Gateways to Learning...

Intense Interest Gateways

Like the story about the teachers who missed the potential of their block builders, some parents think their job is to smooth things out — e.g., if a child already likes art, then we need to gently push them into other areas.

Both at home and at school, we tend to focus on deficits. We concentrate on smoothing, balancing, trying to make things even.

We miss the opportunity to use that intense interest as a gateway.

Everything is connected.

That intense interest is so valuable — it shouldn’t be tossed away. It should be exploited.

Intense interests as opportunities for learning - not for "smoothing out" or  diverting to fill a deficit in knowledge.
I connected with this article quite a lot as I can feel this with a number of particularly disinterested learners. Those ones that cringe when you say "time for writing" (which I now fully attempt NOT to!)

I have found that for those learners who are having trouble in our traditional learning environments you really MUST find a way to turn their intense interest into their curriculum.

This is my argument for MINECRAFT in our classrooms... my suggestion still not taken seriously by anyway I have spoken to in my current range of colleagues!
Perhaps mostly due to fear of the unknown?

Teacher Leadership Challenge...

This is a multipart series of posts intended to help teachers grow their leadership practice and ignite conversations about education online and in person. The goal of a teacher leader is to improve the learning of all students through their efforts, collaboration, and influence. The 2014 Teacher Leadership Challenge is a weekly installment activity that poses a prompt on an educational topic or issue. Your challenge is to respond within one week to the prompt via a post you publish to your blog. Responses to the prompt that you publish to your own blog should be around 500 words or less. The aim is to get more teachers thinking globally about their classroom practice and their own connection to the wider education community. 

2014tlc.blogspot.co.nz

http://abud.me/teacher-leadership-challenge-september-6-2013/


EDIT: Unfortunately this arrived to my attention at the wrong time of year to be fully useful!

Mixed Ability Grouping

Thousands of UK primary schools are locking their pupils into a cycle of disadvantage by separating them into ability groups, a major international study has warned.

theguardian.com/education

Common practice in NZ too!
Thanks to some timely Maths PD this year, I have been doing more work across the curriculum in mixed ability groups (not just maths).

The idea behind this is that if students are ability grouped their exposure to a range efficient strategies, wider vocal, models of effective learning are limited and therefore their outcomes are limited.

In reading we mix practising our own strategies and utilising whanau support to decode words in groups that include a diverse range of skills - often we open instructional groups to all reading level learners (and increasingly we are seeing that lower level readers join these groups and even are motivated to do the independent activities as well!)
In maths we spin a partner wheel for pair sharing and spend a lot of time explaining and listening to our partners in small teaching groups to increase exposure to successful (and even just different) strategies. Students are encouraged to try out these other strategies and reflect on their effectiveness.

Peers are a valuable tool for learning and this whole strategy has an endless array of bonus outcomes for example -  increased student talk (explanation, justification, empathy),

Teachers should not be the source of all info nor should they do the majority of the talking.

Māori Cultural Lens Walkthrough

Sonya came through to do the walk through today. Specifically looking at evidence for aspects of Wananga, Whanaungatanga, Manaakitanga, Tangata Whenua and Ako. I was pretty happy with all the things she noticed in ten minutes - except "Uses Te Reo in the class and encourages learners to speak Te Reo if they want to" (and the corresponding Leanrer side) as I specifically remember when this occurred. I think she got into an in-depth conversation with SP and didn't hear this. Oh well - it's not like we're fluent!

This sheet is great as it helps me to self identify next steps e.g. we need more local tikanga as part of our classroom culture. How can I achieve this?

Modern Learning Environments (MLE)

Earlier this month I travelled to Melbourne for some  self-initiated Professional development in two areas

• Equine Assisted Learning
• Modern Learning Environments (MLEs)

This post is about the MLE part of my trip. I had time to visit two very different schools renowned for their MLEs.

Silverton Primary and another one that made so little positive impact on me I can't even remember the name.

Of the two Silverton primary seemed to have their pedagogy aligned with their practise.

