End of year goal reflection

My 2016 Appraisal goals are:

#4: demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of personal professional practice	Develop and maintain an ongoing reflective blog with evidence of target student learning in reading, writing and maths that can be used for ACET application
#6: conceptualise, plan and implement an appropriate learning programme	Work with students to integrate and explicitly plan authentic, purposeful learning experiences (integrated planning template)
#11: analyse and appropriately use assessment information, which has been gathered formally and informally	Analyse assessment information and use student e-portfolios to show the ongoing progress and learning needs of students in reading, writing and maths.

#4 Reflection 

I feel like I didn't complete my ACET application to the quality that I would have liked to.  Feedback from the ACET team was that I needed more evidence.  I struggled to collect evidence over the year, not because there wasn't any, but rather remembering to collect it.  Some areas I had excellent evidence for, however there are areas that I needed and need to ensure that I collect evidence.  I would like this to continue to be a goal for me in 2017.

#6 Reflection

We did work with kids to gather their ideas about what they would like to learn.  However, the original thoughts of planning a unit with the students didn't happen like we had planned.  

#11 Reflection

Buffy and I did a lot of analysing of our data and finding next steps and gaps in our students' learning.  e-portfolios started well however our 2016 students were not as independent as past years and they needed a lot of guidance with their e-portfolios.  I would still like to continue with using e-portfolios in 2017.

Term 3 Observation reflection

Following my Term 3 Observation where I worked with a small group on speech writing and revising and editing what the students had already written, rather than teaching a new skill or strategy.
The lesson went well. I had smaller groups than usually and it was more like working one on one with a student, setting them up, then calling another student, and checking in on the other students. I believe this was necessary for the students to do in order to proofread and edit their writing, as well as adding more detail to their writing.

These are my reflections following my observation:

PROMPTS FOR REFLECTION:  

• Why you chose to do this lesson?

This is what we have been doing in class with speeches and I wanted to see if this was an effective way of working with the target students.

• How did the lesson go?

It felt very repetitive as we have been going through their speech quite a lot over the last few weeks.  I feel that it needs to be repetitive for these students though.  There is a lot of guidance given and a lot of oral discussion that has to take place.

• What things worked for the children?

I think that the students benefited from us both having access to their writing on docs.  Going over how to give more detail and elaboration using the keywords - the students are starting to understand this.  

• What have I learnt about these students?

There is a lot of guidance needed.

• What are my next steps?

Continue to work with the students and go over the rest of their piece of writing to ensure that they have elaborated on their ideas.

Then work with the students on the presentation of their speech.

Identification of extra target student for Team Meetings

In a recent team meeting we had to identify other students in our class that we would consider to be target students (apart from those identified at the beginning of the year) and say how these students are being monitored.  We have a number of students that we would say are targets.

Taken from team minutes...

Here’s What, So What, Now What

Let’s go over Writing and Reading - see below and we will discuss these as a team.

We have our targets from the beginning of the year, who else are targets and how are we monitoring them? (These are the students who the teacher identifies as extra targets)  

Teachers to have a look and think about the extra targets and will write in here who they are for Writing

Room M: Brie, Mackenzie, Danielle, Shannon, Kapua, Nathaniel, Styris, William, Alex K, Justis, Nicole, Paige,  Dylan, Kane, Lance, Warren.

Here’s What :

based on current OTJ this students have been identified as being at risk of not meeting the end of year standard.  Within this cohort, there are students capable of meeting the standard.

So What:

A number of students are hindered by a poor attitude to writing.  There are a number that struggle with identifying and using deep language and structural features of different text types. Some students have limited awareness of text types.  Our classroom time constraints are a barrier as well.

Now What:

Continue to use daily scribe time to increase writing mileage.  Analyse and discuss a range of text types to increase word knowledge, identification of language and text features to support students to use in creating their own texts.  

Explicitly teach conventions.  For example, sentence structure.  Subject + verb arrangement.  Use of comma.  

PB4L Conference 2016

It was great to be able to attend the PB4L conference again this year.  This year it was in Wellington and the breakouts that I attend were all really awesome.

Some key things that I took out of the conference were
- look at WHERE in the classroom that problems are occurring
- Ask kids to come up with the rules for each area - and how they fit in with AROHA
- Decision flowchart - what should we as teachers handle and what needs to go to the office?
- Referral form is not a punishment - it is data. What is the consequence for their behaviour?
- New students to school to go through an AROHA programme to ensure they have a full understanding.

