More messing around with the limitations of google draw than real planning...
Friday, 23 December 2016
Wednesday, 12 October 2016
ULEARN 2016 - 5 - 7 October; What I Gained
ULEARN is pretty massive. I had never been, and only had the GAFE summit held in Christchurch to compare it to. The reason I got to go was because of Spark - MIT 2016. Again thanks so much for that opportunity.
It was substantially bigger than GAFE (I think) and they feed you very, very well. 1800 teachers attended this year and my first observation was of observing the local College students obligingly and efficiently organise the registrations of those 1800 teachers who are a) not good at following basic instructions and b) are crammed into a seemingly small foyer, with coffee nearby, not able to get to it til the registration was done at 8 in the morning...The students were awesome and moving through the teachers more quickly than the front desk.
My key takeaways would be too many for one post. I am distilling it down to my top 10
From Andrew Ford of Sebel who presented a non-sales pitched presentation on how to effectively manage in an ILE/MLE space, using research and design thinking:
1) IDEO - This really clearly linked up with Sineck's golden circles so it was easy for me to grasp and made sense.
2) That our whole 'scary' concept of ILE actually comes from the work place, it is already quite well tested with a heap of research within places like architectural offices, design and advertising, Google, Yahoo, Spark, Vodafone... we are just taking those ideas and applying them to education, which is about effective rather than efficient education. Most jobs rely on collaborative process, education needs to reflect that more.
From Professor Michael Fullan who is a bit amazing, on everything because he is amazing
3) "Transformation always means disruptive and that is important. You need to exploit the disruption. Be a disruptor."
4) The New reality - social media is ubiquitous, it weaken hierarchies, which opens up lateral solutions, distribution and concentrated connection is the new power. E.g. our COL's are a distribution of power and if they ae working well, it is a new concentration of power. The young are the most connected and the least committed to the status quo. Students are the agents of change when you set it up right cultivate it and leverage it.
5) Discursive practice makes all the difference. Talking the walk into action, talking yourself into clarity with others around to support you - collaborative, creative, encourages critical thinking, develops your character, you have to hear and accept others views, develops citizenship - how you relate back to opposing and supporting views.
From Hekia Parata who is a very gifted presenter and had 10 minutes:
6) First be powerful leaders in your own lives, the opportunity to contribute is much more real and powerful.
From Hammersley Street school in Nelson - collaborative learning
7) Scaffolding has taken the place of try, fail, learn, try, fail, learn, fly
8)The definition of a well organised teacher needs a major shift in a lot of schools. Endless scaffolding and endlessly planned lessons, and structures in a class ultimately become a barrier to authentic learning if there are ever any challenges, student agency, choice or voice
From Rosemary Hipkins - making meaning across learning areas
9) I see, I think, I wonder - brilliant starter exercise to help move professionals into more of a growth mindset about project based learning. It was cool!
From Haeata Community Campus Senior Leadership Team on transforming leaership and school systems
10) Thats the way we've always done it #ttwwadi
Ncea and ero become excuses not to move forward. If its not broke… but ask why you cant do that because of NCEA, question it and find out why. Interrogate the why all the time.
It was substantially bigger than GAFE (I think) and they feed you very, very well. 1800 teachers attended this year and my first observation was of observing the local College students obligingly and efficiently organise the registrations of those 1800 teachers who are a) not good at following basic instructions and b) are crammed into a seemingly small foyer, with coffee nearby, not able to get to it til the registration was done at 8 in the morning...The students were awesome and moving through the teachers more quickly than the front desk.
My key takeaways would be too many for one post. I am distilling it down to my top 10
From Andrew Ford of Sebel who presented a non-sales pitched presentation on how to effectively manage in an ILE/MLE space, using research and design thinking:
1) IDEO - This really clearly linked up with Sineck's golden circles so it was easy for me to grasp and made sense.
2) That our whole 'scary' concept of ILE actually comes from the work place, it is already quite well tested with a heap of research within places like architectural offices, design and advertising, Google, Yahoo, Spark, Vodafone... we are just taking those ideas and applying them to education, which is about effective rather than efficient education. Most jobs rely on collaborative process, education needs to reflect that more.
From Professor Michael Fullan who is a bit amazing, on everything because he is amazing
3) "Transformation always means disruptive and that is important. You need to exploit the disruption. Be a disruptor."
4) The New reality - social media is ubiquitous, it weaken hierarchies, which opens up lateral solutions, distribution and concentrated connection is the new power. E.g. our COL's are a distribution of power and if they ae working well, it is a new concentration of power. The young are the most connected and the least committed to the status quo. Students are the agents of change when you set it up right cultivate it and leverage it.
5) Discursive practice makes all the difference. Talking the walk into action, talking yourself into clarity with others around to support you - collaborative, creative, encourages critical thinking, develops your character, you have to hear and accept others views, develops citizenship - how you relate back to opposing and supporting views.
From Hekia Parata who is a very gifted presenter and had 10 minutes:
6) First be powerful leaders in your own lives, the opportunity to contribute is much more real and powerful.
From Hammersley Street school in Nelson - collaborative learning
7) Scaffolding has taken the place of try, fail, learn, try, fail, learn, fly
8)The definition of a well organised teacher needs a major shift in a lot of schools. Endless scaffolding and endlessly planned lessons, and structures in a class ultimately become a barrier to authentic learning if there are ever any challenges, student agency, choice or voice
From Rosemary Hipkins - making meaning across learning areas
9) I see, I think, I wonder - brilliant starter exercise to help move professionals into more of a growth mindset about project based learning. It was cool!
From Haeata Community Campus Senior Leadership Team on transforming leaership and school systems
10) Thats the way we've always done it #ttwwadi
Ncea and ero become excuses not to move forward. If its not broke… but ask why you cant do that because of NCEA, question it and find out why. Interrogate the why all the time.
