Workspace Task - Blogging
I have been trialling structuring blogging into Workspace Tasks, as shown in the image below. The blogging task is added to the Workspace as an Activity in the Evidence column.Workspace Task - Evidence Card
In the example provided, students would start the Level 1 - Game Blog Post evidence card, which looks as follows:Student Blog Posts and Comments
The following are links to some of the students blog posts, which they have quad blogged and commented on within the class. The blogging, commenting, and response to comments was incorporated into teaching and learning time during a couple of lessons.- Level 1 - Game Blog Post - Amethyst Hohaia Scanlan Game Blog Post Link
- Level 1 - Game Blog Post - Faamanatu Tiumalu Game Blog Post Link
- Level 1 - Game Blog Post - Isaac Lam Sam Game Blog Post Link
- Level 1 - Game Blog Post - Leni Lakieto Game Blog Post Link
- Level 1 - Game Blog Post - Angel Temu Game Blog Post Link
- Level 1 - Game Blog Post - Ngatuaine Puri Game Blog Post Link
My Inquiry Focus for CoL 2018, has been "Integrating VTaL Visible Teaching and Learning with cultural visibility and responsive practices to raise Māori student achievement in NCEA years 11-13" in alignment with Achievement Challenge 1. The focus group for my inquiry this year was students who I taught DigiTech NCEA Level 2.
In order to appreciate what is meant by cultural visibility and responsive practices, it is important to understand the intent of Culturally responsive and relational pedagogy as outlined in the following image sourced from the Kia Eke Panuku site.
Throughout the year, I integrated various pedagogical practices relating to Cultural responsiveness into my teaching practice. This included, but was not confined to, the following:
- Whanaungatanga
- Mahi Tahi
- Manaakitanga
- Wānanga
In a previous post, entitled Connecting VTaL to Culturally Responsive and Relational Pedagogy, I outlined ways in which VTaL Visible Teaching and Learning could be incorporated within teaching and learning, to enable Culturally Responsive and Relational Pedagogy to be applied.
In order to give context to what happened throughout the year, in terms of the intent of my teaching practices, and the learning outcomes for students, I will give a brief description of how VTaL could be used with the following aspects of Culturally Responsive practices. I will then outline what actually happened in terms of learning outcomes for students, and describe other variables that impacted on the teaching and learning process. After which, I will outline 'What happened for the Learners?', "What evidence do I have for this?', 'What did I do to make this happen?' and 'Wonderings about what next'.
Whanaungatanga - Google+ Communities
The following is a description of how VTaL Visible Teaching and Learning can be integrated with Whanaungatanga - Where relationships of care and connectedness are fundamental.
- Class discussions about context ideas
- Sharing completed tasks in Google+ as a tool to guide the learning of others
- +1 and Commenting on tasks shared in Google+
- Peer feedback in Evaluations
The following blog post describes how Whanaungatanga was applied with the focus group this year:
Mahi Tahi, Manaakitanga - Google+ Communities and Workspaces
The following is a description of how VTaL Visible Teaching and Learning can be integrated with Mahi Tahi Kotahitanga - Where power is shared and learners have the right to self-determination. Empowerment for students:- Students can use Student Check Lists to track their own progress within this unit of work
- Wananga between kaiako-tauira to select standards according to their interest in IT and DigiTech. The standards available in DigiTech can be located within the DigiTech site under each NCEA Level (Assessment Information, and, Overview and Calendar)
The following blog post describes how Mahi Tahi Kotahitanga was applied with the focus group this year:
- Mahi Tahi and Manaakitanga - VTaL in DigiTech and Collaborative Learning
- VTaL - Mahi Tahi and Manaakitanga : Tuakana-Teina
Wānanga - Tracking Sheets
The following is a description of how VTaL Visible Teaching and Learning can be integrated with Wānanga - Decision-making and practice in response to relevant evidence. Kaiako-Tauira Wananga are provided for students:- Use Class Task Lists and Student Check Lists to have discussions around progress and support for developing learning
- Wananga between kaiako-tauira to select standards according to their interest in IT and DigiTech. The standards available in DigiTech can be located within the DigiTech site under each NCEA Level (Assessment Information, and, Overview and Calendar)
The following blog post describes how Wānanga was applied with the focus group this year:
Understanding the Variables
In April this year, I delivered a presentation at the EdTech GAFE Conference in Auckland about how VTaL Visible Teaching and Learning Tracking Sheets were being used to Track Student Progress. As part of the presentation, I gave a description of the background of who the learners were. This is shown in the following slide from the presentation.
