Passionate Teacher?

This morning I woke up after a terrible sleep, half missing my sister who I'd dropped off yesterday and half feeling terrible vibes perhaps as a result of seeing mum or having mum here a few days ago, and rushed outside to take the rubbish and recycling out.

I was more grumpy than normal, seeing as recycling used to be my favourite thing about living here in Rotorua. Our recycling centre was simply outstanding. Now we have bins. Not as satisfying doing the sorting, yet still helpful to the environment.

Grumpy I guess because I'd been woken up by a pretty horrendous dream where my mum had put lots of new things I'd bought into the rubbish bin and my old friends from university that I don't talk to anymore but still would like to... helped me break into my apartment building as I'd left my keys inside, where I found a new flatmate - a korean girl - and my friends helped me sort out the stuff my mum had thrown away. Unfortunately that stuff ended up in the middle of The Warehouse and I then had to sort out that mess.

Then I woke up. To take the rubbish and recycling out.

Let me just break the dream down a bit for my sanity.

1. A reminder that mum gets too involved and treads heavy on my soul, chucks things that I'm not ready to be removed from just yet.

2. A greatful thanks to my sister for being here to help me declutter and remove objects in my house that were clogging up my brain and soul and giving me a great setting for a demo video to get onto the Hoarders tv programme...

3. A reminder to take the rubbish and recycling out before the trucks came.

4. My subconcious' way of dealing with difficult issues that I can't quite do in real life just yet. I feel like I need to have trauma counselling done before I can talk to those friends again. Mainly because they are triggers to that trauma and because they still associate with those that caused the trauma.

5. My mum still has a hold over me. I can't quite get rid of all of it until my sister is older and then she can't use it against me.

Regardless... once I'd done all that... I got an email from a friend who had been thinking of me and saw a job on Seek. Clicking the link, I saw that the MindLab is looking for a new facilitator on the West Coast near Nelson and Blenheim.

It asked for a passionate person. That was the first thing that stopped me. The second was the need for a masters and 8 years of teaching experience. Both of which I don't have. Hopefully the right person applies because it would be awesome to have the MindLab down there!!

Back to the passionate thing.

I don't know whether it's because I woke up tired, grumpy, dealing with sub-concious thoughts in my dream... but I don't know whether I'm still that passionate teacher. I struggled most of last year to find my place in a changing landscape. Hopefully this year things will be a bit more sorted and I can actually just be me. The passionate teacher I know I am... but still need more sleep. It's 8.34am for god's sake haha

Anyway... random thoughts... a very random post for now. Been a while. Hopefully this clears the 2016 juju on my blogging and I can start writing again properly.

MindLab: Applied Practice - Week 32 - Changes in Practice (Activity 8)

This post is the last for my Mindlab journey. And has it been a journey!!

At first I was so incredibly ecstatic to be involved with the Mindlab. The course looked great. Exciting and so much potential to teach me new things that I hadn't already taught myself. The digital and collaborative paper, the research and community paper, the leadership paper!! And this last applied practice paper. So much learning.

I loved that I was able to share my learning during classes when we learnt about Twitter or blogging or something else I was extremely passionate about. Being able to share the power in the room by enabling each other to share our strengths and learn from each other was awesome. I appreciated the opportunity so much as this is something I want to be able to facilitate at Heights.

I blogged a lot in those first few weeks... about augmented reality which I fell in love with!! And more in depth about gamification and the impact that understanding learning has on a learner. That process of knowing the next steps and how this is absolutely critical.

As time went on and I began to get bogged down by the assessments and the reading, my natural passion and ability to reflect and blog about my learning dissipated. I found this concerning. I struggled a lot because I couldn't for the life of me understand why the two things I love the most in the world - learning and reflecting on my learning - were at such loggerheads. At first I thought my blogging mojo had been stopped because I was just learning so much, reading so much, busy too much to try keep up with school stuff and assessments and students etc, or the stresses of normal life... but I've since come to realise it's definitely part of all this but also... the fact that usually I learn what I want to learn.

I struggled for weeks in figuring out how to say what I needed to say in this post. Because this isn't just for Mindlab. This is for my overall learning and reflection. This blog has been going since I first started teaching five years ago and it needs to still be tuturu and more importantly relevant to my own perspective and whakaaro - both the negatives and postives.

The majority of feedback I got from assessments was great. The first couple of assessments I got back bit into my own confidence levels but as a growth mindset person, I bounced back and realised that was just because I need to be more clear and concise and develop my own thoughts more deeply. I need to be able to try new things and craft my own skills in videoing more effectively and I need to sort out my time-management. All things I already knew and know but were reinforced by an outside marker. Which was a good thing because I am naturally a cocky person when it comes to my own ability and I needed to remember that even though I have a lot of ideas, I definitely don't have the practice.

I absolutely enjoyed learning collaboratively with the colleagues from around the country but also in Rotorua. It was so cool to meet people, other teachers from Rotorua who were as keen as I was. I missed our group the most once we stopped doing the F2F korero sessions. It felt like I'd moved away from home and was missing the whanau.

The wide range of people was very realistic to how it is at Heights too which must have been tricky to navigate as there was such a wide range of knowledge on the room. A lot of these teachers had never been to a Connected Rotorua meeting too and so didn't come with the foundation of knowledge some of us already had. Hopefully they will come to more of our hui and share their ongoing learning now that Mindlab is over. :)

What I've struggled with the programme is how it has been so incredibly structured. For those that know me well they would understand easily what I mean... I'm all about the organised chaos. I am a learning sponge. I soak up what is relevant and what is needed when I need it and release the knowedge when it is no longer needed.

