Changes in Practice- Lifelong Learning

WOW! Nearly there. The last 32 weeks have been a roller coaster ride, from sheer terror to moments of delight.  Juggling a full on career, with family and introducing study.  I have loved sharing parts of the learning journey with my students, reminding them we are all lifelong learners.  My students have definitely supported me and taught me some of the digital components of the course.

Mind Lab, as well as my supportive seven other staff members on my intake from our school have given me the confidence and skills to become more of a 21^st Century educator.  “We know that learning is most effective when people become personally engaged in the learning process, and engagement is most likely to take place when there is a need to learn.” (Osterman and Kottkamp 1993) The Mind Lab tasks were effective because we had to become totally engaged and put into practice what we had been learning about. The practical activities in the first 16 weeks, gave me the confidence to try them in my classroom.  I have always been passionate about ongoing professional development and upskilling, but had never thought about 32 weeks part time study.  Spending weeks collaborating with to others on a Literature Review around Growth mindset fits in with Criteria 4: Demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of professional personal practice. We are sharing our learning at a staff meeting next term. My learning is not over and I will continue as long as I live.  I have been introduced to Google + as a professional development forum.

Throughout MindLab I have improved in Criteria 7: Promote a collaborative, inclusive, and supportive learning environment.  Learning about Growth Mindset has totally changed my way of teaching and has helped myself and my students understand the power of our brains.  Carol Dwerk (2014) and the power of yet is now used in our classroom and students add ‘yet’ to the end of sentences when they are learning a new skill or strategy. Learning about our students and having high expectations of them is crucial to having a supportive learning environment. Through Mind Lab I have become increasing more collaborative and digital in my approach to teaching and learning. This is an area I am interested in continuing to learn about and implement into my classroom programme.  

The end or just the beginning?

REFERENCES

                Dwerk, C. (2014, November). The Power of Believing that you can improve. Retrieved from TED TALKS.

Ministry of Education (nd). Practising teacher Criteria and e-learning . Retrieved from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/

Osterman, K. & Kottkamp, R.(1993). Reflective Practice for Educators.California.Cornwin Press, Inc. Retrieved on 7th May, 2015 from http://www.itslifejimbutnotasweknowit.org.uk/files/RefPract/Osterman_Kottkamp_extract.pdf

My interdisciplinary connection map

Jacobs (1989) defines interdisciplinary curriculum as “a knowledge view and curriculum approach that consciously applies methodology and language from more than one discipline to examine a central theme, issue, problem, topic or experience.”

As a syndicate team we try and plan across the curriculum to link our literacy programme to our inquiry.  We also work to try and link to real world problems.  I feel we definitely do this well in inquiry and literacy, but need to move on now to incorporating maths within the interdisciplinary approach. At this stage my maths is still very much a separate subject.

The Los Angeles County education video talks about preparing our students with 21^st Century skills.  Collaboration, communicating, creativity and critical thinking. All these skills are easier to teach when the approach is interdisciplinary and students learning is linked through a common theme or inquiry, relating to real life problems.  I can certainly see the benefits in this and need to increase these within my programme. This year I have used an increased amount of collaboration after learning more about it through my Mindlab journey.  Students’ collaborate through more group work and on google docs.

Watching the video on the Ross Spiral Curriculum was inspiring. A curriculum that the whole school works towards, real life problems and field trips both locally and internationally as well as passionate staff.  Huge amounts of money and professional development investments must have been dedicated to get this system up and running.  We are a long way off this type of model. All staff would need to be on board as well as the students and parent community.  Our students have four different technicraft subjects which are all run separately from our school wide inquiry.

 Jacobs (1989) defines interdisciplinary curriculum as “a knowledge view and curriculum approach that consciously applies methodology and language from more than one discipline to examine a central theme, issue, problem, topic or experience.”

As a syndicate team we try and plan across the curriculum to link our literacy programme to our inquiry.  We also work to try and link to real world problems.  I feel we definitely do this well in inquiry and literacy, but need to move on now to incorporating maths within the interdisciplinary approach. At this stage my maths is still very much a separate subject.

The Los Angeles County education video talks about preparing our students with 21^st Century skills.  Collaboration, communicating, creativity and critical thinking. All these skills are easier to teach when the approach is interdisciplinary and students learning is linked through a common theme or inquiry, relating to real life problems.  I can certainly see the benefits in this and need to increase these within my programme. This year I have used an increased amount of collaboration after learning more about it through my Mindlab journey.  Students’ collaborate through more group work and on google docs.