The description of the Multi-level Senior DigiTech Class outlines a range of variables that needed to be taken in consideration, when planning to teach and prepare learning activities for the students within the class.
What happened for the Learners?
Learners achieved when they had my full attention. When I was with other learners from Level 1 and/or Level 3 during a lesson, the Level 2 learners often didn't focus consistently on completing tasks. I found this quite odd that all of the Level 2 students who were consistently present in lessons, all functioned in this same way. This was not the case with Level 3 students. There was often a range of focus and work output shown from the Level 3 students. Some worked well to complete tasks, while others did not. However, all of the Level 2 students worked at a particularly slow pace, which was not conducive to keeping up with assessment deadlines. This meant that the Level 2 students did not achieve in all standards across the entire year, even after having achieved the credits for the first standard. Culturally responsive and relational pedagogy was not enough on it's own to enable student achievement to continue.
After having discussions with an external provider, who through another program at school, was familiar with this same set of learners, we looked at ways of identifying the way in which students learn by using Gregorc Learning Styles. For the students who were present, I was able to have them undertake exercises and determine the their learning styles:
- Learner 1 - Abstract Random
- Learner 2 - Abstract Sequential/Abstract Random
- Learner 3 - Concrete Sequential/Abstract Random
- Learner 4 - Abstract Random
"Abstract – Random (AR)
Abstract – Random (AR) learners prefer an unstructured environment and learn holistically. They show strong visual preferences for taking in information and toward instruction. They prefer physically pleasing, personalized, flexible environments; emotional sensitivity and strong relationships with others; and flexibility in time, activity and demands. They may need repeated coaching to focus their time and activity on learning tasks, vs. on interpersonal relationships in learning or in teamwork environments. Can’t say “no” even when they should, and need incubation time before responding! (They aren’t “slow,” they’re just pondering – and instructors need to recognize this publicly.) Abstract-Randoms ask “If?”. Nickname: People Person, Absent-Minded Professor, or Crazy Artist (musician, etc.). Key words: Imaginative/Perceptive/Social."
Unfortunately, these characteristics are not conducive to independent learning strategies, that I had implemented using VTaL, in order to address the broad range of learning needs of three NCEA levels of learners in my Senior DigiTech class.
What evidence do I have for this?
The types of evidence that I had acquired throughout the year to identify formative feedback of their progress was tracking sheets for the different standards. I also asked students to share back to me, what they had identified as their preferred learning style.
Tracking Student Progress
- Create a Website Tracking Sheet
- Planning for Practice Tracking Sheet
- Conceptual Design Tracking Sheet
Learning Styles
- Learner 1 - Abstract Random
- Learner 2 - Abstract Sequential/Abstract Random
- Learner 3 - Concrete Sequential/Abstract Random
- Learner 4 - Abstract Random
What did I do to make this happen?
The following are a range of strategies and interventions that I applied throughout the year to enable students to achieve:
- Tuakana-Teina Learning Approach - This worked well with the NCEA Level 2 Students in terms of enabling the students to engage in learning, with the support of NCEA Level 3 Students to guide them as to how to complete the work.
- Wānanga - Conferencing with Students - This worked well to inform the NCEA Level 2 Students (as well as the other two NCEA Levels) of where they were at within the standard that they were focussing on at any given time throughout the year. However, the overall impact of the conferencing had two different effects, depending on whether students exhibited high levels of motivation and effort to achieve, or whether they didn't. Whilst I was able to conduct conferences with the NCEA Level 2 students regarding their current level of achievement, this did not motivate the students to work any faster, or to work independently to complete work.
