Term 3 Week 5 UDL Stunt Man

This week I was updating my Curriculum Vitae as there was a position at Whangaparaoa Primary I would like to apply for. My luck with getting a position at this school has not been good in the past - I have applied 3 times, met the principal once but have not actually been interviewed for any position. It is the closest school to where I live - less than 5 minutes walk away and this would change the work / home balance quite considerably if I wasnt spending 4 hours a day travelling.

Makes me question the teacher shortgage in Auckland? When I was applying in 2016 for postions closer to home, I had one interview from 10 applications - the rest were no thanks, without even an interview. I am an experienced teacher with considerable professional development behind me and a successful classroom background. All of this is outlined in my Cv, my referees are supportive and I balance my experience with relevant theory.  Teacher shortgage .... I dont think so.

In the process of doing my CV, I developed further my thinking around UDL. Universal Design for Learning.  This has been the basis of the SENCO projects I have een undertaking and the direction I have looked at for successful achievements for the students identified as below and well below in learning who have made it onto the SENCO register.

In Term 1/2 I designed the Stunt Man project. This was from an idea given by James from Boys in Schools that he had run at Coatesville a number of years ago. It was based with one group of Year 5 boys and a group of Year 6 boys. They worked once a week with James on making and then launching on a rocket a wooden peg stunt man.  The follow up was then with Pauline, a learning assistant for an hour. Follow up activities tried to keep away from writing so was more oral and picture based.

During this project there was considerable collaboration and communication that was needed between all parties - James, David and pauline, as well as the students. It was quite difficult to keep this up as not being released meant I was managing all from a distance.

Stunt Man Blog

The students were from my room and from Room 12, David Wood who I am also working on the Te Whare Rama with.

The project was successful for the boys in my room. The focus was on Key Competencies -  Participaring and Contributing / Managing Self. The boys completed a checklist at the beginning of the project and again at the end of the project and all boys rated themselves higher at the end of Term 2 than they had when the project started. I noticed a consdierable difference in the boys on the classroom in their ability to persevere, to cope with change and to manage when meeting challenges.

My project has been shared with the staff - the professional learning community and is part of the work I do with in my role as SENCO.

There was communication with parents as they had access to the blog and were welcomed in to watch what the boys were doing.

The project has moved in a different direction this term.  I am looking at addressing a different group of students with a learning need, and addressing different key competencies. These are students who are very quiet in the classroom and who would grow from the experience of small group teaching.

The Stuntman was a successful project.  However these are what i would change next time.

• The follow up needs to be done by me, rather than the learning assistant.
• The learning assistant needs to have complete buy in for this to work as sucessfully as it could.
• There needs to be more of a direct focus on the key competencies and for all parties involved to have an understanding of what the key competencies are and how we are looking to measure progress. 

Term 2 Week 9 Well being

I came across this entry in a blog I was following. It made alot of sense on a topic that was current at school - WELLBEING.  

We were all asked to make a time to talk with the principal about Wellbeing and how we were feeling at school and about school and what the stresses were on us.  For me I appreciate that I have a relative autonomy in what happens in my room. I work with colleagues who trust the decisions I make and who interact with me as a professional. For me, having the "brakes" put on me is detrimental to my growth, however I work in an environment where I am supported to take learning and teaching in a direction that I think my learners need to go in, and no "brakes" are put on me. This contributes significantly to my well being. 

During a recent team meeting we were discussing what makes you feel valued and how you show others that you value them. It had come from a middle management workshop that Courtney had been on.  We discovered that Courtney likes to give gifts to her team eg. bring in coffee, Sam likes time with friends and the social aspect of a team, and I like to be recognised for the job I do.  It was interesting how we were different and the team works successfully as we all bring something different to the way we work together.

I have highlighted the parts that resonated the most with me and gave me questions to think through going nto next term.


Teacher Wellbeing- some research highlights by Meg Gallagher

http://teach-learn-lead.blogspot.com/

As I write this we are in the last days of the end of the second term of the year, in the middle of winter where it is cold and miserable and the flu/bug    season seems to be incessant. Many schools have mid-year reporting happening, so there is the added stress and it shows for many of us.

Let’s be honest though, teaching as a profession is inherently stressful. We are working with people all day and human beings are complex, sometimes tricky even. And relating to people is only the start of what a teacher is doing as you all know, but I am not going to spend time talking about what stresses us for two reasons; 1. There is plenty of research and anecdotal data to confirm that teaching is stressful and 2. Spending energy on talking about what stresses us often feeds the problem and doesn’t necessarily provide any solution to it.

