust!

Youth and (relative) Inexperience in Education

emmawinder25 — Thu, 09 May 2013 03:38:08 +0000

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 in education from EmmaWinder25

Hi, I’m Emma and I’m in my 4^th year of primary school teaching based in Auckland. I’d like to talk a little about youth and relative inexperience in education today.

I grew up in a rather traditional household. Hardly “children should only speak when they are spoken to” but still a pretty old fashioned upbringing for the 80s and 90s. I grew up with my grandfather as a figure head who will still only sit at the head of the table, demands respect and ensures everyone knows he is the PATRIACH! I come from a family where children listened, obeyed and respected adults

Hopefully you don’t get me wrong, I had a lovely childhood and wouldn’t change a single thing. But, as with everybody I am a product of my upbringing.

I entered the workforce believing that respect was earned over a long period of time; that wisdom was like a fine wine and evolved with maturity; that you could expect to ‘do your time’ at the bottom of the heap in a workplace, before anyone would listen to you.

Since I’ve been in education, I’ve learned something. Of course you earn respect, you do get wiser as you age and you can’t expect to walk into high paying managerial jobs straight out of university. BUT, in the education world, young, inexperienced teachers are treated with more respect than any other industry I know of.

So here’s the pat on the back: I’ve found that, in education, if you have something decent to say, you will be heard, no matter what your age, position or time in the job.

Not only do young teachers have a voice, their perspective is often considered important. I’ve talked to so many people who really value the ideas of teachers who are new to the game.

They have the ability to look at the status quo and ask WHY are we doing that?! Is there a better way to do it? They don’t have years of ingrained practices that can get in the way of such questioning. New teachers are often also incredibly reflective and analytical which, of course, helps with achieving quality practice.

I’ve also learned that you can be an effective and respected leader when you’re under 30. This is revolutionary for me and never seems to happen in my friends’ industries!

In education I think we see past a lack and wrinkles and comfortable shoes and look for the quality in thinking and practice.

So, I’m glad I decided to become a teacher after a fair while of avoiding the profession and following in the steps of my father. I’ve had to completely re-evaluate the place youth has in any work place and am so pleased I was so wrong!

I hope you feel a warm pat on the back, I hope I’m not in the minority of new teachers who feel the same way and I hope we continue treating new teachers the way we do. I’m certainly trying to give the same experience to the young members I work with as a new leader.

Have a look at the entire TeachMeetNZ session here.

A bit of a rundown on My-learning

emmawinder25 — Mon, 06 May 2013 03:23:28 +0000

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…

Who has control?

emmawinder25 — Sun, 21 Apr 2013 21:54:50 +0000

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 control over the various aspects of the classroom, I decided to have a big discussion around this.

Below is the result of this discussion:

Miss Winder controls:

Teacher and kids have joint control:

Kids have control:

Deadlines
Direction of discussions
Mathletics tasks
Warnings
Units of inquiry- “big ideas”
Trips
Visitors
“Thoughts on this” board
Brain teasers

Planning:

Tasks
Opt in meetings
Group meetings
Class meetings
Learning intentions

Choosing goals
Deadlines
Noise level
Success criteria
“Did you know” board

Planning the day – decide when to do things
Where the furniture is in the room
How we behave
Who we work with or whether we work alone
How we use our time
Where we sit
What we do for fitness
Whether we attend opt in meetings
Choose how hard we try
Choose what rewards we get
Whether you need to get a drink or use the toilet
What/with whom/when you talk
Choose what you want to learn within the big idea in inquiry
Choose to add your ideas to the “thoughts on this” board
Choose what to write about for goal practice
Choose what to do when weekly tasks are finished.

So what is the outcome of this discussion?

The students decided that they’d like a little more control now – they would like to add brain teasers to the board for their peers and they would like to suggest learning intentions for opt in meetings.

Later in the year, they’d like more control, in terms of planning, which we will do collectively like last year. But they don’t feel they are ready for this just yet and I definitely agree.

It’s very exciting to see the kids getting a better understanding of their place in the learning process. They have become quite reflective and realistic.

Is there more to being a successful learner than concentrating hard and working hard?

emmawinder25 — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 03:39:10 +0000

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 get them to reflect and this is what they came up with:

“Concentrating hard” and “Working hard” is important and it’s about half the picture.

For example, I’m terrible at art and no matter how hard I concentrate on painting, it’s unlikely I’ll be the next Picasso.

If I concentrate really hard, will I come up with the next great ‘i’ device that we can’t live without? Maybe, but collaborating with others might help me extend my ideas…

As a result of this discussion, we decided that students would have a learning buddy. The kids all wrote down 2 learning skills they were good at and 2 they needed to work on. I then paired them up, so everyone is now a helper and being helped to make improvements by a more proficient peer. They have to plan out how they will help out their learning buddy and how they can pass their skills on, which is no mean feat. We’ll see how this goes!

