Swing thoughts*

LC4 has 43 children, 3 Learning Advisors, a range of support staff, a wider network of parents & whanau, organisations that we use in a variety of ways and a supporting cast of many. We also have a large number of visitors to the school that drop by, observe, question, reflect and participate in the learning space.

Recently, I took pause to reflect on just whose space is it?  Predominantly, it is the student's space and must reflect their learning, emotional and behavioural needs, this was discussed in a blog post by my colleague Amy at the start of the year. The learning design requires considerable thought, far more than a few colourful tables or bean bags and is the topic of many visitors to our school. But it isn't just the formal planning that takes place. Another integral component are the discussions that take place every day, but there is also a layer of individual/personal choice that is part of the learning design.

Let's consider a recent two-part conversation I had:
Colleague 1 : "We could do goalfish"
Me: "no sounds a bit naff"
Colleague 1:  "it worked last year & the kids loved it"

Later on, this conversation was continued...

We were talking about how many of our learners are requiring more support with following their plan and meeting their goals, this shifted to the deprivatisation of our learning space, a display was mooted:

Me: "We could display but just not the goalfish"
Colleague 2: "I like the idea"
Colleague 1: laughing
Me: "you don't need my permission, it's not my space, it's our space".

That conversation was the catalyst for this blog post. I have wondered a lot about "permissions" this year, within the context of a shared space it seems relevant. Bear in mind, no one is asking for actual permission but there is a genuine need to be considerate. Many of the visitors to HPPS ask a similar themed question: In a shared space who decides the pedagogy? If you want to do something different to your colleagues, is this allowed/tolerated/reasonable?

How would you cope if all of a sudden you shared your present learning space with someone else? Who gets to decide on the pedagogy, management styles, planning frameworks, timelines and everything else that is part of the teachers domain? I'm not referring to your principal, team leader or mentor teacher either. I refer to another teacher in the same learning space as you, each with their own experiences, preferences, styles, strengths and weaknesses. How would you cope?

Disclaimer:

Swing Thoughts*
(Picture sourced from http://getgreatgolfgifts.com/)

At this point I must point out that these thoughts are NOT the ramblings of a teacher experiencing discontent. Merely the thoughts which are bouncing around in my head needing to find their voice. Thoughts which I raise with my colleagues and feel the need to share more widely.  

These wonderings may materialise in different aspects of the day:

• Teachable moment - how do you run with it? What is the impact on the space/other teachers/overall plan? This means it might be parked for a later date by which time the kids may not care anymore (if they don't care was it worth pursuing anyway?).
• Reading aloud - Scarcely done but was an integral part of creating a reading culture in other classrooms. Can you sit and read to a group of students, what if it impacts on other colleagues?
• Innovation - How might we select which innovations should be pursued? Who judges if it is successful? If it hasn't worked for someone in the past does that mean it shouldn't be tried by a different team member?
• Time management - What if a workshop/conference takes longer than planned? How does this impact on the rest of the days plans? How does this impact your colleague?
• Workspace - Which space should I/we use for a particular workshop? Do I need to tell my colleague if we are heading to a different space (gym/outdoors/library/boardroom/music room/ foodtech etc).

Many of these thoughts can be dealt with effectively by considering three simple ideas.

Responsiveness: What are you responding to with any learning experience? Is it student voice? Learning needs? A suggestion/feedback from the school community? Curriculum coverage? Your own personal passions? That's The Way We Always Do It?

Collaboration: Are you adding value to the learning space? What if this is duplicating effort from your colleague? How does your learning experience/activity affect the learners as they move between teachers in the space or elsewhere in the school? Are you creating habits/expectations that may not be followed elsewhere in the school?

Permissions: Does it conform to the vision/values for the learning space/school? Is your learning activity well considered? Does it meet a need? Are you prepared to reflect on the activity honestly?

Answering questions with more questions might not seem helpful, its not meant to be. But when an opportunity/teachable moment or pedagogical shift might be on the cards I can't just act like I'm the captain of my ship. I need to consider the impact on those around me.

The cognitive load for any teacher is substantial, its certainly not lessened by being in a shared space given the deprivatisation, collaboration and sheer numbers of children. I won't claim to be a perfect teacher in a shared space (that would be extremely dangerous to believe) but I'm very proud to contribute to the many conversations that drive LC4 as a collaborative and responsive learning space. There are daily reflections, shared observations, wonderings and suggestions for how we move forward together to meet the vision and values of our school. But these all serve to contribute further to the many thoughts that bounce around inside my head!

*In golf, there are considerable moving parts to a efficient and effective swing. Unfortunately, too many thoughts about technique when taking a shot actually serves to confuse the brain resulting in a poor swing. Generally, a better technique is shown when the mind is more relaxed and in flow.  The questions and wonderings I share here are my "swing thoughts"when I'm teaching. 

