Monday, August 31

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?





John Hattie's 8 Mindframes






Play, passion, purpose: Tony Wagner 





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





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?




Maeroa Inquiry Model





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






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






Monday, August 24

Developing the capabilities to interact with science (24.08.15)

Developing the capabilities to interact with 

science

Paul Ashman






Nature of Science Capabilities
-          Gather and interpret data
-          Use evidence
-          Critique evidence
-          Interpret representations
-          Engage with science

When does a simple task become science?
-          Investigating
-          Questioning
-          Evaluating
-          Reasoning
-          Thinking
-          Curiosity
-          Wondering
-          Observations
-          Making connections

Nature of Science
-          Observe scientists
-          Science of self
-          Science is constantly being re-evaluated in light of new evidence
-          How to carry out a scientific investigation
-          Understanding how science works
-          Make connections between science knowledge and everyday decisions and actions
-          This is a compulsory strand – the other strands provide context for learning
-          Assessment should be based on the nature of science understanding (capabilities)


The difference between observations and inferences



-          Weta
o    That is an inference
o    What If there was an insect that looked just like a weta?
o    Prove it
o    What can you see about them
o    Insect = 6 legs
o    Link observations to what you think
- I see long spindly legs coming out the front, I think they are antennae

-          Bird
o    I can see claws with webbing that I think is its foot
o    Feathers

-          Grass, leaves, green vegetation

Things we can’t tell but that we infer:
-          If the bird is dead
-          If the weta are eating the bird
-          That this is a bird
-          Where the photo takes place 

What can we see?



-          Circles
-          Spikes
-          Perception varies – are the circles at the back in or out
-          Wonderings – If this is an eyeball then how do they blink? Why does it have so many bits?
-          As soon as students know what it is, they will stop thinking
-          Try and find images that don’t give away what ‘it’ is

Observations                                                                                                                                              

                                                     

Lit candle (What can you see, what do you notice)
Record = draw or write
Observation types – visual, tactile sense, what isn’t happening, changes
-          Noticing = engaged other senses
-          Feel the heat
-          The closer my hand got to the flame the hotter it got
-          Yellow and orange at the top
-          Blue flame at the base
-          End of the wick glows with an orange ember
-          There is an aura around the flame, it looks like a lighter flame
-          Some of the candle is melting
-          The wick is charred black where the flame is touching
-          Wick has woven pattern
-          The wick has a hook shape
-          The flame has different tones
-          The flame changes height – why?
-          Hotter above the flame than the sides
-          Wax doesn’t catch burn
-          Rapid air movement causes the candle to smoke
-          Air movement – concave/convex shape flame

Progress:
-          What do students notice?
o    Things
o    Attribute
o    Change
-          What senses do they use?
-          What language do they use?
o    Descriptive language
o    Topic specific words
o    Scientific words


Do students make inferences without attempting to explain why they think something?
-          “I think it’s hot”
Do they make an inference and attempt to explain their thinking?
-          “I think it might get a little air in it so it lightens up a little bit”
What links do they make?
-          To previous experience?
-          To scientific ideas?

Notice > Think > Wonder > Predict > Observe > Explain

-          I see/I notice
-          I think
-          I wonder

I notice = engaging more of the senses
-          I notice with my hand
-          I notice with my nose

Get students to justify what they are seeing and justify what they think

Informed Questions
-          Is there evidence backing up this claim?
-          Is the argument logical?
-          Was the testing robust?
-          Are the findings represented in a fair way?



What information can we get from this?
-          By doing this we are starting to critique it
o    Lot of rats
o    Both graphs have rats and birds
o    How many cats were interviewed?
o    What was the time frame for the data collection?
o    What time of day is the data collected?
o    Is this in a rural or town setting?

Critiquing Evidence
Design an experiment to test which tissue is stronger.



Representing Ideas
-          Farming and global warming
-          Comparing pictures
-          Reading graphs, tables etc…
-          Using scientific language

Resources
-          Making better sense books
-          Building science concept books
-          The arbs
-          Connected journals
-          TKI

TKI Website
-          Introducing science capabilities
o    Information about each
o    Resources that link directly into the capabilities
   -  Resources broken up into levels


Resources:




Friday, August 21

Green Screen Fun!

We have just moved into our brand new learning space (pictures to come soon). 

We had some fun on Friday afternoon playing around with our new green screen room. 

We used the app ChromaKey to change the backgrounds and take some fun photos. 

If you know any other awesome green screen apps please comment below. 



Inquiry: Tuning In

Fair Trade: The Banana Mystery: Why are bananas cheaper than apples? 


Our Inquiry Cycle Model 


The Inquiry Process is not a linear process





Tuning in Session 1: Bananas Don't Grow on Trees





The Research

Students Googled the prices between apples and bananas. 
We recorded down a bunch of costs from various locations and looked at the most expensive versus the cheapest. 



Reasoning

Students reasons for the difference in price between apples and bananas

- Quality of the product
- Shelf life
- Cost and profit
- One might be harder to grow
- More demand (popularity)
- Location the fruit grows - cultural or religious beliefs and values
- Economy 
- Exchange rate
- Brands and types 

Price Points

Students generated a bunch of reasons for the differences in prices for bananas between local stores. 

- Countdown is trying to make more money
- Pak N Save wants more customers by lowering their prices
- Competition between stores
- Shipping costs for the bananas between each store may vary
- The place they are importing from might change and then all the costs change
- Different supplies = different costs
- Storage options (Shelf life) - might be stored in a cooler or warmer place
- Brands and types change the price
- Pak N Save might have had more in stock and therefore could make theirs cheaper

The Mystery of why Bananas are cheaper than apples?

Students in their table groups then worked through the clues they were given. 

The organised them into 3 categories

1. Important Clue
2. Clue
3. Non Relevant 

Once each table group had discussed and drawn conclusions we talked about the importance of each piece of information. We used the clues to draw conclusions about why bananas were cheaper than apples. 






The Banana Split Game

Each group of students was given a role and had to argue/negotiate for their wage. 



The students really enjoyed being able to argue and negotiate what they felt their role was worth. 
It took a total of 5 rounds of negotiations to get each group to total 30 cents per each banana.

Round 1: Negotiate within their team
Round 2: Move around the room and try and convince other teams to lower their prices
Round 3: Negotiate again with only their own teams
Round 4: 1 person from each group presented to the class why they felt they were worth what they were asking for. Class debated on if they felt the demands were fair.
Round 5: Negotiate in teams once again (This round took the longest as we were 4 cents over and no team wanted to budge)

After all the negotiations I shared with the class what the actual prices each worker in the chain got per banana.




This prompted a lot of discussion. We used the discussion questions as prompts to steer our discussions in the right direction. Students shared a lot of their own experiences or stories their parents had shared about similar situations.

Overall majority of the class felt like the price of bananas should be raised to help support all those in the chain to meet their basic needs.