I easily could have gone through the whole course and learnt at my own pace but I felt restricted to stick week by week according to the course structure, assessments etc. And I think that that is more of a traditional model rather than one that I would like to have seen in Mindlab where the 21st century learner is at the centre and is able to completely focus their entire learning and interests around certain areas.

The majority of my learning for the past four or so years has been focussed on identifying HOW to enable my colleagues to build confidence in using elearning and every single one of my assessments reflect this passion. What I needed more of was guidance through more targeted feedback to help me figure out what I actually needed to do next in order to be better, understand more clearly and enable myself to be a better leader.

Even with the Mindlab certificate, I know the reality will still be real for me. Even with certification that I know how to work collaboratively, digitally, with the ability to reflect and research to ensure my knowledge is founded in hard facts and solid previous research and studies - I know that it still won't make a difference overall to my ability to help my colleagues. I am still at the same place as I was back in November - scared to open a dialogue with my principal about going for a Management Unit in order to be able to target staff by having an allocation of time to help support them where needed.

My colleagues still trust me. They still find me approachable. Which is awesome. But since starting the Mindlab, perhaps I've become even more intimidating.

I've learnt the kupu for the things that I do. I understand the why and the how and the what more clearly... but still don't have the access to effectively practice my ideas. I thought that by this time this year things might have changed in that regard... and while they are changing... it's not fast enough for me to be able to implement my learning from the Mindlab effectively.

I implore everyone I ever meet in teaching to do this Mindlab course. I just feel that it needed to be more differentiated, to allow those of us who knew a fair bit already, who still had serious gaps in other areas, to be able to clearly create a programme that would be beneficial for our own learning and possible pathways in life.

With all that being said... I have learnt a lot. I've made new friends. I've collaborated and shared my learning. I've forced myself to get back into blogging and after 300 or so posts I was stupid to stop back there for a while. Because it's important to be a reflective practitioner. We need to push ourselves out of our comfort zones and need to identify areas that are of most importance to us.

*****

Two key changes in my own research informed practice in relation to the PTC's in elearning:

* Collaborative programme of learning
This essentially builds onto all of the learning I've been doing but still need to build more confidence in myself in order to continue trying to encourage a collaborative programme of learning for staff and students at Heights.

My students easily see the why and how when I explain to them how we could be doing things in class a lot better. But that confidence I have being able to be myself with my students hasn't transferred really into confidence with my colleagues at Heights. I'm always feeling like the rug is about to be swept out from under my feet when I bring up a new suggestion or idea. Mind you I have found people I can collaborate with on this journey which has been good. Colleagues who have been thinking about doing the Mindlab course have been asking me about the course and I've been sharing my learning. Surely this is a start to a possible collaboration in future.

* Knowledge about how akonga learn
The research I've done through the Mindlab has definitely reinforced my own thoughts around how students learn and this research has come in handy plenty of times over the past 32 weeks. I've been in conversations with my up-line or others in more authoritive positions and been able to make quick and easy connections to multiple pieces of research to show I connect what I'm doing with how students learn and the why along with the how. Although knowing this research has helped me, perhaps it has isolated me also as now I know 'stuff'. And for some, knowledge is definitely seen as all powerful. I just want to collaborate.. so I'm in an ugly catch 22.

My students though have benefitted so much from my new learning. We've been trying heaps of different things in class, been practicing some really cool styles of learning and teaching. We've been thinking more deeply about next steps. I've pulled away from practices that I was doing previously around understanding knowledge acquisition in learners particularly around SOLO Taxonomy and Class Dojo which is strange as previously they were my go to tools. I suppose now that I'm trying out so many different things, I may have lost sight of what actually works for me and my students. So I need to rethink and practice more to ensure what I'm doing truly benefits student learning.

Over the last few months I've definitely seen a change in my overall teaching method, but I don't know whether it's a better one. I'm a lot more tired, have less patience and although I'm still differentiating my student's learning, I don't know whether I'm teaching the best as I can right now. I've definitely improved my own time-management skills with the focus on timed assessments and due dates (and those beautiful extensions) and my procrastination has become a lot more focussed and timed too which has been great and is a lot easier to manage.

I've been more aware of deadlines at school and teaching students how to keep up with deadlines too.

I wonder though whether knowing and keeping to deadlines will be as important as it was in the 19th century as it might need to be in the 21st century.

Goals for future PLD:

I definitely want to investigate more Google Hangout styled events where students and I discuss learning and can get help from each other and how this might play a part in developing more collaborative learning.

I want to figure out how to be a better leader, to inspire and to create moments where learning is at it's highest peak. That comes down to practice and self-confidence... I need to figure out how to transfer my skills as a passionate speaker with my students and colleagues outside of Heights to my colleagues inside Heights.

I want to keep identifying areas of learning that is relevant to my own personal situation.

But most of all I want to figure out how to maintain my passion for teaching and learning... without constantly being in fear of burnout.

Overall, I'd just like to say a massive thanks to Lynley and Tino who made my learning journey in the Mindlab awesome. They were constantly willing to listen to my concerns and help me when needed. You two are absolutely fabulous. Thankyou. Nga mihi nui ki a korua.

I'd also like to say a massive thanks to Mary Hamill who has been my partner in learning and development for all of this Mindlab journey.

Also... massive thanks to everyone in the Mindlab intake of November. You guys were very very cool. :)

Last but not least... to the markers who ignored my constant overwordyness and word counts that bulged every single time well over the limit. Thank you for your guidance and your focus and your willingness to help us be better teachers. Nga mihi nunui ki a koutou katoa.

Mindlab: Applied Practice - Assessment One - Links and Reflection

Yay! Finally. It feels so nice to have handed in this particular assessment two hours before it was due - no dramas and no issues. I am a massive procrastinator however - I learn more, engage better and focus more in depth when I've had a bit of time pressure. It sounds stupid - but it's the honest truth.

