Teaching Reflection + The Ghosts of Students Past

Kia ora! I had a day at work on this fine and fabulous Sunday. It was a bit of a shame but it was open day for our school (we show case the school for prospective students to come and have a look around and decide if our school is the school for them).
So we were just wrapping up and I was in the school hall talking to a colleague i walked past a young man who stopped and said Hi to me. I looked at him... no register.... nothing! I have never had that happen to me and felt so bad. But once he said his name it all came flooding back. KEVIN! So of course I was picturing the 12-13 year old boy in my mind and here was this stocky, handsome twenty year old young man! WOW! We spoke for about ten minutes and it truly was such a wonderful thing to be able to catch up Kevin. He was a bit of a twinkly eyed child you could say, but was always polite and just a great human being. He said some really lovely things about his fond memories from his time in Room 16 and we spoke about where other people were and what they had gone on to do. I truly feel so proud that I get to do this job and his conversation today was a really timely reminder. I LOVE what I do. It is NEVER easy, although you have some days easier than others. Thanks Kevin for taking the time to speak with me.

SO again on to my mind lab work. I really just wanted to post my first attempt at creating a screencastify video. Exciting and scary. I had to reflect on an aspect of my practice and relate this to the 21st Century learning skills created by ITL ITL Research. (2012). 21CLD Learning Activity Rubrics. Retrieved from https://education.microsoft.com/GetTrained/ITL-Research.

My first screencastify.
I was really excited to get my first likes etc and was a little bit surprised at how much it meant to me to know others saw what it was that Holly and I are doing with our students. I find myself thinking about how we are using these 21st century skills all the time and how we can make the learning better in the future for our studnets.

The Amazing Hand Puppet exploration AKA Collaboration

Session Two: planned as possible!
I read what was mandatory and wrote down what I thought were some pertinent notes.

What I was really excited about on a practical level was the ITL 21 Century learning skills rubrics (ITL Research. (2012). 21CLD Learning Activity Rubrics. Retrieved from https://education.microsoft.com/GetTrained/ITL-Research ). I really enjoyed reading these especially as our school has been undergoing a transformation in our approach to foster learning that is more of a skilled based curriculum. I just loved the practicality of these rubrics. Well defined, easy to use and don't even get me started on the flow charts. AMAZING!

Any who... I still need to get my head around the Knowledge Construction rubric. This is important to me because as we have been designing our PRIDE inquiry model of learning as a school, one part that has been, not neglected, but steered away from, is the development of knowledge through content. Many times it has been uttered, it's not the content nor the context that matters, it's the skills. I get that, but if we don't have a meaty, perspective rich area to explore, we are not paying nor acknowledging the importance of having a good understanding and KNOWLEDGE in which to apply, develop and practice these skills on. I think its like reading and writing- the two are inextricably linked.  But that's just my opinion.
What I do need to clarify is...

1. I am not too sure I understand all aspects of this rubric clearly and...
2. I think knowledge construction may be lacking in my practice. 

Do I really (truly) give my students the opportunity to construct their own meaning and create NEW understanding? I always thought I was good at getting students to do that but maybe I am only just getting them to reproduce (or regurgitate) what I provide for them to explore? This is an area that I am going to try to really think about as I go along in this journey. The whole creation aspect of learning.

Which takes me to my next part: exploring a collaborative approach to explore the ITL's rubric of COLLABORATION!

Last session we were given the task of recreating one of the rubrics and after looking at the actual task that is posted on our learning portal I am unsure if we actually have completed that task properly? 

(Choose one of the ITL rubrics and reflect upon the activities you provide for your students/staff. Film part of that reflection. You can use any device. Make sure the video is no more than 3 minutes long. Publish your video to the Google+ Community with the hashtag #21CSreflection, remember, as always, to add your location specific hashtag. This is your chance to familiarise yourself with your devices, and to honestly reflect upon your own practice.)

But anyway here is our collaboration. 

#OTT #whatabouthatvoice? #givingthingsago #washeapsoffunforus

What I really enjoyed about this collaboration was that in doing this task I truly feel like I have such a deeper and better understanding of the concept. Already in my teaching classes I have tried to use this approach multiple times because it really was of benefit for me. I had my students create their own definitions of volume in math. Sounds really simple and boring but by just using key questions my students were able to clarify and distinguish the difference between volume and capacity, give definitions in their own words, create their own understandings. My fav was Alice and Mackenzie who said the volume was just 3d area. I loved it. They showed the transference of the concept we had learned before in a way that made sense to them and built on previous learning. So much more powerful than me giving them a definition and a formula. Students used a variety of digital methods to show their understanding and shared it on Gclassroom. Although I have always done this sort of thing, I have put myself in my students seats and am handing a lot more of the discovery over to them. I get them to clarify each others ideas. We make mistakes together and fix them together too.

