Morning Meetings- Crew Time

2018-What I am most excited about? Trying morning meetings. Research has shown it helps to settle students into the day and feel comfortable in their learning environment. It makes students ready to learn and feel more settled. If students aren't feeling ready to learn then its a time to get ready to learn.

It starts by everyone saying hello to one another, then students can share about the weekend, then could be a game to burn that last bit of energy out before starting learning activities for the day and then talk about the day. It can flexible to how it runs.


Morning Meeting Reading/video

Webinar- Core Education

Organisational Culture- Team Culture

"If you get the culture right, most of the other stuff will just take care of its self"-Tony Hsieh

"Culture is the way we act, think and interact"


Synergetic- working together; cooperative

Why collaborate?-Accountability, problem solving, shared strengths social learning

Learning pit being comfortable about being uncomfortable

We need to practise what we preach-teach kids to collaborate.

Growth mindset-above

Fixed mindset-below the line

Conversational-intelligence   

Battling Boredom 99 Strategies To Spark Student Engagement By Bryan Harris

After reading through some of the experiences and ideas shared in this book I could relate some of these to my own classroom. At the beginning It talked about a student who did fit normal formal learning and thought 'school was boring', I can relate this to some of the students in my team at school. I have some students-boys who 'don't like reading' so I was interested to read about more ways to engage students.

Something I was already trying but am now more explicitly doing is using more video clips to reinforce the teaching of reading strategies. I have been using video clips (youtube clips) to reinforce or introduce my teaching. Students have found this engaging and enjoying learning from other experts/resources. From what I could observe students were engaged and followed what they were learning sometimes we would watch it twice so that the first time they could watch it and the second make more connections with what was being said. After asking the students what they thought they of this they said "The clips really help me to know what I am learning", "I enjoy watching videos", "I can look at it again it I am unsure", and "it makes the workshops more fun". My biggest challenge has been finding relevant and engaging video for students.

Another way I have been using video clips is through our science experiments. This has been a great way to introduce what we are going to do and to prompt discussion. While we are watching these sometimes I stop the video to discuss different ideas with the kids and also to see what questions they have. This has been a great way to get kids using new vocabulary from the video to then make predictions and to encourage them to be more curious. Students are then able to have a better understanding of the science concept too.

Here are some pictures from some of our experiments learning about density:

 

So far I have enjoyed reading some of these strategies and trying them in the classroom.

Reading so far this year in Marama

Marama-

Target students:

-Sharp reading with 1x boys year 8 group and 1x girls year 7/8 group. The sharp reading programme is designed to support the struggling older readers with decoding strategies. We meet once a day 4 times a week.

-Next term I will start this with the other year 7 target groups. At the moment they are meeting

with a teacher/learning support twice a week for reading comprehension.

Other reading happening in Marama:

-Book Bash-in groups based on their choice of the book they would like to read, mixed ability (within reason).  Boys and Girls groups.

-Reading hot spot workshops to focus on different strategies/reading skills relevant to all learning. Eg, Book Bash, Individual Endeavour reading, vocab for reading and writing, reading and understanding questions to support maths etc.

-Individual Endeavours to encourage reading to learn.

-Building curiosities through reading using wonderopolis, current events etc.

-Read theory to support reading for understanding. Complete 1-2 quizzes each week  

-My shelfie-milestone to encourage a range of reading

Professional reading - I spy a great reader By Jackie French

I spy a reader a great reader (How to unlock the literacy secret and get your child hooked on books)
By Jackie French

After doing some reading in the term one holidays, I found some interesting points about literacy secrets and getting your child hooked on books.

-Active child can concentrate for extended amounts of time when it is something they are interesting in. Easily distracted students are those who can't concentrate for long or be settled for long.
-Some children need to learn to concentrate! Turn off the tv, stop the distractions, set good examples, teach children how to be organised.
-Memory games, these are to help students with their memory and this will transfer into other learning areas.
-Slower, they might be slower but give them the time and they will get there! Time needs to be given to these students right from the start.
-bright but bored students, finish their work way before its due and then daydream
-children who need language development tend to find it harder to speak in full sentences, play silently or make sounds and noise rather than speaking.
-Find the right book....that's the first step!
-Children who have missed out, for some reason a long the way of their education some students have missed out on vital learning/teaching maybe because they were struggling with and nothing was done about it.
-visual/hearing problems, could be linked to behavioural problems around reading
-listening and understanding, students being read to and making a story in their mind?
-eating problems, lack of sleep-a little at a time teaching if you know you have these students in your class
-teachers lose most of their readers from age 6 onwards!
-read half the stories with kids and they read the rest, get them hooked
-use magazines, non fiction so they are learning real things about real things/people
-use books and movies to encourage visualising the story
-family reading/group reading to discuss the book and encourage each other


