Delving Deeper - Keynote Eruera Tarena

The day began with an inspirational keynote presentation from Eruera Tarena, titled:

"Wayfinding Maori Futures: jumping on the waka to a brighter future."

Here's a few key things that struck a chord with me:

The pace of change is increasing and as a society we have a lessening amount of control over being pre-organisation for things. As individuals, we need to get used to being in a state of being without control over what is happening. This is a huge challenge for us as educators, where we like to preplan and know exactly where we are headed and anticipate what we may need to head off.

Maori traditions always have layers of meaning. - I'd never really considered this, but if you take a moment to think about many of the legends and myths, they are often adapted slightly to fit with the story they are telling at the time.

Maori success as Maori... it's a destination point. Early voyagers knew where they were going. Although they had never been to their destination, they used a term called "seeing the island", which meant imagining what that destination might look like in their minds. You won't see that destination until the last 10% of the journey, so it was important for Navigators to use "star points" or "way finding" to use as markers or indicators of progress along the journey. - The correlation for us, as educators, can be seen in our TAI's. We make a hypothesis as to what the destination point might look like... We then use data and anecdotal observations along the way as indicators of progress towards that.

Modelling equity and equity and equality for Maori. What happens if we continue to do the status quo? What happens if we do something different? - Even if the status quo is "working" it's our duty to be on the look out for ways to improve, both our practice and our achievement outcomes for our akonga. We need to reject the status quo. It's not good enough to continue to perpetuate them, morally etc

Things that require shifts in attitudes, values, the way we view the world

When we're thinking innovation, it's often about creating something to help us not have to change. We all like change until it happens... then we often find excuses to delay adopting it.

It seems ludicrous that we are still talking about cultural responsiveness 30 years on, rather than cultural sustainability. Gone is the time to respond. 

Te Waipounamu pipeline.

Equity is just being ordinary, the same as everyone else.

The Browner you are, the more likely you are to be replaced by a robot in future. Many young Maori are flatlining in terms of income in their early 20's.

Statistics are showing that they are more likely to be in unskilled jobs, due to leaving education earlier. Maori are always the last ones on and the first ones off in terms of opportunity.

The statistics of Maori students not completing university is extremely high. An audience member recounted a story of her daughters journey through university. One by one, her Maori peers dropped out. It became quite challenging and isolating to continue without that peer support, staying focused on the long term destination. It was a very emotional recount and resonated with all in the room.

What is the opportunity? And how do you frame that?" Moving beyond good intentions. There is an unconscious biased system as teachers. We all have a contribution to make.

We all like projects or programmes, but they only Create a bubble of change. We need to be thinking bigger picture and long term.

We inhabit that ship that's a shared future, with our treaty partnership. Our narrative has been driven by grievance loss and hardship, but we need to turn it around.

• We need to come together; 
• Change isn't 'out there' but 'in here'; 
• Know what you bring to the table; 
• identify your champions; 
• be the change - join our collective.

What is the future together we want to inhabit.

More information on the data can be found at maorifutures.co.nz

The Empowerment of Speech to Text

Today a student got super excited at their own writing for the very first time. Just by introducing him to voice tying, he was able to produce a text that others could read and understand.

Here is his initial writing. He had been sharing it in a group of three:

Deer farmer brown
Im demand   shek and Im lion and of i dont get it i wool cho your home up and all you wool se is chmks and clmk mas and you wll be angwe and sad and then  me and my lion friends it wool be are hose not your hose

Afterwards, I showed him how to use voice typing, so he read out what he had written. This is the exact same text, using voice typing:

Hi I demand a steak and I'm a lion and if  I don't get it I will chew your home up and you will You will see too much and will Mark and you will be angry and said and then me and my lion friends it will be our house not your house.

We had a chat about how its not "cheating" but using a tool to help us, like when we are digging a hole... its much easier if we use a spade!

Stumbling at the start

After a cracking start with the beginnings of a Behaviour Plan in place, I was prepared for some clear strategies to put in place immediately. I had an easy choice over my target student... Clear Positive Opposite Behaviours... I had a plan of attack...

Until I didn't!

