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.