Day 28 #28minutesofWriting - 784 minutes later

Entering the #28daysofwriting challenge I thought it would be great to get back into the habit of blogging and increase my page views. This was quite a self-involved motivation and but I also knew that through regular reflection and writing I would be able to make more sense of my first steps on the journey at Hobsonville Point Primary School. At some stage in the future I knew that this would pay dividends.

I haven't posted for the last two days but I have posted far more days than I've missed, have learnt far more than I had imagine and helped to formulate some strategies that will assist my professional and classroom practice for a long time. Not all of these lessons revolve around explicit teaching practice but need to be outlined nonetheless.

Professional reading:
While my initial involvement with this blogging challenge was far more selfish, the 28 minutes of writing has been far exceeded by my professional reading throughout. Reading many blogposts has inspired, challenged and taught me a huge amount. It has created a reading list that will take me a long time to complete if ever. I use to regularly read several colleagues blog posts but this number has increased dramatically. Most importantly, I have read posts that have held different views to my own. Two texts I've been inspired to read are Game Storming and Drive. Game Storming was purchased by Amy and we've already integrated successfully one of the activities we uncovered in there.

Writing Style:
I still find that I am reluctant to comment on the many posts I read (hence my enrolment in #28daysofcommenting). Some have made me feel quite inadequate as a writer - I strive to write to the level of some of the posts I have read. I have recognised for a while that I am sometimes not as analytical as I need to be, HBDI analysis confirmed this showing that my last thinking preference is Analytical/Logical but it isn't far behind. Reading posts I have established that my ability to integrate evidence based analytical thinking in a natural writing style is weaker than I would like it also. Between Ewan McIntosh and locally Steve Mouldey, I've found blogging styles I'd like to emulate but I've also appreciated the raw energy and emotion behind other posts. 

Reflection - remove your ego:
Warm and demanding is the ethos at both Hobsonville Point schools, it can feel very confrontational initially but if you can strip the ego from your thinking and deal with the issues then reflection can become very rewarding. Challenging myself to remove ego or baggage from my thinking as I have approached some of my posts and my general 'unschooling' at HPPS has resulted in many interesting discussions. It's also allowed me to consider whether any tool/programme/activity/assessment is best for anyone learner. I think it is best summarised by attributes which feature in the HPPS Mindset continuum. 

Sharing, Caring and Bewaring:
I'm not sure if Bewaring is actually a word but being aware just didn't sit right on the page ;-) I've enjoyed the commenting and community of writing that has grown from Tom's #28daysofwriting but it has also led me into discussions and posts that don't feel comfortable personally. In several posts I've made sincere efforts to confront thinking that may be challenging for others, clearly public forums such as a blog are dangerous tools. Currently, I'm reading Jon Ronson's new book So You've Been Publicly Shamed, a book which covers the negative exposure that can unwittingly be secured through social media. This is the world that we tread with our virtual support networks. Sharing, caring and bewaring has to be uppermost in our minds.

Goal Setting:
Throughout the 28 days I have queried much of my thinking and in this quest I have read many different posts, it has made goal setting for 2015 quite difficult. I have got to a point where I recognise that Student Voice, Design Thinking and my own capacity to think analytically will most likely form parts of my professional objectives. How these will actually shape up I'm not entirely sure.

28 minutes never seemed like a difficult target, but 28 days of writing certainly did! Although I didn't meet 28 days, I know I've definitely met the target on average (28 days x 28 minutes = 784 minutes). 

Cheers Tom, thanks for the journey and I look forward to our next 28 days commenting.

Day 24 #28Daysofwriting - Choice or Voice?

"What is the difference between student choice and student voice?

How you using student voice to inform learning in your learning common?

How are the activities you have in your learning common responding to the needs of your students? Or do they just keep them busy?"

These 4 questions were posed in our staff meeting this afternoon, the example being whether I had considered these in my enthusiasm to bring Kidsedchatnz to HPPS. I know that the example wasn't a personal attack, more an extension of the "Warm and Demanding" culture at the Hobsonville Point Schools. But as I quickly pondered these questions I decided that Kidsedchatnz does deserve this lens being put to it. Not just for its use at HPPS but for its role in schools as we seek to grow it. 