To put a bit of context around selection, we had worked with the RTLB Service as a hub, last year. Many of our Year 5/6 akonga had been highlighted by them so therefore weren't appropriate to use. Within days of beginning to put the wheels of my plan in motion, it became apparent that my Target Akonga was too extreme to be an appropriate choice. Immediate intervention needed to be put in place to benefit the child.

Hmmm... where to turn next...
Flying under the radar was an individual who often leaps onto the others bandwagon, easily distracted by others behaviours... Bingo!

I have formed a new Behaviour Plan for my new Target Akonga.
The positive Behaviours I'm targeting are:

• Raise a quiet hand.
• Listen attentively.
• Engaged in task, on task.
• Seeking positive reinforcement for positive behaviours.

The Proactive & Relational Building Strategies:

• Sit at teachers feet.
• Clear polite commands - Paint a picture of what you want.
• Engaging tasks with supports (rewindable learning)
• Make learning fun.
• Agency over tasks (2/3 choices)
• 2 for 10 each day to develop relationship. (2 mins 1:1 for 10 days in a row).

Learn Create Share

To kick off the year we came together to improve our collective understanding of our Manaiakalani pedagogy 'Learn Create Share'. 

Six of our seven Outreach schools were present, with approximately 115 teachers plus Uru Mānuka Trustees (Garry Moore, Jason Marsden, Rose Crossland and Jane Ross) and Manaiakalani Education Trust (MET) Chair Pat Snedden.

Pat Snedden described the historical background that drove the Manaiakalani pedagogy's inception. We need to lose the deficit thinking...

He held the room spell bound as he gave insight into our obligations to right the wrongs of the past and break down barriers which have been inadvertently imposed over generations.

As one of our Uru Manuka Cluster Leaders of Learning, I spoke about how Learn Create Share has changed my practice:

Kia ora koutou. Ko Mel Raisin taku ingoa. Ko Ara tu Whakata (Gilberthorpe) toku kura.

Adapting my practice to follow Learn Create Share pedagogy has reawakened my excitement in education.

I’m acutely aware that I may run the risk of either preaching to the converted or prompting minds to close, however I want to begin with a provocative challenge in thinking.
Must Do’s/May Do’s; Task Boards or to do lists for learning tasks… We’ve all used them in some capacity within our learning environment.
Are we wanting our students to be busy with a number of superficial tasks via machine gun learning, by asking them to complete a large number of learning tasks whereby there is bound to be some form of learning “somewhere”.
OR
Do we want learners to develop an in depth understanding about a context where they have been required to draw information from a variety of sources; critically reflect, question and discuss their interpretations, seeking to synthesise and test theories and so on. Finally, share their learning in an appropriate and purposeful way to an authentic audience for the purpose of gaining feedback and feedforward that they actually want to act upon.
What I have discussed could fall under literacy, numeracy, topic… Actually… it could describe our own research, planning or teaching as inquiry.

Adopting Learn Create Share pedagogy has changed my practise in that there is a focus on depth of learning and understanding rather than quantity of completion. I strive to look for ways to make learning fun, like I believe it can and should be, or what’s the point?

There is a misguided perception that changing practise to align more with Learn Create Share pedagogy means increased teacher workload.

Every person in this room has access to a resource bank containing a wealth of DIgital Learning Objects, context based texts at every level. This gives everyone a place to start, regardless of where they are at on their journey. The idea being that the resources can provide a scaffold for teachers to modify to fit their own needs, then add their own to the bank for others to access and utilise. The collaborative partnerships between our Uru Manuka schools epitomises the rationale behind communities of learning before they even became a thing. Teachers being open to sharing makes teaching and learning smarter and more time effective. For me it’s a no brainer.
We’re not talking about throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But we do need to remind ourselves why the baby is actually in the bath.