From reading this it has made me think really carefully about what the individuals needs of each student in Marama are. I have also looked at their goals and how these cater to what the students need next. It also made me identify these different types of readers in the Marama Team at school and think about the learning tasks they are doing.  A lot of what I have read in this book was about finding the right book for students!! This year as part of Book Bash students chose the book they wanted to read (within reason) and were put into groups by their choice. I was really surprised how this impacted on students mind sets towards reading, some students were really happy just because they got the book they wanted, some were happy and I could tell they felt comfortable because of the people in their group and some students have had the chance to learn from other people and make new friends. Another strategy I have tried is using some of our Book Bash meeting time to start next weeks reading, whether it is me reading or one of the students this way they are hooked into what is coming next.

Sharp Reading Workshop with Hilton Ayrey - 'The struggling older reader'

After attending the Sharp reading workshop it was great to talk with other teachers and people in the education sector about common problems identified with the 'struggling older reader'.

Some of the issues we identified were:

• Students mind set towards reading- 'I suck at reading', 'I hate reading' etc
• Personal vocabulary knowledge-personal word bank 
• Inferring skills, spending so much time decoding that they can't focus on the comprehension
• Finding suitable texts they enjoy
• Assessments to identify issues students might have

I have found from worker worth older students one of the biggest I face with students who are struggling with reading is their personal word bank. Their ability to recognise words and if not have quick decoding strategies. Some of these students have also not heard or been exposed to new vocabulary.

The Sharp Reading Course focuses by Hilton Ayrey and Chuck Marriot focuses on the struggling older reading. It aims to give students a decoding strategy that works for 60% of words and focuses on syllables. They identified that by a certain age if students haven't gained a sound phonological awareness then it is time to move on and give them something else which I found really interesting. 

Next term (term 2) I am going to start using this course. I have identified the students and am looking at groups. I am really excited to see some progress for these students and hopefully help to encourage an enjoyment for reading for these students. 

Ulearn- Karen Boyes

3 in 1 Brain- Tri une brain

Reptilian-(lower brain) fight or flight part of the brain, tells you to eat sleep etc.
Limbic brain (Middle)-emotional meltdown, hissy fit, where you experience emotion
Mammalian (Frontal lobe)-higher order thinking, ability to have empathy, teaching-where we are teaching at school,

Emotional centre drives the learning-turn fear into fun!

"students that laugh more learn more"

High risk situation-putting your hand up. Try popcorn style, students pop their ideas-respond with thank you after each suggestion.

• Use think, pair, share.
• wait time-3 seconds

Listening-we have to teach students to be great listenings (listening and understanding with empathy)
-need to teach it explicitly
-Pause, paraphrase, probes-(inquiry/clarify)

Listening activity-in buddies, pose a question a and get one buddy just to talk and one to listen. While the person is talking the other buddy has to be thinking about pausing, paraphrasing and probing.

Encourage students to use great language, teachers need to model great language. Predict, compare, analyse.

New Pedagogies for Deep learning-Michael Fullan

Humans 3 innate qualities-

-wired to connect
-wired to create
-wired to help humanity


As children grow and become older we squash these qualities and now we are trying to bring them back. Michael showed an example of each of the above with very young children and even a baby that was 10 minutes old. His example of connecting was a 10 minute old baby who was in his fathers arms and the dad was pulling faces and poking tongues at the baby within a few seconds the baby was trying to pull tongues back at his dad. An example of create was a seven year old girl who loved inventing. She invented a torch for her friend who had no electricity at night and couldn't complete her homework that work through the warmth in her hand and the heat transforming into energy to run the light. And lastly help humanity was a man with a pile of books try to get into a closed cupboard a baby maybe 2 walked over and opened the cupboard for the man.


Leadership-3 key parts to leadership

+Respect and reject the status quo
acknowledging what has been done, and making change

+Be an Expert and an apprentice
I am an expert but at the same time I have a lot to learn. You have to be a learner to build relationships and to learn something new

+Experiment and commit
commit to getting it right, keep working on getting a solution


Students are the most connected but also don't respect the status quo, they want to try the new stuff.
New curriculum are connecting with humanity. Our new job description is the running leader


The job of education it to produce better citizens for tomorrow, today!  We don't need better leaders we need better citizens.

Pedagogy is the driver, technology is the accelerator

Big ideas:
#Students are change agents
#Professional capital of teachers
#Coherence

Assessing Deep Learning-Margrot McKeegan and Derek Wenmoth

ULearn- Break out 1.