Some readers will know that I am one of the coordinators at Kidsedchatnz and love what we have done with participation increasing significantly since it began. I've posted about it frequently (e.g., here and here) and it has been integral in my own PD as my role and enthusiasm has grown.

I sat in the last block this afternoon running a workshop to introduce a variety of Yr 4-6 students to twitter this afternoon, in preparation for the first chat this afternoon. All of them would have a range of learning and dispositional needs. Without rambling through how each child's needs are met, I think there are still valuable questions and answers contained within a focussed reflection.

Core Education outline successful student voice (in relation to MLE's) as being:

• do students have ‘the power to act’ in the MLE?
• are all learners empowered to make choices and decisions about how, where, what and when they learn?
• are learners a part of their own learning support network within the MLE?
• Is the design of the MLE adaptive to learner needs and ambitions? (http://www.core-ed.org/professional-learning/mle-matrix)

Where does Kidsedchatnz fit within the lens of choice versus voice? Kidsedchatnz and the topics that have been used have always relied to a large extent on student voice, over time our team of coordinators have accessed our participants to establish topics, questions and activities. But is this the voice that is required? If I am the moderator for the week, I've always posted a topic using my class to generate the questions, but the weeks that I'm not the moderator I can't say that it is my student's voice, but this is where choice comes in I would argue. I've always given my learners the option to take part in a chat session, if you're not interested in talking about EOTC or Science you don't have to participate. 

Once in a session then student voice is obvious, the children have agency to express themselves within the topic, and can support, question and discuss the topic with other students. In the past, I have watched as different students engaged in quite different learning conversations based on their own interests.

How you using student voice to inform learning in your learning common?

I have to confess that Kidsedchatnz is a 'programme' I have experienced success with and is easy for me to fall back to/rely on. This is the worst form of teaching we've discussed with Daniel, when things are tough or we're in the Learning Pit, we can revert to what we know. However, while Amy will be confirm that I've been proactive in pursuing Kidsedchatnz being used at HPPS, I've been very pragmatic. I know that should demand (aka student voice) not be there, then I can not reasonably continue to dedicate time to Kidsedchatnz. 

If I am sensible about HPPS involvement in Kidsedchatnz and use student voice then I will be looking at student interests and where possible looking to create an opportunity for my students to really express their voice. 

We have also used flipped lessons and activities as a precursor to the chat sessions. Student voice could be used here, creating an activity that students want to do with the follow up being the discussion questions formed by the learner.

How are the activities you have in your learning common responding to the needs of your students? Or do they just keep them busy?

I once ran into a topic that my students at HNS just weren't interested in, but I also use to have 1-2 other activities on offer. At the time I would argue that these additional activities were responding to student voice and worked against Kidsedchatnz participation, a student even told me that I should make the options less exciting. Using the warm & demanding lens, I'm not sure I would now judge them as being responsive but hindsight is 20/20. At the time I'd blindly ploughed on and believed that the options needed to be less exciting, but if they were truly responsive then Kidsedchatnz should have been the option to remove.

I am confident that using voice & observation my learners will be able to meet many learning and dispositional needs though Kidsedchatnz. For some learners, participation in any given week may lean towards being stuff they do rather than a great learning experience. But if they were to exercise discretion around the topics they engage with, and fully extend themselves in those chat sessions then it ceases to be stuff and becomes the awesome collaborative and connected communication experience it can be.

Kidsedchatnz will be under intense scrutiny at HPPS, I think this is positive and if the scrutiny is warm and demanding then it may signal an awesome growth period for my beloved Twitter-based chat. In the afternoon, Amy and I run responsive workshops (e.g., Movie making or Garageband). The workshops are set up to help with a need that we have observed, students can lead them and they generally need to opt-in for these workshops. We will easily be able to identify if students are not opting in, each days planning is there for both Amy and I to see and it will quickly become obvious if my time could be better spent elsewhere. Although, if Kidsedchatnz was to truly become responsive then maybe there are some amazing opportunities that could be pursued.

Student voice or choice? Or just stuff?