Defaulting to a digital platform doesn’t replace effective teaching practices, which is an outsiders misinformed critique. Instead, it successfully supports them by optimising teaching time and minimising frustrating interruptions to re explain, reiterate and redefine a task. Learners can engage with content ubiquitously, the number of times and at the speed which best suits their needs at the time. I wonder what Vygotsky would have made of modern scaffolding.
The akonga are afforded an element of choice, (please note, choice doesn’t mean open season, but a few guided appropriate options)this increases potential for engagement and experimentation. Learners can individualise their learning experience to a certain degree, while working within set parameters.
Digital learning allows for the use of tools to break down barriers such as specific learning difficulties. Leveraging allows akonga to be exposed to content they are often excluded from as it’s deemed too hard.
Often our at risk of underachieving learners are unwittingly blocked from accessing curriculum by us, through our own best intentions and inadvertently placed glass ceilings.

There’s huge value of setting authentic purposeful tasks, whereby the learner understands the point or the why. Embedding a mindset where our young people are seeking a meaningful audience which is hopefully not passive, and gives honest helpful productive feedback. In our modern era, blogging is an invaluable tool for educating our young people to be safer cybersmart citizens. We’re needing to prepare them to deal with perils that social media platforms have that most of us never had to worry about throughout our mistake making years.

In a nutshell, I believe that Learn Create Share pedagogy enables my learners to be better equipped to be prepared for a future beyond our imagining.

We were placed into groups, consisting of a mixture of year levels and schools. We were then allocated either Learn, Create or Share and asked to define what that was. 

Our group chose, rather than to group ideas or cluster them, to draw a double koru to depict the pre-existing knowledge and the new learning to come. 

One of the frustrations that cropped up for many of us Leaders of Learning was that we had spent a great deal of learning around the Manaiakalani definitions of Learn Create and Share. The actual definitions weren't mentions or acknowledged. In many instances, groups had paraphrased stating "Learning is..." rather than "Learn is". This is a common misconception as it places a dictionary definition around Learn which centres on Learning as a Verb, which is far removed from the Manaiakalani definition.

There is a real fear that the baby may be thrown out with the bathwater purely because of the ignorance, albeit unintentional, of many. 

The Manaiakalani definitions are what they are due to a great deal of research, data and trial and error. They are what they are due to more than ten years of nitty gritty analysis. I feel it would be extremely arrogant (and ignorant) for us as a cluster to deviate from it due to a lack of understanding by members.

Time will tell what comes of it... 

We finished off our session with a powerful impromptu performance of Smash Poetry by Daisy Lavea-Timo.

You can read reflections on the day from Gary Roberts, Principal at Hornby Primary School, here

You can read reflections on the day from Robin Sutton, Principal at Hornby High School, here

IYT Session #1

Session 1 of Incredible Years for Teachers kicked off.

In an impulsive act, I'd volunteered our school to go first to open and close the session. My rationale for doing this was that I like to set the benchmark, rather than trying to live up to other peoples preconceptions. That's my theory anyhow!

During the session, some key gold nuggets emerged:

• "2 for 10" - 2 minutes of 1:1 with an individual child for ten days in a row.
• Instead of asking for hands up... hands on chest with a thumbs up (or one digit for each idea they have). It's non confrontational, low key and doesn't interrupt thinking or opting out.
• Dialling "0197" then the phone number when making a phone call ensures that your number remains private.

My To Do List:

1. A weekly phone call home to one student (or more) sharing a positive for that week.
2. Consolidate "hub rules" rather than each classes individual ones, to ensure and cement a united front within the collaborative space.
3. Behaviour Plan... I need to begin to put the strategies in place.
4. Ask for feelings to be added to our "Kei te pehea koe?" kupu bank, on the wall which the akonga use for roll call.

Teacher has personalised handshake with every single one of his students

Designing and implementing Change ideas, with NoTosh

So, this hit my Facebook feed this morning. I duly saved it, along with the screeds of other "Saved Stories" that sit in limbo until time (Or holidays) afford them attention. A sick son intervened today, so I was able to afford it the attention it had been seeking... The immense productivity that can be achieved on a "sick day" is cause for far more in depth self assessment and a further blog post!

I have been a fan of NoTosh since having the pleasure of professioanl development around Design Thinking, as well as attending 2 ULearn Confernce Worshops around it in 2014. I really identify with the lens that they view education through.

This video has some great quotes along these lines:

"Education is about evolution. If you're not changing, what are you doing?"