• Padlet- post it application

Deep learning is:

• authentic
• transferable
• fun, engaging 
• something you connect with, real life
• collaborative
• learn, re-learn, unlearn
• problem solving
• experience based
• purposeful, meaningful

What are the indicators of deep learning? what does it look like, sound like, feel like?

ULearn 2016-Larry Rosenstock

Larry Rosenstock- ULearn 2016  Keynote speaker (America)


"Its time to change the subject...."

• Video-The Lie 
• Learning first started one on one-making a fishing rod, weaving a basket, then groups of children were sent away-boys  to study religion etc
• measure twice cut once
• collective learning-working in a group, isolative learning-learning on your own
• knowledge is socially constructive 
• No more isolation of subjects-maths, english, science, history/social studies.
• Video to watch-Chan is missing.

The Nature of Learning-Principle 3

After taking a closer look at The 7 principles of learning focusing on 3 and 4, I looked closer into thinking what things we are doing in our team and what things we may need to be doing more of.

Something I have bee thinking about is how every child comes to school from a different home. Some kids come to school smiley and happy, some angry, some upset, some stressed etc and its understandable how this impacts on each students learning. Karla in our team came up with this great idea for our team. Each morning after student shave moved their avatars to show they are at school they move their name next to how they are feeling. The students in our team are really honest most of the time. This has been great to see how they are feeling and then see what we as teachers can do to help/support students. I have also learnt a lot abut our students through this. It has taught me what excites some students, what stresses some students, some of the difficulties students face before they even get to school etc.

It has also taught me that teaching and learning is about having fun or trying something new but in a purposeful way. For it to be deeper learning it must make some sort of emotional connection because when I think about some of the 'big learning experiences' I have had on my life some of the most memorable experiences were not always 'happy/positive/exciting' ones. But I connected with them on an emotional level and in some way purposeful to my personal learning. This has also made me think about how we can make learning experiences more like this at school. Whether it be making connection between texts they are reading in Book Bash, learning about something they are passionate about for their IE'S and then trying to make a social impact or teaching something you have learnt to someone else, we are always thinking about how we can make our curriculum enjoyable and effective to students learning in our team.

 

The Nature of Learning-Reading

After reading 'The nature of learning' which we were encouraged by leadership to read, straight away I could make connections between things we are doing in our team.

https://www.oecd.org/edu/ceri/50300814.pdf

One of the first points I found interesting was the understanding of what a learning environment should be.

-Constructive, self regulated learning is fostered
-The learning is sensitive to context
-It will often be collaborative

This links well to the beliefs and understandings of our team. We encourage our students that learning is not only something that happens at school it is all around us. And you don't 'stop' learning it is something that I am very obviously still doing now. We want our students to be be independent learners that can work collaboratively on a range of tasks/learning areas.


After reading the 'adaptive expertise' I made connections with something we had not long ago been talking about in our teams. 'Learner agency'-these different approaches made me think about the different stage we have been thinking about for students to be Agentic Learners.

Guided learning-the teachers take the main relevant learners
Action learning-learners play a much more active role
Experimental learning-not controlled by teachers, learning is determined by context, learners motivations etc.

The 8 basics of motivation-these were very helpful when I was thinking about my Teaching inquiry and how I was trying to encourage more motivated readers for my target students.

By working along side target students when it comes to setting goals I feel this is making clear the link between what students are learning and why. Makes the learning more purposeful- goal, learning, evidence, achieve. Positive reinforcement, growth mindset and a different look at reading is how I have approached reading this year. Stopping children who say 'I suck at reading' and getting them to think 'I just need to find the right thing to read', making reading more real for them and getting them to think about all the amazing things reading will help you with in your life and finding a context that makes reading more purposeful such as inquiry learning etc. These are just a few examples of ways I have used these 'basics' of motivation.

Something else I thought more about was the 7 principles of learning. 

1-learner at the centre

2-the social nature of learning

3-emotions are integral to learning

4-recognising individual differences

5-stretching all students

6-assessment for learning

7-building horizontal connections

After thinking more about the explanation of these I was thinking about how we are doing/not doing these things in our team and some examples. I have looked closely into the first 2 principles so far. 

1-Students in our team have choices in their learning, work to set their own goals, are encouraged to work with a mixture of experts (teachers, people in the community, other students etc), they are encouraged to be curious and use this to drive their learning and they also set their own goals that they are aiming to achieve.

