My Space and My Place

Today my Year 9 students and I had a go at Quad Blogging.  This was our approach ...

1. I used the chat function to "chunk" instructions, and asked students to demonstrate their understanding of the instructions that I was giving relating to Quad Blogging.  This included determining their understanding of Quad Blogging.
2. Next I used the Hangout function to demonstrate the steps required to undertake Quad Blogging, including writing the blog post, and asking for feedback.  The setup of each of the students blogs are generic as they were following my example.  In this instance, that is irrelevant, as the purpose of this exercise was to teach the students how to Quad Blog.
3. The students used the chat function to share access to their published blog posts.  At this point, we (myself and students) determined that at least one of the students didn't have access to their blog.  So, during the hangout, they sent an email asking that access to their blog be fixed.  This student continued the Quad Blog process in a Google doc.
4. The students accessed each other's blogs, read each others blog posts, and attempted to provide feedback to others and gain feedback from others.  There was a huge gap in the lesson where the comments were not coming through and I needed to provide guidance to enable students to provide meaningful feedback to each other's work.  The students really struggled with this part.  I used the Hangout function to demonstrate blog comments coming through from learners and to guide the learners on appropriate ways to provide feedback.  [At this stage, the students underwent many edits to their comments that they were writing for others].
5. The students then wrote at least one comment on another learners' blog post.
6. We ended the lesson, with me explaining what our next steps would be for tomorrow's class.  The next step being for students to reflect on the blog comments, think about what their next steps will be based on the comments, reply to the comments explaining what their next steps will be, and then making the changes to their designs.

Here is a link to a couple of the students' blog posts:

School Stuff Website - Feedback on my Home Page Design - Student 1
School Stuff Website - Feedback on my Home Page Design - Student 2

The following are a series of screenshots that shows different parts of our process.  I hope to edit this post in the not too distant future to make these screenshots more user friendly to navigate.  However, in the meantime, hopefully they will be easy enough to follow.




















EDIT:  The follow up in today's lesson (Wednesday 22 April) is that one of the student's went through the process of replying to the initial blog comment feedback on their design layout, with constructive ideas of what they were going to do next.  The following is a screenshot that shows the changes that the student is in the process of making.

1. what your calendar would look like for the week, in terms of including the work, instructions and links for all lessons
2. ensuring that your calendar events are set up to run Google hangout meets
3. inviting guests to your Google hangout meets, including both your students and any other guests
4. viewing your site Incognito, and navigating to each of the lessons for the week for each year level to ensure that the instructions and the work is visible

Lesson Sequence in the Google Hangout

1. Teacher (myself) - Instructing and demonstrating
2. Learner - Following instructions
3. Learner - Completing a task
4. Learner - Capturing evidence of the task
5. Learner - Submitting the task
6. Teacher - Checking work and marking
7. Learner - Sharing work in the Year 11 DigiTech Google+ Community
8. Teacher - Asking for feedback of the lesson

Teacher Reflection

Differentiation

Tracking Student Progress

Differentiation 

to Address Gaps in Student Progress Across a Class

• Learners who are absent
• Learners who arrive late
• Learners who leave class early
• Learners who need help following or understanding instructions
• Learners who play up
• Learners experiencing technical issues
• And also … Learners cyber bullying classmates in the hangout
• The Teacher who talks too fast
• The Teacher who doesn’t give learners all of the instructions
• And also … the Teacher who doesn’t have all of the resources ready for the lesson

1. Log into the DigiTech with Ms Anderson Google Site http://bit.ly/2TMuF3V
2. Navigate to the Techies tab
3. Navigate to the Calendar for Techies
4. Click on the Class Hyperlink for today's date (Monday 6 April 2020 when the session took place)
5. Click on More details
6. Locate the work for today's Learning Activities

Identifying valued learning outcomes (VLOs) to focus on

• I'm interested to know about ways to identify valued learning outcomes associated with measuring student engagement throughout the year.  At this stage, I've been having discussions with students, and asking them to anonymously drop emojis to communicate how they feel about different questions I've asked them about the learning process (connected to my inquiry) ... 
• Now that I've written that last statement, I'm actually wondering whether I'm asking the students the right questions in the first place.  

Profiling students learning in those VLOs

• In terms of profiling students; especially my NCEA level students, I generally tend to build profiles around previous achievement data, ethnicity, age, reason for taking the subject, career pathways (if known) etc.  It is generally really data based.
• Other profiling methods that I use but don't necessarily measure or record, is asking about whanau and siblings; especially if they collect younger siblings from school, where they live and how they come to school, interests outside of school, interests in music etc.  These are usually casual conversation depending on the student that I'm talking with.  I will always ask students new to Tamaki College, what school they attended previously, why they left that school, and who they're living with.

Generating hypotheses (especially teaching)

• This is a good one.  As soon as an idea pops into my head that relates to improving teaching and learning, I tend to launch into it head-on.  Not to say that I don't come up with good or useful ideas every now and again, but I probably don't spend enough time discussing hypotheses.  A lightbulb goes off, whilst simultaneously considering what's on top right now as a mum, middle leader, mum, classroom teacher, mum, CoL teacher, mum, sister, aunty blah blah blah (you get the picture) and then the next minute you know, I'm fully executing whatever the idea was.  Yes I know and understand that as teachers we're all balancing a juggling act.  I guess I'm just reflecting on why I default straight into the 'doing' and that I need to spend more time thinking about the 'what' 'why' and 'how'.

Testing hypotheses (investigating own teaching)

• I have a relatively positive relationship with my senior students, including getting their feedback or opinions on what is working in terms of supporting their learning.  
• I do wonder whether I am doing this enough though (obtaining student feedback at regular intervals), and whether I'm getting feedback relative to hypothesis about teaching leading to student outcomes. 

Using research literature and other sources to identify more effective approaches

• I really enjoyed talking with Karen and Christine during our last CoL meeting about our inquiry ideas etc.  I know that in previous CoL meetings we would often break off into smaller groups according to our achievement challenges that our inquiry linked to.  Sometimes this worked for me, and sometimes it didn't.  I think I enjoyed the conversations with Karen and Christine, because we share and understand the same teaching and learning environment, which meant that I could engage in the conversation straight away without having to deconstruct my thinking before communicating my ideas.  That's not to say that I don't find conversations with my colleagues outside of school meaningful and interesting, it's just easier to platform ideas with my Tamaki College colleagues first in terms of identifying more effective approaches to shifting achievement.
• I had the most amazing couple of sessions with Danni sharing ideas about our different inquiries.  I loved visiting Danni's students during one of Danni's Class on Air sessions.  I'm yet to articulate my musings around this, but it will happen!

More Aspects of Inquiry

• Implementing new approaches
• Monitoring (and tweaking) new approaches
• Evaluate shifts in own teaching
• Evaluate shifts in student learning
• Keep a clear and detailed record of all stages of inquiry

Collaborate with Colleagues

Project Instruction

Student Work

• Gustavo Pohatu http://bit.ly/2U35hZE 
• Lisiate Pau’uvale http://bit.ly/2W7zzNy 

Digital Media Outcome - Websites

• Gustavo Pohatu - Website http://bit.ly/2TKZIQN 
• Lisiate Pau’uvale - Website http://bit.ly/2Q89c6w