They have been on the MLE road since the 90s with the introduction of a strong innovative leader.

Both schools had large teaching spaces that had up to 120 students of similar age and about four teachers.
Silverton had a long serving Principal with vision and direction for his learners. The school had an excellent learning atmosphere and showed a real celebration of their students. It seemed open minded and focused.

The other school seemed to be a traditional old school at heart that was embedded in a fear based system. The teacher talk I over heard was very dated - terms like punishment rather than consequences - that sort of thing.

While the idea of a Modern Learning Environment sounds like something everyone would want I am wondering about the practicality of doing it in a way that increases outcomes for all students.

One the one hand it seems that more students are provided for with a schedule of swapping between tasks that is reminiscent of the almost hyperactive multimedia world our students live in.... however on the other I am wondering about that connection with the teacher - that is so beneficial, especially to those at risk learners who need guidance and direction (where those other students will access curriculum concepts no matter what).

Pondering!

Tātaiako

Wanted to make a note that I am enjoying spending time looking at the Tātaiako document and readings in our Change Team PD with Cat. Using this as a lens on my own practise has been enlightening and rewarding.

The dimension indicators have been really useful in identifying and refining my existing practise as well as  putting labels on the gaps (aka areas I can improve for the benefit of our learners).

My current favourite of the cultural competencies is Manaakitanga as it is all about showing integrity, sincerity and respect; the foundation of my teaching pedagogy! Aspirationally and inspirationally.

Although, to be fair, I think I do AKO best. Lots of teina/tuakana, reciprocal teaching and student initiated learning.

Digital Storytelling

http://web.tech4learning.com/blog-0/bid/101225/Using-Animation-and-Digital-Storytelling-to-Support-Common-Core

From the moment they wake up in the morning, animated cartoons and powerful digital stories surround our students. Animation and digital storytelling provide a myriad of opportunities for high-level performance tasks that engage students in Common Core Standards for English Language Arts.
Having students create content-rich and learning-focused animations and digital stories connects the work they do in the classroom to their media-rich world in which they live!

Will have this as an expectation next year - not as a goal. To get student engagement I think I will present them with an overview of a bunch of apps/programmes and a list of activities and get them to work in groups to match activities with apps/programmes they could use.


http://classtechtips.com/2013/08/23/publish-stories-on-ipads/

iPads are a great tool forcontent consumption but there are plenty of free iPad apps that help studentscreate content too!  Our Story for iPad lets users write their own stories using images saved on their iPad camera roll.  Add text and record your voice for each page before sharing your final product as a PDF or zip file.
Check out my Common Core aligned lesson plans for teaching ELA on iPads: story maps, figurative language, fluency, current events, andmore!

http://classtechtips.com/2013/01/30/pic-collage-to-make-ipad-posters/

You might have used a app like this to create a scrapbook page of family pictures but it can be easily used in the classroom.  Pic Collage is a free app that allows users to take multiple images and place them on a blank canvas or within borders and add text and captions.  Students in my class use pictures that they’ve taken themselves or gathered from Google Image search.  They can save their “posters” to their Camera Roll and email their work.  These make great bulletin board items!
Check out my Common Core aligned lesson plan for using this app in your classroom!

http://www.slideshare.net/PerpetualRevision/making-a-digital-storytelling-project-in-imovie-11

Making a Digital Storytelling Project in iMovie '11 from Amy Goodloe

Growth Mindset...

A useful reflection from Change Team PD...

Science Wizardy, Teeth and Mess

Found this blog with some fun (and messy) science activities....


Also this tooth thing is a great idea!

Whose Classroom Is it?

Found this on a Monty Roberts forum and it again triggered my distaste for imperialism.

Each rule was written in a distinct tone, which to my ears sounded aggressive and confrontational. I couldn’t believe what I was reading; surely this was part of an early 20th century history of education project?

The Rules Read:

Quietly ENTER the classroom ONLY when your teacher tells you to.

Go to the desk given to you by your teacher: it is not your job to decide where to sit unless you teacher tells you so.

Take your coat off immediately and sit down when requested.