In the last year I have conducted a small study as part of my masters in education qualification exploring positive wellbeing for primary teachers in their mid-career. I propose that the findings are likely to be relatively generic although to confirm that I would obviously need to conduct a much larger study. I do think however it is worth sharing some of the findings here as food for thought and a possible contribution to the important conversation about teacher wellbeing. Don’t think for a second that teacher wellbeing isn’t important either, there is plenty of research to support the notion that happy healthy teachers have happier healthier classrooms with happier healthier learners who appear to achieve better- simply put, your wellbeing is important to the learners in your care.

So here’s some of what I found out about what may contribute to positive teacher wellbeing in our current educational climate: 

1. People-centred leadership practices.

How the school leaders work with their staff in the school can make an appreciable difference to teacher wellbeing. In my research it was noted that it was the small acts of kindness and appreciation that really mattered such as a sincere thank you, a surprise coffee or chocolate treat (or appropriate healthier option), noticing when workload increased and doing what they could to alleviate the stress in small ways. It really centred around relationships and ethical behaviour.

Consider: How do you enhance your relationships with your staff if you are in a leadership position? What are the small acts of kindness that you know will be appreciated by members of your team? How can you build relationships with the leaders in your school? 

2.      Supportive relationships.

It is said that teaching is about the three R’s, relationships, relationships, relationships. The relationships teachers have are numerous; students, colleagues, parents/caregivers, leadership, school management/parent committees, community members, PLD staff etc. The reciprocal nature of student teacher relationships is really interesting, when teachers are doing well their students tend to follow suit, and when students are succeeding that tends to support teacher wellbeing as well. Our relationships with our colleagues can be protective too, it appears that where teachers work in a collaborative, supportive environment that still allows for autonomy and individuality they thrive.

Consider: How do you build and maintain relationships with your students? What is it about your classroom environment that enhances wellbeing for all? How do you acknowledge your colleagues positively? What do you do to create a positive working environment at your school? 

Relationships - I think teachers are very good at building the relationships with their learners. The part that interested me was how to I build a positive working environment at my school - it is each individual staff members repsonsibility to address this.

3.      Strong sense of purpose.

For the people in my research making a difference to the learners in their care was clearly a motivating factor and something they returned to time and time again when speaking about what ‘filled them up”. Having clear beliefs about teaching and learning, then following them as well as sharing school values can be empowering for teachers.

Consider: Why did you become a teacher? What do you believe about teaching and learning? Do you share your school values? 

Do I have a clear sense of puropse about what I am doing in my classroom and how I am going about achieveing outcomes for the learners in the room? 

4.      Self Efficacy

Adopting an “I choose…” mindset appeared to have a positive impact for the teachers in my research. They acknowledged they didn’t achieve true balance much of the time, if at all, but they all stated that the way they worked/lived was a choice they had made. This seemed to be empowering, they were in control of what they could control and owned it. They were also clear about what was out of their control and found ways to shift their focus. Think about a time that was challenging for you, what lessons can you draw from it? This is one way to reframe negative experiences that appears to help stop these events eating away at your self esteem. Another way to build self efficacy is to be self aware, knowing your strengths and weaknesses as well as addressing your health and wellbeing needs. The teachers I talked to weren’t afraid to ask for help and could track how they steadily shifted and changed their teaching practice to meet learner needs and improve management of their own personal resources.

Consider: What choices do you make around how you work and why? Are these choices working for you or do you want to change anything? If so what? What are your strengths and weaknesses? What can you share with others to help them improve their practice? Who can you ask for help when you need it?

Am I responsibe for my choices? Do I own my choices or do I allow someone else make the choices for me? 

Basically teachers, like most people I would suggest, need belongingness, connection, a sense of identity. This, for me, is like our essence that we can come back to when we are decision making, when we are under stress, when something doesn’t go right. The people around us can have a huge impact on how we feel, as can the stories we tell ourselves.

The words "stories we tell ourselves" stood out here because I firmly believe in self fullfilling prophecy  - if you tell yourself it cant be done, then it cant be done, A self-fulfilling prophecy is a belief that comes true because we are acting as if it is already true.- this can be positive and negative.

As I stated earlier, your wellbeing is important to the learners in your care so I hope that you will do what you can to help yourself to be the happy healthy teacher you know your learners deserve.

Term 2 Week 6 and 7 Tuhononga Day and Oracy

Week 6 Tuhononga Day - Judo

I have labelled this Key Competencies because judo is about self discipline, managing self and co operating with a partner.  

I had 31 students in the group from Year 2 to Year 6.  Johan Boshoff took the group as the coach and I assisted, with Tracey Clarke helping to manage the students.  There were a small group of Year 2 and 3 boys who struggled initially with the self management aspect as they were playing around rather than listening and needed considerable re direction to get them focussed. However this was achieved quickly once I had seen whothey were messing around with and separated them, and as they were active for most of the time and only had minimal periods where they were required to sit and listen or watch, they were able to achieve the techniques.   Freddie became my new best friend!