Here are the posts I've written:

Applied Practice in Context

Professional Communities of Practice

Trends and Issues in Education

Indigenous Knowledge and Responsive Pedagogy in Practice

Legal and Ethical Dilemmas in Practice


Still two more posts to write. I wrote the social media one sooooo quickly and so in depth. It's my passion though and as a writer it's important to be clear... just need to work on that concise thing now.. :)

Very close to the end now... I've been reflecting a lot about my practice but have yet to fully reflect and analyse my experience within the Mindlab. It certainly has stretched me. It's made me think a little bit differently. I think the majority of what I've gotten out of it all so far is the ability to put names to the things that I do and be more assertive in that I do actually know what I'm doing in certain areas. It's built up my confidence and shattered it too in some ways. I definitely need to work on my videoing skills, improve my ability to be concise with my words and get to the point more clearly. I also need to be more careful around what I say in regards to newbie elearners - because I forget just how far I've come in my journey and that we all have our own journey to go towards in everything that we do.

Really appreciate the learning I've had over the last 31 weeks... last week this week. Two more posts to write. One more assessment to complete for Applied Practice. Then we're done.

The journey continues to be one like the weather today - turbulent, sunny, windy, torrential rain, soft breezes, window shaking winds but overall - a safe haven from the storm inside my own classroom. Today without students excepting the seniors who are popping in with their whanau for their goal setting interviews.

MindLab: Applied Practice - Week 31 - Interdisciplinary Connections Map (Activity 7)

I've been thinking a lot about what 'interdisciplinary' actually means and after reading a few articles, watching a couple videos... I kind of get what it means now.

I love in this Ted Talk that David Wiley brings up Creative Commons. It was the main thing that helped me to understand the need for more interdisciplinary learning and teaching approaches. The need to Mix, Reuse, Share. 

At first I thought it was just cross-curricular learning, planning with other teachers collaboratively to create a programme that was more integrated.

It's more than that...

It's not just integrated learning either.

It's the kind of learning where the student is at the focus, completely inquiry based where students are essentially asking questions to develop a rich source of learning where it is not only relevant but real life learning too. It's the kind of learning where those boundaries of learning areas and specialist subjects are crossed. Where students are using their knowledge across the differing learning areas to create a meaningful learning experience.

This sounds incredibly beautiful. I want to learn how to do this. I arrogantly feel that I do some of this already... but know that everything I do can be done significantly better. Also, that kind of learning is organic. It comes from real teachable moments. It comes from students asking questions related to their own learning.

In secondary school and particularly employed as an English teacher, many of the questions my students ask are focussed on the assessment at hand, rather than their learning - eg "What do I need to do to get a Merit?" or "I don't feel that this assessment will allow me to get an Excellence so there's no point doing it as I want to get endorsed with Excellence"....

Or the "I can't be bothered doing any more with it Miss, I just want an Achieved."

This credit farming business seriously ruins my love for teaching and learning. Students know the system. They know how to work the system. Jeez, my year were the second group through NCEA and we knew how to work the system too.

The assessments if done well, can be cross-curricular, they can be interdisciplinary - but more often than not they aren't. This is a major problem for me. I would love to see real world learning happening for every student in my class. At the moment - over all five classes - I'd have to say it's only happening in my social studies class, some in Y10 English and maybe three or four students across Y11 and the Y12 classes.

The reason being is that 1) My continuous moan that there is just not enough time and 2) real-world learning and teachable moments happen every so often because we're so driven by the assessment and the marking and moderation and uploading to KAMAR that we forget or don't pay as much attention to the teaching moments and opportunities throughout the assessment.

Yesterday I missed two opportunities to discuss real-world learning from questions from my students. I don't know why I didn't just stop what we were doing and discuss it. It's real world learning and I love those types of discussions which allow my students to put their hearts on the line and declare their passion and thoughts whichever way it turns. It was in Social Studies too.. a class where I want them to be more aware of what is happening in the world today and they asked me a question about Moko.... and I responded about how awful and how sad it was... and then kept thinking just to stay on task and carry on with what we were doing.

The point I guess I'm making is that those moments can be rare and if they're not seized and taken advantage of, then we miss truly wonderful moments where students take hold of their own learning and participate and contribute in a way that allows all students the chance to discover and share their own thoughts.

Two areas of focus for future goals in teaching and learning:

Creating more relevant ways to assess student learning
As I discussed briefly above, the need to assess students is part of my job, however there has to be a way to ensure that assessments are more relevant and making the most of student's engagement and interest into their learning. At present our assessments in English have the potential to be more interdisciplinary. The main issue is the assumed expectation of what is accepted as assessment quality. I have so many ideas. So many ideas around creating more relevant ways to assess. The issue remains around the expectation of my colleagues in my department as to what constitutes work that could be assessed. In the past few months there has finally been a decision agreed by all members of the department that work done in other learning areas can be used towards the Level Two Writing Portfolio as long as it is worked up to a Level Two English standard for writing. This is increasingly exciting. I'm no longer nervous about telling students it's okay to do this.

I'd also like to investigate alternatives for the academic purposes assessment - at present it is relevant for many students as it focuses on two hunting articles around safety while hunting. A major issue in our area. As a result of this, it could be seen as being relevant. In the past I've had a range of different students - some of which it was relevant and relateable - and others who it didn't connect with at all. This year I had even more students who didn't connect with it. I think it is super important to have relevant assessment opportunities... and to ensure there is equitable access in terms of engagement for all students.... I just wonder where there are possible alternatives to the hunting one... even though I personally connect with it easily as a kid who grew up hunting... but I digress...

Making the most of teachable moments to ensure more relevant and real-world learning
With whatever we do in class - working towards the goal of having more relevant ways of assessing - there is a need to be consistently planning programmes of learning that take into account student's interests, inquiries and more importantly focused questions around the learning. By doing this, there may be even more teachable moments available which may create more relevant and real-world learning opportunities.