- Group Learning Tasks - After identifying the student's preferred learning styles, I stacked some of the learning activities to be group focussed. This worked particularly well. However, once students had to progress beyond the group activity to conduct individual analysis of their previous work, students defaulted back to their previous learning approach of slow work output.
- Whānau Contact - Discussions with Parents and Caregivers - I made contact with parents and caregivers to discuss their child's progress or lack of progress within their projects. Irrespective of having constructive conversations with parents, this did not translate into an improved work output or faster work output by students.
- Catchup Sessions - Wednesdays After School from 3pm - 5pm, Labour Day - I ran after school catchup sessions as well as a full day catch up session on Labour Day for students to complete their projects. This was to address the issue of timelines and time required for students to complete work. However, it was always the students from the other NCEA Levels, who exhibited a highly productive work ethic and high intrinsic motivation, who attended these sessions. The NCEA Level students would have attended 10-20% of the catchup sessions that I had offered.
Wonderings about what next
The blog posts and photographs relevant to Culturally Responsive teaching and learning interventions, indicates that these strategies were highly effective in engaging the learners to participate in the learning process. However, the evidence shows that the Culturally Responsive teaching and learning interventions, in isolation, were not effective in enabling this particular focus group of learners to achieve. Regardless of this, I will continue to incorporate Culturally Responsive teaching and learning interventions in future units of work, if this continues to engage learners.
Some wonderings that I have about what next, includes teaching students how to effectively self manage, and well as investigating strategies to improve intrinsic motivation and effort, so that students can still progress through tasks and achieve, without requiring my full and absolute attention during lessons if I am tending to other learners.
I intend exploring more ideas around workflow for students, that further breaks down task criteria. This would entail connecting learning outcomes, learning instructions, evidence expectations and task criteria within Workspaces. Hopefully this will address the issue of students waiting to be verbally told what they need to do next within a project in order to proceed forward with work. I have begun experimenting with this approach in both my Year 10 and NCEA Level 1 JumpStart units of work, and intend continuing to investigate whether this is more or less effective in units of work that I will deliver next year. These can be viewed in my DigiTech with Ms Anderson subject site as follows:
The following is the presentation that I recently delivered at the 2018 Manaiakalani Outreach Wananga. The VTaL Visible Teaching and Learning Site can be accessed by clicking on the VTaL Site link in the horizontal navigation of my blog.
Ok so maybe the title isn't exactly accurate in that the new stuff in Workspaces, isn't actually new stuff ... but it's new stuff to me. I'm talking about the ability to organise information in sections within Workspaces. I've known that the section partition was an upgrade from a few months back, I just hadn't applied it to any new Workspaces, as I'd been making copies of the existing Workspaces I'd created, and just adapting what I had.
Well, after having a bit of play in creating new Workspaces for JumpStart, so far I like the new sections and what they have to offer. I've set the Workspace up with a top section, which is general information about the project. The heading titles are:
- Column 1 : Project Information - Year 10 DigiTech Project
- Column 2 : Resources - DigiTech Media Outcomes G+, Year 10 DigiTech G+
- Column 3 : Evidence - Student Checklist
- Column 4 : Rubrics - Class Tracking Sheet
The sections below the top section are broken in Activity Levels 1 and 2. The four columns are organised into:
- Column 1 : Learning Outcomes
- Column 2 : Instructions
- Column 3 : Evidence (that students are expected to complete and submit)
- Column 4 : Criteria
I can see how the sections can make the Workspaces cleaner for students to access information. It will be interesting to see what the students have to say about the new setup as well. The Year 10 classes that I currently teach in JumpStart, also accessed their learning through Workspaces earlier in the year. I look forward to hearing their feedback.