LISTEN properly and FOLLOW the INSTRUCTIONS your teacher gives you straight away.

At the end of the lesson PACK equipment AWAY and put your COAT on ONLY when the teacher tells you.

It goes on to discuss the author's views on these rules and the fact that they seem to be the antithesis of Monty's JOINUP concept.

How can we complain when today's youth don't show responsibility etc when we are so prescriptive, politically correct and  over scheduling. When do students have the time to develop those skills we berate them for not having...

School years are the time for mistakes/experiments - when the consequences are minimal and the environment is supervised and safe.

Let ākonga explore!
It is their classroom. They are the reason we are there!

Doodle

Have been introduced to Doodle as an online scheduling tool through my ICT inquiry meetings - V useful for arranging our meetings as this is the only time we see each other as we are scattered at schools far and wide.

It lets you put in a few time options then emails out to all the people then they check box answer their preferences and doodle lets you all know which time is the go!

Love it!

The meetings - now that they are finally going - are great for collaboration and networking.
I am REALLY disappointed that our group did not have this advantage for the whole year.

Google Image Power User

Become a Google Image Power User.....

Found this useful resource to add to our skills with google - and image finding in particular.

Lots of useful stuff in here!

ULearn 2013!

ULearn is this month!!

Looking forward to the speaker on Cyber Safety as I hear he is a great speaker.
Have also had a quick look into Jill Hammond - hopefully she has plenty of practical examples!


EDIT: Jill Hammond was excellent! Lots of practical stuff and she made me want to get my own business card!

Also have a post in the making linking Cyber safety and Banning cellphones....

Things for me to check out...

http://primarycomputing.co.uk/a-computing-curriculum/

Following the disapplication of the old ICT curriculum, we set about considering strands for a contemporary engaging ‘Computing’ curriculum with a view towards Government proposals for 2014. The strands of the curriculum which we settled on are: Multimedia; Programming; Online; E-Safety; Data.

http://www.sparkyteaching.com/creative/fail-safe-classroom/

When you’ve just lost the final of arguably the most prestigious tournament in your sport, a final where the vast majority of the crowd were rooting for the other guy and cheered your every error, and where, moments after losing, a microphone is shoved under your nose, you could be forgiven for providing the waiting media with a choice quote or two. Even if it is Sue Barker doing the interview.What you probably wouldn’t be expected to say, however, is “it was an absolute pleasure and an honour to be part of this match”.Novak Djokovic’s reaction on losing the Wimbledon final to Andy Murray was a sportsmanlike demonstration of how to deal with failure with immediate dignity.

http://emergingleaders.school.nz/ignite-evening/

What is ignite? Ignite is an event in over 100 cities worldwide. At the events Ignite presenters share their personal and professional passions, using 20 slides that auto-advance every 15 seconds for a total of just five minutes.

http://project-based-homeschooling.com/faq  <--- the direction our classroom programme has been leaning more and more towards.

Project-based homeschooling combines your child’s genuine interests with long-term, deep, complex learning. Rather than teaching or providing curriculum, you mentor your child to help him learn how to direct and manage his own learning. It is the essential portion of your child’s learning life when you devote time to heping him do his own self-chosen, self-motivated work.You create a space dedicated to doing meaningful work, set up to both attract your child and allow him to work independently.You offer him an interesting variety of high-quality materials and tools.Your routine gives him big chunks of time dedicated to spending time in that space learning, making, and doing — with your support and attention.You become a trusted resource who will take him where he needs to go and help him meet his own goals.

Pondering this...

"Education is a self organising system where learning is an emergent phenomenon."

Sugata Mitra 

I am down with the first part - working on my application of the second part.

Over the summer I am going to have a look at the SOLE toolkit for next year...

Do We Need A Teacher?

AKA Thomas Babington MaCaulay* vs Sugata Mitra**.