2-Create opportunities to work collaboratively in a range of way-reading, writing, mathematic tasks, problem solving, learning teams, workshops, house team challenges, leadership teams, technology groups, sports, music, Group Endeavours, IMPACT, Inquiry etc. We try to encourage as much collaboration as we can so our students can learn to work with different students in different ways, so they learn from one another and to push each other. There is also some learning that is done independently.

Nigel Latter-Education Legend

After hearing Nigel Latter speak in Hamilton I had a lot to think about. His views and ideas were simple yet made so much sense. Everything he said made me think of different children I have taught over the last 3 and a half years and different things that related in some way.

Some key ideas I took from this were:
Most 'problem students' can fit into one of these 3 categories

• Avoidant-neglected, depressed, flat battery, angry then depressed, feels like no one cares.
• Resistant-feel they want a relationship with you but annoy or ruin it the whole time, trying to get any type of relationship or attention.
• Disorganised-been through neglect and abuse, train wreck life.

After Nigel spoke about these 3 types of children I instantly started to think about different types of behaviours we have a school and their backgrounds and this all started to make sense. Nigel also spoke about how we 'bin kids' that maybe don't fit the 'normal' category when perhaps we should be teaching children how to work with all types of people.

Something we have be working on in the Marama team this year was encouraging our students to have a growth mindset not a fixed mindset.And he also spoke about this. 

The ideal teacher/student relationship must have these things:

• empathy
• warmth
• encouragement
• fairness

Then something he got us to think bout where we sit with the naughty kids and these things. That really made me think about what things were missing or was I doing etc. I think this would be a really interesting thing to do. Sit down and actually look at these kids pin point was is missing and try to encourage whats missing. I think this was one of the biggest things that resinated with me and is something I will definitely will do. 

• Children have got to learn to be bored because it is going to happen!
• Self control-we have go to teach this-not all people are born with self control--TEACH IT!

Also a must read book he suggested:

Katikati School - Kaua e mate wheke mate ururoa

After having our visitors from Katikati School I learnt lots of very interesting and realistic goal for Te reo in schools.


"Kaua e mate wheke mate ururoa"
"Don’t die like an octopus, die like a hammerhead shark"

• Simple class ideas-timetable all in Te Reo, books-all in te reo, start the day each day with a karakia
• Leaders (encouraging Maori students to be leaders in our school)-maori culture is not self promoted. The group decides who has the right skills and is right for the role.
• More informal occasions at school to get more people-open door policy
• Making links with local iwi
• Maori Histories - MOE resource
• Te Pumaomao -  2 day programme.  Thought provoking.  Gained a better understanding of The Treaty of Waitangi.
  Maori histories and the importance.

What’s changed?

• Self understanding of - culture, language & identity

• Recognise education is important to you and your family
• Feel respected by teachers and peers
• A sense of belonging; understand your unique place
• Know your strengths and knowledge are valued
• Biggest success is the culture of our school.

Why bicultural-

Other languages you can go and visit the country to learn about the culture-New Zealand that’s where you go to speak Maori and learn about the culture. We need to keep that alive or it will die.

Teacher Induiry-Further research

As I am the sole teacher of reading in our team I am constantly thinking about reading-how it's going, what's working/what's not, getting feedback from the students, changing/improving things and also updating. Over the year (last year 2015) I began to form a hunch that things just weren't quite working. And after focusing further with my reading students I started to notice some common things. At the time students were grouped by ability and this caused the problem of student 'knowing' if they were good readers or at the other end of the scale in their eyes bad readers. This then lead to two other problems some students lost confidents in their reading abilities and interest and at the other end of the scale some students thought they were so good at reading they didn't need to try or work hard in this area anymore. Reading was mainly focused on Book club and students weren't up to date with there reading and the quality of their reading roles was a concern.

From these concerns I started thinking about the following things. Did they need to be grouped based on ability? Had I set high enough expectations at the beginning of the year? Could there be more to reading that just book club? How could I build confidence in the students who thought they were bad readers? How could I continue to challenge students who were good readers and encourage them to share their expertise in this area?

After reading John Hattie's ranking of influences on achievement-students being in ability groups is not the most effective way of teaching. Something I have always believed is that mixed ability teaches all students different things. There are different types of discussion, students can lead in different ways, they bring different strengths and weaknesses to the group, everyone has different skills etc. From this I thought with in reason for Book Bash this year I would group students by the books they wanted to read from the reading survey they did and regardless of their reading age mixed ability group the students in Marama.

Reading targets-teacher inquiry

This year for my teacher inquiry I really want to focus on reading targets. My aim is help student build more confidence in their reading ability and also to finds something they enjoy reading.