VTaL Visible Teaching and Learning
The Year 10 Workspaces are embedded into my learning site, DigiTech with Ms Anderson to enable the work to be visible to anyone who views the Workspace. The VTaL tools that I have incorporated into the sharing of the Year 10 Workspace includes:
- Subject Sites - As mentioned, the Workspace is embedded into my subject site
- Learning Activities - embedded into column 2 of the activity sections
- Tracking Sheets - embedded into column 4 of the top section
- Student Checklists - embedded into column 3 of the top section
- Calendars with Hyperlinks - located in the Year 10 Calendar page in my subject site
- Workspaces - embedded into my subject site
- Subject Communities - link embedded into column 2 of the top section
- Student Blogs - student blog learning activities included in column 2 and 3 of the activity sections
The following image links to the Year 10 Workspaces in my subject site.
Today, myself and the other Tamaki College CoL Teachers presented alongside Lenva to the staff about bringing together Learn Create and Share. The example that I presented about focussed on a NCEA Level 3 unit of work relating to the Conceptual Design standard. The Learn aspect included the learning activities that students undertake throughout the unit. The Create section shows the types of tasks and evidence that students use to demonstrate their learning. The example of Share includes a link to the Google+ Community that the students post their work into under various categories, that they all access to guide their learning. The following image demonstrates what I delivered in the LCS presentation.
Today I had the opportunity, alongside my fellow MIT Colleagues, to share what I have been inquiring into with regards to my MIT project. The audience was primarily made up of Senior and Middle Leaders from various Manaiakalani and Outreach schools, as well as other Manaiakalani partners.
The reason that it was so important to me to able to share my MIT 2018 Inquiry, is because my intention is that the VTaL Site that I have been developing, would and could be useful to any educationalists who can see the vision that I have shared with regards to Visible Teaching and Learning, with regards to impacting positively on learners in both our local and global communities.
As outlined in my presentation to those who attended the wananga, the VTaL Site is at the point of being a functional prototype. In order to improve both the look and function of the VTaL Site, I'm interested in acquiring feedback from a range of stakeholders, including Senior Leaders, Middle Leaders, Experienced Teachers and New Teachers from a range of schools. All comments and feedback is encouraged and welcome. Here is a link to a post requesting feedback on the VTaL Site.
The following is the slide deck of the presentation from the wananga.
VTaL Visible Teaching and Learning Site
The following image below links to a Prototype of the revised VTaL Site. The site has been designed to give a brief overview of the VTaL Visible Teaching and Learning framework, an explanation of each of the VTaL tools, examples of the VTaL tools, and links to Practising Teaching Criteria.
Please navigate to the VTaL Site, and provide feedback in this blog post on the following:
- the aesthetics of the site
- the functionality of the site
- the usefulness of information
How useful would this site be for existing teachers, and also new teachers to your department or school? Any comments or feedback is welcome.
Workspace PD Overview
I recently ran a Workspaces PD session for some of the staff involved in the Integrated Unit 'Parakuihi Hauora'. The purpose of the workshop was not to show staff how to use Workspaces. The purpose of the workshop was to show staff how to use Workspaces to integrate a unit of work across multiple learning areas.The way in which I started the workshop was to demonstrate to staff, a process in the form of a Workspace flowchart, that would enable staff to identify from a unit of work, the types of information that could be used to populate an integrated Workspace.
Integrating Tasks from Multiple Learning Areas
The next stage was to encourage staff to determine the order and sequence in which tasks would take place that would enable the learning outcomes to be achieved by students across the entire unit of work. I did this by demonstrated an example template of a Workspace to give staff a visual idea of the cards and sections.I then asked staff to work through a row of Workspace cards for one learning outcome, using A4 paper and sticky notes. The row of sticky notes was to represent the following:
- Task Learning Outcome
- Task Instructions
- Task Evidence
- Task Criteria
This was to model the same structure as an actual Workspace itself. The purpose of using A4 paper was that each piece of A4 was to represent one learning outcome, and associated instructions, evidence and criteria. The purpose of the sticky notes, was so that staff could move or change the sticky notes around as desired. The A4 pages could be moved around the table, to represent the order or sequence of learning outcomes and tasks from the multiple learning areas. It was a relatively uncomplicated way of allowing staff to experiment with the order of tasks, before starting an actual Workspace.
The image below shows how Carol Heka, our Specialist Food Technologist, has used the A4 paper and sticky notes after the Workspaces PD session to structure her learning activities for the Parakuihi - Hauora : Technology and Maths Workspace.
