Collaboration..the journey begins...again.

You know that feeling you get when your wonderings and gut feelings are vindicated, but not really in a good way? Well, the first step in the journey to know more about teacher collaboration has begun....again


Teacher collaboration can take different forms and I have also discovered that it means different things to different people. This has led me to mapping out the steps I am taking to learn more.


Step 1:
Introduce concept of teacher collaboration to colleagues.
I started with a staff meeting discussion which brought out these points:

• Using Google Docs was considered to have positive potential for planning whole school initiatives, but planning across grade levels was not viewed as useful. Indeed, there appears to be a belief that planning for literacy and numeracy across grade levels and sharing same was not acceptable.

"Why google docs?" rather than school intranet server?

• Accessible anytime anywhere.
• Can edit simultaneously.
• For sharing across grades, we can use teaching activities from each other's plan.
• Builds a culture of understanding different teaching approaches and an appreciation of colleagues' strengths and weaknesses.

Step 2: Input teacher response and adapt plan for next meeting 


In light of initial responses it is clear that we need to clarify and consolidate our understandings about teacher collaboration. Step 2 also involves gathering evidence:


What do other teachers do?

1. To cast a wider net we have contacted all of the small schools in our network to gather some ideas about how they collaborate.
2. Access resources and evidence online, for example

Making the most out of teacher collaboration
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/teacher-collaboration-strategies-ben-Johnson


Pathways to collaboration - across grade levels
https://www.teachingchannel.org/blog/2012/10/18/pathway-to-collaboration/


Looking at student work collaboratively
http://www.essentialschools.org/resources/60


The Seven Principles of Highly Effective Professional Learning - DET Victoria


This highlights the value and the expectation that teachers will participate in professional learning together and collaborate.


3. Talk to my PLN - Twitter will be ablaze this weekend

What I read on the holidays

Kept reading about teacher collaboration
Supporting hesitant/resistant colleagues.
Leading others to unlearn
Specific tech tools to use in class and working on developing a way to bring the traditional approach of paper recognition and acknowledgement alongside the digital format of CD. This is in the name of honouring the opinions/beliefs and perception of others.
Collected a range of thoughts from Twitter to help my own thinking

Did a chat with #BastowLSDA ppl

You're quoted in: How can schls use social media to help their schl community feel better connected? http://sfy.co/h0on4

Josh Stumpenhorst‏@stumpteacher Jul 1

We need to be asking less "how do I get tech" and more "why do I need tech". Intentional use and purposeful integration. #ISTE2015

 

edutopiaVerified account ‏@edutopia 4h4 hours ago

Meta-collaboration = thinking with one another: http://edut.to/1NS4UGf .

 

Read about coaching as well.

 

 

 

 

Whaddaya stand for?

To lead you need to know what you stand for. To lead you need to be able to tell people what you stand for. To lead others, they need to know what you stand for.

I stand for empowering others through teaching and learning. I stand for giving others the power to create their own story. People have the right to find and work towards what they want in life. They have the right to follow their own passion.

As a teacher I guide students to develop the knowledge, skills and abilities which lead them to uncover the thing that are really good at and really want to do. When they do this, students build confidence and then they fly...take risks, try anything, because they know I believe in them.

I want to make sure that all of the students I teach get something out of my lessons. This will vary for each student, despite there being a clear learning intention and an expectation of what I am looking for.

Some students will understand the learning intention, link the concepts together and instantly be able to teach another student. Others will barrel past the instructions and hurl themselves at the task, then link the concepts together and be able to teach another student. Other students will be oblivious entirely and be unable to explain. These students may need reteaching

Some will appear to be oblivious but at the end of the lesson be able to explain part or all of the learning intention. Another group of students will link the learning intention to something else that they already know, or synthesise two areas of learning (like patterns in fractions and multiplication times tables) with little prompting from me.

For each student the outcome may be slightly different...and I can draw professional satisfaction from each child's experience of my teaching.

In the moment of teaching, when I am with the students, if I focus on the learning of the students and not on what I need to "cover" in the curriculum it is a much more fulfilling role. It is also in these moments that ego or self consciousness departs and I no longer wonder if my colleagues think I am doing my job "right".

As a leader I support colleagues to become the best they can be. In this I hope to enable teachers empower their students. So my leadership focus reinforces what I stand for. However one difference springs to my mind - adults already know stuff. They bring a field of experience, training and knowledge, as well as fixed opinions and beliefs to all aspects of their lives. Children as learners are forgiving, adults tend to be less so. This makes the task of leading others a slightly different challenge but nonetheless worthwhile.

So while trying to lead colleagues through collaboration a range of questions streak into my thoughts. These are questions you need to have responses for in order to show that you are able to lead. These responses also need to be firm, positive and with as little hesitation as you can muster.

