Ubiquous Learning

Yesterday our whole staff received Manaiakalani Professional Development from Dorothy Burt focused on ubiquous learning ... learning which is able to happen anytime, anyplace, anywhere.  Digital technologies provide this affordance and during the session we were asked to consider how?  How are we using the technologies to provide ubiquous learning?  What ideas do others have that we could use to help our own learners?

As with any professional development, the value to me is in both attending and then reflecting afterwards to see what benefits there may be for my learners.  Some of the ideas that came out of the session may not be usable right now, but could definitely have impact in the future.  This list documents some of the great ideas and tools which were discussed today (some of which I'm already using):

Google Keep - my new favourite friend.  The opportunity to take notes, leave audio, weblinks or images all in one place.  Added benefits include the ability to search through your notes and add reminders.

Poplet or Padlet for brainstorms during writing time

Recording specific lessons or make a modelling movie, so learners are able to rewind them and watch them again when needed.  Additionally, You Tube clips often step learners through the learning in a simple well laid out way.

Evernote as a modelling book for learners which can be embedded on the class site so learners can go back and review.

Use of sound bites to record instructions for learners, particularly those lower readers.

"If it is worth teaching, it is worth capturing. If it is worth learning, it is worth capturing."

2016 Inquiry: Progress to date

As part of our ongoing inquiry into our practice, today we presented to our inquiry groups the analysis we have completed and the steps we have taken.  Much of Term 1 is about analysing and adjusting to the needs of learners but already I've implemented some steps to help my target group of writers.  These are outlined in my presentation.

As the term comes to a close I look forward to researching and developing new ideas to use in my classroom in Term 2.

Leaving comments on my kids blogs ... so they can listen :)

I encourage blog posting in my class and learners are getting very independent at completing their activities and then posting to their blogs.  They also love to see that someone has been viewing their blogs and get even more excited if a comment is left.  We talk about the comments that have been left in class frequently.

During a week I try to comment on learners blogs in the evening and often will give them things to focus on in their next blog post.  This is great for those learners in my class in the higher reading groups that can easily read my comments.  However, I'm finding my lower readers struggle to read my comments and they are therefore not effective.

This week I'm trialling leaving the comment as written text as well as recording the comment in an audio clip.  I will carefully scaffold with the learners so they know they are able to listen to the comment by clicking on "Listen to Audio".

I'm using a voice recording app on my iPad and then uploading the clip to a folder on my Google Drive and pasting this link into the comment.  It takes me about a minute longer than just leaving a comment, but I think this is worthwhile as feedback is valuable to the learners.

It is important to note that I'm still discussing blog posts and activities in small groups and individually with learners during class time, but its not possible to see every learner, every day.  This gives me an opportunity to give them feedback which I know they will be able to listen to (if they can't read the comment).  Time will tell if this is beneficial and provides additional guidance, scaffolding and motivation for my learners.

Targeting learners for accelerating writing

As part of my Spark-MIT and Pt England inquiry this year I'm looking to accelerate a group of writers who are significantly below National Standards.  The first part to any acceleration is to identify the learners and assess where they currently are at.

Our school wide testing users e-asTTle and further information on e-asTTle and a range of exemplars can be found here.  Writing is assessed in seven areas (combining surface and deeper features) and then the results form an overall score.  These seven areas are:

Ideas

Structure/Language

Organisation

Vocabulary

Sentence Structure

Punctuation

Spelling

The raw data for my six identified target learners has been summarised into this table*.

This graph highlights the similarities in the learners and the need to focus on Ideas, Structure, Organisation and Punctuation for all.

As always, formal testing is only one avenue of assessment.  Combined with this formal testing I have reviewed the work samples of these learners over the last 8 weeks as well as observed them as they write and discussed their thoughts on writing with them.   Observations and thoughts include:

• Ideas are present but putting these into more than just a phrase is a struggle
• Sentences often start the same way: "I like ....
• Tenses are often mixed up
• Full stops are used at the end of each line
• After deciding on a sentence (often with teacher support) learners forget the sentence in the time it takes to locate the necessary words
• Learners letter formation makes identification of capital and lower case letters impossible
• Writing has always been hard and its not "fun"
• Learners don't like the topics they have to write about
• Learners feel there is no point in writing because its just in our book and no one sees it

Over the coming terms, I look forward to sharing some of the things I'm implementing to accelerate these target learners (and all learners in my classroom).

*In order to preserve the identify of this group of learners, when I refer to my target group I have used pseudonyms and will continue to use these for continuity throughout the year. 

Manaiakalani-Google ClassOnAir .... its live!

I'm super excited to be one of five teachers involved in a great new initiative in 2016 -  Manaiakalani-Google ClassOnAir!  This is an opportunity for us to share whole lessons and planning with other teachers around the world as well as showcasing the work our learners complete independently.

The site launched over the weekend and my first two lessons are now live, with additional lessons posted approximately every two weeks.  My focus will be on literacy (reading and writing) with other teachers focusing on different curriculum areas.  These are:

Matt Goodwin - Pt England School Year 5 - Reading

Nicola Wells - Tamaki College Year 13 - Science/Biology

Stephanie Parker - Stonefields School Year 4-6 - Reading/Writing

Jason Sharma - Tamaki College Year 13 - Maths/Statistics

All our lessons are able to be accessed via the Manaiakalani-Google ClassOnAir home page or you can visit My ClassOnAir Site directly.  I look forward to sharing even more with the teaching community and welcome feedback or comments.