ULEARN 2016
Thank you Spark and MIT for this opportunity.
notes accompanying the slides:
Slide 1 - Tēnā Koutou Katoa Ko Kaiterau tōku Māunga Ko Waikōau tōku awa No Kaikoura ahau Ko Annette rāua ko Paul Bourke ōku mātua Ko Rowena Clemence tōku ingoa
Slide 2 - He Kaiako Te Huruhuru Ao o Horomaka Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Welcome to my presentation as a Visual Arts teacher at Hornby High School in Christchurch.
Slide 3 - We have new tools requiring new pedagogy that allows learning to happen ubiquitously, rewindably. Teachers dream of facilitating learning rather than ramming knowledge down throats to be regurgitated later. We have an opportunity for self-efficacy.
Slide 4 - ‘Why’? Woolf Fisher data from 2016 highlights the problem we knew we already had with writing. 72% of our new entrants into year 7 are below or well below the national standards in writing. The problem is not the ‘dumbness’ of our kids, as they are not.
Slide 5 - It is the skill-set to break up language and reapply it. People with good writing skills are generally seen as more credible. Are our students equitably empowered when they are constantly playing catch-up with national standards in writing?
Slide 6 - There are no ministry exemplars in Art for the junior levels. Art teachers apparently ‘just know’. Equal emphasis and weighting is on all four strands. Two of these strands require written/vocabulary based understanding.
Slide 7 - So I’m look at Writing. Understanding key words so they can use them effectively. Compare their work to what they understand of the curriculum, assess, plan their next steps. How do we manage this ubiquitously? And in a way that supports learning beyond Art?
Slide 8 - If the students have the words, they control their learning. When they don’t have the words, it’s easier to talk one on one and watch you understand (there is a certain amount of reading your reactions going on) natural intuition and intelligence.
Slide 9 - Every child I surveyed returned a low self-rating of curriculum level. Most children surveyed demonstrated they didn’t understand that visual Arts had curriculum levels. We are doing everything as a school to address this stuff.
Slide 10 - So much we get confused, and it all comes from the one place of wanting to do our very best for our students, to undo the deficit theorising, social expectations, social issues that affect their daily lives.
Slide 11 - I had to move from how I have always done stuff to making it ubiquitously accessible. SAMR is clear measure for me to assess my own teaching methods against. This was not an overnight success. It was a gradual realisation based on the pedagogy driving it.
Slide 12 - I tried this. Over-complicated, too many words, I am an experienced teacher, but I still do not know much about teaching at year 7 and 8. Clearly. I had a whole class complete these and basically i told them the answers as they went.
Slide 13 - These are matching exercises. I broke those strands into keywords for level 3 of the NZC. Then it became obvious that I could use it more than just as a substitute for flash cards. A bank of learning cards could be created. With work on them.
Slide 14 - We have recently started to refer to these as ‘delete it’ exercises. In modifying the task, google draw was a pretty simple tool. I picked a year 7/8 class that I was only getting once a week, choosing to focus on understanding over doing.
Slide 15 - I figured I may as well see if I could extend their literacy over their practical skills in the time I had. Initially we used smart share on Hapara to send these out and a whiteboard to organise who had done what...but the whiteboard was always erased next time, and it was messy.
Slide 16 - More modification was required Drives were cluttered and students were not yet working on wholistic blogs. Hapara WORKSPACE allows for a cleaner interface and embeddable in the google site for Art. It changes this into something much more ubiquitous too.
Slide 17 - I can grade it and send the students feedback. Students who have arrived late to the class can be included in all prior learning. I can see when a student misunderstands their work, they can save their work as jpegs and upload them to their now functioning blogs.
Slide 18 - Beyond this, what is good and not so good, at each level? Using google sheets, I have made self-assessment sheets; rather than students guessing what ‘good’ looks like. I ‘know’ what it looks like without much ministry guidance, but still it needs to be carefully quantified.
Slide 19 - This is shared with all the students in their class. They can only edit their named row. Each row is locked down to only that student. They can see each other’s assessments for their work, but they cannot change it. It is coded to achieved, merit, excellence.
Slide 20 - So what can my students do now that they couldn’t do before? The students in this particular class can explain there are 4 strands, that they feel they are within level 3 because they can see it. An autistic boy does his work at home away from class, and that is fine. I can see it.
Slide 21 - This is where I want to take this next. In doing this, I will be working alongside our local primary school and another, to determine how Visual Arts is handled within a teaching programme, at the same time using this as an opportunity to refine project based learning skills for my own use.
Christina Fortes, just for you.
notes accompanying the slides:
Slide 1 - Tēnā Koutou Katoa Ko Kaiterau tōku Māunga Ko Waikōau tōku awa No Kaikoura ahau Ko Annette rāua ko Paul Bourke ōku mātua Ko Rowena Clemence tōku ingoa
Slide 2 - He Kaiako Te Huruhuru Ao o Horomaka Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Welcome to my presentation as a Visual Arts teacher at Hornby High School in Christchurch.
Slide 3 - We have new tools requiring new pedagogy that allows learning to happen ubiquitously, rewindably. Teachers dream of facilitating learning rather than ramming knowledge down throats to be regurgitated later. We have an opportunity for self-efficacy.
Slide 4 - ‘Why’? Woolf Fisher data from 2016 highlights the problem we knew we already had with writing. 72% of our new entrants into year 7 are below or well below the national standards in writing. The problem is not the ‘dumbness’ of our kids, as they are not.
Slide 5 - It is the skill-set to break up language and reapply it. People with good writing skills are generally seen as more credible. Are our students equitably empowered when they are constantly playing catch-up with national standards in writing?
Slide 6 - There are no ministry exemplars in Art for the junior levels. Art teachers apparently ‘just know’. Equal emphasis and weighting is on all four strands. Two of these strands require written/vocabulary based understanding.
Slide 7 - So I’m look at Writing. Understanding key words so they can use them effectively. Compare their work to what they understand of the curriculum, assess, plan their next steps. How do we manage this ubiquitously? And in a way that supports learning beyond Art?
Slide 8 - If the students have the words, they control their learning. When they don’t have the words, it’s easier to talk one on one and watch you understand (there is a certain amount of reading your reactions going on) natural intuition and intelligence.
