Mark Herring

Tuesday, March 17, 2015

Tuesday, March 10, 2015

Saturday, June 28, 2014

'Engage, Empower and Enlighten' Presentation

Here's the presentation for a workshop I'm taking tonight with some passionate home educators in Southland. It's exciting to sharing with a 'different' crowd and one outside of my normal environment - people involved in schools. But, it's also exciting to be sharing at tonight's conference because our own children are taught at home and I'm sharing some links and sites that have been created by my own kids!

Please dig into the presentation and engage with the links. Most of the images are linked to the actual sites and resources that I share. This is a presentation I'm sure I'll adapt and use a few times more!

Monday, June 16, 2014

Solo Stations and Student Agency

Within our team teaching programme we're looking at how we can create as many opportunities for students to learn at their own pace and with the right learning goals. This, in itself, is quite a huge ask when you're talking about 58 students and counting.

One of our favourite tools for learners to know where their understanding is, and what to work on next, is the Solo Taxonomy model. The Solo levels are, and framed for a math's learning goal, in a nut-shell;

Pre Structural - I'm just starting out.

Uni Structural - I know one thing about the goal.

Multi Structural - I know three or more things about the goal but I'm not sure when or why to use them and I sometimes make mistakes.

Relational - I know three or more things about the goal and I know when and. Why to use them.

Extended Abstracted - I can teach others how to do this and I can use this goal to apply to other goals.

This year we've started using the Solo Taxonomy (See Pam Hook's site for more info) to create differentiated stations within our math's workshops. Here's how we put the levels to use;

When we first run a workshop we work with materials and take the whole group through the learning intention and use buddies to share our ideas and work through a few problems. At the end of session we share our understanding of where our learning is at. We talk about what each Solo Level would look like and then share our understanding using hand signals. You can see some examples of the symbols here.

The next time we run the workshop we meet as a large group and quickly remind ourselves of the goal and how it works with a couple of examples. Then we show the symbols our learning is at the moment (we're trying not to say, 'I am....' because it's not US that are multi structural but our learning). This is usually quite varied with students at all stages of understanding.

Then we talk about the different stations around the room. We make sure that everyone knows where they are, what they will be doing at each station and how the will know when they can progress to the next station.

At each station we have card signs for each Solo Level that are shown in the pictures. Here's how each station works.

1. At the Pre-Structural / Uni-structural station the students work mostly with the teacher and are scaffolded through examples with materials and lots of prompting and questioning. The focus here is helping them see some concrete solutions and touching, moving and talking with their thinking buddy.

2. The Multi-structural station has a set of written equations with at least example of how to set out the thinking involved with solving the problem. Students work with a little prompting from the teacher checking in on them occasionally and their learning is written into their books for easy reference for them and the teacher.

3. Lastly, the Relational and Extended Abstract station is where the students can have a chance to confirm that they have a solid grasp of the goal and to check and little holes they have in their understanding. We give them a word problem with the maths within it and they have to read the problem, write down the maths equation or solution to the problem and then create an 'artifact' of the learning that will help others learn. So far these have been posters, instructional videos like Showme or Doodle Cast Pro.

There are three things that impress me during these workshops;

The students are (mostly) incredible honest about their understanding. It's very obvious when someone is at the wrong place and their peers are very quick to help them out when they are, either with redirection or peer tutoring. For the odd one or two who constantly over estimate their understanding it's very easy to quickly check in with them once the stations start.

This approach allows them to move stations when they think they are ready and is always done with some guiding from the teacher. Once they think they are ready to move they check with the teacher and we talk about why they think they are ready. It's wonderfully fluid with some learners moving very quickly and others taking 2 or more workshops to consolidate and really gain some depth to their learning. I have seen learners move from Pre Structural to Extended Abstract in one workshop and it gives them a real tangible way to view their progress.

These Solo Stations make the learning visible! We can all see where our thinking is working at, where we are moving to next (literally and figuratively) and as a teacher I have a quick snapshot of where this group is currently at.

I should also mention that we run learning programmes where students are guided to make their own choices about the goals and workshops they attend. In a workshop we could have students who have been working on a goal for 2 weeks and others who arrived for the first time. The Solo Stations approach allow us to make the learning M and M - 'meaningful and manageable.'

Our next step is to move this approach and adapt the pedagogy to other learning areas. There are advantages for workshops to remain as a large group and I'm thinking that we could set up the stations later at the end of a reading or writing workshop.

Are you catering for different learning levels and learning paces in your programme? We'd love to hear how you're doing that.

Reference: M and Ms Pic

Thursday, June 5, 2014

The Power of a Quote!

I came across this site (ictmagic.wikispaces.com) on Twitter thanks to a tweet and had a few moments today to record some of my favourite quotes at the moment.

There are some great links to poster creating websites (like this one - recitethis.com) and some sites to download ready made poster quotes like the one below.

