Tuesday 27 August 2013

Challenging Students?

I find this thought helpful...

My student isn't giving me a hard time... my student is having a hard time...



Friday 23 August 2013

What should a 4 year old know?

These things?
How to write their name
Numbers to 100
The planets

or these things...
  1. She should know that she is loved wholly and unconditionally, all of the time.
  2. He should know that he is safe and he should know how to keep himself safe in public, with others, and in varied situations. He should know that he can trust his instincts about people and that he never has to do something that doesn’t feel right, no matter who is asking. He should know his personal rights and that his family will back them up.
  3. She should know how to laugh, act silly, be goofy and use her imagination. She should know that it is always okay to paint the sky orange and give cats 6 legs.
  4. He should know his own interests and be encouraged to follow them. If he couldn’t care less about learning his numbers, his parents should realize he’ll learn them accidentally soon enough and let him immerse himself instead in rocket ships, drawing, dinosaurs or playing in the mud.
  5. She should know that the world is magical and that so is she. She should know that she’s wonderful, brilliant, creative, compassionate and marvelous. She should know that it’s just as worthy to spend the day outside making daisy chains, mud pies and fairy houses as it is to practice phonics. Scratch that– way more worthy.

from What should a 4 year old know? by Alicia at MagicalChildhood

The blog post at the link has a bunch of things that parents should know as well... well worth checking out!

My job would be a WHOLE lot easier, less stressful and more successful if learners turned up with all these already well underway...

Friday 16 August 2013

Can filming one second of every day change your life?


When Cesar Kuriyama saved up enough money to quit his advertising job at the age of 30, he planned to take a year off to travel and spend time with family.To document the year, Kuriyama filmed one second of video every day."After just six weeks, I realised I was going to be doing that for the rest of my life," he says.After editing the clips into a single video, Kuriyama had not only a record of daily life, but a new perspective on how he lived day to day.

Mr Parkinson also spotted this article. I had thought of doing it just initially for fun but Mr Parkinson has some ideas for using this as a deeper reflective tool...

How can it impact on your teaching?Well, as Cesar says "self reflection is never a bad thing," which is always an important message for teachers. Can you go a week, half term, year without repeating the same video? Can you always provide an opportunity to capture a special moment each day you teach? Could it be used to record achievements of all your children in the class, regardless of ability? Would you use it to record your class' learning journey? or as a way of documenting successful lessons so you always remember them? It is a task that would definitely make you conscious of your approach in the classroom yet one that would provide a wonderful opportunity to reflect and remind yourself of the great lessons/moments you grant as a teacher. 

Thursday 15 August 2013

Learn Create Share ...

Great timing for one of my favourite re-energisers today - ICT sharing time with my cluster!
Always enjoy hearing from The Powers (Bec and Jamie), but especially enjoyed Emma's input into blogging and generating a meaningful context for our students.  
She also did a plug for EDUIGNITE which sounds grand!  Have added link to my LOOK WHAT I FOUND panel over there -->
Thanks everyone - it was just what I needed today!

Hope she doesn't mind being immortalised with my latest innovation in notetaking! MUwuwhhaha!
The new app I am testing has a function I have been looking for in this kind of programme - taking a photo and drawing on it with no hoops or hurdles (apologies to the subject of my hastily taken photo!!!)

Shirley Clarke #2

The reading I referred to last week (from Change Team) is Active Learning Through Formative Assessment - Chapter 3:The Ideal Learning Culture

Dweck is sited a number of times...
I enjoyed the definition of motivation (by Dweck) as not only a desire to achieve but also 'the love of learning, the love of challenge and the ability to thrive on obstacles'. Instilling this to our poppets is one of our biggest barriers I think - merely being a passive model of it is not doing the job for our lot!

I have been thinking about the observation that boys more likely attribute failures to a lack of effort and successes to ability - whereas girls attribute successes to effort and failures to lack of ability.
In our poppets the link to self esteem is more even across the board and not just limited to gender. In my experience here failure impacts confidence in our girls and esteem in our boys.