So far for my inquiry I have got everyone in the Marama Team (including targets) to complete a reading questionnaire about themselves. I have also used the information gathered on here to make groups for Book Bash or other reading activities based on interests. Here is the survey:

After looking at what this is really telling me I found some interesting things. I analysed our 19 target students Reading surveys and found the following things.

For the question How would you rate how much you love reading 1-10 (1 not very much-10 you love reading)
2 rated reading as 1-3  
11 said 4-6
6 said 7-10

For the following question I think reading is..... where they had to finish the sentence I got the following replies:
I think reading is not a thing for me because I don’t enjoy sitting down and read a book because I like to move around and use my body.
I think reading is _Amazing because it helps you in the future 
I think reading is Reading through book clearly to others.
I think reading is______4_
I think reading is___cool and fun.
What is reading?I think reading is when read a book
I think reading is nice to read by myself somewhere quite.
I think reading is-Reading is fun but you just have to find a book you like
I think reading,  is ok, I don’t love it but I don’t hate it either.
I think reading is__Fun_if I am interested in the book I think reading is fun and interesting and gives you lots of information  
I think reading is____Awesome_and_fun
I think reading is______AwesomeI think reading is__Kinda fun.
I think reading is a good way for me to be a good reader 
I think reading is_not fun because it’s just not something I like.
I think reading is cool

And two students didn't answer.

I found this very interesting. Only 2 of these students seem to dislike reading which showed through the ratings and the comments. What I found really positive is that most of these students don't mind reading and that some really like it. After thinking more about this it makes me think that most of these students do like reading but maybe they don't like how we do reading at school and that I need to do some further investigating with these students.

Agency and Ownership: why the how? Steve Mouldy

ULearn
*Agency-ownership and responsibility of learning
*curiosity enables students to find their own learning paths
*creativity empowers you to create change in the world around u live in
*wonder wall, curiosity tables-don't go back to that question a week later
*question storms-good way to find deeper q's
*formed 50 questions around medical artificial intelligence, then refine to to 8 really important questions, then change a closed questions to open and open to closed then choose 4 to investigate.
*throw prompts to help think of new questions-whats the silliest question you can think of? what is a should question etc
*inquiry-research not everything.

I found this breakout really interesting in terms of questioning. We were asked to look at a picture and write down as many questions as we can and it was really hard. He said to get to around 40, because after a certain amount of questions deeper questions start to come out. I think this will be a useful task for when we look at the students IMPACTS or inquires.

Learning without limits-Jumping in boots in all Peachgrove Intermediate School

I just found this blog post from last year at Ulearn. It's great to re-look at notes to refresh my memory.

I have really enjoyed listening to Peachgrove Intermediates "Story of learning and change-from the leaders perspective". A lot of things spoken about linked or connected with things we are doing at school.

Before change and new learning you must self review and be critical. Emerging adolescents-group of kids are still learning but are ready and are wanting to get out into the world.


BED/OAR/ORA-
you can go to bed-blame, excuses, denial
row the oar-ownership, accountability, responsibility
ora-

Peachgrove PRIDE

Positive
Respectful
Inclusive
Determine
Engaged

*John Edwards-mentor helped along their journey.
*learning, unlearning, relearning
*the schools original symbol was a lion-linked with the values 'PRIDE'
*pace of change-society cant cope with it-only way to cope is to be a good learner
*graduate student-by the time the are finished
*"it's not about the furniture"
*wake up everybody-things are changing

Marama Biggest Reader

The Biggest Reader Article-Great article explaining how it works.

I was looking for new ideas around reading and reading at home and this is a fun way to encourage reading but is based on time they read for rather than the amount they read. It is done in learning teams and at the end of the week we tally up the teams total reading time for the week to find a winner.

Island Bay School Wellington

Key ideas from Island Bay School

• Dogs in the classroom-Yay! Great way to see students caring for animals.
• Growth mind set-this was something new and exciting to Marama this year so it was really interesting seeing it at Island Bay. They had really positive 'kids talk' ideas for each.
• An integrated curriculum- Having an inquiry focus e.g- relationships, then using the arts, Literacy and maths to make more connections with their learning.
• P.E & Health, Science, Technology and Science as the driver of inquiry and then integrate the other areas of the curriculum through this. 
• Guardian group-like our homerooms. 
• First an idea. then new learning and then understanding.
• Karen-staff member who works a lot with inquiries. For example-refugees setting up a display in the learning hub/library, plants/nature-organising plant boxes and gardens etc. Awesome to work along side with teachers when working on inquiries and passion projects. 
• Prove it-I like this idea of learning and understanding something then proving it.