Week 7 Oracy

Reflections during Team Meetings on reading we were given to read on Oracy and Oral Language in the classroom.

Week 7 Term 2

I found the reading very interesting.   The breakdown of the types of listening - informational, critical or evaluative, appreciative and empathetic differentiate in a way I hadn't really considered before.  Similarly, the type of talking - Exploratory, Presentational and Conversational.  Makes sense now that I have an awareness of the types.

Facilitating classroom talk - I use the talk moves from math and across the curriculum.  I have a hands down classroom and students know they are expected to do the thinking and to have a contribution if they are asked to share.  I use wait time and have been working on extending the length of this to give more time for thoughts to be processed.   There is still very much a girl-boy division in the room with choosing a buddy to talk to or work with.  Unless I intentionally make them choose a buddy of the opposite gender, or do the names out of the hat sorting they will always stay within the same gender buddy. This is an area to work on.

Recently I have started having students who have wanted to read a section from our class book have the opportunity to. The class have responded respectfully and there is always a volunteer wanting to read.  I am aware of keeping mat time to a maximum of 10 minutes at any one time so listening is active and directed. We do sharing back of thinking - with the focus being not on having a  correct answer but on using subject specific language and academic language as opposed to conversational language. In writing we have been exploring the difference between informal writing e.g journal and diary writing, and more formal writing  i.e an information report, and have taken this into modelling these types of language when responding to each other.   Negotiating and the way we talk to each other has been a focus as well as we have been learning and working with the differences between a social conversation and a learning conversation.  

I see oral language as being the basis of everything. It has been particularly noticeable with Yunseo  that there is so much she hasn't understood and cannot participate in as she doesn't have the language to explain or to understand.  

Week 8 Term 2

Listening to the language of the classroom. What interactions are the students having with each other? Social or learning conversation? Are there supportive words, or put down words being used?  Are students responding to each other? Who is doing the talking most?

This week the students have been very engaged on their Imaginary Land 3D maps. This has meant working in their group which was self selected so mostly based on friendship.  The conversations have predominantly been learning - discussing what to do next, dividing up jobs, time management with an encourager usually apparent just naturally in each group, and using the 3D math language when deciding which shapes to use.  One group had a team member away who would normally dominate. I wondered how this student would fit back in - he tried to dominate the other 2 verbally but they were too far through the project and although a little disparaging in his comments about their efforts, got on and helped them.  Very little talking from me this week, very much student to student and student to teacher talk. :)

Week 11 Term 1 Reflection

Reflection on Term 1 2017

Looking back on the term, I am confident in saying it has been a successful term.

Why?

• I survived the term with John - several positive interviews with his parents, positive email conversations, John has settled as a learner and is no longer trying to dominate the classroom. He has started to make responsible choices about where he sits and has all but stopped his social conversations during learning time.  Building relationships with my students is paramount and I made a concerted attempt to do so with John (as with all my students) - and I think there is now a respect and trust that is a good foundation for the year ahead. 
• Key Competencies: I am continuing to develop my understandings of the key competencies and how they are absolutely integral to sucessful learning. I have had an awareness of them in the past as part of the NZ curriculum, however did not really make them a feature of my learning programme. This I have now started to do by talking to the students about what it looks like when they are managing self, and participating and contributing, thinking, relating to others .... Term 1 has been a focus on managing self with learning the difference between a learning and social conversation, making a learning decision about where they sit and who they will work with, moving out of their comfort zone to work with others in the room rather than always their friends, the levels of work completion - completed the work, completed work with my best effort, completed the work with my best effort and challenged myself. 
• Digital Learning: I have continued to build on Classroom as the platform for communication and digital learning. Every week there has been assignments in reading, writing and math and the students have nearly all been able to work in this environment sucessfully. There are a few students who prefer to work off the chrome book, so they have the opportunity to do this as this is their preferred way of learning. I have several students who have found the independence required to work in this environment difficult and next term I will look at how to scaffold and support these students further. (Anthony, Cale and Suhyeok) 
• Relationships: As a unit of inquiry this was completed with a good degree of engagement and interest. I dont think it was an inquiry in the true nature of inquiry - it was definitly a guided inquiry, however has given a good base to develop futher my understanding of inquiry and also for the students to understand what inquiry is. Next term I am going to look at Genius Hour again as this is where I would like my inquiry projects to go. 
• Planning: I am always looking at how to refine my planning and how to make it succinct and a record of student learning. Havent nailed it this term - while my daily planning was reasonably up to date most weeks, it still isnt where I would like it to be. I tried putting my literacy and math planning onto the inquiry planner this term rather than having separate plans, however dont really feel this is how I want to do it.