Maeroa Intermediate: Preparing our Students for their Future

Maeroa Intermediate: Preparing our Students for their Future 

• Enacting our vision, values. learner profile ✓ 
• Fixed Vs. Growth mindset ✓ 
• 7 principals of learning ✓
• Collaboration ✓
• Co-teaching ✓
• Learner Agency ✓
• Learning Spaces ✓

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Our Vision: To develop confident learners who are able to take their place in communities

Our cornerstones: Positive citizens, organised learners, critical explorers, effective communicators

Team Summary: What have we done to enact our vision and values this year?

This year we have unpacked what the school shield symbolises and its history, we have unpacked the cornerstones through group work of looks like, sounds like and feels like. We created a rubric from the cornerstones and used this for the students to set goals.  We have unpacked the school motto 'I will note cease from mental fight. We have included on Class Dojo, behaviours rewards that link to the cornerstones and vision. We have set up high expectations of what this looks like at Maeroa in terms of actions, book work learning, moving around the school etc. The learner profile is included on all unit plans and is openly discussed daily. The language is used and integrated into classroom life.

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Fixed Mindset Vs. Growth Mindset:

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7 Principals of Learning:

What is required in our teaching and learning programmes that ensure our student's are set up for their future?

1. Learners at the centre 

2. Learning social

3. Emotions are integral 

4. Recognise individual differences 

5. Stretching all students

6. Assessment for learning 

7. Building horizontal connections 

Link to the Reading

Where would you put these 7 principals on a continuum?

Reflective Questions:

• Where would you place yourself in terms of each of these seven principals?
• What is your evidence for this positioning?
• What are your next steps?

Team Tanekaha's Continuum: What we consider least important to most important

Note: We consider all of these principals to be interwoven with one another and are all of equal importance

Building horizontal connections  > Stretching all students > Learning social > Emotions are integral  > Assessment for learning  > Recognise individual differences  > Learners at the centre 

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Links from the workshop

Collaborative Planning Workshop: Jo Wilson

Collaborative Planning Workshop: Jo Wilson

December 8th 2015

Block 1 & 2

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Learner: What is your definition of learning

My definition:

Putting yourself in the pit (challenge) to build upon knowledge, experiences, values, virtues... It happens everywhere, all the time (Ubiquitous). It should be engaging, relevant and meaningful to the individual. Learning should be exciting!

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Akomanga Kaha

Toni and Kassey combined definition: Learning everywhere, any time, any place, with many different people where you can build upon your knowledge, experiences, values and virtues. Learning happens in many different ways. 

• Funds of knowledge
• Academic
• Social learning - camp, EOTC

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Collaboration

Three words that best define collaboration:

• Sharing
• Reflecting 
• Working together - Contributing 

Toni and Kassey ideas on collaboration:

• Sharing
• Acquiring new knowledge 
• Reflecting 

6 Keys to success for collaboration

• Clarity of purpose
• Individual commitment
• Time
• Understanding of how to collaborate and communicate
• Support - Leadership
• Freedom to explore 

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Six Keys to Successful Collaboration

Key Thinking:

• Time
• Collaboration time is structured—or not structured
•  "Why not create unstructured times in the school work day and avoid filling that time with stuff? Then encourage people to break out of their routines and talk with each other. See if it happens organically."
• Shared planning time
• Need to dig deep into discussing teaching practice and create strategies to address the needs of the students
• Support from leadership team, just because you can't see progress being made in data doesn't mean it isn't happening
• There's no magic formula for successful collaboration
• This is going to work through discussion identifying needs and room for improve 

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Collaboration Matters

Key Thinking:

• Develop relationship first
• Understand each others vision, norms and values
• How to translate this to the classroom
• Our relationship needs to be strong in order to be successful 
• Embrace conflict
• With no conflict there is not true collaboration 
• Professional conflict
• Conflict provides stretch and change 
• Being honest with your teaching partner
• Collective intelligence 

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John Hattie: Creating a culture of 'Collaborative Expertise' 

• Courage
• Impact
• There is nothing in our profession that identifies excellence 

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Tips for Co-Teaching:

• List of all the things we love about teaching (valuable and unique contributions)
• What are we good at?
• Teaching approaches
• Pastoral care
• Classroom management
• What do we want to do together?
• Common goal - reflect
• Active listeners - students and teachers
• Develop habits
• Reflection and feedback - effective teaching?
• Be learners
• Approaches for class conflict - develop together

