17/2: Reflection - BLENNZ Meeting

Reflection: BLENNZ Meeting

17th February 2017

Today at lunch we were lucky enough to have a member of the Blind and Low Vision Education Network NZ (BLENNZ) come in and talk to us. This year we have a student in Year 9 with Oculocutaneous Albinism. The school and BLENNZ meet his teachers to discuss what this meant, learning challenges and how we can help him to overcome them.

Oculocutaneous Albinism means that this student has a lack of pigmentation in his hair and skin and it effects his eyes. The fovea (pit at the back of the retina responsible for sharp vision) is affected and this particular student has a vision ranging from 6/36 - 6/60 (the "normal/average" vision is 6/6. We were told that he can fluctuate depending on the level of tiredness, stress of hunger he is experiencing.

As his vision is impaired it can challenge his learning. Examples could be; struggling to navigate school especially when busy, not being able to see written work well without the use of technology, could struggle in situations such as sports/ games when a ball could be moving fast.

So as his teachers what can we do to help?

• use digital format so he is able to enlarge the screen/text
• may need extra verbalization of tasks e.g. not practical/visual demonstrations of work
• be conscious of glare on whiteboards/desktops
• use blue or black markers on whiteboards rather than red or green
• use black and white or blue and yellow on data projection
• consider everyday language of over there etc and try and give directions in more detail
• if watching video clips in class send the link to him prior to the class or after so he can review it

Personally I think a meeting like this proved valuable. I can now actually understand his condition and what his vision is like. I can now take this information into consideration when planning lessons for the class. I can consider if I need to modify lessons to better suit his needs and ensure that he is still included in all activities. 

A handout from today's session with more information on Hugo's condition can be found here.

16/2: PD - SAMR Model

PD - SAMR Model

16th February 2017

Tuesday's Professional Development time slot was allocated for Departments to look into their technology use. Our eVangelist (department expert), lead the session based around the SAMR model. The aim of our PD this week was to refresh ourselves as to what the SAMR model is and to identify where we think we currently sit in the model. Below is the YouTube clip we were shown that nicely explains the SAMR model:

SAMR standing for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification & Redefinition: 

Substitution - using technology when you could complete the same task without it e.g. answering questions or writing an essay on Google Docs

Augmentation - technology slightly enhances the task e.g. students can comment on each others work 

Modification - technology now has a great impact on the task e.g. creation of videos 

Redefinition - tasks that are set would be impossible without technology e.g. QR codes for gaining new information or interactive textbooks in iBooks

Pictures above give further examples of different apps and where they may fall in the SAMR model

Last year was the first time I had heard of the SAMR model. I was interested to see how one teacher was using the SAMR model to increase her use of technology in the classroom. As this is one of my goals for the year I thought this would be a prefect way to reflect on my use of technology so far this year.

When we were asked to identify what level we are currently sitting at on the model I originally thought I was at the Augmentation stage. My example to the department was a recent lesson I have completed with my Year 9 Health class. They had been given a task to answer about themselves and find a visual way to present this. As I gave the class the opportunity to choose how they would like to present the task this meant that I would have stepped closer towards Modification. I gave students ideas as to how they might like to present. Some stayed in their comfort zone while others decided to try something new.

I suppose this discussion made me feel that maybe I'm not as far behind in the technology scene as I thought I may have been although I know there is definitely still room for improvement and creativity.

8/2: Reflection - 12 PE Progress

12 PE Progress

8th February 2017

This year is my first time teaching Level 2 Physical Education and I was excited to see a lot of familiar faces from Core PE last year. Going along to my first lesson I thought that this class would be the easiest to form relationships with, having taught most of them before. Although I have a good relationship with most of the students in the class I noticed in my first lesson that they were rather awkward with each other.

Our first lesson was only 20 minutes long due to a '6 period morning'. I decided to use this time to learn more about my students and for them to learn more about each other. I decided to start off with an activity called Connections that I learnt on a PD course last year. This activity starts with someone sharing information about themselves. They choose what they are willing to share. While sharing they aim to make a connection with someone else in the room. When a connection is made that person says "I can connect with that". They then explain the connection, introduce themselves and share something new about themselves.