The Parakuihi - Hauora : Technology and Maths Workspace developed by Carol Heka in collaboration with Sheila Singh, is visible within the Rise Above: Parakuihi & Hauora Google Site. The Google site enables the work to be visible to anyone who would like to view the unit of work including students, teachers, parents or any other stakeholders. Students access the learning activities through the specific Workspaces that have shared with the students via the Student Dashboard.
One of the recent learning activities that some of my students had to do was explain whether the outcome that they'd developed was 'fit for purpose'. In essence, whether the outcome met the client's needs, and adhered to the specifications in the design brief throughout the students' entire practice.
The various stages throughout their practice that enabled students to either relate their design investigations to the design brief, or, acquire client feedback or stakeholder feedback, includes:
- the initial brainstorm of outcome ideas,
- research of existing outcomes and design principles,
- client discussions,
- feedback on design ideas,
- feedback on conceptual designs,
- and feedback on the final conceptual design.
Students were able to execute the various stages of technological practice. Students were also very familiar with the specifications in the design brief. However, an area where students struggled, was by explaining how the various stages of technological practice adhered to one or more of the specifications, and how this meant that the clients needs were being met. It's not that the students weren't doing the work. It's more a case of explaining how the clients needs were being met, and the evidence that the students had acquired to back up their statements. Students were describing the practice eg. the brainstorm, then describing the specifications, but struggling to explain the link between the brainstorm and the specifications, as how the clients' needs were being met.
This lead to discussions between myself and three of the students, breaking down the task as outlined in the image. The approach is very similar to the SEXY writing structure for paragraphs. Students had to:
- State and/or describe the type of practice
- Explain how the practice linked to either the design specifications and/or client feedback
- Provide an example or evidence of the practice
- Explain why or how the clients needs had been taken into consideration, contributing towards the final outcome being fit for purpose.
The discussions entailed to-ing and fro-ing amongst myself and the students to clarify that they understood how to approach the task. The students then undertook the fitness for purpose task, whereby I was able to comment into their documents, as well as follow up with further discussions with the students to clarify that they had completed the task as needed and required.
I think that technology has the potential to make society extremely antisocial ... although it doesn't need to. I think that we all just need to be conscious of, and respond to social situations that doesn't make us antisocial. Dining out, spending time with friends, work colleagues etc, are classic examples of times where we need to be conscious of what is happening around us, and whether we truly need to be 'plugged in'. Because so many of us are so used to having our devices on us wherever we go, it's important to set respectful social boundaries so that we are not constantly stuck behind screens, and are actually engaging appropriately in different social situations.
After delivering my workshop at Sydney GAFE recently, and attending the workshop of a fellow colleague Gerhard Vermeulen, directly after my own, I was lucky enough to gain feedback and insight within both workshops into the use of conditional formatting to apply the traffic light colour codes more easily within the VTaL tracking sheets.
This has meant a quicker and more efficient turnover within the marking system, as grades are entered either via the Workspace 'assessed' function, or grades entered directly into VTaL tracking sheets themselves.
The following are a series of screenshots, to demonstrate the formula that is added into the sheets, and the marking process that enables the colour codes to be updated within the sheets for various tasks.
1 - Open the Google Sheet
2 - Click on Format > Conditional Formatting > Add the 'Rules'
3 - Enter Grades into Workspace, or into the Google Sheet
4 - Click on Assessed with the Workspace
5 - Grades turn 'Green' for Assessed work
6 - View 'Started' to see which students have started the task
7 - Enter 'Started' into the Google Sheet
The following are a series of interactions between myself and my fellow MIT colleagues, who I'm grateful to have received extensive feedback from in terms of my current conceptual design of the VTaL site for teachers. The feedback has been clustered into various sections which covers a range of design elements relating to both the aesthetics and functionality of the resource. The feedback is intended to maximise the effectiveness of the VTaL site as a useful resource for teachers.