Speed of Change:

The speed of change is often bandied about as an excuse to place a boulder in the water. I challenge that, when that overwhelming sensation begins to set in, when there is so much going on all at once... Perhaps we just need to take a step back. Change the lens that we are viewing through... Think of the changes we are implementing as "prototyping".  

Some people are quick to adapt a mindset where they view the amount of changes taking place in education as "treating our åkonga like guinea pigs". We want our children to learn to test theories and make mistakes and then learn from them... Why are we afraid to do this as teachers. We are no longer the keeper of knowledge that we were, even just twenty years ago. We are no longer delivering education from the front and centre of the room. 

This video prompted me towards a number of considerations, which are very topical at the moment. We have been in our new space just a few weeks, heading into the holidays. We have the luxury of a term where we can begin to set some key objectives for the term. We often set objectives for what we want the students to achieve... but why not what WE want to achieve, in terms of pedagogy and practise.

If you are making structural changes, you are making pedagogical changes.

• What are the "Pain Points"?
• If you are making structural changes, you are making pedagogical changes.

"If you're making structural changes, you're making pedagogical changes." Teaching in post quake Christchurch, has enabled a transformation of learning environments. The schools who have been fortunate enough to front-load the transition with developing the pedagogy have, I believe, been far more successful in implementing change. So many changes have taken place, all in one hit. Those who have been fortunate enough to view it with a "prototype" mindset, who have perhaps been more open to adapting to change, have been far more successful in the way structural change has occurred. There is some fantastic stuff going on down here, in little ol' Christchurch New Zealand. Flexible bell times; play first, eat last initiatives; modifications toward ILE or MLE or whatever we want to call it next week... Most of these schools are sharing their journey too!

Prototype Culture

Heading towards planning for Term 4, I prototype mindset makes logical sense as a lens for mapping out what needs to be covered: Curriculum coverage; AO's; Topic/strands etc... The ability to map out when this "might" happen in terms of timetable or term plan... Stressing the word "MIGHT"! By mapping things out... Prototyping, it gives clarity on what the outlook is, providing frameworks for all teachers to work within. We all need fences sometimes. Some who get intimidated by change or new thinking ideas etc, are made more comfortable by knowing the perimeters that they are working within... Some of us, probably need the framework to minimise the tangents and keep us on the same track as everyone else (Which probably helps everyones ability to cope with us and our foibles too!)

Incubator

"What do we want to change and let's change it."

Set key objectives for Term four.

• What do we want to achieve in terms of Teaching and Learning?
• Prototyping Teaching Approaches?
• Developing Student Voice?
• Assessment Capability?
• Shaking up the programme?

Unpacking Learn Create Share, in a way that's not so scary

Recently, I ran a staff meeting around Learn Create Share.

Ironically, it was the first staff meeting that I'd attended since joining my new school. The upside to this was that there was no precedent to follow... No pre-existing notion of what it "should" look like.

Here's the basic presentation to guide the discussion:

We looked at each definition, without the "Learn" "Create" or "Share" attached to it, in order to ensure that we weren't overthinking it. 

Within our cluster, our Uru Manuka Leaders of Learning PLG has identified that we do have a shared understanding of what Learn Create Share is... it just differs slightly from what it should be, by the Manaiakalani definition. After much robust discussion, we came to the conclusion that the initial definition was accurate and we needed to align our own understandings with it. After all, the immense research that has gone into the concept backs it up... who are we to question it through our own ignorance!

What next... How on Earth were we to take this eye opener back to our schools!

We were all in agreement that going back and telling our colleagues that everything we had thought about what Learn Create Share was wrong (after two and a half years of building that pedagogy, I might add...) was not an appealing option.

My approach, was to utilise the feelig that I had that everyone was doing a lot of things already, but they didn't understand how their great practise actually aligned within Learn Create Share.

I decided to take each definition and put it to the teachers: 

What happens in your hub that falls under this heading?

We compiled our ideas onto large sheets, using post-it notes...
Here's what we came up with... Compiled into a piktochart Infographic:

My next step is to align my Critical Inquiry etc, with a lens that accommodates a Learn Create Share view, from a teachers perspective also: