Our own class on air!

Today Archana and I were talking about the film festival, and I suggested we should get Ipad Tripods to film with, and how they would be awesome for filming ourselves for PD as well in the long-run. You can just set it up and leave it, rather than having to have a cameraman or woman give their time to film for you. This allows you to record yourself much more often, and more spontaneously as well. 

Since Anne's last visit, Archana and I have been talking about Manaiakalani Class-on-Air, and especially how Archana would love to participate in that programme next year (I would too, but it is only available to teachers with at least 2 years experience, and next year I will only have 1 years experience so I can't yet apply). 

So we decided, we would do our own filming, our own class-on-air type thing thing year. It is a great combination of digital skills and growing pedagogy. 

This afternoon, I decided to get filmed with a small group of my students! 

Warning - the footage is kind of messy. The first few shots were filmed by Archana, and are beautiful, and the rest by one of my 8 year old students.. And bless him, he got a lot of unflattering close ups and weird angles which I have cropped out. I made sure to leave in all the actual learning, so there may be periods where what you are looking at doesn't change, but the conversation was important so I left that part in.. if that makes sense :)

_____________________________________________________________
WALT/Big maths ideas: find regions of a number
Question: Grandpa has 24 chocolates. His jacket has three pockets. He put quarter of the chocolates in one pocket, and half of them in the second pocket. How many chocolates were in the third pocket?
Goal: to use talk moves and some materials in a problem solving approach
Context: Mixed-ability group of year 4 students (Stages 3-E5) in the problem solving approach

After the filming stopped, we kept discussing how we got our answers, eventually getting to the fact that half of a half is quarter.

(Cover half of the fraction frame with your hand)

(Keep the half covered, now cover half of the other half - what is left showing.. one quarter)

_____________________________________________________________

As this is me putting myself out there, please no harsh bullying! It is scary to post this.. but, we as teachers should always be sharing our knowledge and seeking to improve our own pedagogy. 

If anyone has any feedforward and constructive criticism, please leave in comments below.  (We at TPS are using the problem solving approach and talk moves). I'd love to have your ideas on what I need to work on.

Things I have thought of myself are..

-where I was sitting was good, as I could see all the students working out without any obstruction

-I went back to the question lots of time and reread it with the students to emphasise this point! (good mathematicians always reread the question!)

-these kids needed a warm up to remind them about halves and quarters before launching into the problem. They did not have the solid understanding I was depending on for this problem. I also could have broken down the number 24 before we launched the problem - what do we know about 24? 

-I gave students the choice of paper/pen/counters to try and solve it with, but did not have fraction frames out ready for them to use. 

-I only used talk moves well in a few places

The learning pit!

This afternoon we had a staff meeting run by Sue Pine, our maths PD facilitator.

She reminded us that as teachers, we are never in the position of uncomfortable learning and the 'unknown', i.e. the learning pit. We are always the ones who know everything, and yet we expect out students to be comfortable being uncomfortable. 

Sourced from http://francinemassue.weebly.com/the-learning-pit.html

We discussed different things we were struggling with in maths, that were leaving us 'in the pit'. It was refreshing that a lot of us were struggling with the same things.

She then introduced some ways to encourage students to talk within themselves productively about their learning. 

For both terms 2 and 3, the senior syndicate has done the Week of Inspirational Maths upon Sue's recommendation. This is a great way to build class norms about how we act and think in maths.

We discussed..

What do good maths learners do?

They...

• Ask questions when they don’t understand
• Explain their thinking so others can understand
• Use different ways to represent their solutions (visual,
• equipment)
• Revise their thinking when they learn new information or
• strategies
• Understand that mistakes are learning opportunities
• Value a deep understanding not speed
• Check that their solution is sensible
• Check back in with the problem and what it is asking
• Support other mathematicians to develop their understanding

Sue reminded us that we need to explicitly talk about those things in our classes, and have it displayed somewhere in our class so students and us as teachers can always remember. 

Next we discussed how we can support our students to be those good maths learners we want them to be.. 

