Popplet Criteria

One of the principles of quality learning we push with our students is knowing what success looks like. We do this in quite a few ways but having a success criteria is pretty up there.

This week our classes are publishing their short stories on Comiclife, one of the student's favourite ways to publish and share their work. This criteria below was created using Popplet. I love this tool for the following reasons.

1. You can create visually stunning posters in less time than it takes to shake a stick.

2. You can import images, links and video as well as text.

3. It is interactive but also adaptable to be static - you can export or take a screenshot and print this into a great poster for the wall.

This embeded version lets the user move it around, zoom in and out and, if there are videos they can be played within the window, too.

So far this term we have created two different posters of criteria that students can refer back to; this one and one for creating a great instructional video on Doodle Cast Pro (a great video making app). My hope is that we will create a wall of criteria that will help guide the student to success for a whole range of publishing / sharing tools they can choose.

The Power to Act - Agency

Well - my word for the year (ownership) is growing some really long arms and legs! Here are some of those 'limbs' and the impact they are having on our learners.

This video, by Derek Wenmoth, explains some terminology for me around the concept of 'student agency.' He explains agency as the 'power to act' and it has really captured my attention as we build our active learning approach at our school.

Ten Trends 2014: Agency from EDtalks on Vimeo.

In this video, Derek explains how student agency involves 3 dynamics and I've added some implications for our classrooms.

1. The initiative - self regulation of the student.

• this describes exactly what we are trying to do - engage the learner to be more and more independent and self starting.

2. The relationship is inter-dependent - mediates and is mediated by the socio cultural context of the classroom.

• the importance of a collaborative culture is key here. How we work together, give and seek peer feedback and create an environment where students want to learn together is incredibly important.

3. An awareness of responsibility of the learner's own actions and the impact on the environment and on others.

• our learner licenses approach is working really well in facilitating the right amount of support for each learner and I'm wondering how we can use it better to have student's mentoring / supporting and encouraging others learning behaviours.

I can see how this terminology is going to catch on as some shared vocabulary for our school. Especially with the parents. Interestingly - one thing I have learnt to do, when talking about this with parents is to emphasise the 'active learning' aspect rather than 'independent learning' as the latter has overtones of teachers trying to take a back seat to the process.

So - here are 2 aspects of our programme that we have recently invested in across our school to help develop the agency of our students. While not exhaustive, they both form some important pillars to help empower our learners.

Solo Taxonomy

One of our teacher only days this term was spent working with Pam Hook, exploring the ways to incorporate the Solo Taxonomy approach in our classrooms. Solo is an assessment method that involves students, at all stages of the learning journey, to help them see where their understanding is and what to work on next. Pam, @arti_choke, has a knack for explaining the approach in a way that makes sense for people and has developed some fantastic resources for teachers to use with their learners.

She is always very generous with her resources on her site and we have already started using the hexagons, thinking maps and assessment matrix tools. My goal for our class is to be able to use the assessment icons and levels to be able to understand and articulate how well they have grasped a skill or idea and what they should next. This should give us some important vocabulary to use during those crucial learning conversations.

e.g, "How well do I know how to use syllables to decode words? Well, my understanding is at 'multi-structural' but I need to understand when and why to use them when I read - that will move my understanding to the 'relational' level."

Learning Pathways and Self Selected Workshops

Last week our Senior Teachers travelled to Dunedin to visit St Clair School and we were hosted by @msbeenz (Claire Buist) AP and teacher, and her team. We have been hugely influenced by Claire's approach with empowering students to self assess their progress using Goal Sheets and then booking workshops with the teacher. We were very impressed to hear their journey with this approach last year and to see the development of this approach with her team this year.

Our Senior Team has begun to adopt this approach, with our own spin, and combined it within our team teaching approach which will have, I can already see, the following benefits.

• increased student agency
• increased quality and quantity of learning conversations to help guide and support the learner.
• more active and engaged learners!

One of the areas to explore from our visit is how to best develop the home-school connection and whether our current 'homework' programme is the best approach. I'm expecting that the ability for the learner to engage with their next steps is something that could and should be able to continue outside of school hours. So, there is enormous potential for our use of google apps, Ultranet and our other online tools carry on this journey.

Here are 2 other links to some docs we sent home for parents that explain how our learning programme has developed so far. This 'coalition' between school and home is something we are always looking to grow and the conversations these documents have continued has been crucial to the learning culture we are developing in the school.

MBS Team Teaching

Learning at MBS 2014

We are certainly in the midst of some exciting times and it feels like the pieces of the 'Active Learning' approach are falling into place. And when we combine all this with an increasing access to the learning tools we need (10 Chrome books arrived this afternoon!) then the road ahead just keeps getting more and more exciting. 

I hope our learners are starting to feel excited as well. I'm thinking it may be time for some student voice!

A Facebook Classroom Culture

5 Years ago I attended a breakout at the Ulearn conference on school organisational systems (I forget the speaker). Since then I've noticed how we can run our school's with the same apparent structure but, when you examine exactly how the leadership 'works' you will find something quite different - especially after working in three different schools now.

This infographic, from Bonkers World, got me thinking. It shows how major corporations structure their companies in quite different ways. It's interesting that they all share relative success, too. Even though some have a top down scenario and others are more centric and collaborative.

2 questions come to mind. Which one would we would like to work within? Which model would empower and inspire it's members? Which model would retain staff? Which structure achieves the best from it's employees?

It also made me wonder how my class is structured? And does the leadership model change during the day / week?

There is a need, I think, for the class to be run like Microsoft at times - very much with me at the top directing, although without the 'guns' I hope. Teacher's do need to teach and explicitly pass skills, information and their content knowledge through to the students. But, something I am trying to instill within the culture of our class is a model similar to Facebook, or Apple. It's one where the students are driven and inspired by a central motivating force that's outside of the teacher. They are more likely to seek help and assistance from each other rather than the teacher.

This is the philosophy of empowerment that I think is the central goal of personalised learning - student's making decisions, helping other students and working together is the aspiration I have for our class. And it's the culture of the class that we're creating.

Recycled post - Use a computer, don't act like one!

This is a 'retro' post from my early days - too true to be archived and forgotten...

I'm often telling the kids in my class to not shut down when they strike a problem. "You're like a computer that puts up a, 'Can you tell me what to do?' window."

They either walk around the room aimlessly or stand near me waiting for help (and they could figure it out themselves - as proven when I walk them through some self dialogue).

I think problem solving skills is on of the most important skills for kids to learn these days. (Is it becoming an increasing deficit?)

Stumbled on.

I'm always finding new sites online to use in the class - mostly due to my PLN (Twitter!) and general surfing around.  This term I stumbled on an apple application called Numbers.  It's like an excell programme (for P.Cers) but has some great templates you can use.

This one was created by some of my students on a science template and was perfect for our science experiment inquiry.  The groups were finding out about gravity - we were working towards exploding the myth that heavier objects fall faster than light ones.  The data chart immediately creates a graph as you insert the data and the template is great for providing the scaffolding.

The education folder of the templates even has a grading template.  Could be my next stumbled on!

Use a computer. don't ACT like one.

I'm often telling the kids in my class to not shut down when they strike a problem. "You're like a computer that puts up a, 'Can you tell me what to do?' window."

They either walk around the room aimlessly or stand near me waiting for help (and they could figure it out themselves - as proven when I walk them through some self dialogue).

I think problem solving skills is on of the most important skills for kids to learn these days. (Is it becoming an increasing deficit?)