MaCaulay's approach to education in India was that Indians could/would only be able to access "proper" education and modern scientific knowledge through the medium of the English language and it would not be possible through classical Indian languages.
His role, he saw, was to establish a very westernising Anglist approach to government and education in India producing "Indian's in blood and colour but English in tastes, opinions, morals and intellect."
To him and his contempories British culture was the highest form of human civilisation

Sugata on the other hand seems to fly totally in the face of this and remove a teacher and language as a barrier and invest full confidence in the learner themselves and their own ability to seek out knowledge.



I guess we all need a teacher whether that teacher is ourselves or not. In my experience some children are so disenfranchised from a culture of learning (for whatever reason - I imagine from needs not met in earlier life or the same transferred to them from their caregivers) that they need a strong connection with someone to get them interested in being motivated to learn.
Perhaps then it is a question of what they are learning - academics is not the first priority in my experience.


 * Thomas Babington MaCauley, a Brit, who lived in the 1800s; is mentioned here in the context of his  pivotal membership of the East India Company and conveyor of British Imperialism to other parts of the world.

** Sugata Mitra - lives in Modern times, is a professor of Educational Technology and is mentioned here in the context of his 'Hole in the Wall' experiment.

Scarcity

It Captures Your Mind

Economists focus on the problem of scarcity—on how people allocate their resources (including both time and money) in the face of many competing demands. In their extraordinarily illuminating book, the behavioral economist Sendhil Mullainathan and the cognitive psychologist Eldar Shafir explore something quite different, which is the feeling of scarcity, and the psychological and behavioral consequences of that feeling. They know that the feeling of scarcity differs across various kinds of experiences and that people can feel “poor” with respect to money, time, or relationships with others.
But their striking claim, based on careful empirical research, is that across all of those categories, the feeling of scarcity has quite similar effects. It puts people in a kind of cognitive tunnel, limiting what they are able to see. It depletes their self-control. It makes them more impulsive and sometimes a bit dumb. What we often consider a part of people’s basic character—an inability to learn, a propensity to anger or impatience—may well be a product of their feeling of scarcity. If any of us were similarly situated, we might end up with a character a lot like theirs. An insidious problem is that scarcity produces more scarcity. It creates its own trap.

I experience what I attribute to this phenomena in my current teaching situation.
In these situations I have to say that meeting national standards as a first priority is not appropriate - in fact, I would go further and say that it is inappropriate in the context of the wellbeing of the ākonga.

What are 21st Century Skills?

Very powerful and 21st Century style creative motivator!
Rethinking is imperative but also misunderstood  - perhaps a lot like they did in this clip, things need to be simplified - rethought back to the initial intention  - although for our current NZ system that would take us back to the British colonial system of clones imperialist followers to rule abroad for Mother England - not what we need these days!
So rethinking and co-creating a simple intention and moving on from there.

Although this is a complex issue, and seems very scary to people -  I think it is a lot simpler to progress than it appears and requires people to do it or step out of the way (or delegate) so others can do it!

Quality Free Education for everyone...

Offering a top quality education to everyone around the world for free - this is an actuality thanks to the growing availability of internet access worldwide.
What will happen when;

• education is accepted as a fundamental human right
• life long learning for everyone at any point in their life

It is exciting to think of anyone anywhere in the world being able to make a better life for themselves, their families and their communities - at any point in their life, not just when they are at school, high school or university.

What amazing innovations will come more often from places currently deemed unlikely...


I was especially drawn to the concepts of mass peer assessment - a creative, power sharing and (thanks to the studies sited) valid way to deal with 100, 000 students all submitting paper for the same course deadline.
This also links to my love of the value of crowd sourcing (and my deeper spiritual belief in the power of the Universal Unconscious; as a group we know everything - not to mention the educational mantra T.E.A.M - Together Everyone Achieves More...)

Traditional vs Modern learning

“Human communities depend upon a diversity of talent not a singular conception of ability”. ― Ken Robinson


EDIT: links nicely with this post!

Arthur C Clarke once said...

"A teacher who can be replaced by a machine, should be."

Which you can think about in at least two different ways if you follow the work of Sugata Mitra.