A few key ways are 

• ensure groups are mixed ability (not 'smart' groups and 'low' groups)
• ensure groups are not larger than 4 students 
• giving students roles within the group (e.g. in picture below)
• giving students question prompts to use
• explicitly teaching group/teamwork skills

One key thing Sue talked about that really resonated with me was the idea of the 'low status of learners'. This means, that there are some students with low self-efficacy, no confidence, etc., so they sit and don't try in group work. Even when they do, other students see them as 'low status' and often don't even listen to what they have to say, assuming they don't know anything and/or are wrong. This resonated with me because this is exactly what my case study for uni was about. I noticed four of the students in my own class had very low self-efficacy in maths, so I wanted to increase that. One gem moment from my case study was one of my students Lopiseni. He often sits back, doesn't try, doesn't engage in group discussions and lets others do the work. One day however, as I was browsing from group-to-group, I found his group were very confused on their problem. The girl who was scribing was leading the group down the wrong track, and none of them seemed to realise it. I asked Lopiseni what he thought, and straight away he offered a helpful strategy that would bring the group back to the right path. He knew all along, but either didn't want to say, or his group wouldn't listen. He then kind of took over the group, with his confidence boosted, and together they found the answer to the problem. This is exactly what Sue was talking about - finding those opportunities to lift up those 'low status' students, so they can fly on their own. That moment definitely was a highlight of that day. 

Something that really challenged me was Sue's idea that we act as if maths thinking is private. In all learning areas, students are encouraged to talk, think, connect, predict etc. In maths however, we seem to expect them to just think and write and know. Why is there such a difference? Why is reading knowledge so social, so discussable, so debatable between students, but maths isn't? Why is maths always 'this' answer or its not. Why is it so individual, when no other curriculum area is? Sue challenged us to think about the way we think about maths, because that influences the way our students do. If we can be comfortable in the learning pit as teachers, this is how our students will learn to do the same. We need to challenge ourselves to change our own conceptions about maths, brought about by the rote-learning we all did as kids. Why did we do that? Was it helpful? How did it effect our overall picture of learning, or what makes a 'good' learner?

I came away with lots to think about from Sue's PD today. Some of it a celebration of my students success, some of it questioning my own personal experiences and beliefs about teaching maths.. Food for thought anyone?? 

Sharing the knowledge!

As it nears the end of term 2, it dawned on me that I have not shared anything with my colleagues, from the extensive Digital Immersion I get as an MDTA, that they do not get.

I decided to make a few videos to share with my team, who can chose to watch them or not,

(at least I am putting it out there) :)
I chose to start with Google Forms, as this is the least used Drive tool in my school, which got some exciting new updates this week.

Here are the ones I have made so far

An intro to Google Forms

Even if you are familiar with Google Forms - still watch this video, but just watch 2.40-6.30 to see how to split the form into different avenues of answers

Using Google Forms to create self-marking quizzes

Check out the quiz itself (from a student POV) here


I plan to add to this little series, showing other ways to mark tests, and how to include videos/resources into a form (to then use it as a learning activity rather than a post-test). 

Digital Immersion - day #18

Today I finished my interview video. It's not perfect, but enjoy!

Syndicate crafts (cycle 1)

As part of our arts curriculum, my syndicate created a crafts rotation. Each teacher got to chose a craft they wanted to do, and they would have 3 sessions with each group of students to complete them.

This week the first cycle finished - and so did my bath bombs!



I am so happy with how they turned out. The students enjoyed doing something different, having a relaxed environment and having independent tasks to work on that were different from their norm. It was awesome for me as well, to meet and work with students who I normally don't see, and get to do something apart from reading, writing and maths like we do every single day.

 

One of the students even wanted to try out their bath bomb...

You can read the students blog posts by clicking their name below -

Timeus      LJ

Kahlicia     Kensington

Hamish     Soane

Troy     Stephany (and a second post)

Amelia     Alyssa     Irys

Digital Immersion - Day #14

Today we focused on making stop motion movies. 

A stop motion movie, is where you put together HEAPS of still photos and it creates a movie.
You take a photo, move the props ever so slightly, then take another photo.. again and again and again and again.

Stages of progress

1. Create a plan - what is going to happen?

2. Create your movie set

3. Set up camera on tripod

4. Start taking photos! (Keeping in mind that each photo will show for 0.1 seconds, so take it slow and take a lot of photos!)

5. Get photos off camera, onto laptop

6. Import files into iMovie

7. Edit, add sound effects, etc.

8. Remove photos with your hand in them... (whoops!)

I had a lot of photos where my fingertips stuck into the photo, so I had to go through my movie frame by frame and delete them, like these ones... 

