New PTC's in NZ Teaching; how I see the relationship to TAI and Appraisal

Simplified version of our RTC's now called PTC's. The language seems more modern and there is a clear, concise e-learning version of how they could be applied here too. The first thing I thought was 'great, my labels all need to be remade on my blog... thanks EDUCANZ', more work on top of TAI for appraisal, actually teaching my students, the leadership and pastoral roles I already hold and the new staff member we will have in the Art department next week (yay :-) ). But in reading them, the language is better, the concepts are modernised and there is the e-learning study that CORE ED have done here too. 

What I like:

• The overarching statements cover everything nicely and the criteria and indicators are nice clear guides:

Overarching statements

1. Teachers play a critical role in enabling the educational achievement of all ākonga/ learners 1.
2. The Treaty of Waitangi extends equal status and rights to Māori and Pākehā. This places a particular responsibility on all teachers in Aotearoa New Zealand to promote equitable learning outcomes.
3. In an increasingly multi-cultural Aotearoa New Zealand, teachers need to be aware of and respect the languages, heritages and cultures of all ākonga.
4. In Aotearoa New Zealand, the Code of Ethics / Ngā Tikanga Matatika commits certificated teachers to the highest standards of professional service in promoting the learning of those they teach.

• You can approach it from a place  like this blog, where you detail the why, how and what of what you are doing and detail that with evidence, labelling statements and/or criteria and/or indicators appropriately

What I don't like about it:

• Even though it says these are interdependent and overlapping, you could still turn it into a checklist for teachers to tick off. Defeating the purpose of them being interdependent and overlapping. 
• I don't see how a teacher can construct one single TAI that is used for appraisal purposes as well as meeting these all at once and I think it is worth debating whether we should be trying to do this.

What I find interesting:

• I'm just not convinced you need to apply one massive big TAI to the whole year to meet these, nor the old ones for that matter, and I recently had a discussion with a colleague about whether TAI should be used to demonstrate these over the course of a year long focus inquiry, or whether it should be a process that happens naturally and repeatedly because of your continual reflection on your own practise. I cannot remember who the colleague was or how the conversation came about, but my brain kept reverting back to 'but this is the direction the ministry and our school is wanting us to develop - TAI integrating with PTC's to test appraisal'. That is such a weak argument. It should not be why we do anything, because the ministry says so... (don't sack me).

So could I say no I'm not doing A TAI, to prove I meet these overarching statements, any of the criteria or key indicators, because I could probably prove every single one if I continue on like I am; posting up evidence of mini TAI's happening naturally, within the course of my teaching and leadership roles, and clearly identifying how they answer these a bit at a time. Could anyone at my school say 'you are doing that wrong, you are not competent'? Could I even be accused of failing to meet the first criterion? I wonder if your whole appraisal is based on a major TAI as we are being directed towards, we cannot manage this lofty goal?

The last time I applied for my registration, I sent the URL's for my teaching site and for this blog. All I was asked for that was extra, was a birth certificate from this millenium (why do you need to keep providing a birth certificate every three years?). Cool, much less work than jumping fences with unknown heights through the TAI system of appraisal I was initially involved in creating at my school (and I enjoyed the academic work of doing it too) .

In any case, my own TAI that I started 2017 is no longer relevant. However, several off-shoots of the TAI I started with SPARK - MIT have developed since then, that easily meet the PTC's.  The whole 'thing' has become so much bigger, but also so many more that are smaller, easier to document, more relevant to the on-ground job at hand and less 'constructed' to fit other peoples boxes, that I think we ought to be rethinking how we 'test' appraisal. One major TAI that has to be forced along and ignores the fact that TAI exists all over the place in all sorts of ways in your practice doesn't do it. But, it becomes a monstrosity or it becomes lip service. In my opinion. Having being trying to push myself through this exact concept for 2 years now. 

So for however long I can get away with it, I will not be doing a major TAI. That is my TAI. Can I document my natural processes as a teacher, leader and learner through the lens of TAI, as it happens, remain competent and still be steadily working towards our school vision of Learn, Create, Share; Actively involved learners? I would happily challenge any other professional or academic to prove that I do my students, colleagues and community a disservice by doing so.  I am also happy to be appraised separately. Any one can come in and see my teaching, go through our planning, collaboration, offer advice, make up check lists that address an appraisal of sorts. I just don't want us to be calling it a day after one major TAI for the year being constructed and isolated to do that for us. 

Blogging; why, what, how (Sinek)

The above is the Hornby High staff feedback on why Blogger helps our students learn, followed by the presentation on how are students are blogging, and developing our next steps into 'what' we will be doing to not only teach them this way, but in fact just keep up with them.

