Reaping the Rewards of my very own Learn Create Share moment

Exciting moment! I can relate to the excitement of my learners as my very own version of Learn Create Share gets an audience!

The dreaded Influenza has hit the youngest of the Raisin clan, so Husband & I resorted to playing tag-team, taking 'sick days' to look after her. I had put my hand up to share how we use the Learn Create Share model in our syndicate. Panic mode!

I'd LEARNed:

I knew what we did... It was easy to explain, in person, with the use of Hapara to show what it looks like in practise...

I needed to CREATE something to explain it in my absence. I decided on Powtoon, as I was in the process of trying to get the learners to use it. Afterall, part of the fun of being a teacher is being able to play Guinea Pig first (That's my excuse for all the time I whittle away coding and exploring online... and dragging my children around museum exhibitions and such, in the holidays!) My first Powtoon prototype is in an older post. I didn't dabble with the voice recording... so it's like watching a silent film! (Not particularly exciting) However, it is a prototype... as everything is these days!

My short Powtoon ended up taking a particularly long time to come into fruition... (Aren't we finding that this is a huge issue we are running into with our learners at the moment...?)Voice recordings were rerecorded due to: the three year old's shriek for water or tissues in the background; the overzealous paper turning that became too audible when played back... (Again, a problem faced with any recording task in the classroom, although I only had the one other child in the house to contend with!)

The end of the school day was looming, my little pixie sleeping, me frantically trying to export my Powtoon to Youtube to roll it out! (That panic we induce in our learners when we remind them a task is required to be completed before the looming bell... or they are eager to complete it in one sitting, while it's fresh in their mind.) I emailed it to our facilitator and four different people at school. I placed an emergency call to the staff member I thought was most likely to take a call in staff meeting... The eagle was in the air... I had SHARED!

The only conundrum... as staff meeting are often want to do... a slight tangent was taken and time allocated toward a few important points that cropped up. My SHARE had become rather stilted... (like the child who wants to share something with the class, but once again "we've run out of time".) I sought feedback from peers that I had sent it too... I published it on this blog... which probably has an audience of 1(myself) ...

My exciting moment came when I happened upon an email I'd missed at the end of a thread. My SHARE moment was appreciated... it was commented upon... and had been shared in a closed community group (I'm fairly certain this doesn't involve a peculiar sect, but at this point my excitement will take that even!) I'm reminded of what it's like as the learner to feel empowered by the comments of strangers, out in the big wide world! 

The power of Feedback

I hope that any one the Individuals who commented don't mind my taking a screenshot their comments, but I couldn't resist! I've had an epiphany of the kind that I believe every educator needs once in a while. We ask our learners to try new things and step out of their comfort zone, yet it is only when we, ourselves, do this... that we are able to become grounded again and walk in our learners shoes once more. It enables us to reevaluate our practice, our expectations. When we step out of our comfort zone, we find it all too easy to revert back to former practise... By embracing the mindshift, we are able to better support our learners as we are more empathetic to their uncomfortable feelings of being "In the Pit".

Modifying practice to meet the needs of digital technology and the Learn Create Share Model

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How to: Mindshift towards MLE

I'm a huge believer in the embracing of the Mindshift. I love this blog post regarding Modern Learning Environments vs Modern Learning Mindsets. Four Seasons in One Kiwi Blog Our journey, while it is part of a road towards a new build in post-earthquake Christchurch, is encapsulated by this idea. We have created flexible learning spaces within our old single cell classes. Yes, we now have holes in the walls... however we began the mindshift towards creating flexible spaces long before we left our single cells!

At the beginning of last year, just four terms ago, I too had name labels on desks. I had painstaking trawled over positioning of students. I over thought combinations and configurations. I spent hours perusing templates, inserting the perfect font, laminating and utilising the guillotine...

The initial process went a little something like this (insert background music here):

Step 1: Remove labels from tables.

Step 2: Rethink furniture. I hauled in a coffee table I'd made when I was about 17. As other classes were clearing out surplus furniture, I grabbed group tables as they were being moved out in order to replace my older flip top desks. A table with wheels that had previously been used to store art supplies on, was now a table for learners to work at.

Step 3: Justify. Every item  in the room had to justify it's place. I calculated how many spaces I had for learners (coffee tables could house two comfortably) I initially didn't count the mat as a learning space... I only counted table surfaces. Remove surplus desks - I'd always had a couple of independent desks people could opt to work at. Now these were incorporated within the 'seat-count'. The sudden realisation of space was invigorating! Yes, I encountered reluctance. With the move to tables and choice of seat, as opposed to the individualised desks, came the sudden problem of where to put all the stuff that was in their desks. Now, this seems like a really obvious thing to have had to consider... but I was in the throws of excitement in wanting to get cracking with this.

• I'd planned for books - I went back to using nail boxes like I had in a new entrant room! 
• Pencil cases proved a nightmare - I ended up putting them on a shelf at the back of the room.
• Library books - we tried a shelf with individual bookmarks; keeping them in their school bags... The perfect solution proved evasive...
• What to do with work that was in progress... - This was kept in their assessment clearfiles.

These were just a few of the things that initially cropped up. The biggest change was certainly within my own mindset. Every management strategy that was highlighted in Teachers College had to be reevaluated. 

Shift to Term 4...

Suddenly, I was fresh off the plane from ULearn... about to get 15 chromebooks in my classroom (meaning 1:1 devices); Hapara Teacher Dashboard; and straight into a three week syndicate stint in a newly created learning environment with three classes and three very different teachers. 

It was huge... It was mind-blowing... but it was incredible! (Why didn't I blog about it then! - probably because I was too busy!)

Hapara Teacher Dashboard got me through a few 

It was a fantastic taster towards moving towards co-teaching. We worked out the foibles that could make things fall over... and they generally had nothing to do with the actual teaching. Relationships, Assumptions, Fears/Insecurities... they appear to be the biggest hurdles.

Fixed versus Growth Mindset

So, I took the test... I was brutally honest! It made my think about some of the questions we had the students answer today, in a survey created for our GCSN... there were definite similarities. Obvious reminder: The work ethic and resiliance we demonstrate and model to our students impacts imensely on the habits they themselves develop and emulate.

Here's the summary, based on the results of my survey:

You understand that your intelligence is something that you can increase. You care about learning and you’re willing to work hard. You do want to do well, but you think it’s more important to learn than to always score well. This is what we call the “growth mindset.”

Even though you have a good foundation, there are some areas where you could benefit from learning how to cultivate your growth mindset practices. For example, you may seek challenges and perform at a high level, but sometimes feel uncomfortable with criticism even if well-intended, or be rather hard on yourself for mistakes. You may have more potential than you are using! People who believe that they can increase their intelligence through effort and challenge actually get smarter and do better in school, work, and life over time. They know that mental exercise makes their brains grow smarter—the same way that exercise makes an athlete stronger and faster. And they are always learning new ways to work smart and build their brains.

A growth mindset is something that you can continue to develop throughout life. Would you like to find out how you can strengthen your growth mindset and reach your full potential? Visit www.mindsetworks.com to learn more.