That took a looong time haha. And unfortunately there was a 20 seconds (ish) section where I just couldn't edit it to get my hand out, nothing worked.

The movie I chose to make was made with trains I borrowed from my nephew. It is to show students how making a simple mistake, and doing nothing about it, can make it into a HUGE mistake and sometimes, a disaster, so we should always try to fix our little mistakes before they turn into big ones.

Details of my process..

Taking photos - 30 minutes

Getting photos onto laptop - 1 hour (there was alot of photos..)

Editing - 2 hours

Total number of photos used - 708

Here it is - hope you enjoy!

Observation today!

Today myself and Archana were observed by Anne Sinclair, one of the Manaiakalani mentors. 

It went great! It was the first observation I had where I wasn't nervous.. so yay! Slowly getting used to it I guess.

And it went great!

Here is Anne's feedback notes.

Ashley it is great to see how you and Archana are co-teaching in such a positive and affirmative way. You really do enrich each other’s practice and it is obvious in the way you share ideas and the workload and support each other. In  your reflection of the highlights of working together, you are able to articulate exactly what you give to the partnership.  Ashley you have appreciated having a sounding board for your ideas/questions and someone who is confident with PCK and someone you trust to talk to about your decisions.  Archana has recognised the expertise you bring with your digital skills to enhance the learning for your learners. You both acknowledge the relationship you have has benefitted the learner’s growth over the year.   

After you had introduced the lesson you elicited some great responses  from the learners, who had obviously read the story so could answer  your question fully. I loved the way you did not keep them on the mat for too long but got them involved in the learning quickly. They all moved off and got onto the task as you and Archana moved amongst them. It was great to see how the class worked in groups and got into the activity with lots of energy and enthusiasm. When they came back to the mat you were both sitting waiting for them and ready to proceed. I can see from my last visit how much more you are working together and having empathy for each other and the learners. The Batman and Robin routine is really evident in your practice and this only comes about through trust, respect and empathy.

By encouraging the learners to ‘talk aloud’ and share their thinking, is giving the learners more confidence and permission to participate. Reading the story to the learners and then pausing to get them to identify verbs also gave them a chance to be heard. Archana was able to clarify parts of the task as it continued and then recorded the words on the whiteboard. I can see how much easier it is to manage the class and not waste time with 2 of you. You read the story Ashley and Archana recorded the verbs, rather than you doing everything and taking much longer.  This ‘mixing it up’ also gives variety to the lesson and changes of voice for interest. The learners were so well behaved and engaged and I could see everyone involved and interested and learning! You acknowledge the learner’s contributions - ie. the learner who came in late, but immediately contributed and was acknowledged.

The learners are constantly making connections - fia fia - who stole the show? It was exciting seeing the looks on their faces when you introduced the idea of a visual dictionary. Using the verbs they learnt and having them actually act out the words while you filmed them for the digital visual dictionary. Good on you for taking a risk and trying something, which could have been potentially problematic, but it worked so well. They will never forget those verbs. The class all listened to the instructions and really participated with high excitement. I loved the way you generated such excitement without once losing control of the learning. You are going to compile the movies and put them up on the class site.

After completing the filming you then explained what they would do next. The learners went off to their groups and logged in to the site for their follow up activities. This routine is established, so they know what they do each day and they helped each other.

• Independant follow up slides on the powerpoint, which you went through with students. Explain each slide and get one or two students to offer example answers.

• T to send students off to work on their netbooks on follow up task.

• T to work with students who need support.   

Good on you both for working so hard to provide such a wonderful rich learning environment in your class, which is showing how you are developing the skills of adaptive expertise. I really enjoyed my morning with you and the gorgeous learners, so well done for providing a model of co-teaching and true partnership. I should have filmed this morning so I could use it as an example for others to see. It was also great to see the next steps actioned from the feedback form last observation.  Thank you both!!!

Don't give up!

Today I had a small win with one of my students, and I'm sure I had nothing to do with it..

This particular student, let's call him Bob, is the class 'trouble' child,

(keep in mind my class is the best in the school..) 

His typical day involves not learning anything, distracting his friends, going on the wrong things on his netbook, saying 'I don't know' ten million times, picking fights at break times etc etc. 

