22/5: Reflection - 12 PED Lesson Observation & 2017 Inquiry

Reflection: 12 PED Lesson Observation & 2017 Inquiry

22nd May 2017

Today I met with Melissa to review the lesson that she observed on the 16th of May. She observed me teaching my Level 2 class with the purpose of giving me some sort of starting point for my 2017 Inquiry. The lesson observation can be found here.

So for my inquiry this year I have decided to focus on my Level 2 class and how to create independent learners. One problem, I have been stalling and have been unsure about where to start. I thought that Melissa's observation would be a great start to identify strategies I am already using in class and to make any suggestions of what to try or what I can change within my classroom and my own practice.

Melissa identified that I already have some great strategies in place such as making my students working for the answer and finding it out for themselves, rather than telling them. This was something I had not even considered before!

A couple of days after my observation I had my regular meeting with Alex. We spent this time focussing on my inquiry for the year. She helped me to realize the reason why I was stalling and struggling to start was because I was unsure myself what I was hoping to get out of my students. I knew I wanted them to be more independent but was unsure what an independent student might look like.

So where to from here?

Obviously before I can start applying strategies to my students to help create independent learners I need to figure out what an independent learner might look like, sound like & feel like. I will start with a spiral inquiry researching this. This could be through readings and also talking to other teachers about independent learning and observing their strategies in action.

After reading into what an independent learner is, I will research strategies to see what I may already be using and what other strategies I can try applying. I will aim to find 2-3 new strategies to apply within Term 3. 

22/5 - PD: Stress & Anxiety

PD - Stress & Anxiety

22nd May 2017

For Mentor Period today the girls had been asked to go to the Lecture Theatre for a talk on Stress & Anxiety. Staff had been asked to accompany the girls for help with crowd control. I was unsure of the buy in that this talk would get. I feel that when stress and anxiety is a key focus in Mentor Periods or Health classes some students find it hard to buy into conversations surrounding these topics.

It was our two school counsellors Karen & Paul that were running this session with the girls. Paul started the session by talking about what stress is and the difference between acute and chronic stress. I found this very interesting as no one had ever explained this to me before. Chronic stress is the type of stress that I feel the most. It is the build up of stress over a longer period of time. They then went through some of the impacts that stress may cause or ways that we might recognize that we are stressed.

After looking at what stress is and how it can impact you they went through the four preventative actions for stress. These included:

1. Good organization & planning - included planning your free time to ensure you get some time to relax
2. Analyze how you are using your time - this may show you that you aren't as busy as you think you are and you may find that you have more free time than you thought
3. Look at taking something out of your cluttered life
4. Practice self-care

I like that not only did they touch on the need to practice self-care but they also put a list of different ways this could look like. They also emphasized that self-care could look different for each individual. 

Other key points of the talk was how to deal with stress. They confined these to four ways:

1. Check the Balance in your life - the self-care vs stressors
2. Talk to someone
3. Keep the big picture in life - is it going to be important in a year?
4. Avoid over-thinking and negative self-talk 

To finish off today's session Paul took everyone through a simple guided breathing technique. He told us that if we focus on breathing in a stressful time it can help to trigger the nervous system and help create a calming feeling. The breathing exercise started with noticing the air going through nose and your hand moving up and down on your tummy. This was followed by seeing if you could hear the air going in and out your nose, allowing thoughts to enter your mind, acknowledging them and then return back to your breathing. Then you could start to notice your the emotions you feel and then return back to your breathing (can be done by counting 5 breaths). The idea is that your breath acts as a physiological barrier. When you notice what you are thinking or feeling and then return to your breathing it helps you to acknowledge these thoughts/feelings, while still feeling calm.

To also help encourage students to take control over their own stress levels school will be running a Mindfulness course. It will run over 4 weeks in an after school session. They encouraged students to try practicing mindfulness to them them to live in the present without having life being overrun by your thoughts and learning to control these thoughts rather than feeling trapped in your own mind. 

