Distance Learning

Well, this has been an unexpected adventure but overall I have enjoyed the challenge.  Following the Learn, Create, Share approach has made things easier. My experience on the DFI course helped heaps and I have been able to use some of the skills I learned from that course. After reading some articles and information on various sites about what is important during distance learning. As I have always said that relationships are important and making connections with the children you are teaching is important so the challenge was of course how to ensure this happens during distance learning. The main way we are doing this is through Google Meets and this seems to be helping with the relationships. The children I think are enjoying it as they are coming back each week. This way of forming a relationship has helped to ensure we make connections with the children and support the children to complete their work.  I realise that not everyone can make the meetings as there are other things going on but I found I got quite a lot of children coming to the meets.

As a teacher I found that I am gaining some more computer skills but also the skill of refining more of my lessons and adjusting lots of resources to suit the situation.  It has been great to see teachers and companies were helping each other out by providing resources and assisting with lessons.

What I find interesting is that some children have really taken to this type of learning and seem to be showing a certain amount of self-management and independence. The children I am teaching have had to learn quickly some computer skills and are taking on this challenge well. Other children are  doing well with the support of their parents or siblings. There are some children who enjoy the social side of distance learning and enjoy coming to Google Meets and less about the work. However, overall I think the experience for the children is a rewarding one where they are learning many things and should be commended on their effort and skills that they are learning.

Cultural Responsiveness

I thought I would have a little look at this word and what it means. I read a piece from Helen Verney who wrote 'Accelerating Learning Through CulturallyResponsive Teaching Practices'. Helen wrote this as part of her sabbatical year and she had a look and asked staff on their thoughts on being culturally responsive and other aspects around this. What she learned from her study was not really a great surprise to me.
I liked how she explained how cultural responsive can be shown in 3 ways as surface, shallow and deep. Obviously, we ideally want to have a deep understanding of culture. It is important for the teacher herself to have a deep understanding of their own culture.
Schools have a responsibility to connect with the community and to gain more about the cultures they have. Having an understanding of the cultures within the school helps to accelerate the children's learning. Building connections with others in the community helps us to understand where the children are coming from.
An environment that is accepting of others thoughts, beliefs and actions allow students to be themselves and bring their culture to their learning. Which definitely benefits their self-esteem and their learning.

Key points I got from her were that everyone connected to the learner is important and play an important role in educating a child. Teachers knowing themselves and their learners helps us to be culturally responsive. A very important aspect is relationships and this is backed up by Russell Bishop who spoke on Ed Talks Educators talk about learning-A Culturally responsive pedagogy of relations. He talked about some of the same aspects that popped up with Helen Vinery. By allowing children to bring their own experiences to their learning and accepting their ideas and culture helps to improve engagement. Relationships with the children and whanau are very important to improve the children s learning.  Caring for people and creating a learning relationship is paramount for being culturally responsive.

Using flexible learning groups within the curriculum

Today I listened to Marc Gibson from Wilgrim school for a toolkit session. His topic was 'Using Flexible learning groups within the curriculum'. He teaches year 3/4 so this made it particularly interesting to see as this is the same level I am currently teaching. 

The maths at the school was done similar to what we currently do it in the hub. However, probably a change was that the children choose the workshops they go to. This is something we could have a think about and discuss how to do this and how to ensure that the children are attending the workshops they need to. We would need to discuss with the children more closely what progressions they need to achieve to ensure the children can choose the correct workshops for themselves.
A few years ago I trialed having flexible groupings for reading and found it affective although the children didn't choose their workshops instead it was me. I would be keen to explore this more and of course, would make some changes about the children having more voice in their learning. 

There were many aspects I liked about how this school runs their flexible groupings and I agree that it does help the children to have a better understanding of their education and also helps with their confidence. I am interested in where to next in our hub with these flexible groupings and how to make it manageable.
Here is a video I enjoyed watching that helps understand why flexible groupings is worth having a go at.

Automony

Well when I saw the opportunity to be on the Power Team to look at autonomy more, I jumped on to do this. I have been interested in this topic for a little while however I have to admit a bit unsure of what this truly means in today's schools. What does autonomy look like and how does this differ at different levels. I had a few questions about this word and so am glad I got to be on this team as I know that student choice is important however I wasn't too sure how to implement it.

We got given 'Amplify-Empowering students through voice, agency and leadership' to read. It looks at students with a strong sense of agency tend to

• work harder
• have a greater focus
• have more interest
• are less likely to give up
• are better at planning
• are more likely to choose challenging tasks
• set higher goals
• have improved concentration when facing difficulties

Autonomy is made up of

Student Voice- students having the power to influence change. For example, providing opportunities for students to collaborate and make decisions with adults around what and how they learn and how their learning is assessed. 