Clarke's "fixed mindset' quiz was administered to us. In brief it highlights our own beliefs in our intelligence (e.g. do we think intelligence is fixed or can it change over time) - I am of the opinion it can change (I think this means I have a 'growth' mindset. This is my opinion because I remember a time when I was most definitely of a 'fixed' mindset - and I believed that my failures defined me and I was them rather than the belief I have now that they are problems to be faced, dealt with and most importantly, learnt from.

"High self-esteem happens for those with a growth mindset when they are using their abilities to the fullest in something they value (ME: Deep) rather than showing that they are better than someone else (ME: surface)."

Thankfully the reading lists some strategies for developing a growth mindset (for everyone).

  • Active modelling - emphasising the process of learning. 
  • Actively teaching (and having the expectation) that intelligence can be developed. 
  • Re-languaging 'can't', 'difficulty' and 'problem' with 'challenge'.
  • Emphasing our own excitement at new challenges.
  • Activitely teach strategies for dealing with challenge (p. 23 of the reading)
Specific, repetitive, deliberate and systematic use of these things ensure that challenges and effort are things that enhance self-esteem rather than threaten it.

Big message in the reading - Praising effort and achievement rather than ability or personal attributes is vital!

Many things we say to our students (and children) have hidden messages
e.g. 'You learned that so quickly! You're so clever' = If I don't learn something quickly I'm not clever

Thankfully I have already thought deeply about my comments to students and even recharged again recently due to the Incredible Years programme (which is amazing!). One of the strategies from that is to take pleasing the teacher out of comments and be factual, putting onus back on the students where it belongs.

'Well done, that is a beautiful rainbow, especially the way you have worked so carefully at blending the colours,'

Resilience, resourcefulness, reflectiveness and reciprocity <--- appropriate at all our ages.

Exercising your learning muscles came from this article.


Change Team

In our Change Team meeting last night our focus was on Cultural Competencies (we are focusing on improving outcomes specifically for our Maori learners and, of course, ourselves).
I found the following video of Anjali's story especially moving - worth checking out! (Next Day EDIT: I have referred to it at least three times today on different occasions!)

http://tekotahitanga.tki.org.nz/Videos/Teacher-stories/Anjali-s-Story-Relationships-Pt1

My particular focus in our small group was whanaungatanga; relationships with high expectations. This is an area that resonates strongly with me as being an integral tool in personalising learning. An important part of improving learning outcomes for all the learners in our classrooms (and I include me in that statement!!).

I can see Anjali doing the following;

  • seeking opportunities to develop meaningful relationships with students and their whanau
  • displaying knowledge of students' life/interests outside the classroom
  • pronouncing names correctly
  • power sharing! (one of my favourites!)
  • providing a warm, interactive environment
  • valuing prior knowledge/students' own real life experiences/cultural knowledge
  • making connections between the learning in the classroom and real life situations
  • supporting positive student talk (no put downs)
I would like to ask these students if their experiences with this particular teacher will positively impact their future learning with other teachers...(has it been sustainable for their future outcomes, do they think they have strategies from their experiences with this teacher that will support future learning?)

Such an important story to bravely share!

Also from our text, Tätaiako...

‘Whaia te iti kahurangi; ki te tuohu koe, me he maunga teitei’ - roughly, in Shinekorero, it speaks about aiming high (for the sky) so that if you miss and do not meet your expectations you will still hit a lofty mountain!

Tuesday 13 August 2013

Lofty Mountains Rock

Found a whakatauki that fits with my pedagogical beliefs about needing to have high expectations for ALL students.


Friday 9 August 2013

Shirley Clarke

As part of Change Team last week a Shirley Clarke reading was shown (although we won't get it officially until next week) - I was excited!
 I have fond memories of the value of Unlocking Formative Assessment years ago when I taught in Timaru! I am such a geek!
Anyway - it prompted me to Google to look for more Clarke related resources and found this video...lots of good stuff going on in there!

Shirley Clarke Seamus video  (it is unlisted so I could not embed it, sorry!!)