15/11: Reflection - Alfriston College Visit on Integrated Learning

Reflection: Alfriston College Visit on Integrated Learning

15th Novemeber 2016

After participating in Twitter chats based around the topic of integrated learning I was interested to find out more. I had heard Alfriston College were doing some pretty cool things and managed to get in touch with a couple of PE teachers from Alfriston College through Twitter. From there we organized the opportunity for me to go out and see it in action. Here are some of the things that I managed to note on my visit:

How did you start?

• Starting website
• Key themes and questions for each term e.g. a catalyst and then driving questions 
• 5 people one form each curriculum area to create the plan
• Website to create consistency across all whanuas
• iLearns – project based learning in which they can dig further into their own learning and present back to the class
• Wonder walls – students are able to
• Non-googable questions

What have been some of the barriers?

• Not everyone is on board
• Collaboration can be hard but needed e.g. even small things like teachers pet peeves aka being late need to be shared for a successful learning environment

What did I see to help encourage Integrated & Authentic Learning?

• Modern learning environments – mixed furniture including traditional desks and chairs, stools and high desks, low benches
• Classroom with doors/walls that can be pulled down for a large classroom – 60 students with about 3 teachers (generally from different curriculum areas)
• Students work in classes based on year groups within Whanau groups

What’s happening in classes?

• Year 10s
• Do now focusing on filling the gaps for their Astile testing
• Year 10s within whanau group are split into different groups in which they are responsible for planning a trip/camp for their year group
• Groups include activities, EOTC Rams forms etc.
• Students are responsible for their whole trip – no teacher involvement in planning

• Year 9s
• Split into subject rooms by topic
• Topics include science, maths or English
• Not really integrated learning at the moment
• Year 9 maths class working on algebra – students were stuck on their equation
• Aimee sat down to help kids, admitted that she was struggling and sought help form the teacher and other students
•  Helped students through working out different equations, got students to focus on the learning process
• Before leaving asked students questions about what they noticed e.g. what were they like at the start – always checking with her to see if they were correct after each stage etc., what effects did it have on Hauora, collaborative learning

Behaviour Management:

• One teacher stood in the middle of a large class with his fist in the air and the whole class went silent
• In another large class although they were all doing the same task one teacher stopped half of the class to go through the answers. He counted down to wait for silence started to work but didn’t wait for complete silence and was writing answers on the board so students started getting rowdy again. Also what is the point in stopping half of the class? Why not work with the whole class or get students to share answers with each other?

So although it was very interesting for myself and most of the teachers that I got to speak to loved the integrated learning I was curious to see what the students thought. I managed to talk to some of the students to see what their opinion was. Of course there were differing opinions and they seemed to fall into either liking or disliking the integrated learning approach. Some students believed that they would be more on task and more productive if they were in a smaller class with one teacher focusing on just one subject at a time. Others enjoyed the modern learning environments and having a variety of teachers in the same class.

Overall the visit to Alfriston was great. I learnt a lot and it was great to see the idea of Integrated Learning in action. Now to try and put some of these ideas into action!

4/11: Reflection - PRT Meeting Focussing on Stress & Time Management

Reflection: PRT Meeting Focussing on Stress & Time Management

4th November 2016

On Monday we had a PRT (Provisional Registered Teachers) meeting, with this weeks focus on Stress & Time Management. Julie lead the discussion, asking questions in which we were all able to share our answers and ideas. Below are some of the notes and key points we spoke about:

When have you found yourself stressed throughout the year? What makes you stressed?

·      Reports

·      Co-curricular

·      Marking

What are strategies that you can use to help with this stress?

·      Reports

o   Aiming to complete so many per day

o   Make comments throughout the term before comments are due(a couple of sentences) e.g. about classwork or behaviour

o   Mentor reports – students creating parts of their own comment and then being able to quote students or filling in an 8 question list (Keith Rowley)

·      Co-curricular

o   Putting a cap on how many activities you commit to

·      Marking

o   Certain time limit per paper

o   Giving yourself a break, especially if needed rather than pushing through

·      Mental Awareness

o   Knowing it’s going to end

o   Having something to look forward too

·      Planning

o   Don’t spend more than 50% of time of the lesson on planning for it

o   “Planning for tomorrow today”

·      Remember to try and not be a perfectionist

·      Trying not to take work home

What helps to relieve stress?