Personally I found this talk to be a great reminder that sometimes in life we do need to slow down and take some times for ourselves. I managed to take away tips to apply to my own life to try and minimize future stress levels. I also hope they open the Mindfulness course to staff!

Well heres to a less stressful future - hopefully!

A handout from today's session can be found here.

1/5: PD - Term 2 Staff PD

PD - Term 2 Staff PD

1st May 2017

Today's Staff PD was based around the idea of inquiry and appraisal. For a lot of staff the idea of inquiry was new last year and this is the first year that the school has built up an appraisal system, through the use of the Interlead system. The aim for using Interlead is that staff will be able to complete their inquiry and appraisal in the same place, while collecting a portfolio of evidence for PTC criteria. 

The day started with Judith, from Interlead, coming in and introducing the system to the staff as a whole. Before jumping straight into the basics she went through some key points as to why inquiry and appraisal are important. 

Interlead was created to be "a tool for growth"by intrinsically motivating yourself to improve rather than being told. It was based off a book called 'An everyone culture'. Judith also covered Professional Capital and the 3 parts it is split into:

1. Human Capital - the talent of the individual teacher comprising their knowledge, skills & ability
2. Social Capital - the ability of the teacher to learn with and through their professional relationship
3. Decisional Capital - the wisdom and expertise of the teacher to make sound judgements about learners (cultivated over many years)

She used this diagram of Tātaiako to explain certain points of inquiry and appraisal. An example is the accountability circle - self assessing around the King's Pillars in our appraisal questionnaire to create goals. She also said that due to us as teachers having more data is means that we will be able to lead the discussion with our appraiser in terms of how we are tracking and our needs. This could include you setting the scene and telling our appraiser how we want to be appraised. Whether you want an appraiser who is appreciate (which is 96% of NZ teachers), evaluative (gather data and observe for about 5 mins and then give the data back), a coach or a mentor who is good in the area that you want to improve on.

She also compared teaching as inquiry to coming 'upstream'. Important questions could include:

• What are you doing & changing? 
• Why are you getting the results that you are?

Judith explained how judgements are dangerous and gave some examples of how we may want to improve our own practice. These included:

• observing others to learn
• getting others to observe you in areas that you want to learn
• how can be open up to receive open & honest feedback
• final evaluation at the end/completion 

So what is the difference between an inquiry & a goal? An inquiry can also be known as "action research" as we research the unknown. Goals are the completion or the 'destination' and could be dependent on a school target for you and your department. Judith recommended setting goals & inquiries in the 'Health Anxiety' zone as we can then push ourselves outside of our own comfort zones.

When writing a new inquiry/goal make sure to write a question and end with a goal. This helps you to envisage the destination or end point. Then ask yourself 'what steps do I need to take'? Possible steps could include:

1. Collect student voice as much as possible and then taking their voice back to them to see how they want you to improve
2. Relevant research/professional readings
3. Visit other teachers
4. Invite someone to observe my practice
5. Get feedback 
6. Engage in professional conversations with a coach/mentor

Remember: "It's not about the person giving you the feedback, it's about how you react to the feedback"

She recommended the book 'Thinking fast and slow' by Daniel Kahneman. Judith explained how it gets inside the teacher's head where we have a fast brain and a slow brain. A fast brain is based on intuition & instinct (school's are a fast brain place). The slow brain is based on evaluating, analyzing, planning, reflecting & inquiring.

For the next part of the day we moved into department time. This time was allocated for us to focus on appraisal & inquiry. Our departments aim was to brainstorm possible inquiry ideas and then look at how we might go about some of them or why. Here is my brainstorm of possible inquiry topics:

• 21st century competences
• Visible learning
• Culturally Responsive Pedagogy
• Higher order thinking
• Literacy/language of learning
• Self regulated learners/creating independent learners

Unfortunately we didn't get to spend too much time on this as a department so hopefully this will be too be continued.