There are teachable moments that get missed out on due to the need to complete the coursework. I hate that I did this the other day. It makes me incredibly sad that I didn't create that environment to discuss those issues. If students were given more opportunities to identify areas that they were interested in there would be a higher chance of more engagement and more focused learning for all involved.

I'm not sure this is really a focus for interdisciplinary teaching and learning... or whether it's just good teaching and learning... I just think that these two issues are goal-worthy for now for me as they're issues that I'm always thinking about and trying to be better with. It all comes down to making the learning more effective and worthy of the student's time. I suppose too it means a lot as a teacher to ensure more relevant modes of teaching too as with everything I've learnt in the MindLab ... I need to make sure that my students are at the centre so that they can redefine their learning and what it means to be a learner in the 21st century.

Applied Practice - Week 30 - Using social online networks in teaching and/or professional development - (Activity 6)

Really interesting discussion tonight... and not only just because I began talking about how Tinder wasn't on the slides as a form of social media... or how I've used it bahahaha. Love it. Thanks Dave for asking about how I've used it and the issues I've found around the digital citizenship for the people in my age group who are absolutely inappropriate.

Really loving this discussion tonight around the use of social media for professional development and how we could use it for teaching in class.

I've been thinking about how I use social media and the purpose. The WHY is absolutely critical. We need to think about HOW we use it and WHY we'd use social media too.

Some key features of social media that are beneficial for teaching and learning:

• connect with people outside of your immediate colleagues at school
• connect with people who are like-minded and are interested in collaborating
• develop more indepth perspectives around issues that you're interested in
• make connections throughout the world 

Potential challenges that teachers need to be aware of when integrating social networking platforms into teaching activities:

• digital citizenship issues
• issues around effective use and the WHY 
• being more inclusive about the way we connect 

The main issue I suppose is how we use social media to more effectively teach digital citizenship skills, actively and in participation and collaboration with our students and the world around us. Using social media tools to share learning and perspectives is incredibly important as students need to learn from someone they trust and can approach with questions about using social media. If students don't learn digital citizenship skills at school, and don't get help from whanau at home, then where do they learn to be appropriate while online? 

More importantly, students need to identify more effective ways to resolve issues other than believing the negative things people say while using social media. They often get in too deep with cyber bullying and get so inundated with messages and lost in their online worlds. 

The best thing though about being able to use social media in class is teaching students what is acceptable and what could be done about creating more safer online environments, and how they have a place in creating those environments. 

What social media platform best supports engagement with your professional development?

• TWITTER!!!!! PINTEREST!!!! 

How do I use social media to enhance my professional development?

I feel as if I've explained this plenty plenty plenty of times previously at different workshops, conferences, discussions on PLD etc BUT.... I'll discuss the main reasons again here:

I use social media, specifically Twitter, to enhance my PLD so that I don't feel lonely anymore. That sounds really stupid - but when I first started using it I was a first year teacher and didn't feel like I could ask those 'stupid' questions from those in my department. At the time I felt alone and isolated, partly because I was too scared to speak up and ask the more experienced teachers and also because I had such a massive thirst for learning and I wasn't getting enough from the PLD run at school around the areas that I was most interested in. 

Now as a fifth year teacher, I still use Twitter to get ideas, inspiration, advice and perspectives from teachers around the country and around the world. I love that you get instantaneous feedback and that there is no hierarchy when using Twitter - it is a flat landscape in terms of connecting to people around the world by sending a simple tweet. I love that you can send a tweet to someone you have admired for years, like Sarah Kay or even Sir Ken Robinson and maybe you don't get a response back or maybe you do - the point is that you can connect with someone directly. And that is the beauty of Twitter. 

I've connected with English teachers across the country, teachers using Class Dojo around the world, teachers I admire and teachers I've had debates with. I've used Twitter to ask questions on the behalf of my students to world leaders. This in itself builds openness, collaboration, understanding and the ability to relate to others. All important aspects within education and future focussed learning. 

Using Social Media in the Classroom

Really interesting video - I liked how she used it to show her student's learning progressions - how she got students to write their blog posts - even though they couldn't write well, she wrote what they meant in brackets and they could get some pictures of videos to show their learning too. 

Benefits: students connect with outside world! 

Challenges: issues around student use of photos - policies might be used in her school - surely needed a disclaimer or something??


Research:
The PPTA have some INCREDIBLY good guidelines around the use of social media - found here and here.

NZCER likewise - found here and here and here.

Interested in using Twitter as a teacher and professional? Check out my Twitter cheat sheet here.

The workshop slides and notes that Nathaniel Louwrens and I created from our workshop at ULearn last year.

The #EdBlogNZ list of NZ teachers' blogs - found here.

Class Notes

Resources to look into:

Melhuish, K.(2013). Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’ professional learning. Master Thesis. The University of Waikato. Retrieved on 05 May, 2015 from http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/han...

Seaman, J., & Tinti-Kane, H. (2013). Social media for teaching and learning. Retrieved from http://www.pearsonlearningsolutions.com/assets/downloads/reports/social-media-for-teaching-and-learning-2013-report.pdf#view=FitH,0

Silius, K., Miilumäki, T., Huhtamäki, J., Tebest, T., Meriläinen, J. & Pohjolainen, S.(2010). Students’ motivations for social media enhanced studying and learning. Knowledge Management & E-Learning: An International Journal, 2(1), 54-67. Retrieved from http://www.kmel-journal.org/ojs/index.php/online-publication/article/view/55/39

Applied Practice - Week 29 - Legal and ethical contexts in my digital practice - (Activity 5)

For this post I am identifying a particular ethical dilemma in my own practice that is linked to digital or online access and activity. 

There are a few dilemmas that I'm currently facing:

1. BYOD Policy (or lack thereof)
2. Agreement (or lack of consenting agreement) by students and whanau about photography being used of students in social media accounts, in the foyer of our school office, in the newspaper or school yearbook
3. Equity of access to devices 
4. Professionalism on social media

1. BYOD Policy or lack thereof

At present we don't have a solid BYOD policy. We have one that has been used by another school and we have changed it to suit our purposes as a school. At the moment there is a blurring of the lines between the two extremes - NO DEVICES AT SCHOOL to BYOD. For me this causes a lot of issues around acceptable use and lack of digital citizenship. Students and staff are breaking rules while we sort this policy out and ensure that it not only safeguards the students and the school, but the community too. 

We have had trial BYOD sessions throughout the school and these trial students have signed a trial BYOD policy agreement. This is good. But it lasts only for the duration of the trial. What we need to do next is a schoolwide signing - by each student and their whanau. We also need to be actively teaching digital citizenship. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. THE. DEVICES. ARE. USED. 

I've spoken a lot before about the work that Creative Commons NZ, Common Sense Media and Netsafe NZ have done in ensuring a safe and ethical environment for students, staff and schools in using BYOD. There are MULTIPLE tools available for schools to use on the Netsafe website and some really cool digital citizenship tools on the Common Sense Media site too. What needs to happen now - is a space where staff and students can go to to learn more about these skills. A portal. Something I've been working on for a while now - to ensure a quick and easy way to access information relative to digital citizenship and use of technology. 

2. Agreement (or lack of consenting agreement) by students and whanau about photography being used of students in social media accounts, in the foyer of our school office, in the newspaper or school yearbook

My issue with this is relatively obvious. At present we do not have anything in any of our school documentation around use of photography. I have looked many many times over the last few years to see if it is in there. Apparently it was a few years ago. It should not ever be an assumption that as a school we will take photos and share them. It is only with informed consent that this is able to occur. 

 A few weeks ago I was watching two young gentlemen create what would have been a beautiful timelapse of students walking to and from their classes. I purposefully walked into the shot and talked with them about the appropriateness of what they were doing. I felt incredibly awful about screwing up their work - however, I feel even more passionate about ensuring that students have their say about where their photos and faces or bodies are put in our world. Students - kaore - everyone has the right to know WHERE the photos are being stored, sent or uploaded to where. We should be teaching this just as we should be teaching the importance of a strong handshake. Because without clear guidelines around what is acceptable - the lines are too blurred and it becomes unsafe territory. 

I have suggested time and time again about the need to add in a photography clause in our enrolment form. I'm often listened to - but it still hasn't happened which is sad. It is for this one reason why I don't share any of the photos I take. I always ask students whether I can take a photo of them or their work. Often I get them to hold their work up in front of their face. It usually goes nowhere other than my Dropbox account, excepting when I purposefully ask a student or group of students if it can go on Twitter based on their interest in the topic we are doing and to gain more impact from the world around us. I give photos to the school yearbook, grudgingly, but always with the students in mind. But more importantly - I think this discussion is one that needs to happen more often within our role as teachers of teenagers who feel they can take photos or videos of anyone without their consent. 

3. Equity of access to devices 

Lastly, and this is a big deal - equity of access. In our community, once we have BYOD and the photography clause amended in our enrolment forms, we will need to address the elephant in the room. Something I've been thinking about A LOT. Something that plagues me and my practice as a teacher because I really want to be an inspirational, innovative, interesting and fabulously techy teacher - but at the end of the day I can only work with what I have. I blend my lessons again and again to have a mixture of both 21st century learning and 'traditional' styles of learning with 21st century skills embedded throughout. 

The problem that I keep coming back to though is the simple fact that 1) we are still getting our infrastructure sorted throughout the school (nearly finished!!!!) and within Rotorua and 2) a vast majority of students either don't know how to learn with digital technologies as they are learning from scratch as they've never had devices at home or access to them at school OR if they do have devices they still don't know how to use them effectively to improve their learning. 

One of the ideas that is floating around in my head at the moment is creating an equity fund - produced by those old boys and old girls from Heights - who have finished school, have careers and are now in a position to give back. Someone once said to me that Heights doesn't have the same ability as RBHS to create a fund like that. Every school has success. Every school has a beautiful and sometimes awful history. Every school has people that think back to their days of glory at school and want to give back in some way. Why not create a funding network where current students and their whanau can apply for scholarships or grants? It seems the most obvious thing in the world to me. 

As well as this issue, is the need to have sets of SOMETHING in each class. Not per department. It needs to be across the school, ready when needed. Ubiquitous at all times. For all students, no matter their background. 

4. Professionalism on social media

I just finished watching this:

It is beyond awkward. Obviously created to make the discussion happen like any good piece of media, however it got me thinking about the kinds of reasons why I choose to use Twitter professionally. I don't talk about anything other than Twitter. One of my good friends and colleagues (not a teacher) uses Twitter as her space away from Facebook where her friends and family are. We talk on Twitter often - not in detail but sometimes referencing what's happened during the day. I'm nervous about those tweets - because while they're professional in a way - they're still not focussed on the kaupapa. 

Alternatively, my use of Facebook is for my friends and whanau. I don't accept students as 'friends' until they're finished high school - because by that time they're not interested in keeping in touch on social media anymore and almost certainly don't want their favourite teacher being disappointed in them when they post inappropriate stuff online. 

On Facebook I'm relatively political, I discuss big issues happening in the world today - my issues as a teacher in terms of having to deal with these things that come up - everyday poverty, learned helplessness, homelessness, racism, loss and grief. I hardly ever mention stuff that happens at school - preferring to keep that offloading korero to phone calls to whanau and friends who don't live in Rotorua. 