·      Collegiality - having support from staff members

·      Being organized – knowing what you are doing tomorrow or an overview of the week

·      Planning

·      Meeting deadlines

·      Understanding the vocational job of a teacher

·      Interests outside of work - although in some cases it can create more stress

·      Not over committing to co-curricular

To help with wellbeing:

·      Exercise

·      Eating and Hydration

·      Mixing up your routine - changing where you sit and do work or what you eat etc.

·      Sleep

·      Making sure you still have down time - whether it is by yourself or with family and friends

I believe this is an important topic to cover  as we all need to find our own effective ways of managing our time and relieving stress, as what may work for one person may not work for another. It was helpful to actually take the time to sit down and reflect and talk about your own strategies. Through sharing I hope that others may have taken away some new strategies to try just like I have. Although, I feel like there were both pros and cons about having this conversation so late in the year. 

Pros: 

• I was able to reflect back on my year with a clear head now that most of my stress has been relieved
• I gained some new ideas to help me with my time management and to help relieve stress later on

Cons:

• As it is near the end of the year, most of the Senior classes have gone and with them a lot of stress. I feel like this may have been more useful earlier on in the year where I may have been able to try other strategies that we discussed

18/10: Reflection - Use of Twitter Chats for PL

Reflection: Use of Twitter Chats for PL

18th October 2016

It was at PENZ that I first saw Twitter in action from my HOD, Alex Smith. This inspired me to use Twitter more, following other educators and retweeting more posts. I then encouraged a fellow BT with whom I went to uni with to sign up for Twitter as well.

We had been discussing the use of Twitter for creating connections, gaining ideas and the possibility of using it for Professional Learning. It was then that she had told me about the different Twitter Chats that she had found and started in participate in, pictured below.

After talking we decided to both particpate in our first #edchatnz together (back in early September). In the past I had watched and read chats while they were happening but almost felt reluctant to join in. I think this came from the small fear that what if my ideas and answers conflicted with others? I bit the bullet and joined this first chat although I still felt hesitant to answer all questions.

My participation and highlights from my first #edchatNZ can be found at: https://storify.com/_malbish/8-09-2016-edchatnz-being-time-poor

After creating new connections such as other BTs, finding new educators to follow and gaining some new ideas I realized how beneficial these chats could be. I realize that there is no need to fear what others think of your ideas as just like everything in life, some my love your ideas and others may not agree. With this new found confidence I have tried to participate more in Twitter Chats. My participation and highlights of these Twitter Chats can be found on my Storify page: https://storify.com/_malbish

23/8: Reflection - Class Reset

Reflection: Class Reset

23rd August 2016

Last week Gina asked to see me regarding an incident involving a Taylor student. While having a chat we started to speak about classroom and behaviour management. I mentioned to her a chat that I had recently had with Alex. This was regarding the fact that a lot of my relationships I had built with students were based off a relationship base of liking each other. These relationships are starting to backfire and some students are trying to push their luck because not all cases had a form of respect. I made a comment to Gina that this was what I was worried about at the start of the year and wish I could redo it. She mentioned that in the past she has done what she calls a reset. When she is not happy with the way a class is going she tells them they are going to reset and lays down the rules.

After this chat I decided that is exactly the type of strategy I need to try with my boys health class, so before their next health class I decided to write down my key points and rules that I wanted to bring up with them. These included:
-I have not been happy with our health classes recently, mainly behaviour and work ethic
-even though I have trialled different activities to see if I would get a positive response they are still being disruptive and rude - I know they wouldn't behave like this in other classes
-moving forward; if this continues I will write a seating plan for each class and will assign groups instead of being able to work with friends, hands up - no calling out whether its a proper answer or not, verbal warning and then name written on the board - if name is still written on the board at the end of the lesson they will receive DT

After waiting for the class to arrive and settle I went through my points with the class. I was pretty impressed with the reaction I received as they were all dead silent and looked a bit stunned. Overall the reset worked really well and I wish that I would have thought to have done something like this earlier. They completed all tasks set and behaved much better. Although there are still some points to work on I believe that if I remain consistent with this new reset I will have much more productive lessons in the future.

16/8: Reflection Regarding Parent Contact

Reflection Regarding Parent Contact

16th August 2016

Last week I sent home emails to parents regarding their son or daughter failing an assessment due to not submitting their assessment or submitting it uncompleted. They were general emails based off school templates. After sending these emails I had contact with parents by phone and email regarding the matter. This contact made me realize a few points; I don't have enough contact with parents, I should have sent at at risk of failing email and sometimes calls are better than emails.

