My Space and My Place

I ran a Toolkit session about Visible Teaching and Learning, focused around what that might look like in a secondary school context. The session was aimed primarily at new staff to Tamaki College, but also for any staff would may have wanted a refresher overview on VTaL as well.

We had a brief discussion around what we understand Visible Teaching and Learning to be. Then the bulk of the session was locating information about a particular Year 11 learner [ID 16179], as well as tracking the learning and progress for this learner within the DigiTech with Ms Anderson site.

No Comments

The following is an overview of the results from the VTaL Staff Survey Term 1, whereby staff outlined which digital tools they were currently using.

No Comments

The following is the e-Learning Audit sheet, that was used in 2014-2016. It was developed to determine the baseline requirements that staff should be implementing in their teaching and learning programs. The audit sheet included aspects relating to the SAMR model, as well as links to the Registered Teacher Criteria.

No Comments

There are four different projects happening in DigiTech at the moment. With the Senior DigiTech class being a multi-level senior class (Level 1, Level 2 and Level 3), it has been really helpful for the students to know what they're learning (Hyperlinked Calendar posts and SOLO-focused learning activities) and to track their progress (Class Task List).

The projects that the students are working on includes:

Level 1 - Create a Website (continuation from JumpStart)

Level 1 - Use Command Sequences

Level 2 - Create a Website

Level 3 - Brief Development

Link to Academic Achievement

Four of the eight Level 1 students gained 2 x Level 1 unit standard credits for their Website project during JumpStart. Of these four students, three of them have now gained 2 x Level 1 unit standard credits for Use Command Sequences (awaiting moderation).

Nine out of the eleven Level 2 students are two thirds of the way through their first learning activity for their first project, Create a Website. The significance of this is (a) only one student took DigiTech at Level 1, and (b) the majority of the work for this project occurs in Activity 1.

One of the two Level 3 students are now halfway through their first achievement standard project, Brief Development. At the same time last year (while this student was in Level 2) it took an extraordinary amount of time (nearly two terms), for this student to complete the Level 2 standard for Brief Development.

The reason why VTaL is working

The main reasons why VTaL is working in Senior DigiTech at the moment, is as follows:

students have access to the learning information (instructions, tasks etc) every lesson they attend. These are rewindable resources for lessons when they are absent
students have ongoing and regular feedback, which at least half of the class feels they are receiving really fast. This enables the students to identify where they are at in their projects, and what needs to happen next
more than half of the students find the Year Level communities useful, for accessing exemplars of existing tasks, to guide their own learning
students are not affected by the learning pace of their peers around them eg. they can continue learning regardless of whether those around them are working at a faster or slower pace then they are

It's only Week 5 in Term 1. I'm keen to monitor student achievement as the term and year progresses.

No Comments

This is going to be interesting. I'm about to send out a letter to the parents of my senior students, informing them of the fact that they can access information about their student's learning, as well as formative feedback on their child's academic progress in DigiTech so far this year. I'm hoping to touch base with the parents at our Parent's Conference, to gain feedback from the parents as to whether they are able to access the information as intended! If so, great! If not, I'm sure that the feedback will be useful in terms of aiming to make the learning visible ... watch this space.

No Comments

I'm continually working on ways to make learning on my site more visible for parents. The whole idea is that parents (of senior students) would be able to see an overview of the year, be able to identify the standards that their child is entered into, and see what learning activities their child would be completing on a particular day. A similar setup is in place for the junior levels on my site as well. The overview idea came from resources I'd seen on other colleagues sites, Venini Thaver and Karen Ferguson. The standard entries is just a way for parents to have an idea of the standards that their child is entered into, relative to the overview for the year. The hyperlinked learning activities within a Google calendar is a concept I've been using for the past 3-4 years.

The learning activities are hyperlinked into events in a Google calendar. This is one example of a rewindable learning resource. I tend to load learning activities for the week ahead. Students, parents and other stakeholders can view the learning activities for the week, as well as learning activities for previous days and weeks. Extremely useful when a student has been absent for any particular reason!

I'd be interested to know if the learning truly does look visible; both for parents, and other stakeholders. The image below links to the NCEA Level 2 Overview and Calendar in my DigiTech site.

No Comments

Today I have had the pleasure of sharing and collaborating with fellow SPARK MIT 2017 Teachers, Dorie, Kelsey, Alicia, Andrea, Angela, Sandy and Troy, alongside Dorothy, about our inquiries for this year. This was such a great way of gaining insight into different ways in which my colleagues were looking at implementing change and addressing a wide range of issues within education, for the benefit of learners in our various schools. Whilst the schools, locations and school sectors varied on many levels, it was extremely inspiring and reassuring to share on different issues that have scoped the focus for each of our different inquiries.

With my particular inquiry, discussions and feedback have enabled me to refine what the overall focus will look like over the year.

Problems that I identified include the following:

Teacher Practice - Consistent teacher practice and consistent use of learning tools
Barriers to Learning - cyclical. Students bringing devices - why, why not
Barriers to learning. Why should I change my practice? Teacher-focused v Student-focused
Baseline expectations on the use of learning tools
Consistent recording and assessment of data in junior school eg. curriculum levels

And so, my inquiry has been refined to be as follows:

Using Visible Teaching and Learning to Shift Educational Achievement

My inquiry is to accelerate learning at Tamaki College through the development of a Visible Teaching and Learning Framework, to raise students achievement and shift thinking around effective and consistent pedagogical practices including Learn, Create and Share.

The process of undertaking my inquiry is well on it's way. However, today's discussions have been a timely reminder of the value of student voice, teacher voice and parent voice, within the inquiry process. Next steps will be to identify effective ways in which data not only be collected, but also utilised to enable effective changes to be implemented and to take place.

1 Comments

Newer Posts

Older Posts

My Space and My Place

About Me

recent posts

Blog Archive

VTaL

Presentations

Inquiry

Manaiakalani

Tamaki College

Practicing Teacher Criteria

General

Contact Form

Total Pageviews