Watching the video on the Ross Spiral Curriculum was inspiring. A curriculum that the whole school works towards, real life problems and field trips both locally and internationally as well as passionate staff.  Huge amounts of money and professional development investments must have been dedicated to get this system up and running.  We are a long way off this type of model. All staff would need to be on board as well as the students and parent community.  Our students have four different technicraft subjects which are all run separately from our school wide inquiry.

My own interdisciplinary connection map was interesting to make.  I had not ever stopped to see how many connections I have both professionally and personally that guide me on my teaching/learning journey.  My school connections are huge and we have many opportunities within the school for connecting through syndicate meetings, staff meetings and curriculum meetings. A couple of areas I marked in red are to move on are; connections with our local iwi and COL (Community of Learning). We are in the initial stages of expressing an interest in being part of a COL. As an intermediate school and in my role as Head of Literacy it is important for us to make links with college and prepare our students for the transition to college.  A goal I have is to meet more with the Head of English at our local college and find out more about what level 5 looks like, looking at what else we can do to help with the transition.

References

Lacoe Edu (2014, Oct 24) Interdisciplinary Learning [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA564RIlhME

Mathison,S.. & Freeman, M.(1997). The logic of interdisciplinary studies. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, 1997. Retrieved from http://www.albany.edu/cela/reports/mathisonlogic12004.pdf:

Ross Institute. (2015, July 5). Ross Spiral Curriculum: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Science. [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHZhkB0FJik

Using social online networks in teaching or professional development

As educators we are preparing our students for the 21^st Century and I am on a steep learning curve. When I started teaching way back in 1989 I wrote out notices and activities and ran them through the bander machine, the smell of methylated spirits was always lingering. Some notices may have been typed on my portable typewriter.  Now I can email a notice to parents or upload a post on Facebook and the notice goes global instantly.  

I am embracing social media cautiously in my classroom and Mindlab has given me a huge boost in knowledge and confidence.  I spend far too many hours looking through Pinterest, reading others blogs and on the Facebook professional development sights being inspired by other educators.  A question which once would have meant me researching for hours on end can be answered by a wide variety of people within hours, I have social media to thank for this. Being connected through technology now allows for global collaboration. The collaboration and sharing between professionals should make our job easier, but I would have to admit with the huge amount of resources, aps, sites etc. available to look at I spend just as much time working now as I did back in the 1990’s, possibly even more as my laptop or phone is always close by.

An aspect of social media that has impacted on the home school connection being accessible to students and families in Facebook and google classroom.  Students are able to access their work from home and the ‘book’ is never left at home as their work is online. This increases parents being able to be involved and students seeking feedback from me and their peers from home.  Posts on Facebook of students’ success and work throughout the day are posted and straight away reach whanau. Using NZ Read Aloud this year was a first for my class and they loved collaborating and reading comments from other Year 7 and 8 students around New Zealand. As staff too we shared the load of planning the novel study, each teacher setting activities for just two chapters.

Having the skills to be 21^st Century learner and keeping safe on line is also important to visit in class. Students are quick to report when someone has made an inappropriate comment and our school values are re visited.

A personal goal of mine at the beginning of the year was to use more digital tools and I am on track. Having introduced a blog, google classroom and been part of NZ Read Aloud, my next step is to use Twitter and Storybird.com. I found watching Kathy Cassidy’s clip on ‘Using Social Media in the Classroom’ inspiring and my students too are very knowledgeable about digital knowledge and can often teach me.  My learning journey continues.

References                 

lindseyinteractive.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/social_media_services.png

Office of Ed Tech. (2013, Sep 18). Connected Educators. [video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=216&v=K4Vd4JP_DB8

Tvoparents. (2013, May 21). Using Social Media in the Classroom.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=riZStaz8Rno

LAW AND ETHICS

“Teaching in schools has long been considered a moral activity (Wilson, 1967, Tom 1884, Goodlad, Soder and Sirotnik, 1990) largely because it is recognised that how teachers fulfil their public duties influences the lives of vulnerable young people.”  (Allan Hall 2001)

We have a duty as professionals to up hold the teaching profession to be law abiding citizens at all times and to be role models for our students.  Our school has the value system of ADMIRE (Active brain, Dependable, Managing Self, Interactions, Relationships and Excellence).  As staff this guides us to model these values to the students as well as to each other.  “That is entirely consistent with Fullan’s desire for the staff of every school to develop a shared vision.” (Fullan, 1992)  I see our main stake holders as our students and realise that the values that I hold as well as our school values are very different to how some of them live.  We have to add ‘at school, or in our classroom this is acceptable behaviour,’ at the start of our statements.  For example while it may be acceptable for them to swear at home, it is not at school.  Also it is important for students to see how we behave in a professional manner to keep our teacher registration.