As an aside - Thomas Babington MaCaulay would surely be "rolling in his grave" and "tsk tsk"ing if HE knew about the work of Sugata!

Challenging Students?

I find this thought helpful...

My student isn't giving me a hard time... my student is having a hard time...

What should a 4 year old know?

These things?
How to write their name
Numbers to 100
The planets

or these things...

1. She should know that she is loved wholly and unconditionally, all of the time.
2. He should know that he is safe and he should know how to keep himself safe in public, with others, and in varied situations. He should know that he can trust his instincts about people and that he never has to do something that doesn’t feel right, no matter who is asking. He should know his personal rights and that his family will back them up.
3. She should know how to laugh, act silly, be goofy and use her imagination. She should know that it is always okay to paint the sky orange and give cats 6 legs.
4. He should know his own interests and be encouraged to follow them. If he couldn’t care less about learning his numbers, his parents should realize he’ll learn them accidentally soon enough and let him immerse himself instead in rocket ships, drawing, dinosaurs or playing in the mud.
5. She should know that the world is magical and that so is she. She should know that she’s wonderful, brilliant, creative, compassionate and marvelous. She should know that it’s just as worthy to spend the day outside making daisy chains, mud pies and fairy houses as it is to practice phonics. Scratch that– way more worthy.

from What should a 4 year old know? by Alicia at MagicalChildhood

The blog post at the link has a bunch of things that parents should know as well... well worth checking out!

My job would be a WHOLE lot easier, less stressful and more successful if learners turned up with all these already well underway...

Can filming one second of every day change your life?

Thinking about doing this with my class for a month

When Cesar Kuriyama saved up enough money to quit his advertising job at the age of 30, he planned to take a year off to travel and spend time with family.To document the year, Kuriyama filmed one second of video every day."After just six weeks, I realised I was going to be doing that for the rest of my life," he says.After editing the clips into a single video, Kuriyama had not only a record of daily life, but a new perspective on how he lived day to day.

Mr Parkinson also spotted this article. I had thought of doing it just initially for fun but Mr Parkinson has some ideas for using this as a deeper reflective tool...

How can it impact on your teaching?Well, as Cesar says "self reflection is never a bad thing," which is always an important message for teachers. Can you go a week, half term, year without repeating the same video? Can you always provide an opportunity to capture a special moment each day you teach? Could it be used to record achievements of all your children in the class, regardless of ability? Would you use it to record your class' learning journey? or as a way of documenting successful lessons so you always remember them? It is a task that would definitely make you conscious of your approach in the classroom yet one that would provide a wonderful opportunity to reflect and remind yourself of the great lessons/moments you grant as a teacher. 

Learn Create Share ...

Great timing for one of my favourite re-energisers today - ICT sharing time with my cluster!

Always enjoy hearing from The Powers (Bec and Jamie), but especially enjoyed Emma's input into blogging and generating a meaningful context for our students.  

She also did a plug for EDUIGNITE which sounds grand!  Have added link to my LOOK WHAT I FOUND panel over there -->

Thanks everyone - it was just what I needed today!

Hope she doesn't mind being immortalised with my latest innovation in notetaking! MUwuwhhaha!

The new app I am testing has a function I have been looking for in this kind of programme - taking a photo and drawing on it with no hoops or hurdles (apologies to the subject of my hastily taken photo!!!)

Shirley Clarke #2

The reading I referred to last week (from Change Team) is Active Learning Through Formative Assessment - Chapter 3:The Ideal Learning Culture

Dweck is sited a number of times...
I enjoyed the definition of motivation (by Dweck) as not only a desire to achieve but also 'the love of learning, the love of challenge and the ability to thrive on obstacles'. Instilling this to our poppets is one of our biggest barriers I think - merely being a passive model of it is not doing the job for our lot!

I have been thinking about the observation that boys more likely attribute failures to a lack of effort and successes to ability - whereas girls attribute successes to effort and failures to lack of ability.
In our poppets the link to self esteem is more even across the board and not just limited to gender. In my experience here failure impacts confidence in our girls and esteem in our boys.