Today though, he surprised me, nearly every minute of the day.

First block

Bob shared his thinking during shared reading by adding an adjective to a discussion about how to describe eyes. He typically does not share anything during class discussions. 

During guided reading, although he took some time to engage in a book I chose almost specifically for him, he did then engage in the discussion about the story afterwards. Which actually proves, that even though he wasn't reading along with the group, he was listening. 

Second block

Bob was with me and other students of his approximate level for writing and maths instruction. He was on task, went and showed another student how/where to get their follow up task on their netbook (a decision of his own accord, I might add).

Lunchtime

While walking around on duty, one of my students ran up to me and told me that Bob was playing with a dead bird. I instantly thought, 'Oh Lord, here we go' and made my way over.... to find Bob, stroking an injured bird,  with the crook in his index finger, in the most gentle manner I have ever seen of a child or an adult. I picked up my jaw from the ground and just watched. He was so nurturing, so gentle. When the bird hopped away because too many were standing around, he followed it slowly and sat down and patted it once again. His friends went back to playing soccer, and he sat. Ten minutes later, it turns out he got angry at another student and almost had a fight.. Over what? the bird. The other kid wouldn't leave the little bird alone, and he was just trying to protect it. Were his actions reasonable? No, maybe no. But in principle? I couldn't be prouder.

After lunch

Bob wrote a story about the little bird (note: he has written probably five sentences with direct teacher instruction all year) and was eager to engage in the Cybersmart lesson that followed it. He managed himself on his netbook and was on task, eager to listen and learn.

Reflection time...

All I could thing all day was, how can I repeat this? What is happening, and how can I make it happen again? Was it because Bob spent the weekend with his dad, who he is never allowed to see?  Was it because he had more time directly with a teacher? Was it because his best friend was back at school after two weeks of absence? Was it because he just had a lot of sleep the night before? 

The thing is, there is no way to know. All I can do is celebrate this day, and remember what Bob CAN be like, and not give up on him when he isn't. 

Open-ended maths questions!

Last week I taught my class about open and closed questions, and also had my maths observation where I then immediately tried to implement some of the feedback.

Today I combined both of those things, and gave my class an open-ended maths question.

One of the pieces of feedback I was given was to move onto broader, group word problems as my class was ready and able to do them now they have begun talking about their thinking and working collaboratively with confidence. 

Every maths problem I have ever seen and used in maths are closed questions, where one particular answer is sought, so using an open-ended question was quite different for me and I wasn't sure how the students would respond.

My word problem was 

Miss Ashley wants to order pizza to share. If each of her friends will eat 1/4 of a pizza, how many pizzas does she need to order?

Immediately, a student asked 'Miss how many friends is there?'. We broke down the problem (ala the other piece of feedback I have implemented) and talked about why I didn't tell them how many friends I had on purpose. I asked them 'what kind of question is this' and they could instantly tell me it was an open question because there was more than one answer. So proud! 

Building on their understanding of open questions, they knew they could find more than one answer, and were eager to give it a try.

 It was interesting to see the different strategies they used. As you can see, 

- one group got distracted by Miss Ashley's friends and spent maybe a bit too much time drawing pictures of the friends (bless them!)

-most groups drew the pizzas or represented them by squares with four sections to show the quarters and counted out a quarter for each person until they had enough pizzas for the friends. 

-one group drew the pizzas, labeled each quarter, then had to 'name' each piece of pizza with an initial of one of the friends to ensure they didn't miss anybody.

-one group didn't draw any pizzas, and used their knowledge of doubles and their 4x tables. They knew that you need 4 pieces of pizza/1 whole pizza per 4 people, so they found one quarter of the number of people as their number of pizzas required.

 We came back together and shared all our different answers. I felt that the students were more open to sharing their thinking with an open ended question, as there wasn't as much chance they would be 'wrong' (compared to a closed question, where there was only one answer that could be right.)

Every group shared at least one answer, and the group who used their multiplicative knowledge could explain to the rest of the class what they did as well which was awesome!

I also loved how this activity cemented and demonstrated what the students have been learning about fractions for the past six weeks. Most of them instantly knew that 1/4 means you need 4 equal groups, they knew that 4 quarters made one whole pizza, and that you could have lots of quarters that then made lots of whole numbers.

