20/6: Reflection - Life as a BT Presentation

Reflection: Life as a BT Presentation

20th June 2017

Last night Georgia and I had the awesome opportunity to go and present at Takapuna Grammar. The presentation was to a group of HPE students who are just finishing their study at AUT. The presentation was based around life as a BT. The opportunity arose as Hayden Viles (teacher at Takapuna Grammar & tutor to the AUT students) contacted the pair of us via Twitter. He thought it would be a great opportunity to have his students' questions answered by current BTs. 

In the lead up to the presentation we were sent 10 different questions which had been collated by Hayden, covering key points from his students. We started by writing our ideas down on a Google Doc before transforming them into key points in a Google Slide presentation. 

In some ways the whole presentation was a bit of a surreal experience. Students were taking notes throughout the session and asking extra questions. Some were even asking for advice! By being able to share my teaching journey so far, along with my learning curves and experiences, I hope others can take away tips and learn from some of my own mistakes.

Overall the feedback on the presentation was postive - even receiving a tweet from one of the students who was at the presentation last night thanking us for the presentation.

So what was the relevance to my own professional learning by taking this opportunity? 

By answering the questions given to us it actually forced me to stop and reflect holistically on my first year and a half of teaching. Not all of these were questions that I had previously thought of myself. 

A second part was being able to give back. By sharing my experiences I hope that it may help others in the PE community. I would have loved to have received an opportunity like this before starting teaching. To be able to question a BT and ask them about their experience, it would have helped me feel more prepared. Knowing how much I would have valued the opportunity as a student myself, why would I pass the opportunity to do this for someone else? I realize that everyone's experiences will be different but at least you can enter your first year of teaching with some advice and answers, rather than unknowns. 

6/6 - PD: Student Agency

Staff PD: Student Agency

6th June 2017

For our Staff PD session today we had two students and a teacher from Kaipara College talk to us about their recent journey to include student agency within their school. They started a student agency group for Maori students with the key idea of being culturally responsive. They started with a student agency day to discuss what this would look like. What is it? What do they want to achieve? When they will meet? Key themes of what student agency in action would look like are:

• building relationships
• group work
• controlled but fair environment
• humor
• positivity
• fair work pace - not too fast
• having activities that allow students to move

Students organized a Whanau evening. They sent letters to family so they could come in and learn about NCEA. What is it? What are credits? How do you pass level 1, 2 & 3? The evening was fully ran by students. They also included a session based off Kamar results. 

They then held a PD Day for staff. There were multiple sessions which included:

• deficit theorizing
• this was confronting & uncomfortable for some teachers as they gave examples such as  a teacher growling a student for not having a pen even though they had pens on there desk, a student was missing for 2 weeks - didn't ask where they were and they had been attending a funeral
• Amazing Race for staff where they were graded A, M & E
• Whanau evening #2 - rang parents rather than letters, greater success
• Awards evening/success assembly - PRIDE awards, Ruben Wiki also attended, students MCed the night

They continued their journey this year and just last week completed their first Whanau evening for 2017. They rang parents again as well as sending emails.  They found the phone calls were more effective & drew in more parents. This night included 5 Pods, ran by students, and made sure to include upcoming events at school.

So how has implementing a student agency program implemented staff & students? Some examples of how they have been going are below:

• students interviewed teachers from different facilities to provide a range of different voices. They were asked what effects and impacts have worked for them:
• increased relationships including greater respect & partnerships
• helped gain extra knowledge & Maori students were more engaged
• cultural language = more involvement
• impacts on students included:
• Maori are more engaged and participating in class
• students personal excellence was being acknowledged even if that was even just an Achieved or Merit
• Interview with the Principal
• Why did you let the group happen? - stepping back from leadership to allow students to have more of a voice, in turn parents became more involved after seeing the development
• Effects of staff - teachers were more open to change. They sometimes knew that change was needed but they were unsure of how this would happen

So a key question is where do you even start on a journey like this?

Kaipara College started by addressing the needs of the students. It is vital to make sure students have the biggest voice, because after all it is all about them. They then ensured they focussed on pedagogical development. This was mainly through co constructing holistic strategies with both students and staff. This included what does it look like and how is it visible? They did acknowledge that having a new principal and faculty leaders may have helped to have created more momentum for change.