One of the reflections we were asked to complete was to identify 3 or more issues or problems in our practice and how this applied to either the 21st C skill rubrics or The NZ Curriculum key competencies: http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/The-New-Zealand-Curriculum.

Problems, Challenges, Frustrations or Concerns In my practice:	Related to Key Competencies or ILT 21st C Skills
Am I really promoting Knowledge construction with in my classroom programme? Do students really get to use HOT skills and critical thinking in the classroom? Is student thinking surface or deep?	21CS: · Knowledge Construction KC: · Thinking
How can I get my students taking more ownership over their spelling skills and proficiency in the classroom?	21CS: · Knowledge Construction KC: · Using language, symbols and text · Thinking
How can I design learning tasks that show true collaboration or promote true collaboration?	21CS: · Collaboration KC: · Relating to others · Thinking · Managing self · Participating and contributing
How can I promote the use and competency of our PRIDE learning model with other staff?	21CS: · Collaboration · Problem Solving · Knowledge Construction KC: · Relating to others · Thinking · Participating and contributing
I would like students to use and have a digital presence through documenting or sharing themselves, our school etc, their learning  through the use of Blogging or VLogging.	21CS: · Collaboration · Problem Solving · Use of ICT for Learning KC: · Relating to others · Using language, symbols and text · Thinking · Managing self · Participating and contributing Problem Solving

 There are many more things I could look at and I am sure that I will refine this even more but it's just a starting point at the moment. 

The other reflection we were invited to do was identify which 21st C skill we would like to work on for our assignment. I am a bit divided about that at present because there are lots of things i would like to focus on. Collaboration- helping grow such an important skill with students who are very cooperative but not necessarily collaborative. Use of ICT for learning- apart from the old G Suite and google classroom etc, I know this area of my practise could definitely be improved. Am i teaching really good ICT skills for learning too? Knowledge Construction- as mentioned above am I creating learning experiences and tasks that really deepen thinking and promote the students own construction of knowledge? Problem solving and innovation- I think I do this at a minimal level. This is one area i find myself not really interested in for my homeroom class- so maybe this is what I should look into more because I really am unsure how successful I could be and how I can really help the kids make a positive difference. I see a lot of really fluffy problem solving or innovative things go on. Students who were involved in another teacher in my school doing Mindlab last year really sort of negated what it was that they achieved (and they achieved something good too)- they seemed almost disconnected in a way where as the teacher was highly engaged. How could I do something authentic that the kids were proud of and valued too?

Sooooo as you can see this session has brought up more questions than anything else for me. I have't blogged on the leadership portion of last weeks session- that may be for another time. And this has taken me far too long to do!

The Aftermath... Reflections on Session One

So I suppose the realisation that I am going to have to organise my time very carefully has well and truly dawned on me. I went into school yesterday and as I finished up (after filing and moving Mt Paper from my desk... the sorting tray...the floor space behind my desk etc, to well appointed and appropriate homes) and wrote my 'to do' list on the board in prep for today, I knew I would have to get serious about organising myself if I wanted to be successful. Not my strong point. My thinking and time management is honestly pretty scattered. I can start on something and then find myself getting pretty distracted, very quickly. SQUIRREL! (We don't have squirrels in NZ so um... bird?)

So today I have been trying to catch up with all my tick off tasks loaded on the Mindlab portal. (Ohh sounds like another dimension). I LOVE to tick things off a list. So satisfying.
Anyway, my next issue and something I have to think about is how I will organise my notes and reflections etc. Right now, at this very moment, I am using:

• Blogger: (first time- teaching myself as I go) to record what I'm recording here
• Evernote: in class notes and some video note recordings, reflections to class tasks
• Google Keep: I like to watch videos and record my thoughts on this as I go.

Don't really like this and feel like this represents my scatteredness again. Holly (my partner in crime for this course) showed me her Blog on Tuesday night, and after I saw how awesome her work was, of course I just jumped on that band wagon too. Luckily our course advisor said we will be using blogging so that's super helpful. But I feel like I'm wasting time doing too many things or doubling up. Maybe I should just do what Cassie is doing and put everything on a doc- oh i don't know. Hopefully this will be combated as I get further down the track in this learning journey. (Which my 17 year old son, laughed at! 'Learning Journey' hahaha. Hmph to you kiddo!). 

Anyway on to the guts of this blog - apart from my panic, anxiety and neurosis. 

So today I watched the full Being at Home in the World- Gert Biesta video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUXSxGD8WmE  Ummm mind blown. 

I feel like all the drivel I wrote in my reflection (on Evernote) is just that- drivel! We only watched a little section in class of this video before making our playdough creations. I messaged Holly, indignant- Why didn't we look at the whole thing? My playdough representation is nothing compared to what Mr Biesta was talking about. Well, she replied, maybe they want us to discover that for ourselves. It seems too important for us to just discover by ourselves but maybe they do. 