Ask the question!

Collaborative teaching can be a scary journey! The deprivatisation might not be your idea of comfortable but it is ever present and places you in a position of constant observation by your peers, at the same time you are privileged to be able to observe them as they go about their teaching. In this environment it becomes easier to be more reflective about your own development and naturally this often takes the form of asking your colleague for their thoughts, observations, opinions and feed forward. Asking questions requires bravery and is relatively easy, being prepared to listen to the answers demands trust and professionalism.

Last week my colleague Lisa and I sat down to discuss how we might proceed with immersion and the next round of projects, we'd just conducted some eAsttle assessment of measurement and geometry and were contemplating whether or not we wanted to run one more week of immersion. I was quite excited about our ability to be innovative with the teaching of measurement but we were mindful that taking another week for immersion most likely would mean a week less for the next immersion/project phase. We both considered the timing and decided that spending a week on some measurement inquiry would benefit our learners as we can excite them about maths again.

Thursday afternoon, I spoke with another colleague, Erin, who teaches in our space 2 days a week to outline some of my ideas: Gardening, Fundraising, Garbage/Recycling and Fitness Activities/Trails. All four could be presented as problem based learning for a mini inquiry throughout the week, in my mind there would be lots of opportunities for us to observe real measurement learning and could lead to lots of responsive workshops for teaching. I got positive feedback and based on this we designed a Reggio-inspired provocation for measurement. I was still slightly concerned that three of these problems did have the potential to become more like a design thinking process though.

Friday morning, actively seeking feedback I went to share my ideas with Lisa. Her response was 'warm but demanding': "I challenge you" to look for something where there will be more DATs / explicit teaching not just an open ended exploration.  For a split second, I did feel personally attacked, but this was my own problem and wasn't in Lisa's tone, delivery or body language. I had gone seeking feedback, not reinforcement and a 'warm but demanding' response had been elicited. Shortly after I was comfortable with the challenge, I don't quite have the answer to Lisa's challenge but am feeling "comfortable with discomfort".  I have spent some time looking for better provocations and activities where there will be explicit teaching, supplementing these will be the observations that will lead to responsive workshops.

My thoughts were leaning towards using some YouTube videos and hands on activities such as building a water clock. But I'm still feeling some dissonance.

As it turned out I wasn't at school Monday ("Man Flu!" You might cry). Lisa had provided work investigating Translation, Transformation, Escher Art, Rotation, mixed with StudyLadder & Khan Academy modules and some teacher led workshops. This was a perfect model of balance for what we were after, exciting our learners about mathematics and providing room for explicit teaching.

Finding that balance can be difficult when planning for learning, sharing a learning space with other colleagues can add further pressure that translates into additional planning time. Its not a competition but it can certainly feel like it. Rather than getting caught up in destructive self-doubt, I believe that careful questioning of my own teaching and planning, should allow for deeper reflection and development. I need to bounce ideas, wonder aloud, share my observations and invite others into my thinking. But if I'm going to ask questions...

I better be ready for the answers!

#EducampAkl 2105

Work life balance has been a bit of a problem this year.  I've got two young kids at home, a desire to play golf, a passion to pour myself into my new school and did I mention my kids who are almost 3 and 14 weeks old. The notion of giving up a Saturday for professional development at the moment, while attractive, isn't the easiest decision.

As July 25th had approached I'd delicately mentioned to my wife that it was something I'd like to do but recognised it might not work. Thankfully the stars aligned, off to Tamaki College I trundled. Three things were crossing my mind:

1. What F2F connections would I make?
2. What would be my takeaways for the day?
3. What could I offer to the others that were there on the day?

Last year my first educamp had been quite an eye opener and I anticipated lots of PD goodness this time around.

F2F connections

First of all it was awesome to meet Stuart Kelly @stuartkellynz (nice blog post Stuart), Myles Webb @NZWaikato and Amanda Signal @Heymilly. I have different connections to each of them, so it was great to meet them. I caught up with many others that I'd met before, whether fleeting or not so fleeting it is always beneficial having face to face time. Along with others, I find the connection made through Twitter is advantageous but there is nothing like the relationships and connections that are formed through real conversations rather than just 140 character snippets.

Takeaways

Play-based learning

I wasn't sure about this but with an HPPS colleague's voice ringing in my ear, I embraced the discomfort and wandered into this workshop. We're beginning some good discussion about Reggio philosophy at HPPS so I figured I had nothing to lose. One of the participants had been at the same Reggio PD with my colleague, thanks for that connection Kristyn and Amanda. I have a lot of wonderings about Play-based learning that include:

• How might Play-based learning fit with the needs for LC4?
• How might provocations be used effectively in LC4? Thanks for the idea of Grand or Petit provocations Caroline.
• How would our wider school community feel about Play-based learning, especially if this was within LC4 (Year 4-6).
• Did the #ScientistForADay inquiry have components of Play-based learning? I think it might of, I now need to reflect on whether this was successful using another lens as opposed to the original aims that Lisa and I had at the time.