Slide 9 - Every child I surveyed returned a low self-rating of curriculum level. Most children surveyed demonstrated they didn’t understand that visual Arts had curriculum levels. We are doing everything as a school to address this stuff.
Slide 10 - So much we get confused, and it all comes from the one place of wanting to do our very best for our students, to undo the deficit theorising, social expectations, social issues that affect their daily lives.
Slide 11 - I had to move from how I have always done stuff to making it ubiquitously accessible. SAMR is clear measure for me to assess my own teaching methods against. This was not an overnight success. It was a gradual realisation based on the pedagogy driving it.
Slide 12 - I tried this. Over-complicated, too many words, I am an experienced teacher, but I still do not know much about teaching at year 7 and 8. Clearly. I had a whole class complete these and basically i told them the answers as they went.
Slide 13 - These are matching exercises. I broke those strands into keywords for level 3 of the NZC. Then it became obvious that I could use it more than just as a substitute for flash cards. A bank of learning cards could be created. With work on them.
Slide 14 - We have recently started to refer to these as ‘delete it’ exercises. In modifying the task, google draw was a pretty simple tool. I picked a year 7/8 class that I was only getting once a week, choosing to focus on understanding over doing.
Slide 15 - I figured I may as well see if I could extend their literacy over their practical skills in the time I had. Initially we used smart share on Hapara to send these out and a whiteboard to organise who had done what...but the whiteboard was always erased next time, and it was messy.
Slide 16 - More modification was required Drives were cluttered and students were not yet working on wholistic blogs. Hapara WORKSPACE allows for a cleaner interface and embeddable in the google site for Art. It changes this into something much more ubiquitous too.
Slide 17 - I can grade it and send the students feedback. Students who have arrived late to the class can be included in all prior learning. I can see when a student misunderstands their work, they can save their work as jpegs and upload them to their now functioning blogs.
Slide 18 - Beyond this, what is good and not so good, at each level? Using google sheets, I have made self-assessment sheets; rather than students guessing what ‘good’ looks like. I ‘know’ what it looks like without much ministry guidance, but still it needs to be carefully quantified.
Slide 19 - This is shared with all the students in their class. They can only edit their named row. Each row is locked down to only that student. They can see each other’s assessments for their work, but they cannot change it. It is coded to achieved, merit, excellence.
Slide 20 - So what can my students do now that they couldn’t do before? The students in this particular class can explain there are 4 strands, that they feel they are within level 3 because they can see it. An autistic boy does his work at home away from class, and that is fine. I can see it.
Slide 21 - This is where I want to take this next. In doing this, I will be working alongside our local primary school and another, to determine how Visual Arts is handled within a teaching programme, at the same time using this as an opportunity to refine project based learning skills for my own use.
Christina Fortes, just for you.
Tuesday, 6 September 2016
Genius Hour
Collaboration in PLD at work. Shared google doc with notes a few staff took simultaneously during our PD with Caroline From Christ's College on how she runs Genius Hour. Awesome session;
Contributions from:
Joanne Clark
Ben Carter
Sarah Richardson
Rowena Clemence
Contributions from:
Joanne Clark
Ben Carter
Sarah Richardson
Rowena Clemence
Friday, 19 August 2016
Trouble Shooting
7BK - my main class for trialling SPARK - MIT initiatives are just lovely. They tolerate and buy into me trying new things out on a very regular basis. AND they tell me they love Art. What more can I hope for :-)
Going week to week, sending out mass copies of google drawings to be completed by the class is messy and confusing. Particularly when we are enrolling new students all the time who are not necessarily added to your Hapara class lists...
I lost my phone again. And my keys (not new). And my head doing this. I had messed around in workspace and then decided not to use it. Now it can be made public and now that I am steadily confusing myself with what is sent and what is not, I have come to the realisation, it is the cleanest and most effective way to get their literacy work out to the class.
Their Hapara drive looked like this:
Which was my fault....
We were all confused and only got about 20 minutes of practical art work done in a lesson...that is not fun. I persisted with this for a while before I decided I was making my life worse.
WORKSPACE - I think has saved my life
How tidy is this? I can set up the do nows as 'evidence' it is public and I am about to link it to my site so that they can enter through there too.
Life is better.
Going week to week, sending out mass copies of google drawings to be completed by the class is messy and confusing. Particularly when we are enrolling new students all the time who are not necessarily added to your Hapara class lists...
I lost my phone again. And my keys (not new). And my head doing this. I had messed around in workspace and then decided not to use it. Now it can be made public and now that I am steadily confusing myself with what is sent and what is not, I have come to the realisation, it is the cleanest and most effective way to get their literacy work out to the class.
Their Hapara drive looked like this:
Which was my fault....We were all confused and only got about 20 minutes of practical art work done in a lesson...that is not fun. I persisted with this for a while before I decided I was making my life worse.
WORKSPACE - I think has saved my life
How tidy is this? I can set up the do nows as 'evidence' it is public and I am about to link it to my site so that they can enter through there too.
Life is better.
Tuesday, 9 August 2016
Hornby High School Kapahaka
"It's just an excuse to get out of class..."
Not a student, but a former teacher. The prospect of students coming out of a timetabled class for Kapahaka practice.
"I don't think it is fair that they miss one of our classes and we lose that time, they are usually the most behind"
It is not the most accurate quote, but it is a sentiment expressed often when, as a dean a few years ago, I was the space between the rock and the hard place in soothing fears and hurts over the school attempting to get some traction in setting up Kapahaka as a culture here. Unsuccessfully, I might add. In both respects.
The key word here being 'they'. Us and them, you and me, management vs school vs students vs Māori students. When fear is a factor, the 'other' becomes a significant stumbling block, ignorance outweighs compassion and common sense. All we end up seeing and being, is a part of a divisive and negative culture.