Next time I use an open-ended question, I think I will use one that does reinforce what they have been learning, but frames it in a different way so they are challenged more by it. 

This could even be the wording the problem uses. 

Maths observation

Today Archana observed me taking maths with our class. 

I won't post the observation notes on here, but here is a summary.

Things I did well

"I liked the way you did number talks and warm up activity. You launched the problem and it was clearly worded for the students. You tried to use Talk Moves when students were sharing their mathematical thinking though the one that you used was mainly when students were repeating themselves."

Things to work on

Minimising talking during independent think time. 

(I can work on this by clearly stating my expectation of the noise level and behaviour before the students leave the mat, and praise them for working to my expectations throughout the think time). 

Leaving the students alone during independent think time - not prompting them.

(I can work on this by just looking at their work and not asking them questions about what they have written/drawn. If they ask me a question, I can tell them that we will talk about it later in whole class time). 

Having the WALT displayed and referring to it

(I can work on this by having the WALT written out on an A3 paper and putting it up everyday, rather than leaving the opportunity for me to forget to write it everyday. I also need to explain what it means and break down the words to ensure the students understand them.)

Pace of the lesson

(I can work on this by only doing 2 warm up questions with the squeezey boxes, and giving the students less time for the number talks. They have been doing this for a while now and don't need as much time as they used to.)

Modelling book

(I can work on this by having the question pre-written onto the modelling book and leaving it within my sights (not putting it to the side) so I remember to use it. I did take a clinic, but I did not the modelling book to record the groups thinking)

What can I do differently?

Yesterday I took a lesson, trying to introduce the thinking hats in a real way.
We used this article as our base, and then explored the different hats about this topic.
I used a bus stop activity (students have done this before) and was surprised when they became loud, disruptive, kept fighting with each other and being silly.
We came back together in a circle and tried to go through what people had written for each hat, but it didn't end well.

They had just finished a great lesson beforehand, the best lesson I had ever had with them.
And now...? At the time, to be honest, I blamed them.

I took away from their learning and lectured them about respect and what to do if someone annoys you instead of looking deeper and addressing the real problem.

Was this activity suited to them? Was it a bit too hard? Did I introduce it and explain it enough?
In hindsight, it was probably hard for some of the students. I definitely could have explained the activity more. We definitely needed to break down the article more and discuss its contents more.
I don't want to belittle the students work documented here, but I know they could have done better.

This is not a pity party, woe is me I screwed up type post. It is a learning moment for me.

For next time, I need to remember...

• are my students ready and able to complete this activity?
• what do I need to consider before launching into the activity (e.g. do some of my lower students have the language capabilities to understand this task?) 
• Have I given the students enough background knowledge to be able to use the thinking hats in this way?
• Do we have a good enough understanding of how to break apart an article to use them in this way? What else could I have used? A video?

Update - during the day, I took ten minutes to talk to the students about this reflection of mine.

Referring to our class treaty, (as per my theme of the week!), I talked to the students about how Mrs Sharma and myself are a part of the room 6 team as well, which means we have to take risks, try our best and learn from our mistakes as well (ala the class treaty). The students and I sat in a circle and talked about how maybe I made the activity too hard, didn't explain it well enough etc., and discussed what I could do better next time. The students gave me good constructive feedback. We then talked about with any activity or piece of learning, they can always give suggestions to the teachers for what to do better next time, just as we do for them. The students responded well to this idea, and didn't seem to realize before I said this that teachers aren't perfect and sometimes need help too.

Talking with Archana later on in the day, she congratulated me in doing this - admitted a mistake, being open and listening to feedback, linking to our class treaty. We discussed how it was an important learning time for the students, as it provided a real life example of how to admit mistakes, ask for help and take on feedback. 

First full day teaching by myself!

As you may have figured out by now, because I am an MDTA student in a single-cell classroom, I am actually co-teaching with my mentor teacher Archana. 

We are both in the classroom, teaching, all the time. 

Archana is away for two days, so today was the first FULL day I taught by myself..

(I have taught part days without her there, but not a full day.)

As said in a previous post, the students do act up for one teacher as they are now used to having two teachers... 

But...

It was good!

I managed the class well, was able to let go of the plan and come up with something different when needed, and most importantly for me, I followed through with my behaviour management strategies (well needed, but they worked!). 