I have used this connection activity a few times with different classes and it has always worked really well, but this time it was just plain awkward.  No matter what question I asked the 12 PE class, in or out of the connections activity they were very reluctant to share in front of each other. The time they seemed most comfortable was when they were talking in their small friend groups.

Since that lesson we have spent 4 lessons completing a variety of ABL activities. The purpose of these activities were aiming to loosen them up and get them communicating with each other. Pictures and examples of those ABL activities are below:

Leap Frog 

Hidden Pathway

River Crossing

The way they were awkward in class, with the boys and girls keeping to themselves, I was worried about our first assessment of the year, 2.4 (Ki-O-Rahi). Even throughout the first couple of lessons of ABL activities the girls would work with each other and so would the boys. I trying to help them grow their confidence levels and start working together in a range of contexts.

By the end of our 4th lesson I was really proud with the progress the class had made. They were more open to communicating with each other and were working together better as a class. Even the segregation between the boys and girls was slowly disappearing. Fingers crossed that this improvement continues and the class keeps blossoming!

19/01: Goals for 2017

Goals for 2017

19th January 2017

Hello 2017!

After such an exciting year in 2016 I seriously can't wait to see what 2017 holds. With the start of school just around the corner I thought I would take the time to write down some of my goals for the year.


Goal 1: Become more confident using my iPad

Considering I have been brought up with technology I almost want to cringe that this is one of my goals for the year, but hey at least I can identify my weaknesses. I was so excited on my first day of school last year when I was issued with my iPad and Laptop, but in all honesty I barely used my iPad. I have always felt more comfortable using my Laptop but King's is an Apple school with a 1:1 iPad to student ratio - so I need to change.

So what am I planning on doing about it?

• I have spent more of my own free time playing on my iPad and testing how I would use different apps
• I have looked into doing a Postgraduate Diploma in Digital and Collaborative Learning through  The Mind Lab
• I will ensure there is more planned activities allow students to use their iPad
• I will look more deeply into the SAMR model and try and move away from the Substitution stage
• Explore flipped classrooms

Goal 2: More parent contact

Towards the end of last year  I realized that I didn't have much contact with my parents. Apart from sending the occasional warm fuzzy email, most of my parent contact was negative. So what am I planning on doing about it?

To increase contact with my parents I am going to do the following:

• Start the year by emailing the parents of all my students, introducing myself and inviting them to contact me
• Be consistent with my warm fuzzy emails - 3-5 per week
• Try and call parents more in regards to issues rather than just email
• Send out acknowledgement emails in regards to standards - if a student has tried really hard and gained a good grade
• Send emails informing them that their child is not on track towards achieving a standard, rather than just notifying them of the failure
• After parent interviews email parents a couple of weeks after in regards to their child's progress

Goal 3: Relationships first

This year I am planning to continue building on last years inquiry of building classroom rapport. As you can see from different blog posts I trialled different teaching styles and techniques to see how they would effect the relationship I had with my classes. I also tended to put content before the relationships with my students and important skills they should be learning. Towards the end of the year I started to get it right. Now with a fresh start I am looking forward to continuing on with this goal.

To help with this goal I will:

• Spend more time at the beginning if the year getting to know my students and allowing them to get to know me
• Ensure I allow relationships to come before content - "Positive teacher-student relationships involve trust, fairness, open communication and maintenance to sustain and impact student learning. " (Practices that work to accelerate student learning) 
• Focus on teaching skills (e.g. 21st Century Skills) rather than focussing on content
• Be firm fair and consistent with my teaching approach - "Trust, competence, energy, enthusiasm, and consistency are among the top characteristics students consider when determining if their teacher is credible and if they are going to choose to learn from them." (Practices that work to accelerate student learning) 

Knowing myself I will probably end up working on more than three goals throughout the year but here's a good starting point. Wish me luck!

School Events

Throughout the year I was able to use my own personal time to attend school events. These events included productions, rugby games and fundraisers in the effort of supporting the school and my students. Below are some of the events I attended:

Glee Club Production featuring quite a few of my students

 Small House & Big House Music Events

Middlemore Pink Ribbon Breakfast Fundraiser hosted by some of my students and girls from the basketball team

XI Rugby Games in which one of my Year 11 Students is in the Squad

Taylor House Supper - celebrating the successful year of girls in the house

New Students Welcome Morning Tea to meet new girls entering Taylor House in 2017

School Prizegivings

So what is the importance of attending these events? Some of these events, such as the prizegivings are compulsory, but as for others I wanted to attend to see my students perform. I believe that going to events that involve your students outside of class time and even school time are important. I am able to show my support but it also allows me to have a conversation with them in class and get to know them more.  