So I joined the Kapahaka practice. It is the most surreal thing to watch students who in the grounds, and in some classes, are at times sorta, kinda wicked hard work, not always particularly open to you as a teacher, be the star of the show. Take control Ms Tongotongo and direct your senior girls to stand with, and help teach the new girls (and women teachers), dictate the volume output with your command and your own voice, amp it up, control the 'pause', teach 15 new students the first section of the school haka in 7 minutes, thank you very much.
Back inside the auditorium we all go, back with the boys, standing together. A male and a female lead again control the volume, determine the pace, and within 15 minutes we all know those first few lines well and the roof is being raised off, like a lid of a soda bottle shaken up by the pressure of our voices. We went from 40% to 110% input in stages, as directed and maintained by our student leaders.
There are benefits to all staff being in this room at this moment. We see confidence where we didn't know it existed, a sense of togetherness demonstrated by the students, the collective consciousness as a real thing. Manaakitanga, Kawanatanga even, there as real tangible elements. Taking this and translating it into the classroom means more than just being there at the practice as a teacher. I want to explore this more, I'm hoping that some of what we do is already doing this. At the end of the year, I want to compare how my new senior class structure compares to this style of education and whether results have in fact been affected, or even whether I care about those results or something more.
Not a student, but a former teacher. The prospect of students coming out of a timetabled class for Kapahaka practice.
"I don't think it is fair that they miss one of our classes and we lose that time, they are usually the most behind"
It is not the most accurate quote, but it is a sentiment expressed often when, as a dean a few years ago, I was the space between the rock and the hard place in soothing fears and hurts over the school attempting to get some traction in setting up Kapahaka as a culture here. Unsuccessfully, I might add. In both respects.
The key word here being 'they'. Us and them, you and me, management vs school vs students vs Māori students. When fear is a factor, the 'other' becomes a significant stumbling block, ignorance outweighs compassion and common sense. All we end up seeing and being, is a part of a divisive and negative culture.
So I joined the Kapahaka practice. It is the most surreal thing to watch students who in the grounds, and in some classes, are at times sorta, kinda wicked hard work, not always particularly open to you as a teacher, be the star of the show. Take control Ms Tongotongo and direct your senior girls to stand with, and help teach the new girls (and women teachers), dictate the volume output with your command and your own voice, amp it up, control the 'pause', teach 15 new students the first section of the school haka in 7 minutes, thank you very much.
Back inside the auditorium we all go, back with the boys, standing together. A male and a female lead again control the volume, determine the pace, and within 15 minutes we all know those first few lines well and the roof is being raised off, like a lid of a soda bottle shaken up by the pressure of our voices. We went from 40% to 110% input in stages, as directed and maintained by our student leaders.
There are benefits to all staff being in this room at this moment. We see confidence where we didn't know it existed, a sense of togetherness demonstrated by the students, the collective consciousness as a real thing. Manaakitanga, Kawanatanga even, there as real tangible elements. Taking this and translating it into the classroom means more than just being there at the practice as a teacher. I want to explore this more, I'm hoping that some of what we do is already doing this. At the end of the year, I want to compare how my new senior class structure compares to this style of education and whether results have in fact been affected, or even whether I care about those results or something more.
Sunday, 7 August 2016
Random Thoughts
As I hung the washing on a freezing Canterbury morning (-4), I couldn't help thinking of further steps:
- How to see this through a te reo lens - we have a bi-lingual unit, there is a minimal requirement for how that is handled in te reo. I know that my having they year 7 and 8 bi-lingual class once a week helps diminish the time spent doing this.
- Dropping back further to level 2 of the visual arts curriculum - knowing how this is already handled at a primary school level would be beneficial, particularly a collaborative environment.
- Not forgetting how SOLO fits in.
- How to see this through a te reo lens - we have a bi-lingual unit, there is a minimal requirement for how that is handled in te reo. I know that my having they year 7 and 8 bi-lingual class once a week helps diminish the time spent doing this.
- Dropping back further to level 2 of the visual arts curriculum - knowing how this is already handled at a primary school level would be beneficial, particularly a collaborative environment.
- Not forgetting how SOLO fits in.
"Write That Essay" PLD day notes
Our focus is writing and based on the Woolf Fisher data we received on Wednesday, That is pretty much what it should be.
There were a lot of useful tips and tricks that we can implement starting Monday, and we will. Blog posts are about to change for our senior students.
There were a lot of useful tips and tricks that we can implement starting Monday, and we will. Blog posts are about to change for our senior students.
Monday, 1 August 2016
Language Accessibility Again
From this,
to this...
This does work, but, man, the language is hard in the CI and UC strands for them. A lot of repetition is needed. And some definitions still need tweaking.
Not all of the words are straight from the curriculum statements. In each strand I have included words I teach to, and have taught to. For example 'Tache' in PK.
Next steps;
- Starting at a level below what I think they are
- Building up a cache of language google drawings that they 'get' quickly and can start to show some fluency in,
- Applying the words to their own and others pieces of Art pieces and building a communal bank.
- Making this accessible to other teachers to start using and add to.
- Measuring student's performance from starting to finishing and within curriculum work over the year. Using self-assessment as well as teacher based assessment.
- How does this link into SOLO and how I am re-structuring units of work around Learn, Create, Share.
Sunday, 31 July 2016
Friday, 29 July 2016
Google slide for developing a unit of work with the students
Working on systemising how we break down the units so that the students can relate it back to their analysis on google drawings of each strand based on examples of work.
The idea being that we create and discuss the unit and it is added to as students experiences and understanding unravels in that first lesson. Will be seeing how it goes this coming week.
Tuesday, 26 July 2016
My notes from a research paper on leadership for learning
These are my notes from an article that I chose to summarise for my study group on developing a positive professional development culture in a school. We are all researching and developing our own PLD experience (using MKO for mine) and this in particular resonated with me in regards to how success or the lack of, can happen. The term 'paraprofessionals' was new for me. I like how that goes such a long way to explain how we place value in these roles and how that can ultimately determine our success.
