Doctopus and Goobric - might just be about to change my teaching life!

Just stumbled upon this Google Add on... looks amazing and like the next logical step in my teaching practice.

Google Docs is working so well in class but how much would writing be improved if students were given access to real-time rubrics which assessed their work against Asttle and SOLO Taxonomy??

I haven't tried this tool yet but would love to have a play and will report back on my thoughts and findings on how this tool works alongside Hapara and Student Digital Learning.  

Really helpful step-by-step blog by Stephanie (Train the Teacher) which will no doubt help my exploration greatly.  http://traintheteacher.wordpress.com/2013/08/22/doctopus-goobric-making-google-apps-for-education-more-awesome/

Watch this space!

EfL - LEADERSHIP

EXPERIENCE FOR LEARNING - LEADERSHIP

Wicked Questions 

• Are leaders just bossy people?

• Do we really need them?

• Could we manage without leaders?

Experience
Leading a special activity - leaderless for a day!

Leading In Our World
Whanaungatanga - leading ourselves and developing our own goals/pathway. Managing self and understanding who we are as leaders.

Manaakitanga - using our leadership to guide and assist others.  Forming relationships and working collaboratively to achieve a common goal.

Kaitiakitanga - using our leadership to make change on a wider scale.  Becoming a guardian and making changes for future sustainability.

Values

Kindness - Willing to help (relating to others, supporting others, collaboration, communicative, hands-on learner)

Perseverance - Make it happen (hands-on learner, reflective, adaptive, challenge)

Context
Children developing an understanding of what leadership means and how it can shape their journey through the different areas of their life.

Key Questions

• who are leaders that you know and what is their responsibility?
• what is responsibility?
• what makes a good leader?
• what different leaders do we have in the world and why?
• do different aspect of the world (countries, schools, classrooms, governments) need leaders?
• what is the function of a leader?
• what affect does collaboration have on leadership?
• what kind of leader are you?
• how can my actions impact on other people?

 

Experiences

• defining leadership/responsibility.
• describing different leaders and their responsibilities
• comparing and contrasting different leaders (understanding strengths and weaknesses)
• identifying good and bad leaders
• Watch 8 traits of a good leaders from around the world (http://ed.ted.com/lessons/richard-st-john-8-traits-of-successful-people)
• understanding personality types (http://www.myersbriggs.org/)
• looking at world leaders in different contexts and what their roles are.  
• discussing the parts of leadership and their function (part whole maps)
• investigate what would happen without leaders in different contexts.
• understand job descriptions

• World Peace Game (http://www.ted.com/talks/john_hunter_on_the_world_peace_game?language=en)
• NPS Leadership Passport - children reflecting on their leadership journey in relation to school, community, family.  (https://docs.google.com/a/newmarket.school.nz/document/d/19GkSJzWm0wrlYYCuDZ06opZHldAZ0nCv_Wf37o_zquI/edit?usp=sharing)
• NPS Connected Educators Passport (for teachers and staff memebers) - (https://docs.google.com/a/newmarket.school.nz/document/d/1V_XcQg8F7DEQsW8qnMFfn4hl-nSF_tfGkDmdwyZHops/edit?usp=sharing)

Resources

Leadership/Values unit: http://www.in2edu.com/thematic_topics/leadership/leadership_index.html

Ted Talks about leadership: http://www.ted.com/talks/browse?topics%5B%5D=leadership&sort=newest

Kid President:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wzF23qI3Djw

Let’s Grow Leaders:

http://letsgrowleaders.com/category/leadership-in-children/

Duke of Edinburgh (ages 14 - 18 but so good info on the site)

http://www.dofehillary.org.nz/

Ban Bossy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dynbzMlCcw

http://banbossy.com/

If Life was like the Web - Internet Safety

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ninjJu2tfDc

PASSPORT TO LEADERSHIP

NPS LEADERSHIP PASSPORT

The above link is a working document which is looking at tracking student leadership.  If you use any of the content could you please acknowledge me as the original creator/source.