I don't have enough contact with parents
After having sent out these emails and hearing back from a few parents it hit me that this was the first time I had been in contact with some of these parents and it was negative. Although I have recently started to send home 'warm & fuzzy' praise emails on a Friday and had met some parents at parent-teacher interviews I haven't met or had contact with many.
I recall that at the start of the year a teacher mentioned that she sent home an email to all of her students parents introducing herself. This could be a few weeks into the year with a few strengths and weaknesses or goals that their son or daughter may have for the year ahead. This would also make it easier in future to send little report emails (positive or negative) along the way. It may also mean that when it comes to parent-teacher interviews parents have some idea about what their child is doing within your class.

I should have sent 'at risk of failing' emails
Although this may not have been applicable to all of the students, it would have helped for some. This pre warning home may have helped parents to have a chat to their child regarding the assessment and may have been able to provide some information earlier if they were struggling etc. It may have also helped with the shock that some parents seemed to get. Hindsight is a beauty.

Sometimes calls are better than emails
After some of the responses, both over phone and email, I had a chat to Dan Mitchell about it. He told me how he is trying to phone a lot more parents rather than sending emails, or phoning and warning about an email that is coming before it comes. Things he pointed out:
-a phone call and the effort behind it can be more respected than an email
-you are able to talk about the issue at that time
-you start to build a relationship with the parents
-you can still send the email as a formality after

He also gave me some pointers for talking to parents and a reading that he found useful as his first year of being Housemaster (linked below). Pointers included:
-understand that the parent is the biggest supporter of their child
-be empathetic and let the parent know you understand how you feel
-if you are unsure about something shut the conversation down (e.g. you need to talk to ____) or return to your main point
-repeat the parents main points back to them to show you have some understanding
-know your main point or where you stand before making the call
-don't make any promises


Link to reading: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8SyJqn0M1mhRVBnSEw5QTd4aTg

15/8: PD - Technology within PE with Julie

PD: Technology within PE with Julie
Howick College Visit

15th August 2016

Today I spent the morning at Howick College with Julie Breen. The main aim for this morning's PD was to gain help on how to use technology within the class. Not only did I enjoy my time there but found that I have come away with some points to think about and some ideas to trial. Below are some notes I took while at Howick:

Key points:

• Technology needs to be used with a purpose – don’t just use it because it’s there
• Reflection - Noticing the difference or impact between new school and old school - is new school more effective?

Ideas:

• Set up a padlet or blendspace for different NCEA standards – all content in one place 
• Copy of the class padlet (padlet settings – grid/freedom)
• Students can add to padlet by introducing new posts/ videos that aren’t displayed until moderated by teacher
• Base copy that each class starts with at the beginning of each year 
• Padlet of class contract at the beginning of the year – photo of the class as the background
•  Drugfreeworld.org posters
• Use of backchat (interactive questions that presenter can see etc) when doing PowerPoint – Google Slides
• Use of padlets for students to ask questions they would like to find out within a unit
• Use of padlets for students to look at multiple articles (scoop it) and write a reflection
• This can be used in classroom debates
• Multiple summaries and reflections of articles in which students could use when writing their assessments
• Looking at articles taking into consideration others points of view

What I’ve seen:

• Year 9 class focusing on dance/movement – reflection on Schoology in regards to lesson & unit objectives through set questions
• Unit criteria on the board for students to clearly see
• A question including lesson aim under criteria on the board
• Students finished finalizing dance and then had to teach another group
• Groups then had to assess how well each group did in a dance and teaching in regards to criteria that was introduced before dance was created
• After teaching each other students needed to grade other groups in relation to the criteria – this could be seen and also helps to link to unit objectives
• Year 12 using class padlet to find information on short and long term effects of exercise
• In expert groups looking at the 4 categories of energy systems, respiratory, muscular, cardiovascular
• Jigsaw – become an expert on your topic and teach others
• Aiming for this class to become more responsible for their own learning
• 2 year 10 classes learning the same thing but taught completely different
• 1 class lecture type style – teacher talking, pictures on the board, asking students to answer questions
• 1 class using PowerPoint with videos and GIFs
• Year 12 class Kahoot to recap knowledge and introduce new learning for this lesson
• Sometimes likes to use socrative more than Kahoot as some students focus more on reaction times rather than the correct answers
• Then use of padlet, schoology and course booklets to help answer the questions (can count as an exercise log)
• Questions are broken down to allow for Excellence answers if all questions answered properly

8/3: Lesson Reflection on Class Feedback

Lesson Reflection on Class Feedback

8th March 2016