Saturday, 2 July 2016
Making the Language Real and Accessable
Talking myself around in circles. The plan here is to make something that students can use to create their own DLO's. This is why I haven't bothered with Quizlet or Kahoots. They are engaging, accessible, and relatively easy to use. However, I want the children to be able to make something that they can digitally keep and refer back to. Without the language. I have some hesitation is continuing to use google draw, I don't want to come out of this one trick pony. But I do see it suiting my needs here.
I envisage crating a bank of language that is specific to each curriculum level, each curriculum strand. Flash cards/definitions that can then be applied to one art image or piece of documentation in making art. Students can then have their image surrounded by 4 to 10 different card, different colours as strands never sit neatly as one task per strand.
Tuesday, 28 June 2016
google drawing card for analysis and why it didnt work
Language. If you don't have it, you can't apply it. Interestingly, as I explained the concepts, it clicked into place, but I still had to keep doing this and in the ned, I really just made a bunch of kids "repeat after me..."
What I have I learned?
1) they are clever enough there is not deficit with their intellect.
2) It doesn't matter if you are clever, if no one has exposed you to the language to express it
3) All of this correlates to our data on writing.
Shikobi tells me it was alright, but why were my words so confusing?
Next steps:
Go back to language base, and develop it based on breaking down and analysing the curriculum levels. This will be an interesting exercise as I don't think it has been done. If so, there are no easily available resources on it. How would a general teacher expected to cover all subjects at junior levels be expected to manage this? Not cool, TKI!
I used to use flash card, which worked (i love organising things by colour) but were easily lost, not something they could take home and laborious to make a student copy for, let along keep up on maintaining full sets int eh right colours. How to do this digitally.
Also, I want to use a small group of kids that I can take out of a class and work with as opposed to relying on my own art time.
What I have I learned?
1) they are clever enough there is not deficit with their intellect.
2) It doesn't matter if you are clever, if no one has exposed you to the language to express it
3) All of this correlates to our data on writing.
Shikobi tells me it was alright, but why were my words so confusing?
Next steps:
Go back to language base, and develop it based on breaking down and analysing the curriculum levels. This will be an interesting exercise as I don't think it has been done. If so, there are no easily available resources on it. How would a general teacher expected to cover all subjects at junior levels be expected to manage this? Not cool, TKI!
I used to use flash card, which worked (i love organising things by colour) but were easily lost, not something they could take home and laborious to make a student copy for, let along keep up on maintaining full sets int eh right colours. How to do this digitally.
Also, I want to use a small group of kids that I can take out of a class and work with as opposed to relying on my own art time.
Thursday, 2 June 2016
Monday, 30 May 2016
7 BK SPARK MIT trial with google drawing 'cards'
Learning outcome; Understanding the Visual Arts strands at Level 3 of the NZC
Objectives:- To be able to recognise explicitly what is required in meeting each strand
- To be able to figure out what is potentially missing in a piece of work within each strand
- To be able to negotiate their own strengths and weaknesses in their own work based on this breakdown of understanding
What we want to achieve because of this:
- A bank of resources that demonstrate understanding of each strand, within potentially the same piece of work
- To be able to differentiate not only between curriculum levels, but also between a low, mid and high standard in each curriculum level
- To be have an open, accessible and collaborative bank of student work that can be used in self-assessing, comparison and idea gathering for other teachers and students beyond Hornby.
What I have so far:
Level 3 Practical Knowledge;
We used a piece of work from another class that was incomplete, but clearly demonstrated this strand, at this level and in the unit of work this particular class is just finishing up. Verbally, students could easily identify everything I wanted them to be able to see. However, translating my intentions and their answers from a verbal conversation to the google drawing 'card' I made was more challenging. I have not taught this age level before. I over-construct sentences at the best of times. For 10 and 11 year olds, it must be terrifying. Working on the chrome books is significantly different to my laptop, which meant that we had some technical challenges, however, 7 bk were remarkably prepared to continue trying out 'how' to do this right. Eventually, we go t a good number of cards completed and saved.
What I am doing differently next time:
- Working on defining the strands in clearer and more simplidied language than last time.
- Using a chrome book as my teacher's computer, so I am in the same place as the students.
- Simplifying the language used on the google drawing 'card'.
- Use CARR awards more regularly during the lesson - no one seemed to notice, but it is a school system and I should have used it.
What I am happy about:
- It sorta worked
- The resilience of 7bk is awesome
- Their digital citizenship was on point - no off task behaviour on chrome books
- I can see this taking shape (just slowly) and a good positive direction.
- I can see how I could integrate the google self assessment sheet I have already worked on, with this; self-efficacy has to be an outcome of that approach in my opinion.
- I have found an educationally sound and useful way of working with google drawings - I initially just thought they were too basic to be of use with teaching something like Design and not relevant to anything else. I have changed my mindset, and solutions have presented themselves.
Wednesday, 25 May 2016
SPARK - MIT trial
7 Bk's Class blog.
This is a class I have hardly seen and they cannot keep up with the programme we had initially planned on because of that. Interruptions will continue unfortunately, so I am going to work with them as a trial class.
I will post up the results of this after Thursday
This is a class I have hardly seen and they cannot keep up with the programme we had initially planned on because of that. Interruptions will continue unfortunately, so I am going to work with them as a trial class.
I will post up the results of this after Thursday
Monday, 16 May 2016
SOLO in Art
This is our take on SOLO with Visual Arts. It fits cleanly with our base assessment scale, with the expectations of NCEA in visual Arts at level 1 - 3 and as a way to enable good clear scaffolding for students to achieve at higher levels too.
What I Am Going To Try; Google Draw
Click on this link for the original Google Draw file
I think this is at the substitution level as it is. What happens to that information they create with these is how it becomes redefined and modified.
Breaking it down into low, mid and high of a curriculum level is really what is happening on the google sheet that I have already worked on with the students.
This as a do now - 1 - 2 curriculum strands from students work so far, or work done previously that I know they can manage. All the answers are ones that my current Year 7 and 8 students could provide based on the work we have completed this term. They know what Tache is, and they can identify all of those elements.