Day 23 #28daysofwriting - Shiny new things

Sunday's article about a boys classroom certainly caused a stir, rightly so. I was involved in some interesting discussions via the twittersphere and loved the blog posts that have come out of it also. At home, my dear wife had some interesting takes on it, with a teacher husband but no recent experience in primary schooling her opinion her thoughts on the article might be reflective of some viewers. I had a different view again, I think the media are doing education an injustice here, to the NZ public and the school may not quite be getting it right (but I reserve judgement).

I loved the perspective that both Steph and Ruth have added in their posts (Steph's post, Ruth's post). They both reflected on the role of the effective teacher and this has to be paramount in the journey that these boys only classrooms. The fact that stereotyping both girls and boys is dangerous, that a female could be just as good for these males is accurate. Their posts were great responses to the need for boys classrooms, but still some will appear and others will continue. At HNS last year we were talking about possibly creating one, I was even interested in being the teacher. I've just moved into a shiny new classroom and many of these shiny new classrooms are cropping up around NZ while others are being upgraded to become shiny old classrooms. So? What is my point here?

Changing the environment won't necessarily change the education experience for the child unless there are fundamental shifts in the pedagogy. This argument has been swirling around MLE's for a while I understand, Mark Osbourne and Core resources often assisting many to comprehend the moves required. Very little emphasis was put on the actual pedagogy that was being employed by the male teacher in the boys classroom, as a educator I resented that, it was what I was truly hoping to see and found myself critiquing the implied pedagogical cues that were present. This is certainly unfair for the school, parents and children as other educators would have been doing the same. I know that as all the shiny gadgets and toys were what the media represented about Hobsonville Point Secondary last year, rather than the obvious pedagogy differences that HPSS are pursuing. The layperson's reaction, "What about the basics? They still need to teach the basics!"

The cues that I spotted which worried me were superficial but they were there, reading from school journals, talk that boys won't keep quiet, teaching in 15 minute blocks and the need for hands up. Flimsy cues for making judgements but that is what the rest of the nation were doing. For me these cues represented other things. How can you talk about boys not engaging and then present a reading group with a school journal, giving the boys real books and real tasks will generally be far more engaging. When did a classroom have to be quiet for the boys to be learning? I'm thinking about the comment here that an effective numeracy lesson is one in which there is lots of noise from discussion and activity. If they're all busy in books, yes it will be quiet but how much learning will be happening? 15 minutes or they turn disengage, fine but have you thought about the content you're teaching? I made the inference that this meant there would be no passion projects, no real choice in how their day would be proceed and that nothing had really changed. Steph and Ruth's effective teacher wasn't in this room and again it will be the children who miss out.

Its not fair to judge the pedagogy being used on such superficial cues but that is what I did. I respect the courage that the school and teacher have shown. They had no editorial influence on that article and will be suffering a backlash. This is where all educators and schools suffer, once again we're at the mercy of the media and its portrayal of us. I hope that the pedagogy has changed in that classroom, I trust that it has, but how will these changes affect the boys when they move back into their co-ed classrooms next year? Will 1 year accelerate their learning enough?

The environment is only a small part of the picture, it is the box that the jigsaw puzzle comes in, the way the pieces are put together is up to us.

Day 22 - #28daysofwriting - worklifebalance

That teaching is a highly demanding profession isn't news to anyone and it helps if you can maintain a healthy work life balance. So why I am writing a post when I don't have much to offer?

Today, I fulfilled a goal I have been working on for a long time. I love my golf! It is a constant source of relaxation, none of my golfing buddies are teachers which gives me breathing space.

It just so happens that golf is also an activity that aids the use of the analytical thinking styles of the brain, make of that what you will.

The goal was to have no 90's in my last 20 rounds. 20 rounds is significant as it is from these rounds that your 10 top scores are chosen to establish your handicap, taking into account the slope rating of the course. It all gets rather complicated, if you want a more in-depth description of the NZ handicap system go here.

Now, I just have to work on keeping those 90s off the last 20, I wonder how long that can continue...

Day 21 #28Daysofwriting - A post for Bridget

I've just got home and seen a member of my PLN asking for help as part of her #28daysofwriting, it seems only fair that I post a response as part of my own #28daysofwriting challenge. Bridget, I sincerely hope that you don't mind this as method as a response, but you've actually inspired me to start writing straight away. I hope that you find some value in my post.