Introduction to VTaL Site Feedback Session
What I've intended for the tool, is for it to be a responsive tool; so responsive in that it can be used on a desktop, and also on mobile devices. Currently, at the top of the site, it has a range of options in the navigation bar. It's got the drop-down tools, under the VTaL tools. The homepage currently has a little blurb about VTaL, a presentation with links, and each of the tool pages has got a description of the tool, an example of the tool and then different connections back to relevant aspects of effective teaching. In addition, there are also some reflective questions.
In terms of feedback that I'm interested in, it's "What would you prefer to see on my homepage?" "Is the navigation bar useful?" "What recommendations do you have around that?" "What would you prefer to see on each of the tool pages that would make it a useful resource?"
VTaL Tools
"What are each of the tools?"
Each of the tools is what makes up the entire VTaL framework. The different tools all work around the idea of Learn, Create and Share; different tools that can be used to promote Learn, Create and Share.
"So looking at Tool 1. Tool 1 is having a Google Site with resources that link to work, correct?" Yep. "So the VTaL framework is essentially the different things that a classroom teacher needs in a digital age to deliver Learn, Create and Share". That could.
Setup of VTaL Site Pages
"You could have a banner for each of the tools, because there is no break" "You could have a banner that says what each tool is, and then a different banner for each part" "So for reflective questions there could be a separate banner so that it breaks up each section for each tool"
"Are the reflective questions even useful?" The reflective questions are at the bottom of each tool page. "Yes"
VTaL Tool Drop-down in the Navigation Bar
"One thing that I'm finding not having gone to the site before, is that when I go to each tool, I don't actually know what each tool is until I go into the individual pages". "When I click on the drop down, I'd quite like to see what it actually is". "And even on the actual page, it comes up with Tool 01, but it would be really helpful there too".
"Or even if you ..., because you don't want it alphabetically ordered, you want it to be numerically ordered ... so if it was Tool 01 : Google Sites, Tool 01 : blah blah" "So then if people just wanted to know about Google sites then they could just go there" "cause that's a real barrier, everybody has got to know your mind" "it also means that if you're trying to skim, and you want to find something quickly, you're going to skim through those headings more quickly, then if it just says tool".
"Why does it have to say tool? Is tool an off putting word or an embracing word? Would 01 do it?" That evolved out of the previous site, and only wanting to have one row on the navigation bar, and so instead of having all of the tool names, I just called it Tool 01, Tool 02 blah blah blah. When I went into the new sites, I just transferred that across, and well, it's not useful. "I'm just wondering about all of the teachers, locally, and all around the place, and 'oh no, not another tool that I've got to use'". "It's like 'oh no, we've dropped ... and now we're moving to ... " "Is 'tool' a barrier word?" "I feel like if you have what each tool is, then you may not need the word tool"
"Is there a certain order that you want the tools to be in?" No. "Although I do think though that prioritising them, like Sites would be number one". "Does it alphabetically order them? because otherwise you could just put them however you want?"
"I think the numbers are quite good, if I was someone who was going to the site for the first time, and didn't have a preference for what I looked at, I would probably go through them in numerical order, if you ordered them in such a way that for a new teacher, would be logical and it would work really well for me"
"I like how the site has a really good structure, every page follows the same format".
"Thank you. I don't feel like the site is user friendly, I'm so entrenched in the content myself, that I'm not making it ..."
VTaL Site Homepage
"Do you think that on the home page that you could make VTaL really really explicit?" "It is a series ... this is how ... it is a series of tools that will allow you to make Learn, Create, Share happen". "That supports Learn, Create and Share in the secondary school environment - and then those kaupapa words of Empowerment, Visible, Connected, Ubiquitous - you're welcome to use our little graphics, all of our graphics ... This collection of tools has been proven to support the implementation of Learn, Create, Share in a secondary school".
"I feel the users need a little bit more hand holding". "When you go onto the front page, it feels as though you already have to know, in order to understand what you're looking at. Whereas, because there is so much stuff that is going to help a new beginning teacher, or even an experienced teacher, who is new to Learn, Create, Share in a high school context, you kind of just want it to tell you that's exactly what it is - and at the moment, it doesn't quite do that".