Clarke's "fixed mindset' quiz was administered to us. In brief it highlights our own beliefs in our intelligence (e.g. do we think intelligence is fixed or can it change over time) - I am of the opinion it can change (I think this means I have a 'growth' mindset. This is my opinion because I remember a time when I was most definitely of a 'fixed' mindset - and I believed that my failures defined me and I was them rather than the belief I have now that they are problems to be faced, dealt with and most importantly, learnt from.

"High self-esteem happens for those with a growth mindset when they are using their abilities to the fullest in something they value (ME: Deep) rather than showing that they are better than someone else (ME: surface)."

Thankfully the reading lists some strategies for developing a growth mindset (for everyone).

• Active modelling - emphasising the process of learning. 
• Actively teaching (and having the expectation) that intelligence can be developed. 
• Re-languaging 'can't', 'difficulty' and 'problem' with 'challenge'.
• Emphasing our own excitement at new challenges.
• Activitely teach strategies for dealing with challenge (p. 23 of the reading)

Specific, repetitive, deliberate and systematic use of these things ensure that challenges and effort are things that enhance self-esteem rather than threaten it.

Big message in the reading - Praising effort and achievement rather than ability or personal attributes is vital!

Many things we say to our students (and children) have hidden messages

e.g. 'You learned that so quickly! You're so clever' = If I don't learn something quickly I'm not clever

Thankfully I have already thought deeply about my comments to students and even recharged again recently due to the Incredible Years programme (which is amazing!). One of the strategies from that is to take pleasing the teacher out of comments and be factual, putting onus back on the students where it belongs.

'Well done, that is a beautiful rainbow, especially the way you have worked so carefully at blending the colours,'

Resilience, resourcefulness, reflectiveness and reciprocity <--- appropriate at all our ages.

Exercising your learning muscles came from this article.

Change Team

In our Change Team meeting last night our focus was on Cultural Competencies (we are focusing on improving outcomes specifically for our Maori learners and, of course, ourselves).
I found the following video of Anjali's story especially moving - worth checking out! (Next Day EDIT: I have referred to it at least three times today on different occasions!)

http://tekotahitanga.tki.org.nz/Videos/Teacher-stories/Anjali-s-Story-Relationships-Pt1

My particular focus in our small group was whanaungatanga; relationships with high expectations. This is an area that resonates strongly with me as being an integral tool in personalising learning. An important part of improving learning outcomes for all the learners in our classrooms (and I include me in that statement!!).

I can see Anjali doing the following;

• seeking opportunities to develop meaningful relationships with students and their whanau
• displaying knowledge of students' life/interests outside the classroom
• pronouncing names correctly
• power sharing! (one of my favourites!)
• providing a warm, interactive environment
• valuing prior knowledge/students' own real life experiences/cultural knowledge
• making connections between the learning in the classroom and real life situations
• supporting positive student talk (no put downs)

I would like to ask these students if their experiences with this particular teacher will positively impact their future learning with other teachers...(has it been sustainable for their future outcomes, do they think they have strategies from their experiences with this teacher that will support future learning?)

Such an important story to bravely share!

Also from our text, Tätaiako...

‘Whaia te iti kahurangi; ki te tuohu koe, me he maunga teitei’ - roughly, in Shinekorero, it speaks about aiming high (for the sky) so that if you miss and do not meet your expectations you will still hit a lofty mountain!

Lofty Mountains Rock

Found a whakatauki that fits with my pedagogical beliefs about needing to have high expectations for ALL students.

Shirley Clarke

As part of Change Team last week a Shirley Clarke reading was shown (although we won't get it officially until next week) - I was excited!
 I have fond memories of the value of Unlocking Formative Assessment years ago when I taught in Timaru! I am such a geek!
Anyway - it prompted me to Google to look for more Clarke related resources and found this video...lots of good stuff going on in there!

Shirley Clarke Seamus video  (it is unlisted so I could not embed it, sorry!!)

Thanks Judith Nowotarski.

Parents who want to know how their children are doing at school should talk to their teachers, not rely on flawed national standards data...