Learning is Not

I've always loved quotes and seem to be developing an ability to pull one out at any given moment - much to some people's amusement and possible annoyance. They have the ability to pack a huge amount of profound thinking into a catchy phrase and for me, quotes can be a hook into a powerful truth.

Here are 2 posters I made today from the recitethis.com site that are resonating for me at the moment. What quotes are you thinking of at the moment?

Thursday, May 29, 2014

Ownership - Self Directed Guidance

My Teacher Inquiry Goal this year is to provide an increase of student ownership in our
classroom. I mention 'our' because at our school we teach in teams of 2 (3 if you include our release teacher). At the moment I would describe our learning programme as...

'Using individual learning pathways through a process of guided goal setting. We co-construct our learning goals and help students select goals that lead to a flipped learning / workshop based programme within an inquiry context.'

Wow. It sounds like a mouth-full so to break down the teacher jargon we simply;

Use our curriculum to help the students set their goals
They use these goals to select their workshops
They can learn before, during and after these workshops at their own pace and time
The learning they are doing always helps them gain the skills and understands to move ahead with our overall inquiry.

If this sounds like a lot of hard work and with the potential for chaos...then YES! I have to admit that at times my finely tuned 'teacher chaos radar' is pinging off bright flashing lights. BUT, the benefits we are seeing in engagement, achievement, motivation and learning dispositions (the ability to learn and take ownership over learning) is huge.

However, one of the reflections I am making from watching what is happening, and talking with the students, is how to help guide the students to be making the best decisions for their learning in a way that both gives structure and support to those that need it, as well as giving the opportunity for those increased 'agency' for those who are ready. Basically, how do I give 'just the right amount of cage' for each learner? We are very good, or better, at differentiating the learning for our students but what about differentiation in terms of the guidance and structure we put in place to help the learning happen.

This term we have added some management structures which to help students do just that. Our question was, 'What can we do to help the students be in the right place at the right time and go where they need to go to access the learning that is right for them?'

Here are 3 things we have set up with some thoughts on their effectiveness so far.

1. Student Calendars and Timetables.

Since last term we have create a class timetable on a Google Calendar and embedded that into our Ultranet Class Page. The embedding aspect has some teething problems by-passing our domain restrictions (it reads 'busy') but we also have it showing on a wide screen TV on the wall. Teachers and students can see what is coming up next, especially the workshops that are happening next door and it even has a function as a planning sharing tool for release teachers who access the workshop notes through the event details.

This week we've started giving each student a paper timetable that we record their workshops on and it also includes an overall picture of events and changes that happen in a lively, colourful school. It's early days with this one but the majority are learning a lot about self management and reading tables and have even started colour coding the learning areas and what they're working on.

There is increased accountability with this timetable as well because we can quickly see if they have booked themselves in for 2 maths and reading workshops. Thanks to @fuse11 and the team of teachers at Russel St School in Palmerston North for this idea.

2. Workshop Selection Tables

We've made a Google doc for each set of workshops for the week. There is a designated 'Mother Ship' imac we have set up to a large screen where the students can move their names from one workshop to the next. The names are an image from comiclife and they are easy to move withon the table - no deleting and typing, just click and drag.

It's been a great way to keep a record of who has attended which workshop and the students check in on the screen often.

3. Ako Hubs

This was an idea we borrowed from @msbeenz and her classroom. It's a buddy system that gives each learner someone to ask, question and help make great learning decisions. We start our day in these hubs and often throughout the day. They change their hubs each week and have different people to work with often.

We started working in hubs of threes but with the number of students in our room we found it easier to move to pairs. This has lessoned the likely hood that one of the students were left out of the conversation, too. We're finding this a great accountability tool where one student will quickly let us know that their Ako buddy has not picked a maths workshop, or has lost their timetable. We're also really pleased with the modeling that is going on from the student's with high agency for those still learning.

Next Steps?

For a digitally minded teacher it's been an interesting transition this year to having so much paper as a part of our programme. The students have their goals, timetables and books - all paper. For us at the moment it just makes access to all of these things instant and easy. There is no logging in, opening up etc and we have a very 'the right tool for the right job' attitude to what we do.

BUT, in saying that, I'm really aware that some students would prefer to have a digital version of these tools, just like I would! One student has shown me his ipod Google Calendar and how it's synched with our class calendar. He's really keen to start using this as his timetable and add his calendar over the top. This could be our next step! It's all about choice as there are lots of children who prefer the tangible version.

(Cartoon from http://www.usabilityprofessionals.org/uxmagazine/rubes-cartoon-i-roll/)

Thursday, May 15, 2014

Getting Started on Twitter - for Teachers

Tomorrow we're holding a Staff Breakfast for getting started on Twitter. Here are some links that I found to help you get under way and even get 'smarter than the average Twitter bear.'