As teachers we are guided our code of ethics are guided by the four below principles.

Autonomy to treat people with rights that are to be honoured and defended

Justice to share power and prevent the abuse of power

Responsible care to do good and minimise harm to others

Truth to be honest with others and self.

Teaching respect both face to face and through technology is a big part of our role.  Technology issues even if they happen at the weekend creep into school and have an impact on our school day.  Choices that students make and often have not been discussed at home need to be dealt with at school.  They need to learn to take responsibility for what they write on line and learn to have autonomy.  Programmes such as internet safety have been introduced to help students learn about how to be digital citizens at school and in society. 

Respectful relationships are also formed between students and students, staff and students, staff themselves and staff with the whanau and community.  Communication is modelled in a calm manner and effective communication used where everyone can feel listened too.

Each ethical dilemma I deal with has to be handled individually with the students, family and staff.  Having built respectful relationships with students and their families is the first step in ensuring this.  Being a consistent, calm role model is as important to me as teaching.

References

Council, E. (n.d.). Code of Ethics for Certified Teachers. Retrieved from Educational council.org.nz.

Hall, A. (2001, April). What ought I to do, all things considered? An approach to the exploration of ethical problems by teachers. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz.

MY INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE AND CULTURAL RESPONSIVENESS ...

The second strategic aim of our charter is “To ensure Maori Culture is alive and well at Masterton Intermediate School.”  Our roll is made up of 31% Maori and daily the karakia can be heard on ever class, te reo Maori is taught, hapa kaka is alive and well and offered during class time as an option for students to join.  We are well known in the community for our strengths with Maori culture.

Russell Bishop in 2012 talks of the achievement gaps between Maori and non-Maori which we have had in New Zealand for over 60 years. We need to look at the individual student to address achievement gaps.  Over the last three years we were part of the Accelerated Literacy Learning programme (ALL). Our individual students made great progress and based on our reading around Ka Hikitia this was due to whanau involvement, knowing our learners, giving them choices, having high expectations, goal setting and front loading.  As the programme was so successful we had a mind shift as a staff and plan our teacher inquiry around target student’s each term to try and close the achievement gap. We encourage buy in from families and try to improve attendance as well.  We used achievement data effectively to guide students with their next steps.  Students set goals that are achievable in the short term and they can see their progress. Goals are shared with whanau by letters and then an afternoon tea sharing time where whanau were invited and students proudly showed off their learning.  Building self-esteem and having positive relationships with each child I believe were key to the success of our students.  This year we have introduced an extra parent, teacher, student conference to have extra contact with whanau.

Within my class I have Maori students, two Filipino girls, European students and I was born in England.  Each student is unique and has their own story.  We celebrate everybody’s cultures by using various greetings in the morning, hearing about their lives during inquiry times, reading stories from their countries and being respectful.  Relationships are key to being culturally aware.

An area for further development for our school is “Strong engagement and contribution from students, parents and whānau, hapū, iwi, Māori organisations, communities, and businesses – have a strong influence on students’ success.” (Ka Hikitia)  We need to have further input from whanau and use their expertise to help engage their students.  It is key to put time into professional development for all staff to ensure that we are catering for our students.  

My job is to know every individual student in my class, their story and their cultural. Every student is unique and special, that to me is being culturally responsive.

References

Bishop, R. (2012, September). A culturally responsive pedagogy of relations. Retrieved from Ed Talks.

Education, Minstry. of. (2017). Summary of Ka Hikitia Accelerating Success.

Masterton Intermediate School  (2017)  Charter   

Trends in the world- obesity and lack of exercise- how can we help?

The health of our students, how can we help?

All New Zealand children deserve to be educated about the importance of a healthy lifestyle, looking after their own Hauora, well-being.  

Well-being Hauora health.tki.org.nz

For this blog with limited word count I will give my thoughts around physical well-being, focussing on food and exercise, although it is hard to mention one strand without the others as they all interweave.

The government introduced Fruit in Schools in 2005 to low decile schools, 66% of their principals said they saw an improvement in the general health of their students. Today 543 schools are part of Fruit in Schools.

We are a decile 5, so did not qualify for this programme, but as educators it is our role to teach children about their physical well-being.   The trend nationally and globally is obesity is on the rise.  NZ statistics show the child obesity rate increased from 8% in 2006/07 to 11% in 2014/15. The World Health Organisation state obesity is preventable and it is due to a rise in foods high in fat and a lack of physical exercise.  The lifelong effect of unhealthy eating can lead to type 2 diabetes mellitus, stroke and heart disease.  Good nutrition helps children concentrate and gives them energy.  As part of our health programme we can teach these healthy eating and the benefits of regular exercise, literacy and inquiry can cover topics and obviously during PE we are increasing physical fitness. 