"I almost feel as though I want you to hand hold me through how each of your tools, how I'm going to use it. I even that when you change the words to Google Sites etc, that will make it more clear of what I'm looking at."
"You've got your purpose really clear for each of the tools, but it's not until I go through them all ... so if you have that same sort of purpose at the beginning, that will make people think 'I just want to look at SOLO' for example".
-
"You've got some powerful components there (links to OECD learning, reflective questions)"
"I was going to ditch some of those components because I thought they made the resource really boring ... when I saw some of the other sites and we went into their resources, it was 'boom' straight into it" "But the purpose of our resources is different. The purpose of our resources is for kids to link to content that will support them, and for teachers to use that with their classes ... whereas the purpose of your content is for teachers to teach effectively".
VTaL Starter Kit
"I did wander about your starter kit, and I wondered that when you're looking at ordering your pages, if perhaps the orders matched up, or could match up? I don't know if that's the purpose of it?" "You know how you've got your tool numbers, they don't match the starter numbers, so I went to the starter kit I'd go to one, and then go to". Great feedback as I hadn't looked at that starter kit for possibly 18 months. "Perhaps you should hide it until you're sure that you need it as a part of this resource". "I quite like having the visible image of start here, but it doesn't quite match with the site".
VTaL Site Page Components
"I'm also wondering whether you've got the possibility of strengthening this, because by always having students follow through from Year 9 to Year 13, if you go to a resource, say Project Title, it must also be in the Class Site". "Everything from below Tool 01, should all be in the Class Site, so a link for your teacher to see, this is what it looks like in the class site". "Keep each page in the VTaL site the same, but just click to a link that takes you to a place on your site, so that people can always see what it looks like". "That would be really helpful. And it means that if I'm a new teacher setting up a site for the first time, and I don't know where to put my class blog, I can look at the Class Site version, and go 'oh' that's a good place to put it".
When I was looking at the first couple of examples that include links straight to videos, it made me think of the extensive amount of videos that I also have. "She needs the multi-modal lesson. All of the stuff that's below [here] could potentially be laid out so much differently". "If you had one section, and it was laid out - that one for a description, that one for teacher criteria, that one for reflective questioning ... I know that this is still a work in progress, but even up here, there is a lot of very uninviting blank space, even teachers need to be engaged, so how do we smush this?" "It's like the other example where you have to scroll to get your head around, well this is your key thing, and it's just kind of annoyingly sitting there, so maybe even it should fit with the writing, and split the screen in half so that it's smaller". "When you hit your landing page, you want a section that includes ... and then cool little buttony things, three buttons to your Gold".
Changes and Adaptations
"It might be cool for you to give some of this a go, and then share it out to us, and then we can give you some feedback on it".
The following is a brief description of the journey that one of my fellow MIT colleagues, Heather Matthews of Hornby Primary school, is undertaking with her MIT inquiry so far this year.
"I am looking to use a legend as a metaphor for self management and retell this as a digital book, linking specific parts of the story to self management characteristics".
Heather has developed a digital story book which she is trialing as a part of her inquiry. The digital story book has been developed using Key Notes slides, and focuses on a legend incorporating some of the tamariki from her school as the main characters, as well as artwork that the students themselves have produced.
The resource will incorporate links to a key competencies matrix, that will enable students and teachers to delve deeper into student's knowledge and understanding of the current levels within the competency matrix.
The next steps for Heather is to explore various technical digital options (effective software options), contextual options (Te Reo Maori, references to place names) and literacy options (publishing standards etc) to enable effective pedagogical gains to be made.
It's the beginning of Term 3, so where to from here? ...
In our COL meeting, I had some particularly robust discussions with a fellow COL colleague Heather, around the slide decks and focus questions from both Russell and Rebecca. In addition, we talked very broadly about wider implications of our learners and their whanau. The implications in a learning sense within our school environments, as well as external factors that influence the value systems and societal structures that have both a direct and indirect impact on our learners and their lives.
The discussions were meaningful and extremely challenging. Challenging in terms of the current climate. Challenging in terms of current practices that I can change, as well as practices that I have no or limited influence over. And so, part of my current reflections have included the following ...