The issue I have is again related to use of students and their photos - I have long time friends and colleagues who share photos of their students online or tag them in pictures. I'm just way too scared to do that. Issues around child kidnapping, CYFs children, custody battles, etc etc etc all spring to mind. It worries me when I see my friends posting this kind of stuff. It's just not on. For me the difficult thing is always finding the right words to say something in a confrontation or disagreement because I revert to that little nervous, scared girl and I so strongly want to stand up in defence of those who have not chosen to put their pictures up in a shared space. 

Heoi ano - it also comes back to digital citizenship and knowing where the line is. For some teachers it's easy to see that line, for others it becomes blurred beyond belief. For some teachers who are a lot older than me, they seem to add students as friends, I tell my students that they'd hate being my friend on Facebook because I post too much. I try to make it into a joke. Likewise with my Twitter account. They ask if they can follow me - I say sure, but I can't follow you back. And anyway, I say, you will not want to follow me too long on Twitter, particularly when there's a conference on!

Finding the ethics and legality in everyday life is an interesting one. Even more so when it comes to being a teacher, a role model, a person that looks after and cares for young people. 

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Class Notes

Further Reading:

Education Council. (nd). Code of Ethics for Certificated Teachers. Retrieved from https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/code-of-ethics-certificated-teachers-0

Hall, A. (2001). What ought I to do, all things considered? An approach to the exploration of ethical problems by teachers. Paper presented at the IIPE Conference, Brisbane. Retrieved from http://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Developing-leaders/What-Ought-I-to-Do-All-Things-Considered-An-Approach-to-the-Exploration-of-Ethical-Problems-by-Teachers

Applied Practice - Week 28 - Indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness in my practice - (Activity 4)

Have just been looking at the Unitec's framework for embedding Te Tiriti o Waitangi into their courses. Absolutely beautiful use of a Poutama. I don't think I've ever seen anyone use it like that before. 

The poutama is a three way progression to step towards the stars, enlightenment, the end journey. 

As a reflective practitioner my journey as a teacher always seems to have a series of lessons, new learning, challenges and opportunities to show my learning. I like it purely because I'm learning from myself, my own decisions and choices and constantly think about the kind of teacher I want to be and the kind of person I want to be for my students - and for myself at the end of the day. 

Within the Unitec Poutama was the consistent use and embedding of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. Absolutely beautiful. I wonder whether other tertiary institutes have thought about this in as much depth as Unitec has. 

I studied at Waikato - through the courses I chose, the networks I worked in as the history and Ingarihi Kaiawhina for Te Aka Matua in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, the friends I met - I was able to be tuturu Maori. The campus itself had bilingual signs - something many universities in NZ didn't have apparently. Being able to ask for help from Maori was crucial. Seeing Maori in positions of authority and power - as senior lecturers and head of departments was vital in my belief that I too could be who I was in a world dominated by a colonised worldview. 

I was lucky at Waikato to be taught by Jeanette Graham in my first two years at uni while studying my BA in History and English. Like my history teacher at high school, she showed both perspectives - from a Maori worldview, and Pakeha. What I loved the most about her was her purposeful talk about WHY we had to discuss these things - and more importantly how the 'loser' of the war was often silenced - and as such - it is always vital to hear their side of the story. 

The power dynamics in NZ are still the same. Maori are still fighting to be recognised for the effects on us as a whole as a result of colonisation. Pakeha continue to forget that we have white privilege and that we are consistently in the role of power. There is no shared power. Not truly. There is ongoing racism and disgusting examples of prejudice and pre-positioned perspectives particularly in regards to our justice system. Maori are constantly on the backfoot. 

For all the talks about how far we've come - and bloody hell have we what - we haven't gone far enough yet. 

For many people who come to NZ as tourists, they absolutely adore our Maori culture. They embrace the reo. They are quick to learn and follow simple tikanga and are overwhelmingly interested in the dynamics between Maori and Pakeha. 

Having studied four years of Maori and Pakeha issues, histories, stories, perspectives and knowledge around the disproportionate effects on Maori as a result of the interaction between Maori and Pakeha -  having lived my life as both Maori and Pakeha - having taught in both bilingual units and mainstream - there is a massive difference. 

For those who can't see it - I call them blissfully ignorant. There are many Pakeha in NZ who empathise and support Maori in this battle. There are many more - who do not. And those people are very very vocal. 

I've talked previously about the importance of being culturally responsive - here, here, here, here and here - so I will refrain from doing that in this post (even though that's the point in this particular post - but it's an issue close to my heart that needs years and years of reflective posts and discussions that one post just can't do enough credit...).

Instead - I will discuss how we as a school are culturally responsive:

At Western Heights High School we have roughly 70% Maori students. The other 30% are Pakeha, Polynesian, Asian or classed as other. 

It is imperative - in any high school but particularly at ours - to uphold the Treaty of Waitangi in all that we do. 

Our new principal Jim Gemmell is a matakite - I'm calling it now because I already see a clear vision in what he is trying to do at Heights.

In a few weeks we are introducing a trial for an extended house tutor group class. Our HTG's are vertical forms - so within this each class has a handful of each year level and the idea was to create a community. Not all HTGs are like this however. Mine is. I was VERY careful about creating this sense of community and whanau from the very beginning - I was lucky in that I started at Heights the year that they brought HTGs in. Prior to that it was horizontal form classes that apparently had become quite chaotic and in some classes cases a bit toxic. 

From the get go I focussed on manaakitanga and supporting my students the best way I could. Over the last four years though - the amount of paperwork, pastoral care, attendance issues, academic tracking, academic counselling etc has gotten a much bigger job than the 15 or so minutes we see our students each morning. 