This PD session left me feeling inspired. It reminded me that although I may not be able to change everything in the school, I can at least ensure ALL of my students feel included and valued within my classroom. 

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.

20/4: Reflection - The Power of Twitter

Reflection: The Power of Twitter

20th April 2017

Today was a really showed the power of Twitter and how great it can be for networking and professional development.

After waking up this morning I was lying in bed scrolling through Twitter. I came across a post about #ohedchat and that they were having a chat based around partnership. Since I have been putting extra effort into building three-way partnerships I thought what a great chat to try and involve myself in. After figuring out that 9pm EST was 1pm NZST I set a reminder and got on with my day.

My reminder went off (thankfully otherwise it would have slipped my mind!) and I got comfy to start participating in #ohedchat. The chat started and it was cool to see people over in the States introducing themselves. It was obvious that a lot of them must be regulars in the chat but I felt welcomed in as a newbie. I spent the next hour networking, connecting and discussing with others in the same profession just on the other side of the world. 

Key points covered in the chat included:

• why partnerships are important
• why & how students and teachers can and should learn together
• how students can lead their own learning that involves the community
• what factors can harm partnerships and how can they be avoided

What what did I leave the chat with? Not only did I pick up on interesting opinions and ideas surrounding partnerships, I also recognized the importance of community in these partnerships. Although I have increased my partnerships and relationships with students, parents and housemasters I have not really included the wider community. This inclusiveness of the wider community was a strong theme throughout the chat as well as the idea of schools supporting and giving back. I also was able to share small parts of NZ through the chat such as introducing the term of ākonga to others on the other side of the world. 

Overall it was great to be able to participate in a new chat with others that I wouldn't normally get to chat to because of different time zones. I was able to takeaway some tips and widen my connections.

Now that my friends is a snippet of the power of Twitter!

My Storify of the chat can be seen here. 

4/3: PD - University Entrance

PD: University Entrance

4th April 2017

Today's Staff Professional Development session was around University Entrance. The main aim of covering this in our PD session was to make teachers aware of the University Entracne requirements for both pathways and some of the complications or 'fish hooks' that can let students down. As a Teacher Mentor I also thought that it was important to up-skill myself to be able to help my Student Mentees, especially as last year I didn't have any Year 13 Mentees so I didn't really need to worry about it.

So here are some of the key points that I took form today's presentation:

Cambridge

Firstly I found the talk on Cambridge interesting. I still feel like I don't know too much about this pathway. Having only taught NCEA and having taken that pathway myself I feel quite familiar with the University qualifications so most of the information surrounding Cambridge was new to me today. Key points included: 

• UE generally available at the end of year 12
• Minimum of 120 points over 3 subjects with no D grades
• Numeracy = D or higher in IG Maths or Maths passed at AS
• Gained in Level 1 – if gained under IG and then swap to NCEA they loose this
• Literacy = E grade or better in AS English (D or higher for AU)
• Gained in Level 2 – if gained in AS and then swap to NCEA
• Tables for AU entry with CIE - one subject from each side of the table (tables are different for both NCEA & CIE)

NCEA
As mentioned above having gone through the NCEA pathway as a student myself and having to look into Universtiy Entracne this was much more familiar to me. However, there were still 'fish hooks' to look out for. Key points included:

• Numeracy = 10 credits at level 1 or higher
• Literacy = 10 credits (5=reading, 5=writing) through specific Level 2 standards
• AU = 17 English credits at L2/L3
• What standards in your subject can be counted?
• Subject requirements = 42 credits in L3 subjects & 14 in 3 approved
• Minimum of 60 L3 credits (+20 from L2 = 80 credits total)
• Rank score calculated – E = 4, M = 3 & A = 2
• Max of 24 credits per subject from a max of 5 different subjects

Upon the completion of this PD session I feel more comfortable in regards to helping to track my mentees. I feel as though I will be able to question some of their subject choices more in future one-on-one meetings. However I do still realize that I am not an expert in this area and will ensure that my Mentees know that to. I will still encourage them to seek support from our Careers Advisors.

A hand out from today's session can be found here.