This is the 8th annual Wānanga with Principals, Leaders and Partners from across our Manaiakalani Network. It's hard to believe I've been on this journey for 9 years, across two schools... and only missed last year's Wānanga due to my chemo treatments.
I think, each and every time we start, I'm overwhelmed by the mana of the Pt England åkonga performing to welcome us. This time there was definitely a tear.
Don't tie your waka to a glowworm, tie it to the highest star.
It's up to us. We are "the bright stars" in the room that are going to make things happen, not a glow worm shining in the corner, nothing more than a beacon of hope. Together, as stars, we become a constellation.
Research Team
Beginnings of looking into our research. - Dr Rebecca Jesson.
Effective Teaching. Accelerated Learning. As a leader, your teachers are your class. We are here as leaders. In this space, the only person whose actions we can change are our own. As leaders how can we do better? What can we do differently? As a teacher, we need to know our students, know their level, and know our strategy for tomorrow. Here, as leaders, we need to do this with our teachers in mind. Actions that contribute to Quality Movement.
Know your Teachers
How can we have more structure for our teachers as well as give them the confidence to build the structure for themselves? How can we build things for them to self-improve?
3rd box is about the teacher's beliefs about what they're teaching and who they're teaching to.
4th - Classroom practised is the context.
5th - the learner's own beliefs about what they're learning and what their prior knowledge is.
Student Outcomes. The goal.
PCK conveys the content to get the outcome. Teachers who can do this can inspire their learners in a more impactful way.
PCK in Reading. In 2021 a challenge was identified in the data. A working group formed for core design and advisory:
Manaikalani Reading Pillars of Practice.
A "whole Programme Approach" offers a rich framework for learning to learn about reading.
Do our teachers know the difference between tier 2 & 3 vocabulary?
Regular PCK means regular planned acts of HLP's.
Stubborn Persistent Action is due to a limited approach to these pillars.
Task board is not full of busy work, but building maintenance of learning. Deliberate and purposeful learning experiences.
Important considerations:
- Teachers and mentors have and are developing a shared understanding of the PCK together.
-How are we going to build a collective understanding of the Pillars of Practice?
-How are we going to
-If we do this we are going to improve our practice.
***These are our mechanisms for change.
It's really important to put a problem into a context because it helps understanding.
Our job is to have LPCK - Leadership in PCK. Their are 2 leaders (in Literacy and Math) to tap into.
It's all about changing practice.
2 ways to change:
1. Talk to them and change their thinking.
2. Change their practice and watch them change their beliefs.
3. Both at the same time.
How am I as a leader, leading this change with my teachers?
One of the things I can use is my data.
Know your data
Underneath the dot is a whole range of variability. As a leader, my job is to know what is going on to influence the dot?
Underneath each dot is a range of understanding, pedagogy, and practice. Each individual teacher influences the understanding due to their PCK.
Nuthall rendered to a class of 30 students that each walked away from a lesson with a different understanding of what was taught/covered.
Where are our teachers at with the variability in where they are at and what is their thinking? We need to interrogate ourselves to say What was wrong about that? How might we have got this wrong?
What leads into the dots in terms of our teachers? What sorts of knowledge do our teachers have? How much do we know about that? What are we going to work on tomorrow? What is going to be catalytic? (How do we go about intervening?)
This is where the data fits.
The Common Practice Model has changed... and there is more stuff to come.
It is waiting for the new Min of Ed to appoint. The top is what we are teaching. The bottom is how we are teaching it.
Teaching practices that recognise learner diversity. DO our learners see themselves represented in the texts we deliver?
Look at the Cluster or School data representation and then use it to inform practice (links to windows and mirrors.)
It's about motivating and engaging our students.
Have our teachers looked at the Reader Profile Surveys from their learners?
We call it extended discussion. Have the learners had an opportunity to understand through sharing ideas and asking questions etc.
Know your strategy
Reading Practice Intensive - designed the Pillars of Practice
These RPI/MPI is the solution that has been designed to help with the problem. They are seeing the shift. What are the teachers in the NE quadrant doing and how are we sharing it within the school so we can see the shift everywhere.
Do these all align with what we want?
What is "Active Learning? - This is essentially "Create"
Recognising the language and knowledge that learners bring. Do they have the vocabulary to support that.
We need to be teaching our kids 700 words a year.
There are numerous types of Structured Literacy and various forms of assessment, so they need to know what we are doing and we are doing it in order to create a graph.
Day 2
Manaiakalani Innovative Teachers Presentations
1. Utilising Whanau engagement. Te Ako Tahi - Learning Together Website.
Includes a bank of short videos of tamariki talking about their learning.
Three topics:
Literacy, Math, Enriching Learning.
A space to promote Learning Challenges. One each month. Whanau email in the entry and go into a prize draw. Promotes upcoming events. Extra resources. Space to ask questions via a Google form with options to be contacted personally via email or phone call; or answer posted anonymously.
Google sheet to track whanau engagement.
Imapct on akonga sharing their learning.
The second stage was to encourage whanau to submit their own ideas and videos on the site. Whanau event to teach digital skills (e.g. taking a photo
Jayne Abernathy - Hornby High School
Supporting secondary teachers to incorporate literacy in their subject area. She has created 'The Secondary Literacy Hub'. A site that encourages teachers to pick a few strategies to implement. The goal is to offer a central hub to secondary teachers to supply resources to support teaching literacy & numeracy in other subject areas.
It's still in development but will be available later in term 4, ready for planned use in 2024.
Essie Agnew - St Francis of Assisi
Critical Thinking Skills of Year 7 students.
Created "Think wise, Thrive" - a site full of resources to use in the classroom in a variety of contexts. There is also a Google sheet in order for educators to submit their own resources to promote critical thinking.
Tech update for 2024
- 3 devices tested
- Real difference in repairability
- Acer are still the winner.
- Acer c734
- 4GB RAM
- 32GB local RAM
Provocations:
Know your Strategy... Not a Provocation, but a thought experiment.
Classroom practice where the beliefs and attitudes of both teachers and students come together.
Formative Leadership Practice
- Ultimate adaptivity Highway. For teachers to have a good knowledge of what they're doing and how to do it.
The underpinning principals of what they're learning and how they're learning.
Engineering effective tasks that give evidence of learning (for teachers)
generating internal and external Feedback and how do they move themselves forward. How am I helping that?
Peer review, peer feedback.
How do we as leaders allow teachers to have ownership over their own learning?
Using our Formative assessment practices... what does that look like in a leadership frame?
How are we going to make everyday a learning day for our tea
So what:
- Have åkonga ready to waiata at events etc.
- Embed understanding of the Pillars or Practice in Reading and Mathematics. These Pillars are great for building an understanding of HLP's or CPM for teachers.
- We need to utilise our data.
- Are our teachers considering the ethnic make-up of their class (windows and mirrors).
- Are they looking at the edPotential data to inform practice?
- Are they looking at the Reader Profile Surveys to ensure they are listening?
- Promote SLJ by playing the video to learners, Hero, and Facebook.
- share.manaiakalani.org - student edublogging - check it out.