So - we are heading into our new trial of a 40 minute extended house tutor group. I am absolutely excited about this. My own HTG KAL (Kowhai House, My initials) understand why we are doing this. They know that I can only just get through the notices each HTG. They know that I barely have any time to actually ask them how they're going, let alone check ongoing attendance issues, do the roll, sort out uniform issues, have individual conversations with students to check in to see how they're going - both hinengaro and tinana -wise. They get it and for KAL - they look forward to it - mostly because they know that ever second Wednesday I get paid and we can have a bit of a shared kai before that interval haha. 

For other students that I teach - their questions begin at the WHY - which they then understand once I explain from my perspective about actually being able to do my job as a house tutor teacher better, and then their questions turn to statements about how boring their classes will be for that 40 minutes. Something I just don't understand as the point of thesr HTGs was to create a sense of community. I know I'm not the only teacher at Heights who has made our students feel comfortable and safe. I worry though that the teachers who aren't going to use this time effectively, may be the ones that aren't being culturally responsive in the classroom. 

The next very cool new initiative that our principal has initiated is the goal setting and interviews for senior students on the 27th June. 

The idea is that students identify the areas of strength and weakness, we discuss how they're doing academically at school and talk about setting realistic goals with them and their whanau. 

What this means for us is that we need to ring each whanau, make contact with them and book an appointment. Our interview day goes from 8.30 am to 5.30pm. Doing this will allow whanau time after school and before school to come and see us. Students must be there - for their interview so it is a shared decision and building on success. Creating achievable goals and identifying areas of improvement.

Lastly - at Heights we have just launched our new WHHS app - available on the app store for both Android and iOS. This is a key mode for communication and connecting with whanau. 

At Heights - we have many teachers who aren't Maori - this can be an issue for many students who are trying to find strong Maori role models in their lives. It wasn't til I went to University that I found these role models. For our Heights students - having strong role models is absolutely key to their success. Whether they are Maori or not - having strong role models can make or break a student. As such, going through our Kia Eke Panuku training has shown us the many ways we all need to up our game and improve our modes of being transparently culturally responsive as well as being aware of when we AREN'T being culturally responsive and how to change this. 

One particular area of focus for myself is creating more opportunities for shared decision making in class - more co-construction in the learning and more opportunities to make the learning relevant. 

We had a discussion in social studies the oher day about the importance of saying names correctly. It is my biggest bugbear when people say names incorrectly. Names hold mana. They are incredibly important and we should do our absolute best to learn how to say them correctly. I always tell my students to tell me off if I've said a name wrong when I first meet them. 

I try my best to learn their names as fast as possible and as correctly as possible. It irritates me beyond belief when a student asks a teacher to say their name correctly and the teacher refuses. It is absolutely different if the teacher is actually trying to say it correctly. 

However - the inherent and institutionalised racism in NZ shows through time and time again. Under the Treaty of Waitangi it is absolutely critical that we learn names - as they hold mana - it shows shared power and tino rangatiratanga.

Update (20th June): Today I talked more with the kaiako I had been told who refuses to say Maori names correctly. I actually don't know how to deal with this. The issue around collegiality and professionalism is having serious discordant issues with my need to assert that student's mana and tautoko her. Seeing her with her students - it was interesting today. To say the least. 

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Class Notes

Further Reading:

Bishop, R, Berryman, M., Cavanagh, T. & Teddy, L. (2009). Te Kotahitanga: Addressing educational disparities facing Māori students in New Zealand. Teaching and Teacher Education, 25(5)734–742.

Unitec. (n.d). Unitec Learning and Teaching Booklet. http://www.unitec.ac.nz/ahimura/publications/U008817%20Learning%20and%20Teaching%20Booklet.pdf

MindLab: Applied Practice - Week 27 - Trends and Issues in Education (Activity 3)

A definition of a trend...

My first thoughts are the trends set out by Core Education and the development of them over the years. Some of the main trends include gamification, collaborative learning environments/innovative learning environments/modern learning environments, learner agency, equitable access etc

Below are the Ten Trends collated by Core found here: http://www.core-ed.org/thought-leadership/ten-trends 

Trends seem to be aspects of education that we need to be developing over a period of time. Networked communities, equitable access and digital fluency are aspects in education that can't be fixed overnight. They need time, strategies and problem-solving to find the best solutions that help each individual school develop stronger awareness around these issues. 

Issues on the other hand are problems that we might not necessarily be able to fix but ones in which we could find strategies to help become less problematic for those in our school communities. 

Issues such as poverty impacting on the ability to have equitable access, resistance to change impacting the need to create more evolved ways of assessing students through design thinking and cross-curricular assessment. There are MANY issues in schools that can't be solved by individual teachers and need to be a collaborative, joint approach where we work together to find possible solutions to help lessen the impact of the issues in order to try keep ahead with possible trends. 

Visser and Gagnon (2005) state that a term is something that "refers to the statistically ovservalble change or general orientation of a general movement."

Wilson (2012) says that an issues "point to unresolved concern, questions and tensions that arouse...."

Trend Analysis

Global trends: The world is changing faster than at any time in human history (Youtube Video)

http://tinyurl.com/TMLtrendsROT

Collaborative Task:

Evaluation at a Glance:Priority Learners in New Zealand Schools 

Issue One: 'Shifting the focus to student-centred learning'

"In the most successful schools, the trustees, leaders and teachers have an uncompromising focus on fostering students‟ interests and strengths, and on addressing their learning needs. They understand that their role is to serve students. Their philosophies about how students should experience education are lived out in rich learning programmes, thoughtful management of the curriculum, positive school cultures, and in effective leadership and governance practices. A synergy and coherence exists between these aspects that contribute positively to the whole experience of being a learner. Importantly, there is an ethic of care for students‟ current and future success." (ERO, 2012, p. 7)

“Importantly, leaders cultivate teaching communities that are focused on improving student success. They do this through an intensive focus on understanding the connection between teaching actions/decisions and students‟ engagement and learning. Leaders support teachers to share “collective responsibility and accountability for students‟ achievement and wellbeing” (p.120). Students are at the heart of school business.”  (ERO, 2012, p. 10)

Individual task:

Contemporary issues or trends in NZ or internationally

Trends in NZ:

• Makerspaces
• The development of spaces inside classrooms that provide the ability for students to use design thinking, imagination and maker skills to create something new and consistently evolving.