The idea is that throughout the senior years of school the children have a working Google Doc which they add to and use as evidence of their leadership in different areas of the school and the community.  

Looking at the document, I thought it was important to track both home and school initiatives to encourage children to that their leadership skills into the wider community.  This is similar to the Duke of Ed awards that children complete at High School.  

With the move to teachers needing to provide evidence towards their Registered Teacher Criteria, I realised that there is a need for children to be accountable for their own personal growth and development towards being a leader and a good citizenship.  The inclusion of values will promote our school values and also provide teaching opportunities for teachers, while supporting all students to earn their badge, fill in their passport, receive tokens or PB4L bands.

With +Sonya Van Schaijik we are developing a Leadership Passport for teachers.  This is a work in progress but the ideas are being developed continually - will post more soon.

Weekly Planning - Moving to Google Docs

Planning using Google Docs has been a massive change in my practise this year.  The open access of planning has made me more accountable and also the ease of planning and sharing it with children has made it more relevant!

I started the year my planning in separate documents for each subjects which is what many of the teacher at NPS are doing.  It seemed like a nightmare each week to update and check planning was shared with the correct people and uploaded to the right place.

My answer... Google Spreadsheets.

All the planning for each term in on one spreadsheet which includes different tabs for each week of planning.  I now have four documents for the year (one for each term although Term one is partially in separate docs and partially in a spreadsheet) which includes weekly, reading and maths planning.

Benefits from Google Docs Planning:
- ease of planning each week in one document.
- user friendly planning which is only one page to refer to each day.
- ease of including class description and groupings on different tabs also (have been removed for privacy reasons)
- one document makes it easier to share my planning with my appraiser, senior management team and my own team.
- Google Docs makes collaborative teaching and planning easy with multiple teachers working on a doc remotely.
- For me, increased accountability because I don't like missing a tab (perfectionist trait)

TERM TWO WEEKLY PLANNING

TERM THREE WEEKLY PLANNING

INQUIRY GOAL - 2014 - TERM THREE REFLECTION

Term Three Reflection:

• Noticeable difference in writing of target group.  
• Ideas are more complex and looking at Asttle data most have improved considerable in sentence structure and organisation which was my focus for their writing.
• All but two are confidently using paragraphs in their writing now and correctly grouping similar ideas.
• All have indicated that they are more excited about writing lessons now and aware of what they need to do to improve their writing.  
• Results are pleasing and indicate improvement and steady incline of writing results based on Asttle.
• All children are now above the NS for writing for their Year Level.

Formative Results:

	2013 Writing Level	Term One Asttle 2014 (recount) – asttle marking	Term Three Asttle 2014 (character description) – conversion table	Term Three Asttle 2014 (recount) - asttle marking
Child A	2a	2b	2a	3p
Child B	2b	2a	3p	4b
Child C	2a	3b	3a	4b
Child D	2b	2a	3p	4b
Child E	2a	2p	2a	3b
Child F	<2b	2a	3b	3p
Child G	<2b	1a	2a	3p

Term Three Teaching Reflections

Term Three Teaching Reflection

Room 4 Writing - Worth checking out...

Haunted House - by Edward
http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/8b82afd6-0fa0-49bb-b6a3-9ac12b3c9ed1/haunted-house-recount-homework/

Haunted House Near the Lake - by Shotaro
http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/153d3682-4de5-489f-a177-30292bd7f457/haunted-house-near-the-lake/

Letter to the Oinking Brothers - by Emmanuel
http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/01479d3b-796c-4524-a4bc-c5576c6c36c6/dear-oinking-brothers/

Skittlicious Experiment - by Molly
http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/33aa04b9-b7a0-461f-812b-40e315948851/mollys-skittlelicious-experience/

Letter to Captain Hook - by Renee
http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/9022a052-f543-41af-a6ee-513a645ead60/captain-hook/

Haunted House Recount - by Hannah
http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/c234d707-fab0-4e43-9674-8a5b2cf8581b/my-haunted-house-recount/