So what did I find so exciting, interesting and thought provoking?

Through all my education education (haha) I have been exposed to the idea that the child as an individual should be at the center of educational experiences and that each child's uniqueness, talents, ability and culture should be at the heart of all teaching and learning activities. The bigger picture, my philosophy of teaching, the why am I doing this, what is the purpose of education? was to help students to realise their individual talents, aptitudes etc so that they could be contributing and helpful citizens of our world. Biesta's suggests we may need to temper this idea and places student centered education at one end of an educational paradigm with a controlled, ranking, testing system of education at the other. From what I understand, of what he is saying, is that current education system is very 'ego-logical' putting individuals and their wishes and desires at the heart of education- which looking at the bigger picture of society,  fuels consumerism, selfishness, domination and difference over others. He went on to say when we focus on individuality and difference in education it can have the undesired effect of isolating and forcing comparison on to our students. This builds up walls and that sometimes, this focus on individuals and identity, can in fact build barriers to learning and lessen our connectedness with each other. 

His ideas of grownup'ness, I scoffed on Tuesday. Haha I don't want to be a grown up! 

The purpose of education, Biesta proposes is to: Fuel the desire for students to want to live in the world in a grown up way. Grown up, meaning a sustaining, connected member of our world. Where the person isn't the center of the universe but the world is. World Centered education. How we manage to live in the world.

He poses a serious question: Is what I desire, desirable? This disruptive and powerful question has far reaching consequences for education and society. 'Education stretches above learning.'

There's heaps more I can write about this but that's not really the point. I know I have just skimmed the surface of this idea and I have so much more to wrap my head around before I understand this fully. The point is, I can see a shift in my thinking already; the bigger picture, the purpose of education... how is this going to have an effect on my teaching? 

Day ONE!! It's here

Okay, so today was the first day of my Mind Lab journey. I was really excited and a whole lot nervous about this step up and out for my teaching practice. How am I going to possibly fit everything in and do what I love to do well? I don't know but I am sure the world won't stop turning and everything will get done (or not) as it always does.

So after a few furious moments of setting up and getting the bikkies organised we were on our way.

WHY did I want to undertake this course?
Hmmmm... write question in pretty lettering, on sticky notes- (oh I love sticky notes!).
1. To challenge myself- I want to push my learning, to be made uncomfortable, to be able to make positive change.
2. This course is so relevant- to myself, my students, what's happening in education, the future etc etc
3.  I can't remember

First challenge: put a recognisable picture of yourself onto the Google+ community. Are you kidding me?!! Okay... so, not so much of a big deal for others. But for me- eek. I do not like this! I think it has something to do with remaining as anonymous as possible online. I hear something about 'digital presence'. Oh no, I'm going to have to bite the bullet. Crunchy- very crunchy. I think I just lost a filling. After much pain, my new and hastily taken picture has been posted. Oh it's terrible (truly) but I did it and hopefully this is the new start of my new positive digital presence. On the upside, a new online tool- Webcam toy. Very cool- web based, bring it into the classroom straight away.

Haha- its me. After all that fuss about taking a photo! https://webcamtoy.com 

Right, into the nitty gritty.
Epistomology, Ontology, Axiology... oh my.


Memories of my SOC101 course back in '99 come flooding back- the cave, the non existent perfect circle- oh no.I'm going to have to watch the accompanying video a few times to get these bad boys locked away in the old grey matter.
Knowledge, truth/reality and values. All of these huge concepts shape and drive our educational system. Who's ideas of KTRV? What is important to know?  This brings us to the whole idea of what is knowledge and what is the purpose of education. Bring on the playdough!

So my partner (Cassie) and I, buddy up after being asked to explore the purpose of education. Showing this in our outstandingly good playdough representation, we recorded and then posted our work online. Unfortunately due to the unforeseen troubles, it wasn't quite what we really wanted but was okay for a first go.

So looking at our model, according to Gert Biesta's ideas about the purpose of education we came up pretty close. After some reflection and change we put in more focus to the subjectification aspects of his ideas; as we initially had more focus in the qualification and socialisation aspects.
So what does our model show. We show that education occurs through all life stages, infancy through to adulthood (all people different sizes).  Education should aim to encourage and grow each persons skills, attributes, dispositions and aspirations -rays of aspiration :) . We show the links that occur between people as they learn, highlighting that education is entwined, collaborative and communicative. Each person holds their own key- the things that make them unique and ready to unlock something special to contribute to our world. In the center is the combination of all those things leading to the future - the unknown. Education- enabling preparedness for the future so people can contribute as fully functioning, global citizens.

Okay, so that's all for now :)
We did heaps more but it's time to stop.