My Word for the Year!

With a new year ahead our staff have decided to have one word - one word to reflect on and set our teacher inquiry goals towards. My word for this year is...

For the last 7 out of 9 years as a teacher I have been pretty passionate about developing young people as independent learners. I first saw this in action with a legendary teacher next door who I hold in VERY high regard to this day. She was, and still is, a master at shaping and inspiring children to take more responsibility for everything they did. And BOY did they ever. Even when their learning went pear shaped they somehow all had an internal drive and resolve to be better next time. Isn't this what we want for all of our students?

Over the holidays I found this chart, from the engagedlearning.co.uk site that was the challenge and inspiration for this year's word. Not only was it the first time I had heard of anything beyond 'Pedagogy' in the classroom but I was also incredibly challenged about the practice I foster in my class. It also gives me 2 more words to throw around when I want to sound smart.

It seems to me that one of the differences between a teacher led approach and a self determining one are found in the answer to, 'Who owns the learning?' It also seems to me that if a student is going to be truly motivated then they will have found ownership of it, whether they have prompted it or not.

So, the drive for me this year is to develop new approaches that will scaffold and assist students to make progress towards truly owning their learning. I'm becoming fully aware of two possible tensions.

1. Maintaining a balance between being 'the teacher' and 'a coach.' 

There is a great debate amongst teachers about how much knowledge you should be passing on to students and how much you should be leaving them to discover for themselves. Are we the sage on the stage or the guide on the side. I am a great believer that there are things that students simply don't know- and they usually don't know that they don't know. This year I'm going to be searching for the balance or the sweet spot between these 2 approaches.

2. Inspiring parents and their children that this is possible.

I believe that every child has a certain amount of potential to take ownership of their learning - at 9 and 10 years of age. I know a great many students who are in our class this year who already do just that. I also know that many children are more ready to reach this potential in a few years time. What I will be working at is demonstrating to parents that I have the systems and support in place to meet every child where they are. If they need more support then we will have that for them. In the posts to come I'll be sharing some of the systems that have worked in the past and also some of the initiatives we are working on.

But here are a few of the things we'll be working on.

• Holding reading / writing / maths groups as self selected workshops for students working across curriculum levels but with a common learning goal.

• Developing eportfolios and reflective journals using Ultranet and Google Apps / Hapara.

• Visiting forward thinking schools and classrooms using similar learning andragogy.

• Integrating student passion projects into our weekly learning programmes.

Bring on 2014!

Some Pallet Fun

This is what you do when you start your summer holidays - build a bbq table! We've become a little obsessed with what you can build with old pallets. Not just because of how they look but probably because they're free...

We've found a building supplies store in town that's happy for you to take their pallets away for free and we're only too happy to oblige. This latest addition, adding to our bike and shoe racks and also a coffee table, was made yesterday afternoon after some inspiration from Pinterest. It was also a great excuse to get out the circular saw I bought last week (yes, more man points). I couldn't believe how much fun that thing is.

My plan is to scrounge around for some retro looking bike wheels to add to the front. That will make the BBQ more transportable. "Where should we BBQ tonight, honey?"

Mediamash Workshop Slides

I'm part of an initiative called, 'Mediamash' which is aimed at inspiring schools to dig into the treasure chest of digital media for their learning programmes.

Today we launched our first teacher and student workshops. These are the slideshows from 2 workshops I ran, with a colleague.

I always love talking with other teachers about the systems and methods we're using in our classes - especially ones with so much passion and enthusiasm for giving our students the best possible learning experiences!

Rewind'ed' and Mash'ed'

Yesterday our class created some artwork using a simple checkerboard pattern and a 3D effect. To walk them through the process I used the paperfiftythree app - great to screen share with the appleTV and create your own digital whiteboard.

It was when I used the rewind feature (2 fingers moved in a circular motion) to show them the process from start to finish that I realised the whole process could be captured in a screenshare movie. And with a little 'mashing', here's what it looked like.

So - here's the process from 'woah to go' (why is it in that order? Nonsensical).

1. Create the drawing in Paperfiftythree

2. Screenshare to laptop using Reflector app

3. Capture video using Quicktime Pro

4. Import and create video on iMovie

5. Create soundtrack clip on Iambeatbox app

6. Share to Soundcloud and download

7. Add to video project in iMovie

8. Upload to Youtube

Phew. It's always amazing how apps, programmes and sites share to each other. That's what you could call 'Mashed'.

Worried about losing an ipad at school?

Our school has had a large roll out of ipads minis this year and it's been a journey learning how to
 - configure
 - register
 - store
 - update
 - charge
 - secure!

Last week we had one of ours go missing for a weekend and we weren't sure how to find it. So - once it was found in the library shelf - we set about getting 'Find my iphone' set up on all of them. No mean feat!

Here's a video I've made that shows the steps. I'm intending to share this with parents, too so they can have some peace of mind over the BYODs they send with their children each day.

Created on Quicktime Pro - music made on 'I am Beatbox' app.

Planning and Assessment with Notability App

I replied to a question on twitter about how I use one ipad in the classroom. Last year we had 1 ipad (now we have 12 which is awesome!) and I decided to make the most of it as a teaching tool;

 - I achieved my goal of having a digital planning and assessment approach!

Here's a video of how I use Notability for planning and assessment.

Critique Groups

One of my goals this year is to develop my students as active, reflective learners. I've been using formative assessment practises in my classroom for quite a few years but I've always felt that the students were 'doing a self or peer assessment' because I asked them to and not really because they wanted to. Why?

1. It slows me down.
2. But I already finished my work. Why should I do it again after some feedback?
3. I actually don't really care how I can improve...

And that was the crutch of it. I would say the majority of my class felt like this and that's why they would give feedback that thoughtless and a waste of time. And even worse, they woud give a token gesture to responding to it.

So - how can increase student's motivation to improve? If we've achieved this then maybe we can reach the holy grail of teaching

 - students seeking feedback independently!

In the Christmas holidays I stumbled on this video on Vimeo. It shows a teacher explaining what a Critique Group is and how it works. But the beauty of this instruction is the story he tells about a young boy, Austin, who had feedback from his peers and the results it gives us! Quality work!

I decided I would show the class this video partly because the video is so powerful in the way the teacher shows the process but also because my students would see children their age!

The result? I was amazed to see the class glued to the screen and 'oohing and aahhing' when the end result of Austin's butterfly picture was revealed. To my surprise they seemed to catch on! This was my perception of how they saw the video, partly based on discussion afterwards.

1. They 'got' the idea of multiple points of feedback.

2. They understood why he needed to have lots of attempts at it.

3. They were amazed at his final drawing and how proud he must have felt afterwards.

Again, to my amazement, they were really excited about having a critique group about some art we had just finished- or so they thought. They were excited about it and wanted to have another go, based on feedback from their peers.

So we had a go. How did it work out? That's the next post!

What's your Dream Class?

If you could run a dream classroom programme... what would it look like? Imagine an unlimited budget and the freedom to follow your own pedagogical path! This was a provoking thought I've come across lately and I thought I'd share a glimpse into what I think would make a great 2013 with my students!