Haunted House - by Emmanuel
http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/01479d3b-796c-4524-a4bc-c5576c6c36c6/haunted-house-recount/

Term Two Teaching Reflections

TERM THREE TEACHING REFLECTIONS

INQUIRY GOAL - 2014 - TERM TWO REFLECTION

Term Two Reflection:

• Target group are having weekly focussed lessons on sentence structure where they are learning about the different types of sentences simple, compound and complex.
• Target group being more able writers compared their Asttle writing samples to each other and gave feedback against the success criteria that we constructed collaboratively.
• Although original marks did not get altered, I then gave them a copy of their Asttle writing and they were able to make changes to it based on their peer feedback and looking at the SC.
• Lots of co-construction of SC has meant this group understand the task more.
• Introduced Free Write Friday where the boys get to write their own stories but have to include aspects of the writing grammar focus we have had in class each week eg. highlighting the different types of sentences in different colours.  
• These are highly engages in the #100daysoflearning task set for homework which gets them to write a summary of something that interests them.  This has increased writing at home and their writing quality has improved from term one.
• Attitudes towards writing have changed as they now feel more motivated to write about more exciting things.

Senior School Enrichment - Innovation Unleashed

The Senior School have been working collaboratively on building an enrichment programme this year.  The 2 day programme is organised to ensure learning time is maximised for all students, we provide differentiated learning in all areas and students are given greater opportunities to participate is less traditional subjects.

NPS Enrichment Programme Presentation

Being two terms into this programme I was interested to know how the students were finding it compared to last year where the programme was more scattered over the week.  I created Google forms to collect and collate student voice.

Year 4/5 Student Reflective Survey
Year 4/5 Responses

Year 6 Student Reflective Survey
Year 6 Responses

As teachers we are finding the 2 day enrichment programme is meeting students learning needs and wants more effectively and also allowing more time to be spent on core curriculum subjects.  The programme now provides a wider range of subjects such as Robotics, Philosophy for Children, Mandarin, Te Reo Maori, PE etc which build children's capabilities and equips them with the skills they need to be life-long learners.  The programme incorporates areas of the NZC and ensures that children are given the opportunity to learn and practise the key competencies.

Teacher Reflective Survey
Teacher Responses

One of the reasons the enrichment programme was designed, was to address teacher frustrations regarding the interruptions to core curriculum areas due to timetabling issues with music, Mandarin and Te Reo. For teachers who run a 3 phase reading and writing programmes were severely truncated due to the students coming in and out and predictable, but nonetheless inconvenient times. 

We designed the programme to incorporate some 21st century learning tools (coding programmes/robotics), as well as thinking skills (P4C, Thinking Skills).  These programmes had not been offered previously, but have a proven track record of engagement and positive impact on achievement. While it is too soon to make any assertions about impact on achievement, anecdotally, we can say with some confidence that levels of engagement are high. Low rates of managing off-task behaviour, high levels of focus and commitment.

The programme plays to teachers' strengths and interests, which naturally flows on to the students. 

Reflection by Belinda Hitchman (Year 5/6 Teacher)

Lily-Belle and David have written student reflective blogs about the programme which can be read at the following links:

David's Reflection about the 2014 Enrichment Programme
Lily-Belle's Reflection about the 2014 Enrichment Programme

My thoughts on #100daysoflearning as a means of motivating students!

Part of my inquiry goal this year is to engage students in writing by using ICT and blogging as a means of communication. In particular my target group is a small group of boys who are not enthusiastic about furthering their learning and have started to plateau with their writing because they no longer enjoy writing. Along with implementing lots of other initiatives in my writing programme, I am really encouraging #100daysoflearning with them. This gets them thinking about things that they are passionate about and can use as inspiration in their independent writing.  

#100daysoflearning has really started to take off on our class blog http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/

The children are encouraged to post something that they are passionate about and I am finding the posts really interesting to gain insight into my students interests and strengths.  It is amazing how many of them are choosing to post information about things that we seldom cover in school for example history, geography, zoology, art history etc.  