We teach the vocab using flash cards anyway, so just making sure they are available or even developing them into google drawings as well, would help.
Getting the students to 'bank' these in a file somewhere is the next step and relating it back to SOLO for Visual Arts.
I think this is at the substitution level as it is. What happens to that information they create with these is how it becomes redefined and modified.
Breaking it down into low, mid and high of a curriculum level is really what is happening on the google sheet that I have already worked on with the students.
This as a do now - 1 - 2 curriculum strands from students work so far, or work done previously that I know they can manage. All the answers are ones that my current Year 7 and 8 students could provide based on the work we have completed this term. They know what Tache is, and they can identify all of those elements.
We teach the vocab using flash cards anyway, so just making sure they are available or even developing them into google drawings as well, would help.
Getting the students to 'bank' these in a file somewhere is the next step and relating it back to SOLO for Visual Arts.
What Is My Innovation?
Trying to get to the point where students can identify what they are doing and why they are doing it. But also being brave enough to share how they are doing, without fear
Have I explicitly taught the strands? No. Is this a mistake? Possibly.
I consistently address that fear of people seeing whether or not the students are 'good enough'. I am so caught up with my junior classes teaching in the limited time that we have, that unpacking the strands, can be something that gets put 'away'.
SOLO - we did this once! We had extensive PLD on it and then it fell away with the numerous other commitments we have. I am wondering how I explicitly re-introduce this and link to this as well as make those strands more obvious, student owned. When I took on SOLO in Art, I added in an extra step. When SOLO is related to NCEA 'achieved', 'merit' and 'excellence', multi-structural comes out as 'achieved'. I feel that is inaccurate at level one NCEA. So we added in another step. in order to get 'achieved' we rely on relational as the step that correlates. I will post separately on this to explain this further.
The term one focus for us with the outreach programme has been rewindable learning. The google site, with the teaching blogs has been a way of keeping learning available and rewindable. This has to aide in helping students develop their understanding of the work, but not necessarily the base strands that work applies to.
So the google sheet design collecting students self-assessment actually becomes less of an innovation and more of a data collection as to how well students manage putting their own thoughts about learning out there as data and whether or not they understand our teaching and how it all works. How do students feel about making their own thoughts on their grades visible? Do they understand what is expected of them?
Because the students have not designed the google sheet with me - i.e. they have to understand the criteria for each task, but I am using language they don't get, they do not yet own it. We have reworded lots of it already.
Challenges:
- Time in the classroom - we lose a lot of time in 7 and 8 for Kiwican, sports, teacher conferences, attitude talks, assemblies...
- Access to devices - this can be cumbersome when not all students have them. Locating spare ones takes time and energy and at times guess work.
- Is this relevant to actually making what I am trying to ultimately achieve?
- Have I extended myself too far?
Next steps:
- Focus on one class only. Not all.
- Take time out of the curriculum intentionally with this one class. 7 Bk - as they have already lost a lot of content time so maybe they are a class to work with. Because the content is lacking, then I can already safely afford to determine that understanding process is more important? They can make up for their lack of content by understanding the curriculum better and being able to articulate it and therefore progress almost as quickly upwards because of their more implicit understanding.
- Clarify SOLO for Visual Arts at Hornby.
- Create an exemplar of processing work into curriculum strands.
- Create basic definitions of each strand, set it up as a group exercise where students categorise and process an art assignment into the strands. This can be the work we have already done or work from other years.
Because I only have this class once a week, it could be that every lesson for 15 minutes we do this. I teach a refined programme to this class that could help back up the strand focussed on, or not.
Working using Google Draw, I have an idea of how to create a 'make a copy' file way of doing this.
Have I explicitly taught the strands? No. Is this a mistake? Possibly.
I consistently address that fear of people seeing whether or not the students are 'good enough'. I am so caught up with my junior classes teaching in the limited time that we have, that unpacking the strands, can be something that gets put 'away'.
SOLO - we did this once! We had extensive PLD on it and then it fell away with the numerous other commitments we have. I am wondering how I explicitly re-introduce this and link to this as well as make those strands more obvious, student owned. When I took on SOLO in Art, I added in an extra step. When SOLO is related to NCEA 'achieved', 'merit' and 'excellence', multi-structural comes out as 'achieved'. I feel that is inaccurate at level one NCEA. So we added in another step. in order to get 'achieved' we rely on relational as the step that correlates. I will post separately on this to explain this further.
The term one focus for us with the outreach programme has been rewindable learning. The google site, with the teaching blogs has been a way of keeping learning available and rewindable. This has to aide in helping students develop their understanding of the work, but not necessarily the base strands that work applies to.
So the google sheet design collecting students self-assessment actually becomes less of an innovation and more of a data collection as to how well students manage putting their own thoughts about learning out there as data and whether or not they understand our teaching and how it all works. How do students feel about making their own thoughts on their grades visible? Do they understand what is expected of them?
Because the students have not designed the google sheet with me - i.e. they have to understand the criteria for each task, but I am using language they don't get, they do not yet own it. We have reworded lots of it already.
Challenges:
- Time in the classroom - we lose a lot of time in 7 and 8 for Kiwican, sports, teacher conferences, attitude talks, assemblies...
- Access to devices - this can be cumbersome when not all students have them. Locating spare ones takes time and energy and at times guess work.
- Is this relevant to actually making what I am trying to ultimately achieve?
- Have I extended myself too far?
Next steps:
- Focus on one class only. Not all.
- Take time out of the curriculum intentionally with this one class. 7 Bk - as they have already lost a lot of content time so maybe they are a class to work with. Because the content is lacking, then I can already safely afford to determine that understanding process is more important? They can make up for their lack of content by understanding the curriculum better and being able to articulate it and therefore progress almost as quickly upwards because of their more implicit understanding.
- Clarify SOLO for Visual Arts at Hornby.
- Create an exemplar of processing work into curriculum strands.
- Create basic definitions of each strand, set it up as a group exercise where students categorise and process an art assignment into the strands. This can be the work we have already done or work from other years.