2017 Inquiry Update

Professional accountability in amongst self-perpetuated chaos. That might be a slight exaggeration. But, the decision to split up teachers whilst we had mixed the levels and disciplines of our classes is from an outsiders perspective, just confusing. And it leaves us teachers open to lose track of students and not spread attention equally and effectively.

The inquiry question is: Can teacher collaboration improve student achievement in senior art? 

The use of google sheets to track the students and keep ourselves in check. However, it is not us two yet collaborating. it effectively tracks our thoughts as we check through with each student and hopefully provides clear feedback for students. But, we are not yet collaborating in the true sense of the word.

I like how we are using it, as it has changed since we started with it.

There are some barriers to doing that effectively:

- Cindy is part time, though at 16 hours, her life should not revolve around being at school when I feel like talking about this!
- Four of her hours a week are on the other side of the school, jokingly referred to as Siberia (rebuild logistics), timeliness to classes following a Siberian lesson is costing us.
- Home time for both of us is precious and necessary due to our own circumstances (We don't live at school, nor will we be planning to take this up to solve the issue).
- After school time is stretched across a lot of demands - staff meetings, task forces, learning team meetings...
- I annoyingly use the Art room office as a Dean's office because there isn't space for me elsewhere while the rebuild is on.
- I get caught up with the pastoral side of my job more than I should if I'm balancing things fairly.
- We never will have a timetabled non-contact together... when I'm teaching Cindy is not and vice versa.

There are some solutions to these barriers also (and I am open to others too):

- Working online more effectively. We have done this before, timetabled ourselves to be online at the same time so we can discuss how something is working through 'chat'. but there will be other ways to maximise the actual collaboration that may not require online at the same time.
- Using lunch hours to discuss students progress more frequently... oh fun.
- Being careful to divide my time between my roles and sticking to those time separations. Setting it up in a more timetabled manner.

Breakdown of Scholarship Begins...

Scholarship resources for Hornby High School starting here.

Late last year, I overheard a conversation between two teachers about how we 'need' a separate class for scholarship potential students at year 13. According to the vocal one of the two, this class would be about 5 students. The school's Senior Leadership Team needed to prioritise it if they really care about students succeeding here and yes that would mean academic casualties, like the loss of some subjects or pass rates to achieve it. It was seen by one of the two as the only feasible way to break the spell and get those elusive scholarship grades. The other stayed very quiet.

This idea that you have to be in the right class is no different to having to be in the right school, live in the right area, come from the right two-parent family with the right moderate to good income, driving the right car... Nothing of it sits well with me. I rage inside at the thought of it. I want Cinderella to go to the ball, Dorothy to find home and Snow white and Sleeping Beauty to get themselves up out of bed.

We already had our one student sitting her scholarship and we knew she was well on track for the excellence required to be able to be considered for it. Not once did I consider that anyone else had, or should have to miss out on their place in the class because of her. Or, in order for her to get there that they should go. But that was definitely my moment of 'we are going to make this real here'.

So we are paving that yellow brick road, making it real and breaking the spell. The significant things I have found are that the way it is assessed is not terribly similar to the boards or the other standards.

There are three categories that they assess by and the students can achieve three different grades of not achieved. Each category is marked out of 8. 24 marks in total are attainable. It's complexity can be very daunting when resilience is a key component requiring significant scaffolding. The link above is the document for assessment. It is posted on our google site and students are able to find it and comment on it if they wish. I would be encouraging students to use this to seek clarification if they need it.

The resources online are limited in comparison to other standards. Not many schools like sharing! Though one has been very generous in his Teaching Inquiry on scholarship and his resourcing. Tim Thatcher at it has certainly made it all very much clearer in how this could be handled within an average class. I see from his inquiry, that total integration within a classroom is preferable to having separate classes or sessions outside of class devoted to scholarship. That the uptake for those dwindled as the year carried on.

What I have achieved so far:
- We have one certainty for scholarship in both Design and Paint (willingness that is, though exceptional talent too) for 2017
- There are students in our current 2018 year 13 cohort who need to be considering this exam also, but there are also a lot of pressures on high school students. How far do we go in preparing students for this? Or is that no better than the 'right' class, right school scenario?
- Breaking down scholarship to be less complex and visible to the students on the main google site for Art at HHS.

Still working on:
- Having some kind of calendar for the 8 pages (which I would want to say were 12 so that students could edit them down to the best 8)
- Accessing a range of schools resources, including sharing what I have done without feeling like a poor cousin. Walk the talk. Sigh.
- Using Art History standards to better allow for that research component. It is really successful in level one so far this year... I have an unpublished blog post about that come to think of it...
- Using Classroom, Hapara, blogging or something to work the critiques through with the individuals as they go along for the scholarship pages. Will discuss with colleagues.
- Making a 24 hour day into a 30 hour one.