I'm quite curious as to where our discussions at HPPS could take us, stay tuned I know this will lead to a blog post or two.

Google Cardboard

I didn't even know what this was prior to the start of the day, but seeing Justine Driver talk about her love of the Viewmaster as a child I knew I was in the right place. For a concise description, place your phone inside a cardboard box with some lenses to watch an app, then let the Virtual Reality App do the business! Check out Google Cardboard for a better description. Totally cool and as a toy I want one! From an educator's perspective these are also very exciting. Before the end of the session I had 4 ideas running through my brain. 

Firstly, as a simple writing prompt Google Cardboard could be exciting. We know that children may engage with activities simply because of the addition of digital technology. VR apps that could have a child experiencing another city, a tourism attraction or any such thing really opens up writing opportunities. 

Second (and third), the Hobsonville Point area and even our school are rather new. We could take photos, upload them and then allow others to experience the growth of our area and school through Google Cardboard. This has direct ties to an ongoing project at HPPS and HPSS, opportunities for some authentic collaborative projects here are massive.

The last opportunity, all credit here to @Gmacmanus (pictured). I've been taking part in an interesting little project to assist @NZWaikato and his class as they try collect information on classes so they can recreate them in Minecraft. His learners and mine are operating in quite different classroom environments, Google Classroom would provide a more realistic way to experience each others classrooms.

This was a very cool takeaway for the day, now I have to order me some Cardboard but I think I'd like to get an old fashioned viewmaster too.

What did I offer?

I took part in the smackdown by talking about one of my favourite subjects Kidsedchatnz. My involvement in this is limited to being an advocate these days, but advocate I did. I also posted a slide for #Edchatnz and all of the other education chats on Twitter. I'm glad I did this as it led to a small session where myself and @jacquea provided support for others new to twitter, chat sessions and tweetdeck. 

During this session I also chatted with Michelle Simms who is about to begin a chat session for librarians as the moderator. I know that many of us have now moderated chat sessions and I thought that I might have even seen the odd blog post or two on this, searching for posts online gets you many responses. Perhaps we need to crowd source a Moderators Guide for our Kiwi educators.

Once again, #educampakl has proven to be useful PD. The unconference style really lends itself to be whatever you need it to be, for me the connections, takeaways and ability to give back make for a powerful day. But more teachers ought to engage with educamps as they are so much more invigorating than the one size fits all approach that other PD courses tend to be. Futhermore, if you were struggling to get your school to come to the party with some PD need that you have, you'll more than likely find that need met at an Educamp, or at the very least someone who could answer your questions or point you in the right direction. 

I recognise that giving up another day seems like a big ask, but its only a few hours and never leaves you feeling like you've wasted your Saturday. I wouldn't give up the precious time with my kids otherwise! Educamps have a place in my #Worklifebalance

Scientist for a day

During the holidays I met with my LC4 teaching buddy to discuss our plans for term 3. We are in the midst of immersing our learners in Digital Age Literacy (see attached image), yes this goes across the term break! Initially we considered some of the activities in our planning document. But Lisa floated the idea of "scientist for a day", in a short space of time this had morphed into we what presented to LC4 on day 1 of the term.

Immersion into a world they didn't know was our main motivation, but we also wanted to excite them, provide a level playing field for some new students in our space and challenge several learner profile statements. It would serve as a great activity for us to observe many possible learning needs.

When the students arrived Monday morning they were confronted with a table that included:
Models demonstrating gears & pullies,
Newtons Cradle,
Models of the brain,
Plant Life Cycle,
DNA model,
Stethoscope,
Microscope slides with various objects.

The excitement before the had even started was fantastic!

Our first task was watching some short science videos - all conformed to the notion of snackable content. As a class we completed a PMI chart on the style of videos, this was later turned into the criteria/matrix for a science video they would create. The audience would be other HPPS students, each video would explain the particular model/concept the students had been charged with. QR codes would be used to link to the published videos.

Next we broke students into groups of 3 with peers they don't normally work with, they were given a random science model and sent off to brainstorm all their questions and prior knowledge.

Our original idea was that creating the video would take place within the day. However, the first block hadn't elapsed and we'd noticed that the day wouldn't be enough for the task. All groups were highly engaged, sharing their excitement and asking lots of good questions.

After morning tea we provided the learners with a graphic organiser to scaffold their research. We supplemented their journey with more models, texts, wonderings of our own as we modelled noticing things and asking questions to help us understand.