Because I only have this class once a week, it could be that every lesson for 15 minutes we do this. I teach a refined programme to this class that could help back up the strand focussed on, or not.
Working using Google Draw, I have an idea of how to create a 'make a copy' file way of doing this.
SAMR - Not a Hierarchy
Above the line and below the line is often how it is referred as, but as soon as you do that, it becomes something that has a finish - when you get to redefinition, you can go no further until someone invents a new app...
This approach negates the fact that there is good teaching and bad teaching, good learning, bad learning with or without technology. Sometimes a substitution task is the most appropriate for the learner in front of you. Sometimes you move from redefining a task back down to substituting a section of it with a google doc, for good reason; the best for the learner's needs at the time.
While what we want is for students to be determining their own learning, that is not always possible, nor what we need at the time. The idea that if we are teaching to the needs, and students are learning what the need to know, we are moving above and below the line all the time.
This approach negates the fact that there is good teaching and bad teaching, good learning, bad learning with or without technology. Sometimes a substitution task is the most appropriate for the learner in front of you. Sometimes you move from redefining a task back down to substituting a section of it with a google doc, for good reason; the best for the learner's needs at the time.
Wednesday, 11 May 2016
Student self assessment - Qualitative Data gathering using google sheets
Spark - MIT have given me the opportunity to explore and figure out a way of developing a way with my students to unpack the curriculum in Visual Arts for themselves. In order to do this successfully, (shoutout Tania Coutts for help with this) I need them to be able to not only self assess, which they do anyway, but to be public and brave about it.
Google sheets is essentially 'live'. 'Protected sheets and ranges' means that I can have multiple editors and lock them down to only what I want them to be able to edit. Qualitative data is significant in understanding how students are managing that top end of the curriculum.
This is where we are at with all of our junior classes. Because it is all of them (13 classes in all) it is a bit of a Himalayan trek to get it all done.
This is a screen shot from one class who are incomplete so far.
Each student can only access their own row. It is colour coded and is my marking schedule anyway for the class, with alterations made to the language, as they tell me some of my criteria were too confusing... They can see what each other are entering right then and there and this can be good or bad. How I manage the culture, as the teacher running the task at the time, is important here. It does take clear explanation first as well.
We are working on refining it with each class and there is differing feedback from each class. So it has to be developed with the class, not for the school.
Google sheets is essentially 'live'. 'Protected sheets and ranges' means that I can have multiple editors and lock them down to only what I want them to be able to edit. Qualitative data is significant in understanding how students are managing that top end of the curriculum.
This is where we are at with all of our junior classes. Because it is all of them (13 classes in all) it is a bit of a Himalayan trek to get it all done.
This is a screen shot from one class who are incomplete so far.
Each student can only access their own row. It is colour coded and is my marking schedule anyway for the class, with alterations made to the language, as they tell me some of my criteria were too confusing... They can see what each other are entering right then and there and this can be good or bad. How I manage the culture, as the teacher running the task at the time, is important here. It does take clear explanation first as well.
We are working on refining it with each class and there is differing feedback from each class. So it has to be developed with the class, not for the school.
Monday, 22 February 2016
Spark MIT 2016 first day of Professional Learning here in Auckland
Today I am at the Spark Headquarters here in central Auckland.
 |
| Hotel room view |
 |
| ...and now without me in the way |
We have had fantastic coffee, wonderful food and are awed by the amazing design of the building internally.
And then we had to go back to our actual reason for being here; what is the PROBLEM. This was a struggle as at times, it is easy to jump ahead to solutions for a problem you have a gut feeling about. But, have you checked yourself? Do you have enough to keep an inquiry going for a whole year? It occurred to me after I finished the process with the fellow Spark MIT recipients, that I had not done what I preach to my senior students to do, well enough; know your concept/theme (in this case problem) so well, that you always have a base of knowledge to go back to when you get stuck or require a new direction. So that is what I am doing.
Assess, Critique, Extend - Learn, Create, Share Visual Arts Junior Curriculum Levels
The problem: We have the potential for a culture of excellence within Visual Arts at Hornby High School based on sheer talent alone and certainly results are consistently very good and more so at UE level than ever before. Retention into those senior levels however, does not necessarily reflect the true level of ability at Hornby High School.
Students don’t necessarily understand what is expected of them or how to get there at levels 4 - 5 of the curriculum, this affects retention into year 11. Year 10 is the first year Art is an option class.
They don’t have achievable goal posts because there aren’t any within year 9 and 10 Visual Arts curriculum from NZQA. It is not their fault. This impacts on senior skills. They are not experiencing success as they could be if they cannot see the goal posts. If they can co-construct and self-regulate the goal posts, surely they become even more achievable. They also become ubiquitous, and allow for learning, students creating and then students sharing of their work in breaking down their understanding and helping to teach others how to break down an understanding of the curriculum at these levels. The flow-on should be better retention into levels 1, 2 and 3 and more consistent results at level 1. Students should be developing resilience in putting their own ideas out as assessable benchmarks.
The Data so far:
- Level 1 NCEA 2015 results, including retention into Level 2 and at Hornby High School. PAT stanines for those now level 2 students, from when they were in Year 10 in 2014.
- PAT stanines for the current year 10 option Art class that I teach from year 9 (soon to be updated with year 10 results).
- Blogs from Level 3 students who have low academic results in asTTLe/PAT as junior students, yet passed UE Photography.
So now I have my starting point more clearly laid out. I still have a lot of work to do, but am less solution minded and more problem focussed, which if I want to ensure the problem is actually addressed, is rather important.
Sunday, 21 February 2016
MIT Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher's Scholarship 2016
This is something I applied for in 2015 as something to address in imbalance that exists in getting talented, priority learner Art students through into NCEA with as much confidence in the written/analytical strands of the curriculum, as well as handling the visual/technique based strands.
I want to create an online exemplar forum of student work that is live and demonstrates the curriculum at the junior levels as low mid and high. we are moving to reporting to our community along these lines, as a lot of schools already do, and even using NCEA terminology of Achieved, Merit and Excellence within each level. Years' 9 and 10 are my target group at the moment.