• ILE/MLM
• The need to create more student centred spaces that allow students to feel comfortable, engaged, interested and flexibility to make choices as to where they sit and learn best. 
• The mindset of modern learning environment/innovative learning environments whereby kaiako are developing stronger awareness around their pedagogy and the changes needed to ensure stronger perspectives around ....?

Issues in NZ:

• Assessment
• The need for more open perspectives within how we assess for our students. 
• Equity
• The need to be more aware of the inequity in NZ with students and their access of digital tools to enhance their learning. 

There are HEAPS of really cool blogs out there - check out the NZ educator blogroll on www.edblognz.blogpost.co.nz

Loved this example: https://riharinz.wordpress.com/2016/03/13/change-for-my-teaching/

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Class Notes

Further reading:

Education Review Office. (2012). Evaluation at a Glance: Priority Learners in New Zealand Schools. Retrieved 18 May 2016, from http://www.ero.govt.nz/About-Us/News-Media-Releases2/The-three-most-pressing-issues-for-N

KPMG International. (2014). Future state 2030: the global megatrends shaping governments”. KPMG International Cooperative: USA. Retrieved fromhttp://www.kpmg.com/Global/en/IssuesAndInsights/ArticlesPublications/future-state-government/Documents/future-state-2030-v3.pdf

National intelligence council.(2012). Global trends: Alternative Worlds. National Intelligence Council: US. Retrieved fromhttps://globaltrends2030.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/global-trends-2030-november2012.pdf

MindLab: Applied Practice Week 26 - Professional Communities of Practice (Activity 2)

For this blog post we'll be discussing professional communities of practice. A community of practice to me means a group of people working together towards a shared goal. In this case, our November Mindlab intake cohort, colleagues and students at Heights, the whanau of #EngChatNZ and #edchatnz, PPTA whanau and those in my professional learning network. 

The questions below were posed to us this week around professional communities and while I'm only meant to write about two - I think a little bit of an overview is needed before diving in wholeheartedly on two particular ones. 

1. What is the organisational culture (collective values/principles) that underpins your practice? How would you contribute to fostering a positive professional environment in your community of practice?
2. What are the current issues in your community of practice? How would your community of practice address them?
3. What are the challenges that you face in your community of practice? How would your community of practice address them?
4. What changes are occurring in the context of your profession? How would your community of practices address them?

1. The organisational culture - collective values and principles - that underpin my practice focus are on the aspects of manaakitanga and ensuring that everyone in the class feels safe and respected. I contribute to fostering a positive professional environment in our community of practice in a similar way - by listening, being interested in what my colleagues are sharing, discussing with them on a sometimes surface and then deeper level about issues that are important to me and pushing them to find the talking points that most engage them as well. In essence, I like to develop conversations by being patient and waiting for the right moment to ask certain questions to see whether I can flip the conversation into more unsafe waters to test my colleagues' adaptive confidence and see where their confidence lies in certain areas - particularly around tech in class. 

2. The current issues in our community of practice include building confidence, being more trustworthy of each other, sharing resources and not being scared that someone will 'steal' it, encouraging a high trust model rather than a low trust model. Our community of practice are learning to work together, collaborate more often and build on their shared knowledge in many areas. 

3. The challenges we face in our community of practice include being unsure of how to ask for help and not wanting to be seen as not looking as if they're not the expert, being scared of standing up for what's right, being scared to stand up to those who are workplace bullies, being unsure about how to create leadership opportunities when being a leader and having a leadership position seem to mean a different thing. Our community of practice deals with these challenges in a variety of ways. The old way seemed to be to ignore all of this and attempt the 'fake it til you make it' idea. Some of that previous whakaaro is still around and it's slowly being chipped away at. Our community of practice is incredibly supportive, we support each other, be collegiate and professional all the while being there for each other. Schools can be very catty and toxic places - particularly being around teenage drama all of the time - adults sometimes forget how to stay cool in certain situations. We're lucky at Heights in that even though it's quite clique-y - there are clique jumpers who support and understand differing perspectives and will help provide those bridges to ensure more happier and calmer staff members in difficult situations. 

4. The changes in teaching at the moment is the introduction of technology. I say this with a heavy heart because I've been fighting a very long battle since I was 8 and now - we're finally here - where we can teach across borders, without walls and yet - people still want walls. People still want traditional. People are still scared of the new. This inability to be adaptive to change scares me. I've talked a lot about being 8 and playing the Encarta games and being a teenager and dealing with difficult situations. We had 21st century tools when I was at high school. That is teetering on ten years ago now. Ten years. We're still here. Arguing about wifi and infrastructure and cost and impact on student learning. Studies upon studies and studies and studies. Yet. Still. We're at this crossroads. Such a long long walk to where we are now. Still so much further to go. 

I really really liked the Stoll goals - displayed below. Very very cool. Reminds me of Lichtman's Pathway to Success progression. 

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Class Notes

Further reading:

Stoll (1998). School Culture. School Improvement Network’s Bulletin 9. Institute of Education, University of London. Retrieved fromhttp://www.educationalleaders.govt.nz/Culture/Understanding-school-cultures/School-Culture