1/12: Reflection - Planning for 2017

Reflection: Planning for 2017

1st December 2016

At the start of Term 4 and only having one junior class, I was wondering what I was going to do with all my spare time once my senior classes had left. Looking back now I'm laughing at how naive I was. Who was I kidding this is one of the busiest times of the year! PD, planning and meeting after meeting.

So over the past few weeks I feel like I have done so many different things and learnt so much. So what have I been up too?

• Language of Learning in Physical Education
• Co-constructing the Junior Programme
• Reviewing the Junior Health Programme
• Creating NCEA L2 Assessment Booklets & Resources
• Integrated Learning

Language of Learning

We all know the simple words of identify, describe, explain and evaluate but what do they actually mean? Different people and learning areas can hold different views on what they expect when using these words.

Alex, Dan & I worked on creating a Language of Learning for Physical Education. The purpose was to help both Teachers and Students alike by allowing consistency. Consistency of language in class discussions, questioning through to NCEA standards and Cambridge papers. Take a peak at what we created below:

We are associating key words and questions under each of the verbs and these are even broken down to potential sentence starters. To remain consistent we will ensure that these verbs, questions and sentence starters are used in the Junior Programme, including our Achievement Criteria and in our NCEA standards and booklets.

So we started with this and finished with our document below!

We are also looking at creating these into posters to be able to display in the gym and in our other teaching spaces!




Co-constructing the Junior Programme

As King's offers both Cambridge and NCEA we had to ensure that our Junior PE Programme will set students up for future success no matter which pathway they choose. We made sure to list the skills and subjects that students would need in future if they were to continue on in our subject area.

We then revisited the 8 units across Years 9 & 10 that were used this year. As this was the first year that this sort of structure had been put into place in Junior PE there would be a lot of repetitions for next years Year 10s if we were to keep the programme the same. We decided to make the call that the Junior PE Programme would be seen as a two year programme in which students could collect all the skills they would need in their future PE pathways by the end of the two years. We made sure to alter the units to suit this idea of the two year programme and then cross-checked them with the list of skills and subjects we believed the students needed to cover. After deciding the content we refined and recreated the Junior units to include our Language of Learning.


Reviewing the Junior Health Programme

As there will be 3 main Junior Health teachers in 2017 our Head of Health, Chris, set up a meeting. He asked us to bring along ideas and resources for us to review.

He started the meeting with what I thought was a strange question - "How do you like your eggs cooked?". We all answered with our personal preferences. He then went on to explain that when students enter the class they all bring different preferences and opinions but that the purpose of Health is for us to listen to others even though we may not agree.

From there we had a look through different resources that were available to us, some of the ideas, topics and curriculum areas he thought we should cover or focus on. We had a look at the possible lesson outlines to start off Term 1 and gave some suggestions and ideas on how we might tackle them. It was a great way to see how different teachers might handle similar content by putting their own spin on it.

Chris' plan is for us to continue having little meeting like this throughout 2017 so we are able to share activities and ideas that have worked well for us so that others may get to try.


Creating NCEA L2 Assessment Booklets & Resources
Next year I will be teaching Level 2 for the first time. To help myself become familiar with the standards Alex gave me the task of creating the Assessment Booklets & Resources. She would give me an assessment to be edited with a to do list on the front and notes and highlights right the way through the standard like below:

I found doing this for each of the tasks and creating the resources really allowed me to get my head around the standards I will be teaching next year. It was a great way to get a base understanding an insight.

Integrated Learning

After Twitter chats based around the topics 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. From there we organized the opportunity to go out and see it in action. *Please see post on Alfriston College Visit for more info

Since then the PE Department have actually been approached by the HOD of Maths to look at the possibility of integrating one of our internal assessment standards at Level 2 with theres. We have made a time to discuss this more next week so I will keep you posted.

So it's fair to say that I've been rather busy lately.

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!