Writing and literacy is a major focus for our school and this inquiry I have planned addresses that focus in Art as well as working at making digital learning opportunities ubiquitous and moving critique and self-assessment into the modification and redefinition phase of SAMR (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition)
Rough Breakdown Of the Visual Arts Curriculum:
PK - Practical knowledge - at ALL curriculum levels this is technique/technical based learning in Art
DI - Developing ideas - likewise all levels, it is about formulating ideas to make your own art works happen and showing thought in doing so.
UC - Understanding Context - that art works are viewed and/or made
CI - Communicating and interpreting about your own and other's art works
The top two do in fact require a very good level of literacy at all levels to generally excel at them, however, you can to a certain extent do really well without this, as thinking can be so very visual too. But I feel it hinders not having that literacy.
The bottom two strands are most easily assessable (but I wonder if that means not necessarily understandable) with good literacy.
The order I have listed these strands is how they were initially released when the Visual Arts curriculum was released in the year 2000. However, when it was revised in 2008, the order was changed to have UC, PK, DI and CI as the order. While that may seem like not terribly important, it was a way of trying to get teachers to focus on making sure students understood the context of what they were studying. Hence making the emphasis a little more important that the students have higher levels of literacy, in order to truly manage the higher levels of the curriculum (NCEA).
Each year, there are students in our classes who are highly skilled visually, but are sitting much lower than you would want, with literacy. It is at every level. There are students who despite this, have been known at achieve University Entrance level in their chosen field of Art and I could rattle off a few dozen names from memory (not doing that on the public web though!). Equally there are just as many who don't make that level and it often appears, or can be explained by literacy levels.
There has been a clearer distinction for me lately - students who have participated in critique, even with low literacy levels, manage to eventually get to the level required, even though their language skills were less evident. Though this is often at the expense of the teacher's time and other teaching opportunities. More frequently, we have good examples of student learning and end achievement in the senior levels from students who not only participated in the group critiques, but also blogged about their work, in their own language, were more likely to succeed. I am not giving numbers here. My numbers are too low to use as statistics with any real integrity. I had 1 photography student at level 3 in 2015. So that is 100% pass rate. Really, that is not a good way to report statistics. My 3 painters gave me stats of 66% merit endorsement, 33% achieved grades and in total, obviously 100% pass rate. So clearly, I am amazing. Or the numbers are just too low to read as statistics. Those stats also don't show the students I lose leading up to level 3, and those the school itself loses before I could even possibly get them into a level 3 class. Again, lies and statistics.
That throws up the other issue that I am using this to also track and hopefully positively impact retention into NCEA courses here at Hornby High School as well as provide a real resource that other teachers can key into, students can access ubiquitously and use at their own pace to measure, target and improve their own learning. They will also be able to take their own work and share it as a valid, real, teaching and learning resource.
I want to create an online exemplar forum of student work that is live and demonstrates the curriculum at the junior levels as low mid and high. we are moving to reporting to our community along these lines, as a lot of schools already do, and even using NCEA terminology of Achieved, Merit and Excellence within each level. Years' 9 and 10 are my target group at the moment.
Writing and literacy is a major focus for our school and this inquiry I have planned addresses that focus in Art as well as working at making digital learning opportunities ubiquitous and moving critique and self-assessment into the modification and redefinition phase of SAMR (Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, Redefinition)
Rough Breakdown Of the Visual Arts Curriculum:
PK - Practical knowledge - at ALL curriculum levels this is technique/technical based learning in Art
DI - Developing ideas - likewise all levels, it is about formulating ideas to make your own art works happen and showing thought in doing so.
UC - Understanding Context - that art works are viewed and/or made
CI - Communicating and interpreting about your own and other's art works
The top two do in fact require a very good level of literacy at all levels to generally excel at them, however, you can to a certain extent do really well without this, as thinking can be so very visual too. But I feel it hinders not having that literacy.
The bottom two strands are most easily assessable (but I wonder if that means not necessarily understandable) with good literacy.
The order I have listed these strands is how they were initially released when the Visual Arts curriculum was released in the year 2000. However, when it was revised in 2008, the order was changed to have UC, PK, DI and CI as the order. While that may seem like not terribly important, it was a way of trying to get teachers to focus on making sure students understood the context of what they were studying. Hence making the emphasis a little more important that the students have higher levels of literacy, in order to truly manage the higher levels of the curriculum (NCEA).
Each year, there are students in our classes who are highly skilled visually, but are sitting much lower than you would want, with literacy. It is at every level. There are students who despite this, have been known at achieve University Entrance level in their chosen field of Art and I could rattle off a few dozen names from memory (not doing that on the public web though!). Equally there are just as many who don't make that level and it often appears, or can be explained by literacy levels.
There has been a clearer distinction for me lately - students who have participated in critique, even with low literacy levels, manage to eventually get to the level required, even though their language skills were less evident. Though this is often at the expense of the teacher's time and other teaching opportunities. More frequently, we have good examples of student learning and end achievement in the senior levels from students who not only participated in the group critiques, but also blogged about their work, in their own language, were more likely to succeed. I am not giving numbers here. My numbers are too low to use as statistics with any real integrity. I had 1 photography student at level 3 in 2015. So that is 100% pass rate. Really, that is not a good way to report statistics. My 3 painters gave me stats of 66% merit endorsement, 33% achieved grades and in total, obviously 100% pass rate. So clearly, I am amazing. Or the numbers are just too low to read as statistics. Those stats also don't show the students I lose leading up to level 3, and those the school itself loses before I could even possibly get them into a level 3 class. Again, lies and statistics.
That throws up the other issue that I am using this to also track and hopefully positively impact retention into NCEA courses here at Hornby High School as well as provide a real resource that other teachers can key into, students can access ubiquitously and use at their own pace to measure, target and improve their own learning. They will also be able to take their own work and share it as a valid, real, teaching and learning resource.
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