How many of our students walk or bike to school? Very few as we have a large number of bus pupils and students being driven because they live too far from school.  We have a huge number of students playing sport and this is encouraged for their physical as well as social well-being.

Last year, I ran an options programme called Food, Fitness and Fun. We ate a different colour each block, eating a rainbow over the two days.  It was astounding to see how many children had never tried different foods such as capsicum and blue berries. We also looked at food labels including breakfast cereals and measured the sugar content in put the sugar teaspoon equivalent and put it in plastic bags. Reading labels on the popular drinks the students drank shocked them, with the high sugar content. One girl went home and counted her sugar content over a week and put all the sugar in a jar.  She swapped her breakfast cereal and gave up her chocolate biscuits habit for afternoon tea, slashing her sugar intake.  This year, I am incorporating the above topics thought literacy and the label reading for statistics in maths.  Real life learning that will hopefully have a positive impact on my students’ food choices.

School canteens need to provide healthy food for students and schools provide water coolers or fountains to drink from, so water is all that is on offer.  Our students often have bought lunches and are at an age where food habits are being formed.  This is an achievable goal across schools in New Zealand to encourage healthy eating habits.  Globally the food industry should reduce the sugar and fat in products and ensure healthy options are affordable for everyone.  In New Zealand we can buy fizzy drink cheaper than milk, it’s no wonder we have an obesity problem.

                                                      

                                                        REFERENCES

Durie, M. (n.d.). Well-being, hauora. Retrieved from http://health.tki.org.nz.

Health, Ministry of (2017, February). Fruit in Schools programme. Retrieved from http://www.health.govt.nz.

Obesity and overweight. (2016, June). Retrieved from World Health Organisation.

Obesity statistics. (2016, Decemeber). Retrieved from http://www.health.govt.nz.

Tracking the Obesity Epidemic. (December, 2004). Retrieved from health.govt.nz.

OUR SCHOOL CULTURE

Our school is the only intermediate school in the region, because of this we have students from over 30 contributing schools. We are decile 5, but receive children from decile 3-10 primary schools. We have a mix of urban and rural students. This year we  have 216 females and 255 males, a combination 128 Year 7 students and 243 Year 8 students. The main two ethnic groups are 152- NZ Maori and 282- NZ European.

The culture that our school is striving for

Our school culture is based on strong relationships and involvement.  Staff are available to students in their classroom before school and in break times to foster positive relationships. We are encouraged to make contact with at least three families a week to pass on positive news about their students. This helps strengthen relationships between home and school. As Ed Dukelblau mentioned in 2015, it’s the staff that stays put, they are responsible for the culture of the school.

We offer a wide range of opportunities from cultural, sporting and arts for students to be involved in. Kapa Haka and choir are run during class time, so they are a valued part of the curriculum.

Six years ago we put in place PB4L and use A.D.M.I.R.E for our school word (Active Brain, Dependable, Managing Self, Interacting, Relationships and Excellence). Having A.D.M.I.R.E has given consistency to the values that our school has, students and staff are encouraged to use A.D.M.I.R.E throughout the school. This is unique to our school setting the tone for our culture.

The professional environment in our school

We have a positive collegiately amongst the twenty teaching staff who plan and work collaboratively within syndicate teams and curriculum teams. Eight teachers are also completing the MindLab course and share a common goal and give each other support. 

Stoll and Fink (1996) look at the norms of improving schools and as a staff we are addressing how we need to model A.D.M.I.R.E to one another as well as with students. This year, we spent two teacher only days unpacking how this should look.  Our staff changes yearly and it is essential that we are inclusive and supportive of new staff, striving to continuously improve.

Issues around the socioeconomic status of the community, the school culture and professional environments.

Some children come to school without breakfast due to lack of money or time in the morning.  A breakfast club has been introduced, so children can eat breakfast and start their school day with a full tummy.

After running an Education Outside the Classroom programme for years that offered no choice and was expensive we changed it to a user pays programme. The two days now can cost from $5 - $170 depending on the option the child and their family select. 

A Board concern was our large class numbers and a number of students not achieving at national standard, so they have decided to fund a teacher assistance fulltime between two classes to increase the adult child ratio.  

We run a technical craft programme and students all complete science, music, home economics and design technology.  This is at no cost to the student, so no child misses out due to their socio economic status.

References

Gargiulo, S. (2014). Principal sabbatical report. 

Stoll (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London. 

The school culture is discussed and the importance of fostering a positive culture in the school is explained
Academy for SELinSchools. (2015, Apr 28).What is school culture and climate? [video file].Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-_NvhlcusQ