The next step for me as a teacher is to promote their #100daysoflearning posts to others so that they get more feedback and people reading and responding to their posts.  I would like to do this via a quadblogging initiative but I am still learning how to get started on this process.

I asked my students what their thoughts about #100daysoflearning were so far and two things became apparent.

1 - they love having the freedom and opportunity to post about things that they are personally interested in.  The ownership is on them and they are engaged in mini personal inquiries that promote thinking, questioning, exploring and problem solving.

2 - they all said that it was fun being a teacher and writing questions about the video or picture so that their friends could learn from what they had shared.  This is so powerful and for Year 4 and 5 children to have this depth of thought from a simple task which has very little teacher input is amazing.

Final thoughts for tonight from me... I am excited to see those children who do not usually engage in homework getting involved in this project.  It is having a peer pressure effect on the class and each week we are getting new children posting something with the hashtag #100daysoflearning.  This is extra to their syndicate homework but yet it is the first thing that many of them read on the blog.  

You know you are onto a good thing when you as a teacher are learning about King Charles the Second from a Year 5 student!

#100daysoflearning brought to your by Monty

http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/6e2e2d46-8cfc-4a33-bfb3-eb5f8f1373e9/100daysoflearning-horrible-histories-slimy-stuarts/#comment-478

Another great #100daysoflearning post by Monty who is Year 5.  He is really interested in History so is basing all of his posts around the Horrible Histories videos.  I am really engaged by his posts and I have learnt something about Charles the Second and Oliver Cromwell...but I cannot get the rap song out of my head!!

#100daysoflearning brought to you by Edward

http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/8b82afd6-0fa0-49bb-b6a3-9ac12b3c9ed1/100daysoflearning-what-actually-is-the-world-wide-web/

#100daysoflearning is starting to take off in Room 4 and the children are getting really enthusiastic about having the freedom to post things that interest them and spark learning in others.  Edward is really getting into +TED-Ed talks to inspire his peers.  Above is one of his many posts using TedEd Talks to engage his audience and learn something that interests him.  

Pretty good for a Year 4 student!!

Room 4's Creative Pledges...

http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/3ab768ab-a14a-4a90-ac94-ea58cd528481/letting-our-creative-juice-flow/

Room 4 did our lesson on CREATIVITY and the responses and ideas that the children came up with were awesome! 

Each child then came up with 'I Statements' as pledges to increase their creativity in various areas throughout Term Two... I thought some of their responses were worth sharing and I will keep adding more as they are communicated on our class blog - http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/

I will be more creative in maths by finding more things that are magical in math that I have not found yet like my discovery about triangular numbers. (EMMANUEL)

I want to be more creative with my time and how long I spend on doing a project or doing homework. I really need to time myself for every task so that I can complete all my day’s work on time. I will try not to waste my time, so that my work doesn’t pile up and I don’t freak out at the last minute and still I have time to play and have fun. (AYAAN)

I will be creative by using my imagination more during writing time.  I can do this by trying new words and thinking of good vocabulary during grammar time. I will also be creative by coming up with cool games for my drama club.  (MOLLY)

I will be creative in Writing by using harder punctuation and using interesting and challenging synonyms that aren't easy for Year 4 National Standard.  I will also be creative by using heaps of interesting words in the Dogo News Article statements and my homework tasks. (EDWARD)

Is too much freedom hindering the creative process?

Today something happened in my class which made me wonder what children think about the idea of being creative and free to explore.

I have recently read the following article on one of my new favourite websites for personal professional development (MINDSHIFT - http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/)  and it is food for thought - something that has made me thing about my thoughts on creativity. 

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/05/on-the-edge-of-chaos-where-creativity-flourishes/ 

I know as a child I would have put creativity as one of the most important values for any teacher to have because in my mind that is how learning becomes interesting, new and inventive. Creativity still is a driving force for anything I do...it motivates me!

