Leadership, Engagement and Agency

I didn't blog last week.

So thinking back on my last couple of sessions at Mindlab, what to blog about...

Firstly Leadership one has been completed. I'm not extremely happy with the final essay but was pleased to get this completed. So glad to get these things completed, and handled in on time.
It was interesting to reflect on my leadership and followership style. I am definitely more more comfortable in and as, an active follower. So many different theories etc go alongside leadership and followership but I like to think that those personal attributes and emotional intelligence's separate effective leaders from those that are ineffective. I also can see that there are many times where different leadership styles are required depending on the situation and requirements of the team being led.

                       

This week we started to investigate student agency and student engagement. I was pleased about this because it's something I'm very interested in.

Here is my interpretation of student engagement according to the following article: Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership. (2016). Engagement in Australian schools. Retrieved from http://www.acleadersresource.sa.edu.au/features/engagement-in-learning/workshop-1/Handout_4_Engagement_in_Australian_Schools.pdf and how I think students show these types of engagement levels.

At the end of the day, I strongly feel that relationships are part of the key component to student engagement. How a teacher relates to their students is paramount, how a teacher supports a student in their learning but not just academically, how a teacher sets the tone for the classroom environment is strongly based on and built upon- relationships.

Student agency
Agency - the new buzz word. I was at a conference presented by Kath Murdoch about Inquiry Learning last year, when I first heard the word. I admit I scoffed a bit at the time; 'Student Agency- what the heck is that?!'
My tutor Jonathan, summed it up quite well: 'Agency is the power of creativity.' I love this idea and know as a student I personally would have loved more agency at times. I was lucky though that through my own education I had some pretty great teachers who, although didn't know the word, allowed their students a lot of agency. Now whether a student wants to pursue their agency or not is another thing. I am personally finding that in my own practice right now. Some students do not want to make their own choices, they want to be told what to do and how to do it- that is safety, that is doing the 'right thing', that is not getting things wrong. The challenge is bringing those two worlds together or to start small and then build up to the real power of choice and creativity. At the moment my colleague and I am trying to start up a pretty big project for our students that will allow them to make their own way, make their own choices and be pretty much as creative as possible. Some students are EMBRACING this, but others are very reluctant. This is frustrating for me as a teacher who can see all these amazing possibilities in her students, but also I can understand that for students taking risks and putting themselves out there is "terrifying". In my experience, as students get older and as social media becomes a bigger part of their lives, those risk taking behaviours of putting yourself out there, and showing celebrating your own strengths to others etc, can put unwanted big targets on those students as well. Especially Kiwi kids. Last week in class, we looked at the latest PISA results which showed that New Zealand kids showed a very high percentage of bullying. This is an issue for our students and by our students too. It's a big part of our culture. Tall Poppy Syndrome is well and truly alive and kicking in NZ.
I think that all these things are inextricably linked; culture, agency, mindset, relationships. Being a teacher is not just about delivering a curriculum these days.

Flipped and Blended Learning

Flipped learning, where lesson material is prepared and recorded by a teacher and then viewed at home allowing students to come to school with a baseline of knowledge, is something that has bothered me for a while.
I am not against the idea of students being able to view material at their own pace or understanding level but what I am against is this notion of learning being seen as 'homework'. And I think homework is an issue.

Access to technology is not equal, access and time available after school is not equal, parental support and encouragement for homework and home study is not equal. The idea around moving or flipping the instruction for students to the home, doesn't sit well with me. Having been in the US for three months over the past three years, I have been able to get a 'little bit' of insight into homework and it's role (from an outsiders perspective) in the US educational system. Personally, I was shocked at the amount of homework given to students and the extent at how textbook based learning appeared to be the basis for learning. (Disclaimer: I'm not saying that's how all US Ed is based but just from what I witnessed). So, I can see how a flipped base of learning might appeal to that system of education and I do see some big benefits. It would considerably cut down on 'homework' and help students build up personal knowledge of the subject to bring to the classroom for teachers to guide, extend and clarify with students. Discussions could be richer, students more engaged without having to 'guess whats in the teachers head', and opportunities to explore multiple perspectives and apply new learning in different contexts would be evident. All great things right?!

My issue comes down to home access, as stated above. And whilst I was trying to grapple with this idea in my head, managed to stumble across the 'in class flip'. THANK YOU! Edutopia article on in-class flipped learning

Here we equal the playing field and students after school are not bogged down with extras. I already use blended learning in my classroom and a rotation and workshop type arrangement - especially for mathematics and reading/language type activities. This frees me up to work with individual students or small groups of students for guided instruction.

My favourite applications/site to use is TES Teach with Blendspace.

This is one of my Blendspace lessons on Fractions.

This is such a user friendly interface which allows you to upload a range of content and file types so that students can direct their own pace of learning, select areas of need to work and develop and allow for choice and control over their learning. You can select, find and upload You tube clips, upload your own screencast, instructionals, pdfs, images, directly question students, insert links etc etc. Blendspace has links to Google classroom, Google drive, Edmodo, Twitter, Drop box etc. It's really great. You can view and share other lessons with teachers or you could even get your students to create lessons.
Blend it up! But in my opinion... do it at school. If the kids are engaged they'll do their own 'homework'!

Anyway that's all from me for this week.
Ka kite

PS My homework is minimal and something that is done because our school/parent community expect it. Reading, spelling and something student designed at the moment.