Read more....

Technology is a tool NOT a learning outcome!

More here

Discovery Learning Idea number 1

Well, not really number one but one I found today.

Having been directed to the blog where I found the inspiring teacher below I then was directed there shortly after from another pintrest find about the True Story of the Three Little Pigs.

I can use the story and activity on Fun Friday and also use the construction part as one of my Discovery Learning time activities. I shall provide some three digit numbers and a challenge to create a building for one of the numbers.

I am sure there will be someone who will want to create an e-book with the ipad using photos and some simple sentences to document the activity!

Also found this page with picture book inspired place value activities

I love inspiring teachers

And this guy must be a hoot!

(found it on this blog, which isn't his blog btw)

There is much value in dressing up - shouldn't be hard for a good teacher really as most of our entire work life is acting after all.

‘Arohatia te Reo – cherish the language'

Kia ora!  My class has been having fun with their Māori phrases this month - I have a stock set of phrases that are in deeply embedded in my  everyday language (I even ask the cat if he wants some "miraka"...).
We have been pushing ourselves lately though - Homai (pass me) this and that - roll call in the morning with more complex range of feelings
Kei te pehea koe?  Kei te wiriwiri!
We make sure we ask Papa Maru the correct pronunciation for things (turns out I have been saying the word for pen wrong all these years...).


To commemorate Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori (Māori Language Week) this year I want to share some history about it.
It has been a 'thing' since 1975.

In the last 200 years the history of the Māori language (te reo Māori) has been one of ups and downs. At the beginning of the 19th century it was the predominant language spoken in Aotearoa/New Zealand. As more English speakers arrived in New Zealand, the Māori language was increasingly confined to Māori communities. By the mid-20th century there were concerns that the language was dying out.

Major initiatives launched from the 1980s have brought about a revival of te reo. In the early 21st century, more than 130,000 people of Māori ethnicity could speak and understand te reo, one of the three official languages of New Zealand (the others are English and New Zealand Sign Language).

I hope attitudes are changing towards this language - although I do remember having a few parents (via their children) in 2012 be very difficult about even incidental classroom use of Māori language and how sad this made me.
Always meet this with a professional attitude - "it is the law in NZ and we are officially bicultural" - followed up with my personal opinion "I love the Māori language!" - not to mention it is good for the functioning of a young brain to know more than one language (although I don't suppose it matters what language that is... it may as well be one of ours!).

Try a Māori language quiz...

In 2014 Māori Language Week is from 21-27 July; the theme is 'Te Kupu o te Wiki', 'The Word of the Week’.

On a Discovery Learning journey...

Discovery Learning PD today! Can't wait to get more creative play into our classroom programme!
More to come on this!!!

Celebrating Ourselves and our Students

Creating a culture of collaboration has lots of facets - building trust and positivity around learning can be fostered through sharing/celebrating achievements from our personal learning environments.
Trying to make this a feature of our (small) school's staff meetings.
Will be suggesting/proposing we start this as a feature of each staff meeting and have prepared something to share as a model.

Let's see if it catches on!

The importance of cleverly guided facilitating discussion.

Students don't learn anything they don't already know....

Ponder that a while.... I'll wait.

Education's Death Valley....

I especially like the point about the contradiction involving diversity...
Conformity vs diversity - our system is still geared towards - intact this still deeply ingrained ideal - conforming - as much as we hold high an ideal of celebrating diversity. How many more generations of public school children in New Zealand will be eaten by the conformity machine before we actually actively take our own steps towards ensuring we are nurturing, rewarding and realising individual diversity. I wan tot be a teacher that helps students seek out success through happiness - not through conforming and surviving in a dull job they felt forced into through a lack of options and the insipidness of conforming to the norm.

Differentiated Instruction

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differentiated_instruction

Differentiated instruction and assessment (also known as differentiated learning or, in education, simply, differentiation) is a framework or philosophy for effective teaching that involves providing different students with different avenues (often in the same classroom) to acquiring content; to processing, constructing, or making sense of ideas; and to developing teaching materials and assessment measures so that all students within a classroom can learn effectively, regardless of differences in ability.^[1] 

A reminder post to make sure I am incorporating this still in my teaching and planning.