Purposeful blog writing vs a series of recounts
I see the dilemma, I had different issues around class and individual blogs over the last two years and this year we're using blogs in our year 4-6 common.

At the start of each year I had started with a more traditional rotation and part of the activities included blogging with the expectation that children would visit other blogs and write comments. The design for this was multipurpose. First, I viewed this as a meaningful form of literacy, learners were engaged in choosing their own posts to read and when they found something that they wanted to comment on they would write quality comments. Clearly, writing a quality comment is an artform in itself and within our PLN we regularly talk about wanting to receive & produce more comments. It is also a significant factor in Tom Barrett creating the #28daysofcommenting challenge to follow on from the success of the #28daysofwriting challenge. For my learners it meant that their comment writing was purposeful, they were going to be read by other students. Not all children would engage, but that can be said for any classroom activity. To generate readers for our class/individual blogs we used Quadblogging [International] and Quadblogging Aotearoa also.

I believe the reading of blogs is relatively easy to motivate, kids find this far more interesting than any journals or whole-class novel. They're able to navigate their classmates, or blogs from around the world according to interest and personality.

As to the writing, I agree that writing can start becoming like a series of recounts. However, for some of my developing or reluctant writers I was more than satisfied with this, after all mileage is an important objective for young writers. I'm conscious that many teachers require their budding writers to draft their posts into their books. I understand that they're worried about the quality of posts but as far as I'm concerned, why not take all the fun out of it! I only ever asked children to draft their posts in their book if there wasn't a device available. I regularly go back to my own posts to fix a mistake, this is part of writing and the writing process on a computer, is still the writing process.

The crux of this is your objectives for blogging, I was trying to engage the children in writing so any posts were a positive and therefore I was happy to let my children choose their own topics. Some of my children were happy to write recounts about school events and important moments in their lives and that is where their blogging journey finished. However for others they used it as an outlet for their creative writing, sharing their interests and publishing projects. While some of these posts had higher readership than others, for me the key was in the writing not the page views. Our school community never really bought into the whole blogging process, I'd wanted to run a family blogging competition using a point scoring system (idea was stolen from another blogging guru Linda Yollis). Again though, for me this wasn't the primary objective, just a great addition when it happened. However, a tear almost came to this lad's eye when I was told that one of my children's blog was helping keep a Dad connected with his child while he worked in the Abu Dhabi. As I say this comes down to objectives that the teacher has for the blog and the writer, and hence how students approach their writing. 'Pimping your blog' was another measure I came across, if running individual blogs set a goal of x number of posts before an individual can introduce their own templates or additional gadgets. While I don't advocate changing your objectives to suit your output, I know that I found any quality writing was still worthwhile, regardless of the writing form.

Source: What is Engagement?

A purpose that I'd never expected from blog reading and blog commenting was the way that it informed my planning. My students would often get excited by things that they read and I was able to integrate these ideas into the activities and experiences that I would provide for the class. The most successful of these was when a boy who didn't engage in art spotted some Picasso-inspired art done on a blog and asked if we could do these in class. I couldn't refuse!

Perhaps you should try an action  @JJPurtonJones used recently, discuss your problem with the class and see how they would remedy this? Their actual problem was how to create a writing programme that was more engaging for their school, so very similar to your problem, albeit a slightly different medium. Mileage, while not going to be your primary objective, is still important for your learners as they hone their skills as young writers.

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Choice is crucial I believe, we all struggle when we are forced to do something aka compliance. How this choice may take shape in a your classroom could take many forms, writing style, publishing type (wiki, class or individual blog, shared writing posts, etc), the style of our own blogs. Consider the variety of choices employed on the blogs you read, this is all down to individual taste, skill and audience. Some of us blog regularly, others infrequently. But the variety of topics that are written about is astronomical also, I'm forever agog at some of the innovative topics that I read and Tom topped this off last night with his tweet to you and I about his most recent post.

I sincerely hope that my post will give you some food for thought. I'm sure that others may be able to find aspects that can help their own or their classes blogging. For me, I feel that this has been one of my more meaningful posts - even if it for an audience of 1.

As an aside, I'm counting this as my Day 20 & 21 post - its taken a while but it has been worth it.