• If my best effort cannot support struggling students to engage or learn, why shouldn't I ask others for help?
• And what reason would others have to respond with "We all teach differently" rather than "Have you tried ....?"
• Are you an effective colleague if you don't have the time or willingness to support the endeavours of your fellow teachers?
• Does it matter if I don't get my job right all of the time?
• Does it matter if my colleagues know that? Is it ok to make mistakes?
• Is it ok to be a bystander as these mistakes occur?
• Do we give up on a trial approach just because it's in the implementation dip?
• Do we need to disrupt the teaching and learning?

Next steps

A few days away from the beginning of Term 3 and I am planning, scheming and preparing.

 

I plan to:

•  Re-read our ICT change plan and check when and where I am going to deliver PL for Ts and Ps
• Share the results of LIP and my recommendations regarding teaching of growth mindset - perhaps even explore Hattie's teacher mindsets as well.
• Prepare HPE plan for Term 3 - Football skills, Dettol Healthy Schools, Growth Mindset - learning to learn.
•  Put these ideas into some coherent format:

Write a submission to CSSN/local secondary schools regarding Yr 6 to Yr 7 transition which assists Ts to understand the nature of each other's classrooms and support Yr 6s to make a successful transition.

Write a submission to same about involving some middle secondary students studying history to engage with us for the school centenary in 2016.

• Develop a digital learning work program for a neighbouring school's grade 3 to 6 class - Monday afternoons.

 

 

The Power of Student Voice

One of our students presented a slideshow at the final session of Auskick last night at the local football club. The student asked if she could prepare the slideshow and she did a fabulous job. Many adults in the audience were astonished and truly impressed by the presentation and the work she had put in.


This student learned how to create presentations at our school. It put me in mind of the power of student involvement in learning and in community events. I wondered to myself if the adults had any idea of what happens in the modern 21st Century classroom. For me it is a great example of how student voice and involvement can promote the teaching and learning that is occurring in all of our schools right here, right now.


I wonder also, how do other schools harness the power of student voice?

Why do Educators take up Professional Learning?

 

Professional learning (PL) can take many forms and occur in many different situations. For me the saying "the teacher appears when the pupil is ready" is quite fitting for me at this time. Good PL for educators has to be good...even outstanding, because we are dedicated to making our own lessons the same. I have been extremely motivated this year and fortunate in gaining a number of opportunities. I would like to explore the reasons why teachers take on PL and the different forms I have accessed this year.

 

Why do teachers take up PL?

1. To learn.
2. To satisfy their moral purpose for being an educator.
3. To maintain engagement with their work
4. To improve practice.
5. Improved practice improves student learning outcomes.
6. To make connections with other educators
7. To collaborate

In no particular order, I want to improve student learning outcomes because:

1. I believe it is VITAL for today's children to be prepared for their lives in the future - I approach my work from a social justice perspective but also....
2. It is my job.
3. I get paid and my salary allows me to live the life that I choose.
4. I gain a sense of personal and professional fulfilment from leading the learning of young people.
5. I gain a sense of personal and professional satisfaction from knowing that I am doing the best job I can.
6. Students and parents give instant feedback about how effective I am as an educator.

Teaching is full of people who are altruistic and say they are doing it "for the kids". I think this is curious, and that they leave out a key piece of information. Most people in teaching are in it because they gain satisfaction and fulfilment from learning and facilitating learning. The kids get something out of it because the teacher has this intrinsic motivation to build learners, not just happy kids.

My questions for you are: Why do you take up professional learning?

What motivates you to improve your practice?

 

 

The first day of the rest of our lives...after LSDA and LIP

So I've completed Leading Instructional Practice through Bastow and Chris and I have  completed Leading Schools in the Digital Age...a great launching pad for our next move. My thoughts now turn to how I will share the professional learning with my colleagues and link it to the learning of our students at our school.


Why did we do LSDA?
To improve our skills as educators to teach in the 21st century.
To develop the skills and understandings needed to provide our students with better teaching and learning.


Where is the evidence that this was necessary?

1. Despite having experienced teachers, quality programs and targeted interventions, our literacy and numeracy results in NAPLAN and from teacher judgements do not show that all students have reached benchmark in all areas.
2. The nature of learning and learners is changing, and teachers must change with it. This does not mean discarding effective teaching and learning approaches, but it does mean we need to do something different to ensure all students achieve.
3. Current prep students will graduate from secondary school in 2028 - technological change in all areas of life has had a massive impact in the last 5 years ...we can only guess at what their working lives will entail. We will be doing our students a disservice if we do not embrace change in our schools.

Where is the evidence that LSDA has helped us to deliver improved student achievement?


Example 1: www.learn2earn.org was discovered via my PLN on Twitter. Since signing up all students in the school have recorded the time they read for and provided responses to texts. For some students this is the first time I have seen them reflect on their reading.


Example 2: From the research project I completed about explicit teaching of effort and Growth Mindset and Reading, where I gathered data about growth mindset, we noted an improvement in students' understanding of growth mindset, and how that could help them with reading. This research will be revisited again later in the year to determine if any further understandings have been gained.


Example 3: The PL we have completed so far (4 sessions) about Growth Mindset has given all teachers another tool to use when working with those students who appear to have potential, but lack the confidence, motivation or drive to apply themselves.