Whole Brain learning

I have introducing some whole brain learning techniques into our classroom to more fully engage all my learners - but in particular the majority of year 2 boys!
I have noticed some excellent side effects already;

• more student talk
• more students following instructions
• more smiles
• more uptake of knowledge by more students

It's a win/win so far!!

And the video where I first saw it...

EDIT: I also created a Whole Brain Learning board on my pintrest page!

I am blessed with a holistic brain.

What I mean is,  my brain is awesome at connecting the wide and varied input I deliver to it - my synapses fire into the Tardis that is my mind and snippets of info rub up against thoughts and other facts and form little gangs of newly hatched ideas. 

These gangs of ideas act like magnets to attract other snippets and form new opinions which I should really bother to share more often.

I have been thinking about gun control and regulation.
And I have been attending a number of digital education seminars and workshops again lately (I say again because I did this about 8 years ago in my other life too).

The following is what happened when these two main things rubbed together in my Tardis.

In the digital education world we "tsk tsk" and shake our heads when we hear of schools banning cellphones and BYOD (Bring Your Own Devices) from schools (I would like to say Learning Environments but in this instance the institutionalised term, schools, is more appropriate).
The ideas behind that banning are numerous but include things like "If we ban them we will stop cyber bullying" or "If we exclude unauthorised devices from our network students won't be able to sext*"

We "Tsk tsk" because it is not the cellphones or the BYO devices that are the problem. We shake our heads and wonder why those Learning Leaders are ignoring the challenge of some student led critical thinking. We are sad because of the missed opportunities to use our key compentency tools to develop Digital Citizenship and foster positive online morals and values.

We think, when has sticking our heads in the sand and shutting down discussion ever made a significant contribution to our issues? 

Let's talk about cyber bullying and the impact; let's unpack the issues surrounding sexting and create a dialogue about what is really going on.

We need to move past the dictatorship of Cyber Safety and empower students to be responsible self governed Digital Citizens.

My best friend lives in America and each day we yak and yarn about what is happening in our worlds. Guns and Boston Bombings have been a big part of that lately. We talk about gun control and stricter laws and the constitution. 

But is gun banning any different than cellphone banning?

 I mean, I am all for rights, but the constitution was written back in the day when you were lucky to get one shot off per minute and semi automatic weapons weren't even something you imagined in your wildest dreams...
In a time when getting shot, from a health perspective, REALLY meant you could die. Medicine has come a LONG way since then, and speaking of a long way - that's what you were from getting any help!

We all need to encourage a dialogue into the weapons equivalent of Digital Citizenship... especially now that we have 3d printers.
Maybe the discussions are one in the same - empowering all citizens to get on the same page in terms of mindful self governing and away from forcing a big brother dictatorship through wilfully ignorant misdirected and ill-informed exertions of "rights".
Encouraging focus on the deeper issues rather than floundering in the squeaky wheel surface features.

Meanwhile...what does it mean about me that I would like to ban banning.....

*sext/sexting -electronically sending a nude or partially nude picture of yourself (apparently about 1 in 5 young people has sexted...)

Democratic School group visit

Dawn's democratise school group came to talk to our staff about how we can collborate and incorporate their ideas in our programmes as my principal is open to some of their stuff and there is common ground.
It set up for the start of a year in the direction I would like to be going and made an interesting day!
I very much like the "takes a village" approach!
I am very interested in the opportunities to personalise learning so children could get more input/choice about what they want to learn. They can be then more intrinsically motivated to learn which is as it should be! (instead of them having to do what everyone else has to do which is not a natural way to learn  and not ideal!)
If I can find some one to take a group of wee kids and teach them how to sew or braid or fix a car then GREAT! - my job would be to integrate that through my planning into what I am required by the government to report on for National standards.
The  freedom, support and resources to do that would be fantastic!