Student Agency- gives students the power to direct and take responsibility for their learning creating independent and self-regulating learners. 

Student leadership- A key thing to remember here is it not a small group of individuals. Student leadership includes listening to and being able to clarify the issues of the students they represent and advocating on their belief.

I think just learning the difference between these aspects has been my first step to understanding autonomy. We met as a group to discuss how this could look at the school and some interesting ideas popped up some would be easy to implement and others may, in all honesty, take some getting my head around. However, I am open to new ideas and after reading this article it states clearly the benefits of autonomy and I think we need to consider this to improve our children's education. We currently have some autonomy going on the school already and so the next step is to educate others and to go forth and make some more changes in the school that reflect more autonomy.

Jo Boaler

Jo Boaler

 This post is a little late as was in my drafts but thought I would post anyway.
I had the opportunity to go to the one day conference run by Jo Boaler, which was great as I had discovered this lady last year. This came about from a problem that I have had for a long time and that is parents negative attitude to maths being past on to their children. Thanks to Jo Earl I was able to read one of Jo Boalers books Mathematical Mindsets. This book was very easy to read and well worth it. 

Mathematical Freedom was the title on one of her very first slides in her presentation. If she put this up a few years ago I would have said I don't think those two words really go together. However the more I thought about it I have since moved on in my thinking how maths can be more creative. It is not just a list of formulas to use and set ways to do things as I thought when I was younger. I have to say that the word creative is one that growing up I would have never put with maths and just by putting that word in front really changes things. I can't wait to use that word more with the children so as it may resonate with more children. I would have liked to have heard that word when I was learning about math. 

The mindset plays an important part according to Jo and on her website Youcubed she has some wonderful videos and things to share with the children which will definitely help to change some attitudes towards maths. I think some parents would also benefit from watching some of these videos and checking out the website.

Concerns I have are really ensuring I find resources to help me with coming up with problems and approaches to maths that follow the ideas I learned from Jo Boaler. The website is a good start and I have begun to look for more resources to help me and soon I will hopefully feel confident to come up with some on my own at some point.

Take away from this course is to work on my approach to teaching maths and keep in mind the statement mathematics is freedom. I am looking at how to ensure there are plenty of opportunities to really get the children to be creative in maths. 

Revision

Today was the final day of the DFI course the major thing we did was to do the Google Educator exam. We first, however, looked at the phrase ubiquitous learning. This is learning anywhere, anytime and anyplace which is definitely an important concept. This is a way of working which opens things up for many people. Rewindable learning is something I am beginning to do more of which fits in with ubiquitous learning. Rewindable learning is very useful for many reasons

• when a child is away
• children who need extra support
• helps when managing many groups
• supporting your children when you are absent

 I found it interesting how in a study they matched the children and then compared the results of children who blogged for the summer and those who did not. The results as you see below sure show that blogging during the summer did help. I learned that blogging at least two plus a week regularly really benefits the children's learning.

 

This is our final day of the course which has made me fully understand the background as to how and why Manaiakalani started. By understanding this it has helped me to really understand the learn, create share aspect. I really have learned a few things and my confidence has increased and I am keen to teach others what I have learned.  I will continue to make things visible and extend my I.C.T skills so that I can share this with the children and keep working on engaging my children.

Devices

Today with Gerhard we went through the Manaiakalani Cybersmart programme which as you will see in my screencastify. I was aware of the Smart Footprint, Smart Relationships and Smart Learners however I was not aware of the other areas. I did like the idea of using common language and using this instead of being negative. For example, asking the children are you being a smart learner? Also using the language of the blog of being positive, helpful and thoughtful and how this can be used in other areas. I look forward to using this language more in the class with the children.
Explain Everything- We went through this with the ipads. There is a bit you can do with this programme and I can see why teachers use it.
Hapara teacher dashboard-we went over this and I learned how we can look at the blogs and the comments, we have just started to do blogging so this is handy to know. I learned a couple of other tricks that will help my workflow.
Chromebooks- we worked with these which I admit was a little frustrating partly because I did not know all the shortcuts. We looked at these which I found very helpful and am planning on printing these out to help me with the children who are stuck.
Screencastify- I revised over how to do this and learned at how to manage this with the children and where these are stored etc. We went through how to embed it on the blog/site which is good to know.
Below is my attempt of screencastifying. I have a few ideas for using screencastify but need to work on getting the children to do this as I have not used it with the children yet.