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Neuroscience and Learning

Full day course @ Waihi College
22nd September 2015
Speaker: Nathan Mikaere-Wallis

Professional Development: Maeroa Intermediate School: Preparing our Students for their Future - 31.08.15

Professional Development: Maeroa Intermediate School: Preparing our Students for their Future 

Monday 31st August

2pm - 6pm 

Recap: Maeroa Intermediate School mission/motto, vision, values & beliefs about learning

1. Maeroa Intermediate Learner Profile

- Where are we at?
- What have
- What has changed since our last session
- What is next

2. Sharing Session

3. Inquiry Process

- Learning Stories
- Learning Language

4. Planning

- How do we make this happen?

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John Hattie's 8 Mindframes

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Play, passion, purpose: Tony Wagner 

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“Students are the power tools of change in education. They are the most ignored and they have the most at stake.”

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Enacting the Learner Profile through Inquiry

Clarifying Inquiry

How can we:
- Model Inquiry
- Develop learning stories through Inquiry?
- Develop and model the language of the learner profile?
- Gather evidence?

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Maeroa Inquiry Model

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Stage Descriptors

Tuning In

To engage students in the topic

To gauge student interest and attitudes

To find out what students believe - (understandings and misconceptions)

To provide opportunities for students to share what they already know and believe

To introduce / clarify language

To identify gaps in knowledge and misconceptions

 To assist with planning the unit

Finding Out

To take students beyond what they already know

To challenge students’ ideas, beliefs and values

To enable students to use skills (e.g. thinking, communication, co-operation, research) and knowledge to collect new information

Sorting Out & Making Connections

To sort out, organise, represent and present information from the Finding Out stage of the unit

To provide opportunities for students to use their preferred ways of learning to demonstrate their learning (knowledge, skills, values)

Going Further

To extend and broaden the unit if appropriate

To allow students to investigate areas of personal interest

To provide opportunities for students to use their preferred learning style

To present another perspective on, or dimension to, the topic

  

Reflection

To provide opportunities for students to think about their learning — how they learnt, what they learnt and why?

To identify changes in skills, knowledge and values

To draw conclusions and make connections between ideas

  

Action

To identify what students have learnt and the implications for personal actions

To enable students to make choices and apply their ideas

To enable students to relate their learning to real-life situations

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When a person picks up an inquiry book can they?

- Tell.see/understand what the inquiry is about?
- See a shift in student's thinking?
- See interaction between people's thinking?

Student - Student
Teacher - Student - Teacher
Student - Teacher

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Professional Development 27.07.2015

Core Education: Developing the Learner Profile 

3 Reactions

- Embrace change - be flexible and adaptable to situations, environments and students
- Students want to be measured (Students are bottom lined orientated)
- Allow students to be reflective about things that happen in their every day life - we don't need to abandon formal learning but we can get this working in a much more functional way.

2 Implications

- You need to have a sound understanding of the content students are consuming, the technology and what skills we are trying to teach students (creativity, curiosity etc...)
- Understand students funds of knowledge - What do they do at home that they can bring into the classroom?

1 challenge

- The equity of providing students and whanau options in their learning + school and home collaboration.


Learner Profile (Design Principals)

Student Groupings 
'The way we group to maximize learning'

Assessment and Reporting
'...evolves to show student learning and progress'

Learning Culture
'Gauge of learning'

Curriculum Offerings
'Relevant and rich selection from NZC'

Nature of Learning Experiences
'Accessible opportunities for enrichment of all'

Pastoral Care Policy 
'Interactions that affirm expectations, empathy, boundaries'

Collaboration

A great article on Collaboration and how rare it truly is in our classrooms.

Examples:

Connecting

- Sharing resources with colleagues

- Using the Facebook group (NZ Teachers) to find and share resources 

Cooperation

- Engaging in #edchatnz discussion on twitter every second Thursday

- Planning in a team for the term 

Collaboration

- Being part of an ongoing PLG that supports, plans and communicates regularly

- Working in an MLE - planning together, teaching together, utilising strengths and supporting one another 

Learning Spaces

How can you redesign your current space?

How are you using your current teaching and learning space to the best advantage?

- Walls

- Windows

- Furniture

- Outdoor area

- Corridor 

How can you utilise your space further?