Taking a step back: How are we doing?

emmawinder25 — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 03:30:42 +0000

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:

Things that are going well in our practice:

Next steps for us:

Students have come a long way since the beginning of term.
Majority of students know what their writing goals are off the top of their heads.
They can articulate good ideas regarding what they do already and what they could do to be a successful learner.
They are honest and open about their learning.
They are aware they aren’t ready for too much more control in the classroom quite yet.
Kids seem to feel they are in a partnership with us when constructing goals. They have a pretty good handle on what their strengths and weaknesses are.
We are offering children a fair bit of choice and flexibility and opportunity to be creative and this will increase throughout the year.
We think we are doing OK at individualising and differentiating learning for kids, mainly through individual goals.

Putting skills to be a successful learner into place:

Collaboration – working on now. Lots of practice and reflection.
Putting into practice what they know to be the right thing to do. They have already made progress this year. Refection will continue to help this.
Unpack what “concentrating hard” and “working hard” actually mean, whether this is OK on its own and how to make this happen…

Also:

Make a table of what the teacher controls and what the kids control and where we would like to make changes in the future. Give the kids a better understanding of their role and our role in the class.
Photograph good and not so good seating choices and discuss.
Video groups/pairs working well together. Unpack how to have a good learning conversation.
Keep talking about the relevance of what we are learning, in all areas. This should help kids reflect on the relevance more than just “it will help me later in life/ for a job.” This should help them value their learning more too.

A need for discussion.

emmawinder25 — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 03:15:54 +0000

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 your school or position in the hierarchy?

I too identify with the above situations so have decided to do something about it.

Hence a new event – EduCafe.

There are many huge and poignant questions in the education sector that need to be debated by educators and practitioners ourselves. Our education system is not perfect. We do well in New Zealand but we have room for improvement and we are not consistently educating students well for the 21^st Century. This, I believe means we need robust discussion around key questions that pertain to educational improvement. I think the World Café structure allows for this.

World Café is a structure used to facilitate discussion between a group of people. It centers around a welcoming environment and small group discussion related to a poignant or provocative question. It hinges on the idea that potential answers to the problem are within the group of people and, through discussion, ideas will be crystallised, debated and potentially put into practice.

For more information – http://www.theworldcafe.com/ and http://educafeblog.com/

If that sounds like it could be of interest to you,

The first ever EduCafe event will be held on Thursday the 23rd May 2013!

7pm

Kelliher Charitable Trust

2 York St, Parnell

Drinks and nibbles provided.

50 tickets available - www.educafe.eventbrite.co.nz

Term 2 event question:

We know there is a need for us to change our teaching for the 21^st century, we know why this is, we’re working towards it,

BUT what does 21^st century teaching and learning actually look like in practice?

Format:

1. Introduction –

Welcome
Share question/topic
Articulate the background to the question/topic. Contextualise the question.
Outline the structure of the evening and role of the table host.

2. Discussion –

2 rounds of discussion, each 15 minutes long.
Paper table cloths and pens provided to jot down thoughts, musings and ideas.
Host remains at table, other members move to a new spot around the room to spread ideas.

3. Opportunity for key ideas to be jotted down on key shaped pieces of paper on tables. 5-10mins

4. Break – wine and nibbles! Key ideas displayed on a wall for further discussion over the break time. Approximately 20mins.

5. One more round of discussion. Again, host remains at table, other members move to a new spot around the room.

6. Sharing of ideas and summing up as an entire group. Host’s responsibility to share ideas from the table, but others can contribute also.

7. Emma to sum up and announce the date and topic of discussion for the next event.

8. Ideas collated after event and posted on EduCafe blog.

What’s been happening this term? – “Skills and tools to make me a great learner”

emmawinder25 — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 22:48:39 +0000

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 skills were taught. These skills relate to inquiry, like Lane Clark’s “Think Box” as well as being quite general in their application, for any learning that should occur.

So far, as you can see, we haven’t added too many tools and skills to the wall, but it is growing. As the year goes on, I plan to discuss and explicitly teach:

Different types of action one can take as a result of an inquiry, as well as how the success of such actions can be measured.
Ways in which students can be more independent.
Ways in which students can share or report their learning.
Skills to ensure collaboration in the classroom is effective.
Ways in which students can research and record information; and skills to use when researching to find relevant, true and useful information.
Thinking skills – including, but not limited to, “Visible Thinking Routines” which will be taught as and when necessary.
Ways in which to personalise learning – both to find out about things students are interested in and to work on things they struggle with.

The idea behind this wall is that each skill or tool will be recorded so students can see what they have learned throughout the year really clearly and so they can take responsibility to choose which tool to use in which situation. This should, in theory anyway, make them more independent learners who have more control over their learning.

What’s been happening this term? – Unpacking learning.

emmawinder25 — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 23:44:46 +0000

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 challenging)

We used the same lesson sequence as last year for this, but tweaked it a little and came up with a character that represented each aspect of what meaningful learning is for us in Room 3. This has been really successful.

Such an intense focus and the devotion of 3 weeks to this has made such a difference in setting up the classrooms with the learning focused relationships required for the rest of the year to run smoothly. It also gave students the opportunity to deeply reflect on what learning is, what they need to do to ensure their school day is useful and what the teacher’s role in this is.