Lunchtime arrived quickly with talk of brains hurting and plenty of sharing their findings taking place. The final block continued in the same vein, except for a short workshop on creating a QR code, which they would need when they completed the filming.

Day 2 included plans to refresh/immerse our learners in several creative platforms (iMovie, YouTube Editor, Screencasting via Quicktime and Explain Everything).

Our learners have been busy researching, writing scripts, creating videos and  generally building their understanding of a small part of the scientific world.

So what's next?

Lisa and I wondered today about whether a second iteration would be appropriate, instead we'll allow a small group to pursue any new wonderings if student voice and needs demand it.

We contemplated whether allowing this activity to run into tomorrow is a good thing. The science literacy and basic literacy is unquestioned, our students are so busy hurting their brains with their learning. While we have shaped, nudged, modelled and questioned each group, the process and its direction has been very student-led, this has meant that very little maths has been integrated. Sharing our thoughts in reflection time as the day ended the students told us about the many measurement learnings they had had.

Students have challenged themselves with their creative skills and the sharing tomorrow shall be enlightening.

Our students have used their research skills both online and in books and we've witnessed them evaluate sources, synthesise information, skim & scan, summarise, plan, craft, and recraft their writing.

Permission to not teach and just observe has been powerful. We have many workshops we will be able to run based on our observations and the students will no doubt have many ideas for new projects, workshops and curiosities to explore. A key moment will be to complete mini-conferences to celebrate each groups learning with their whanau.

Soon we will enter our project phase. An important decision we need to explore is how might we best leverage our immersion activities so that the learning and dispositional needs of each learner is met.

Tomorrow our 3rd day of #ScientistForADay will continue.

Modelling failure and learning

I recently ran a workshop with some children to assist them on reflecting, in talking about photos and their purpose within reflection I mentioned Thinglink. These learners appeared interested, so I quickly showed them the front page and their interest grew, so I resolved to introduce them this afternoon. 10 children attended the workshop at 1.40pm today, with no inkling of the disaster that would evolve in front of them.

I've used Thinglink with previous classes and figured that as long I knew where this was, today's session would be fine. Hence, I too wandered into my own workshop feeling sure of myself.

Thinglink generated email and passwords.

I'm using a free education account on Thinglink, this entitles me to have students loaded into a class channel using either a Thinglink generated email address and password or students can create accounts using a special code, their own email address (we are a GAFE school) and password. For whatever reasonI decided to pursue the former, within a very short space of time the learners were resplendent in a chorus of "Reid, Reid, Reid". It was reminiscent of a great 'Finding Nemo' scene and a signal that I was heading down a slippery path. They were getting mixed up between their own gmail addresses, different passwords and the Thinglink email. 

Rather than dig myself deeper, a feat I didn't think would be appreciated by the students or the observers visiting HPPS today, I decided retreat was a better option. 

I explained to the group "I knew there were two options for creating student accounts on Thinglink and I should have chosen the other option. Their calls for help signalled the first path wasn't working and I was getting into a learning pit. We need to stop and take the other path".

"We teachers also make mistakes, but it is getting out of the pit that helps us grow. If anyone feels comfortable with this job, you could go to our Learner Profile statements and pick one that you think I need to work on based on this."

A student returned with this:

When asked where I sat on this continuum, she replied that I needed more support! She was right on the money.

With some great conversation to supplement our learning, I had all the students return to the login screen to use the Class Code (right top. But the damage had already been done, the students were still confused and tried using the original Thinglink passwords with the new code, or combinations of Thinglink and their own details. Of course these combinations returned error messages similar to the picture (right below). The chorus started again and I realised I'd just run a complete disaster with very little effort. 

I gave up on the Thinglink aspect of the lesson. There was a bigger lesson occurring.

"Can everyone close their screens please. You are doing everything right but are getting error messages, it is like when a cook follows the recipe but something goes wrong.

We have two options. We can quit, go to our next jobs and forget this ever happened. Or, you can head off to your next jobs and I promise to go away and do some testing so that I can run this lesson again next week. We need to learn from our mistakes so that we can move forward in our learning. What should we do?"

Reassuringly, they all wanted to have another go.

I asked "Have you ever made mistakes and then thought it was easier to give up?"

Unsurprisingly, many of them silently nodded.

I know of many ways that I can make this lesson more successful and deliberate (within the Thinglink aspect).

1. Run the tests myself using a dummy email. √
2. Test with one student before running the full lesson.
3. Write a step by step guide for logging on using the best method. Alternatively, a video would be quite useful also.

I'm hoping that the real lesson was in the workshops failure and not its success. We ask our students to reflect on their learning, its only fair that I write this reflection in acknowledgement of my own.