Top 10 priorities for the next few weeks

1. Collaborative Planning
2. Redesigning our spaces to utilise what we have
3. Try station teaching with a colleague (1st)
4. Collaboration for students within their inquiry
5. Trying out various teaching styles to see what works for teacher and students
6. Planning to include learner profile student outcomes - putting students into the planning deliberately
7. Talk to students about our 'space' and 'learning styles' and get their input
8. Show students the collaboration - the 'Above and Beyond' video
9. Use windows in classroom
10. Explore the idea of connecting  - connect out on Twitter

Grandparents Day

On Wednesday Room 1's Grandparents came to school to share and support in our learning.

They arrived at 9am and were welcomed down at the hall by the Student Council. The Student Council then escorted them up to each class in groups.

Once in the classroom Grandparents sat with their Grandchildren and worked alongside them. Students had a list of possible activities to choose from on the board. It was awesome to see Granddads doing maths, Grandmas learning how to play Minecraft and other family members popping in to see what the students of Room 1 have been up to so far this year.

The Grandparents were then treated to a beautiful morning tea, where they also had the opportunity to walk around the book fair and buy their mokopuna something special. After the morning tea each class performed an item to celebrate the day. Most items were themed around family and ANZAC day. Room 1 performed three songs that the ANZAC soldiers sang when they were away at war.

The day wrapped up at around 12pm and Grandparents were allowed to take their mokopuna off school grounds for the rest of the day to treat them to a nice lunch or outing.

It was an awesome day for students, staff and whanau!

Evernote

This year we are using Evernote to keep our anecdotal notes.

This is an amazing tool for teachers I couldn't speak highly enough of it to do it justice.

At first I found it really challenging to find the time to make the notes. With seniors it can be hard to find a moment to jot down comments and observations, before you are interrupted and it is lost. I have had to make a conscious effort to make the time and now I feel like I have been able to teach while making quick notes and taking photos for evidence.

Things I like about Evernote:

- Searching students names (great for when it comes to parent teacher interviews and reports)
- Annotating photos - You can highlight and write all over photos
- I can use the notes to help with planning - particularly when trying to decide how long to spend on a learning intention
- The evidence is visual, organised and accessible on a range of devices and locations (Home and School)
- The notes can be shared with fellow colleagues and management
- You can create notebooks to organise various topics and content. I have a notebook for Behaviour & Social, Planning Reflections, Testing Observations, Room 1 (2015) and then various notebooks for different curriculum ideas
- You can clip articles, photos and documents off the internet. This is a great way to never lose amazing resources!
- I can use it on my phone. I take the photos, type the notes and post these to my Evernote while I am sitting with a group
- You can set yourself checklists and reminders within your notes - e.g. Need to Gloss test ASAP - Look at Mult/Div

Friday Night Hockey

Friday night myself and some other staff members went down to the turf to support our Mokoia White Hockey Team. 

I was able to take some cool actions shots of the kids for them to use for their blogging. 

They all played well, worked well as a team and have improved a lot over the term. Go Mokoia! 

Netball Noho

Last Friday night Whaea Liana, Whaea Te Aorha and myself spent the night at school...with 36 girls!
We decided what better way to build tikanga and whakawhanaungatanga than have a noho.

We began the night by having the girls set up their beds (in the staffroom) and sort out their kai for our pot luck dinner. Then we set up the hall and began the night with two guest speakers, 1 spoke about commitment and all the qualities needed to be a netballer and the other spoke about respect on the court from the perspective of an umpire.

Next we played team building games, did some jump jam and the girls in their teams presented a little skit. We all sat down together and had a lovely dinner with dessert dropped off by a very lovely mama. To the end the night we did our clean up and watched 'The Gabby Douglas Story', this is an amazing movie about an African American gymnasts character, determination and how she overcame all the obstacles that could have stopped her from becoming an Olympian.

The next day we woke up around 7am and the girls went for an hour run. We sat down together and had breakfast before commencing our big clean up. We went through the sporting code of conduct and had a round of sheriff - each girls gets a chocolate bar, the teachers have an opportunity to fine anyone for anything they did while at the noho, e.g. - snoring. Then the student's without a chocolate have an opportunity to fine and finally everyone who is fined goes around and defends their case. This was a very cool way to end our noho.

Overall it was a huge success. There was a very relaxed vibe and the girls definitely bonded with each other and us as their coaches.