I think I did much better than I did last week for those part days, as I was knew what to expect from the students (i.e. their misbehaviour, and which students in particular it would be) and had more faith in myself that I could manage anything that was thrown at me.

I made the daily focus on team work, and threaded that throughout the day in everything I talked to the students about. It did work, and many of them learnt the word 'communication' today because of our extensive discussions. I'll try it again tomorrow and build upon it.

Well done me!

Digital Immersion - day 1

 Today was the first day of the Digital Immersion part of the MDTA programme. It is based at the University of Auckland Tamaki Campus in St Johns, Auckland. As I was at the MIT Campus in Otara for my BEd, its exciting to have another new place to learn, study and make home.

We started our day with a breakfast at the university cafe, and then proceeded up to our class. We started with discussing how our classes/schools/mentors are going, and it was refreshing to know we all chose the same or similar keywords to describe our experiences.

Relationships - Communication - Engagement - Enthusiasm

Throughout the day, we learnt new things about using Google Drive, and specifically Google Docs in order to prepare us for our digital classes this year.

A lot of it we already knew as some-what tech savvy young adults, but you don't know what you don't know so its always good to review. 

Towards the end of the day, we made Google Drawings to represent our personal reflections for the days learning. Here is mine - 

It reflects one thing that has stuck with me all day. We are here to learn and become digital teaching experts, but we also need to teach others the things we learn along the way. This relates to the concept of Ako, which means to teach and learn together. 

Taking care of yourself

As today one of the only days I have where there is no meeting, training, orientation, classroom set up etc, I thought I would take advantage of that, and the good weather, and get outdoors.
One piece of advice given to the MDTA students in our orientation last week was to keep fit, and keep up your hobbies. This sounds obvious, a sort of 'be who you are' vague encouragement. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized how important it actually is. We are going to be so tired all the time, always having either classwork or university work to do, that we might just forget to prioritize ourselves.

Soo... I recreated a portion of our hike around the community last week and walked from my house, up, around, down Mt Wellington, and home again. Tell you what, I was sweeeatty.

Some more footage of my little walk as well as a sneak preview of my PRT card I finally received yesterday. Things are getting serious!

I had a great morning taking some time out for myself, lets hope I keep it up as things get busier!

What is MDTA? What is Manaiakalani?

So you may know by now that I am lucky enough to be a MDTA student in the Manaiakalani cluster.

So what does that mean?

What is MDTA? What is Manaiakalani? 

To quote the Manaiakalani website, it is 'an education programme achieving significant improvement in student achievement outcomes for 12 mostly decile 1A schools in the Auckland suburbs of Glen Innes, Pt England and Panmure. This is Auckland’s oldest state housing community and 95 per cent of students are Māori and Pasifika. By offering students full digital citizenship, the Manaiakalani Programme is not only achieving improved educational results, but also realising the potential for enhanced employment and life outcomes for our students.'

So what does that look like in the community? The trust behind Manaiakalani focuses on 'schools delivering the Manaiakalani programme have the resources they need to make the most of the opportunities available through digital technologies'. The trust is made up of parents from within the community, as well as business people and philanthropists. 

Manaiakalani Trust has existed since 2011, and has 12 schools involved in the Manaiakalani cluster. There is now a Manaiakalani Outreach programme throughout New Zealand, with other schools joining in on the journey.

The Manaiakalani Digital Teacher Academy is one of the many things the Manaiakalani Trust supports, along with its many sponsors. I am lucky to be one of 10 students on board for a two year programme, where we teach full time in the Manaiakalani schools, and do a Digital Immersion programme as well. The digital programme involves doing a post graduate diploma (Education/Honours) at the University of Auckland.

In my everyday life, that means I work as a teacher full time, and study towards my Honours degree part time. I do get more time off school than a regular beginning teacher, as we one afternoon and one whole day a week at the university. 

My teaching is done at one of the Manaiakalani schools, where I co-teach with my mentor Archana (click here to view her professional learning blog). 

As a part of the MDTA programme, we get opportunities to present at GAFE and ULEARN, other schools within and outside of the cluster, and share our ever-growing knowledge.

It is going to a very stressful and busy two years, but wow, what an opporunity! 

For more information -

The Manakalani website

The Manakalani blog

The MDTA Google site

Manaiakalani MDTA info

For all the other BT's Blogs