Often a feeling of disillusionment and frustration can prevail as you are closer to the lead end of the pencil.
Whether it be a feeling of disempowerment... ideas/input ignored or dismissed. A feeling as though you are being sent upriver with a couple of spoons acting as paddles... and that maybe that message that was voiced loud and clear a while back, has faded into the ether and left you you wondering whether you're out on your own...
The cure, if you find yourself wallowing in the depths of this drudgery... The Toolkit.
Many are nervous about putting their hand up to run/host/lead a toolkit. Let's be honest - usually it involves a shoulder tap! I was more than happy to host one, however I had no idea what, of my practice, would be of value to others. (I'm certainly not feeling as though my practice is being celebrated in house at present.
The Toolkit.
Attendees fall into a few loose categories.
Those nearer the sharp end:
Confident in trying new things. Keen to touch base on what others are doing, discussion around practice and picking the brains of others in order to pick up new ideas to incorporate in their own practice.
Paddlers:
Keen to put their bare feet in the water for a taster, with the support and scaffolding of others, they take a look while developing the confidence to think about trying.
Alongside, there are those who go to be seen to be "on board". Hopefully these transform into paddlers... The hope is that these will gain some confidence in having a crack a t something new.
There are also the notably absent. Those who you never see.
Today's Toolkit:
Teacher Dashboard and New Analytics in Highlights
Come along to find out how to use Teacher Dashboard more effectively and even see how much collaboration each of your students is doing. Some really cool new features have been added to Teacher Dashboard.
I covered the transformation of the way I have used Hapara over the course of the last 2 years, from Interact... The Dashboard... and more recently the Activity Viewer.
I had taken a few screenshots throughout the day, as well as some "snaps" so that I could explain what it looks like in action. (After school, no activity shows so it is virtually impossible to describe it to anyone.) We discussed when we might use it, not only for watching 'big brother' style, but also for spotting positives, like searches being made or students utilising sites, such as thesaurus.com, to support their writing.
A great question posed was "What are my perceived limitations?" - In truth, I don't feel I have been using it long enough to have come up with any yet. AN interesting discussion evolved around how it would be good to be able to get an individual student report, along the same lines, showing which sites they visited etc, over a period of time.
The beauty of these toolkits is the tangents. Any one who knows me, knows I tend towards going off on tangents as one thought or idea spurs another and another. I think those at the sharper end possibly tend towards these, as they often question both their own practice and that of others, as they seek and thirst for more.
Our tangents covered assessment practice at a classroom level. What do we use in place of pretests for strands etc? - We have trialled Kahoot, utilising the ability to save the results to your Drive, recording the assessment results. I talked about how easy this is. Taking the place of the post test, The create aspect demonstrates the students ability to share their understanding of the concept.
I shared our IKAN DLO. We discussed Adding it to our developing Cluster Shared Folder, in the form of a shared database, which can be collaboratively added to to share the load for all.
| IKAN DLO |
The Toolkit. The most accessible yet under-utilised resource going!
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