I have a super creative class but sometime I wonder whether they are too scared to unleash their creative juices and let imagination flow because they are in the mindset that there is a right and a wrong way or answer. Despite always encouraging children to have a go and talking a lot about how making mistakes means we are learning, the message possibly is not getting through to them as there is still resistance.

In class today we were doing mind-mapping to classify and categorise our ideas and prior knowledge and understanding about transport; land, sea and air.  The children have all completed mind maps before so understand how to create one and what should be on it.  Most have the understanding that you are allowed to put anything on it and it is like a 'brain dump of ideas'.

We started the lesson with a large discussion and shared idea of what could be included on a brain dump! I modelled what a possible map could look like and we came up with various ways to organise our ideas into categories.  When asked to complete the task many children seemed to hold back and not put deeper ideas on their maps.  I of course questioned and prompted ideas and children were given the chance and encouraged to look at other mind-maps to spark interest and share ideas.  

The final result was mind-mapping which was very basic and that needs further teaching and questioning to broaden the ideas the children included on the mind map.  I am now asking myself if perhaps the children's creativity is stifled by too much freedom.  In a very open ended task, could it be that year 4/5 years old are given so much freedom of choice that they are stumped on where to start and what to include? Can our preconceived ideas on what children know and how they process their thoughts be misinterpreted by giving them too many options to convey their thoughts and ideas? and how do we embrace and encourage creativity and imaginative thinking without overwhelming children or being so specific with the task that it negates the purpose of the lesson?

Tomorrow I am going to get children to work in groups to brainstorm and share ideas on what creativity means to them.  

- What does it look like, feel like and sound like?
- Who are some examples of creative people?
- What types of creative can people be?
- Is being creative something they value highly in terms of their learning?
- What would a creative teacher look like and it it an important value for a teacher to have?

Challenge set... #100daysoflearning has begun!

The kids are excited and we are already getting #100daysoflearning posts on our class blog! 

I would love feedback or to know if other teachers are interested in doing something similar... plus my students would love for you to join in on their inspired discussions on their blogs!  I have told them that the best ones will feature on my personal blog which is pretty big incentive! 

http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/3ab768ab-a14a-4a90-ac94-ea58cd528481/room-4s-100daysoflearning-challenge/  - read about the challenge that I set for my Year 4 and 5 class.

Room 4 Brainwaves...

Check out Room 4 at Newmarket School getting their blog on! 

http://kidblog.org/Room4-NPS2014/

#100daysoflearning

This coming week I am going to introduce a new concept to my class to promote use of the blog and them leading their learning based on personal interests, passions, hobbies and curiosities.

On Facebook lately I have seen friends photograph pictures of things that make them smile or brighten their day.  They then use the hashtag #100daysofhappy to group their posts.  http://100happydays.com/ The premise behind this is to cherish the smaller things in life that often pass us by.  To look for and recognise the things that put a smile on your face, make you laugh, brighten your day or make you thankful for what you have.

I love the concept behind it and therefore am going to steal the idea and introduce #100daysoflearning to my class.  They will then use the tag feature on our blog to group together things that make them think, get them wondering, interest them, spark curiosity and make them engage in things that are happening in the world around them.  

As they find a video, photograph, quote, picture, news article etc they can post this on the blog and include key questions for others to think about.  I really want to encourage my students to spark wonder in each other and learn to question 'why?' and 'how?' a little more than they normally do.  

To make myself practice what I preach, I have decided to do a similar thing on this blog.  I am hereby declaring that I will post at least 2 short reflective posts each week.  I am a very reflective person naturally, however like most some of the things I think 'wow, I must do that' or ' that is an amazing idea' sometimes can get pushed to the back of my mind in the chaos that is everyday life.  Those ideas will now be posted on here! Video links, websites, links to other amazing blog posts that have inspired me, summaries of discussions or staff meetings...be prepared...you will hear about it! 

Hopefully this will go down a treat on Monday - keep you posted!