- What am I doing that is positively impacting on learning on a societal scale? What can I do to positively impact on learning on a societal scale?
- What am I doing that is positively impacting on learning at a structural level? What can I do to positively impact on learning at a structural level?
- What am I doing that is positively impacting on learning at a student level? What can I do to positively impact on learning at a student level?
- What do I need to adapt or change? What needs to remain the same?
Unraveling the various areas within my Inquiry, is enabling me to clarify the purpose of the different areas, and refocus each area to be meaningful, effective and collectively contribute back into a constructive and overarching goal that I have which is to accelerate achievement using visible teaching and learning; essentially VTaL!
What’s the Big Idea for 2018
“Language in Abundance”, Language Acquisition, development, Transfer and sustaining across school levels and curriculum domains.
Language in abundance environments ‘drip’ with language availability
and attention, where noticing and relevant use of words allow for
deeper, wider, more specific and precise, context appropriate
language expression…leading to knowing at deeper and broader
levels. Dr. Jannie Van HeesAt the beginning of the year, when we first started discussing what the CoL focus would be for 2018, and with me already a year into my CoL inquiry, I was unsure as to how to connect "Language in Abundance"with my existing inquiry findings. Not because what I was inquiring into was irrelevant to the concept of "Language in Abundance", but because my inquiry was and is focused around a framework; so essentially, a collective range of individual components and processes to enable accelerated achievement to take place.
My approach to addressing literacy for students within my inquiry process, focused more on the literacy associated with visibility and clarity of learning information for the students, as opposed to the literacy strategies for students. This is reiterated in some of the Manaiakalani Inquiries presentation materials delivered by Rebecca Jesson, as shown in the image below "Are the instructions/ways to participate clear?"
Visibility and Clarity of Instructions
Some of the research materials that I'd been looking at with regards to visibility and clarity of learning information includes the following:- Instructions https://goo.gl/bqk4Ap
- How to Write Clear Instructions https://goo.gl/StVytd
- Making Learning Visible https://goo.gl/TjXUP5
In terms of 'Instructions', useful take-outs from this resource link includes the purpose of instructions, as well as the features of instructions:
In terms of writing clear instructions, this research link focussed on three key areas:
- Understanding the Task
- Writing Your Instructions
- Testing Your Instructions
This year I have been extensively trialing the use of Workspaces to communicate learning information to students, as well as collate evidence of student learning in order to provide students with both formative and summative feedback on learning tasks. The trialing of the Workspaces is in comparison to the sole use of learning instructions that are embedded, linked and accessible to students via my Subject Google Site.
My next steps for further investigating the Literacy Lens of my Inquiry, is to identify the pros and cons of the use of Workspaces v my Subject Google Site, in terms of which resource (if either) is more effective in enabling visibility and clarity of instructions for students.
The following are a few workshop highlights from the Sydney EdTech Conference that I recently attended.
Scratching the surface of capabilities
One of the workshops that I attended was run by Conny Mattimore, Deputy Principal of Rooty Hill School where the EdTech Conference was being held. The workshop was about 'Scratching the surface of capabilities'. We were shown examples of how digital tools were being used by students to demonstrate to their teachers various capabilities acquired through various learning tasks.
I had the pleasure of working alongside one of the students, Vinuji Gallage, who worked through some Scratch activities with me. The great thing about interacting with Vinuji, was watching how intuitively she was using the digital tools to demonstrate her ICT capabilities. The main motivator for Vinuji was the fact that she could see how what she was doing, was contributing to her overall grade scores.
Cultivating Growth Mindset
One of the sessions that really stretched my thinking, was the session run by Lindsay Wesner, Deep Dive : The Power of Possibility - Cultivating Growth Mindset in Your Classroom.As well as Lindsay sharing her experiences as a classroom teacher, and her extensive range of resources with those of us who attended who session, the activity that had a lasting impact for me, was the bingo activity. This activity required attendees to work in small groups of 2-3, to identify various tasks that we undertake as teaching practitioners, to enable our learners to develop a growth mindset.