Encouraging comments from parents

As part of my Spark Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher (MIT) goals this year, I want to encourage parents to not only read, but comment on their learners blogs.  This is because my students most value the opinions of those that are closest to them - their whanau.

During our meet the teacher session last month I talked to many of the parents about this and this week I've sent home a bookmark with details of how to access not only their tamariki's blog but also the Parent Portal (a feature of Hapara Teacher Dashboard).  As many parents will be accessing from their phones or tablets, I included a QR code as a fast way to get to the blogs.

I'm delighted to say that already I've noticed comments appearing on my learners blogs.  In order to safe guard my learners I receive an email of all comments and am delighted that some of the comments are coming from whanau as well as other learners at Pt England School.

We often share the comments as a whole class but learners are also able to access them as part of our reading rotation.  For viewers of my blog, if you'd like to check out the blogs of my learners (and leave them a comment) they would love to here from you.  All my learners blogs can be accessed from this page.

Writing with Google Docs

One of the challenges I have as a teacher this year is adapting to the new year level (Year 3 after teaching Year 1 for two years) and using technology to extend learners in my classroom.

My inquiry for 2016 into my own practice is with writing and I have many learners in my classroom that are unable to complete even one sentence without support.  Many of my lessons to date have been whole class based, all writing about the same topic.  This is because I quickly discovered, in my first weeks this year, that unless I took this approach, my whole writing lesson turned to noisy chaos within five minutes.

When I took the lessons right back to basics of just writing one GREAT sentence, I was able to circulate and provide support to all those that need it, and this enabled all learners in my classroom to experience success and they were keen to share their sentences via their blogs.  Initially we are focusing on just a few things - capital letters, full stops and adding "juicy vocabulary" to make the sentence interesting.  In order for the learners to have a library of ideas to draw from, we discuss the motivation for writing before we start (usually an image) and brainstorm some vocabulary as a whole class.

While this has worked well for those learners that struggle to write, other learners are of course ready to move onto additional sentences and need an additional challenge.  Last week I introduced using Google Docs with these learners (some had been using them last year already), being sure to carefully scaffold how I want them used in my classroom (naming conventions, where to save etc).  These learners are willing and able to write more than one sentence, and the use of Google Docs keeps them challenged as well as making it easier for me to provide comments and ongoing support to them.  This week that will be particularly important as I plan to build a story over several days in a carefully scaffolded structure - the use of Google Docs will allow me to provide comments to the learners each night that they can review before moving onto the next step of their writing.

My PES Inquiry into Practice 2016

Today is our first inquiry meeting for 2016 after an initial discussion with Juanita Garden (AP at Pt England School) to assist us with finalising our inquiry for 2016.  This year I'm wanting to have my inquiry compliment my MIT inquiry, so will be focusing on writing.  During our collaborative time this afternoon I'll be presenting my initial ideas which are summarised on this presentation.

I look forward to hearing the inquiry's of others and also taking away even more ideas to use in my own inquiry.

My Spark Manaiakalani Innovative Teacher (MIT) 2016

Today was the first professional learning group of the Spark MIT cohort, and gave us an opportunity to share and critique our inquiry problems and the evidence we have collected which highlights the existence of our problems.  This was a great opportunity to think more deeply about the problem through collaborative discussions and ensure we are clear before we begin the Spark MIT inquiry process.  

The Problem Identified:

• During a writing session, some learners struggle to produce even one sentence.

One of the things I did today was to brainstorm some hypotheses as to why this problem may occur in my class, as well as documenting the evidence that I have so far examined.

Hypothesis of Potential Reasons:

• Writers who are reluctant and not motivated to write
• Reluctant writers are therefore not practicing writing in order to improve (writing mileage)
• Learners who don’t have an audience to write for

What Evidence Exists of the Problem:

• Learners’ e-Asttle writing results at the end of 2015 and early 2016
• Blogs with a history of writing completed to date for all learners who were at Pt England last year
• Observations of learners in my classroom
• Student voice – what my learners currently think about writing and who reads it

I've consolidated my Spark MIT inquiry question to:

Using an authentic audience to enhance the motivation and writing mileage for learners in my classroom.

New Year .. New Level ... New Challenges

Just a week into the 2016 school year and I'm excited about the new challenges this year will present.  After two years at Year 0/1, this year I'm again teaching with iPads, but in a Year 3 classroom.  Over the holidays I've put some time into adapting some of my resources for this new level as well as having an in depth look at the curriculum at this new level.

School returned at Pt England on Tuesday, and it was great to meet the learners I'd be teaching this year - some of them I have in fact taught before, in my first year of teaching so it was doubly great to see how far these learners had come!

Week 1 in my classroom was all about setting up routines and getting to know the uniqueness of each learner!  I'm looking forward to using my Class Room Site more this year as these learners have had 1 - 2 years with an iPad to assist their learning already, and are more confident at navigating the site to access their learning!  Additionally, these learners are able to share their learning with the world in a much more independent way than my previous class was able to, via their blogs and I'm looking forward to having them engaged and motivated by comments I hope they will receive through this medium.

As has been the case for the last two years, all my planning and is available on my site (visible learning) and this year my activities are also accessible as this is where my learners will be accessing them directly.  Our Year 3/4 team at Pt England has a "superhero" theme for Term 1, which was the inspiration for my Site header and Class Blog - celebrating the heroes in Room 15!  I'm looking forward to sharing the successes and challenges throughout the year as well as documenting some unique opportunities that I'm lucky enough to be part of this year.