Minecraft PB4L City

Another year and another battle setting up and facilitating how I want/need Minecraft to run in our classroom. This year I am lucky enough that my team (myself + 3 other teachers) are on the MC bandwagon.


We began our Minecraft set up the same as we did last year.
I told all the students to go on and show me a creation. I asked them to build something to share with the class that showed their Minecraft skills. I do this for two reasons. Firstly I see the levels of skill and expertise in the room and secondly I am able to see the students' digital etiquette for one another. After this we used post it notes to reflect on our session. We reflected on what was good, what was bad, what our goals were for future projects and began creating our Minecraft treaty.

Student Positives:

- Teamwork
- Creativity
- Collaboration
- Communication
- Learning a new form of ICT
- Gaming in the classroom
- Maths (co-ordinates, volume, spatial awareness)
- Digital citizenship
- Our school values (respect, honesty, relationships and learning)

Student Negatives:

- Griefing
- People all trying to build on top of each other
- Some people not knowing how to play and needing constant help
- Issues for some getting on - having to go down to library and grab another laptop


Students used all of these to create a treaty that they all signed. They have agreed to abide by their treaty and have set consequences that they decided on for when they break it.

We then decided to build a PB4L (positive behaviour for learning) city.

We used another white sheet of paper to map out what our city required:
- Housing
- Roads
- Footpaths
- Workplaces - based on dream jobs
- Parks, forests, farms - nature related things


P3 began building all of the above. They were working very well with one another to achieve a successful result. We then bought in P2 and P3 became the tuakana teina to teach them how to use Minecraft. P2 then joined us in our area and began developing their own homes and workplaces alongside us. The students were commenting positively on newly formed relationships, successful teamwork and the ability to collaborate with a large group of students.

The main goal of this activity was to develop a digital etiquette and ensure our school values are also represented online.

The end of Ember

The book is over and our movie day is complete!

Nooooooooooo!
This was the reaction as I read the last paragraph on the last page.
"How can the book end there? It just got to the good part!" - AJ
P3 somehow then convinced me to continue on and read them the first chapter of the second book so that they could have some peace of mind.

'The City of Ember' is an amazing novel study. It has encouraged a lot of my less avid readers to continue reading the rest of series and some have even rushed out to buy it so they can have it immediately.

P3 spent all term looking forward to being able to end our unit with a fun movie day filled with tons of snacks and sore tummys. They have had extensive discussions, create Ember in Minecraft, created a 3D mural for our wall and many more engaging activities.

We joined up with another class in our learning center and spent the first block and half of the second block viewing the film today. Students had two activities to complete while watching the movie. They had to complete a compare and contrast chart between the book and the movie. They also had to complete an excitement chart. Every ten minutes I would pause the film and the students had to write a descriptive sentence of what was happening in that scene and give it a rating based on how exciting it was. Students will now take this data and at some stage next week create a graph about how exciting the film was.

In the afternoon we broke down and analysed the work we had done together, we discussed and shared our excitement levels and why this was so varied. We began putting together a venn diagram between the book and the movie that will be going on display in our learning center.

Overall students have achieved great success in this unit and have thoroughly enjoyed the range of activities and tasks they had to complete. I am looking forward to 'Ancient Civilizations' next term and the new novel we will be reading.

Sample of student reflections on the end of the novel study:

Kayleigh - End of Ember Reflection

AJ - City of Ember

Natalya - City of Ember

Manaia - City of Ember Movie

Moenah - The End of Ember

Going out with a bang

The Netball season is over!

I am both happy and sad about this. I am happy because I can say farewell to those cold early Saturday mornings, standing on the side of the court chewing my fingernails down with nervous anticipation of the score, but then I am sad because I have grown very attached to my team. They have worked so hard this season and made a huge amount of progress.

Today was our final game for the year against Devon Intermediate in our yearly sport exchange. I am pleased that my girls were able to finish the season up with a win (23-12).

When we started the season some of the girls were sloppy in their passing, lazy in their fitness training and struggled to get along. They have come a long way, and I feel they have learnt just as much off the court as they have on the court. They play with integrity, heart and respect. They show good sportsmanship and set achievable goals to further their own progress. I wish I could continue on with these girls for another year, that is the downside of Intermediate. They come and go so quickly.

I look forward to seeing next years girls grow and learn more about themselves and the game, on and off the court.