New Google sites

First look, loved them. Second and third look did NOT love them. Up to my fourth look and genuine attempt at dealing with them and I am back to loving them.

Things to remember about Google sites in the new format:

- You have to expect things to work differently and for you to be adaptable to those differences.

• I spent quite a bit of time making myself recreate our Art site in the new version, and in the process sending google endless feedback about what annoyed me so far. Then as I went, I realised my own mindset was just a bit stuck. I used to use tables and then alter the html code to pretty it up, in adding buttons to my site. That is not what I even need to do now, I just didn't see that I didn't need to mess with the code to create a clean look that I wanted. In essence that was all I was after. I still hate that I cannot lock down pages to be private, which was a tool I found extremely useful with the classic sites, but I am becoming more used to just hiding that same content within my drive and keeping it locked down there to who I want to see it. So while the buttons or links might be visible, the content just needs to be within the locked down file. 

- You don't need to have an IT degree to manage aspects of it like old sites. It is actually just click and drag.

- You should definitely have a plan of how your page 'tree' works. I was able to develop this more organically with classic sites, though every now and then i did disconnect the wrong pages and reconnect others I was meant to leave.

- You can only go one page deep into sub-pages.

- I cannot embed padlets into it. Maybe because they aren't a google owned tool?

- It will continue to improve. Google continues to develop these things, so it will do more eventually. May as well catch the train when it's not moving so fast, then have to catch up to it at full speed.

Click on the pic for the site so far... Aiming to be ready to go at the end of term two.

Signing up to this forum is a way of understanding the differences, imitations and keeping up to date with changes google makes to their new product.

Developing Scholarship as our new normal.

I keep threatening this idea that all of our senior students will complete scholarship pages as normal practice. The reality of making sense of this exam in Visual Arts is in fact, exhausting. At least I found it so.

For the second time in the time I have been at Hornby High School, we had a student submit a scholarship work book for painting. The work was beautiful, but the pages were regenerated based on work she had done to fit the exam. So she entered it blind.

The focus was on her completing the folio with an excellence (you cannot be considered for scholarship unless you first attain excellence in the field you are submitting for). And she did that. But missed out on the scholarship. The most beautiful Excellence board I have seen though maybe I am biased, as she was also one of the most beautiful people to know as well. 

Why are we doing this?

Three good reasons why;

1) If it is normal, it is achievable. High expectations allow for higher achievement, you get what you expect and that is in line with Carol C. Dweck's mindset theories too

2) Again being fed up with the idea that we can't because of the stigma of being in the wrong area of a not that big city anyway... my blood boils over that one. 

3) The tools we have with GaFE and digital learning, the support of Manaiakalani in developing resources, lends us to be able to support learners to achieve this exam with more surety. So why on earth wouldn't we? If we were encouraged to have low expectations of our learners and ourselves, I suppose we may not... that is to to be our pathway though. 

So the development of such a plan for our learners here begins. 

Steps in the process:

- Reaching out to other schools who already offer a scholarship programme without offering a scholarship class (I feel that defeats the whole purpose of what a scholarship is, though I do understand that many schools see this as a highly competitive thing that adds a special kudos to their wider community)

- Breaking down Scholarship into meaningful chunks of understanding and clearly relating them to how our students learn throughout the year, so they can be completed in real time alongside real work.

- Making sure all resources and supports are ubiquitous and accessible online

- Using SAMR appropriately to support online development. 

Now onto do the work. 

I'm starting with moving our site into the new google sites platform, within that, it may well just be easier to develop scholarship resources, as we are starting afresh somewhat. As e-learning is a role I already have, making the switch to the new platform is in my best interests.

2017 Inquiry

Our Inquiry for Visual Arts this year is a joint one, focussing on how best to spread the load of specialty skills across as many senior students as possible.

Can Teacher Collaboration Improve Student Achievement in Senior Art Classes?

Our progress so far has been to set up the google sheets to track at least the first 6 weeks of each class in the senior school for Art. I would expect these to develop and grow based on how we use them.

There is the intention that these are used to make sure no student is left behind in being given feedback and kept up to speed.

We have also organised to split up the line 3 and 4 classes and share the teaching across those lines. We do have differing styles and expectations so it may take a little time to adjust to this. however, if students are truly working to their own goals and are there for the right reasons, this should come together.

At this point in time we have one over subscribed class of 37, one of 33, one of 13 and one of 22. Because we chose to mix our levels, there was a lack of communication between the three levels in general about numbers, so this is an issue that needs clarifying.

By the end of 2017, I want to be able to say we gave every senior student the best possible chance with teacher expertise available to direct their own learning. I want every student to be able to direct their own learning, rather than lean on the teacher or dismiss their own chances because the right teacher is not there.