These are our PB4L Conference 2016 shared notes that we all contributed to.

Ongoing discussion and reflection about data and OTJ

Miss Turner and I regularly have discussions about data and OTJs for our students in our class.  With many of our students being below the NS there is a push to see reflection of understanding in their classroom learning and work.

Writing is a real low point in our class and so writing, and writing for a period of time, has and will continue to be a focus for Term 3.  A lot of our students struggle to write for a period of time.  They struggle to generate ideas and get stumped and just don't write.

Further to this we have given the option to our students to either write on google docs, or in their workbooks.  Funny enough a lot of our lower writers prefer to write on google docs and are able to get their ideas quicker and easier than writing it in a book.  This has been pleasing to see.

We have discussed using more of the ARBs and the PacT tool came up for discussion and would be something that we would both be keen to look into.

Our data is not reflecting it but I believe that we are working hard with our students to try and have them make progress.  We have many discussions about the movement from 'with support' to 'independently' and we feel that many of our students although they may make progress are not moving to that 'independent' work, especially our students at year 8 level.

ACE - half year reflection 9/7/16

As a unit holder on the ACE team, we also had to do a half year reflection of how things are going with ACE.  Again, it was a great chance to really reflect back on what we have done and what we still need to do.

Looking ahead to Term 3 and 4, we have highlighted the following areas as areas that we still need to work on

• Continued support with digital technologies through Techie Breaky
  
• Reflection on report format that we have used in term 1 and 2
• Sort projector issues in Room HI and STU
• Inquiry preparation for 2017
• Device classes, device purchases and device allocation for 2017
• MLE PL with teachers going into OPR in 2017
• Revisit the eLearning Planning framework (elpf) survey
• Further Teacher Dashboard PL for Team 1
• MLE and collaborative teaching PL.
• eLearning strategic plan
• Curriculum review (guided by Rikki/SLT)

PB4L half year reflection - 9/7/16

I really enjoy having a half year reflection for our units that we hold as it really makes you think back and identify what you have done and what still needs to be done.

For me AROHA is going well and I hear a lot of people that speak highly about PB4L, however I worry that things may be dropping off in some areas.
Some questions I have are
- do staff understand the Tier II data?
- do we analyse the data effectively for ourselves?
- would staff benefit from getting data sent to them prior to discussions?
- is our PB4L reward system working?

From our reflection from Term 1 and 2 the following stood out as areas that required further improvement

• Ensure explicit teaching of AROHA is done in class everyday
• Reinvent a system to acknowledge staff
• Regular meetings (fortnightly) to look at data
• Regular end of month slot at staff meetings to discuss the data as a whole staff - data sent out to staff prior to the meeting
• Continue with the current reward system
• Include a small AROHA slot in Team Meetings to go over specific items
• AROHA lunch in term 3 and term 4
• Focus on Tier II students that are spiking from the data (mid to high yellow)
• Look at how our AROHA 1 and AROHA 2 team can best work to suit the workload and ‘meeting-load’ of staff

There is a lot to be done, but we can do it. Updates to follow.

Term 2 Observation feedback and reflections - 3/7/16

I was nervous about doing this observation as writing is not a strength of mine, but I like having feedback about what I can improve on.

This was a basic lesson, but it was pitched to students who really needed to work on this in their writing.  I had observed incorrect use of tense in their writing done in class as well as a low score (<2B or 2A) in the sentence structure section of the e-asTTle writing text (these were just a handful).

I was caught off guard as I assumed that they knew what a verb was, however the progression of the lesson meant that I had to spend time on going over what a verb was.  This gave the students a better understanding and had me thinking quickly on my feet for a quick little activity that we could do to improve their understanding of verbs.  I forgot to go back to the ‘ing’ part that I underlined when they gave their verb suggestions, however I will do this in the next lesson as part of their revision.

I had planned to have them work on some other sheets, with a small part being the assessment part of the lesson as well as a small exit card activity.  I will also do these with them in the next lesson.  

Thinking about the lesson and the number of students who scored low in the sentence structure section of the e-asTTle writing test - it would probably be of benefit to all to go over this as a half class lesson and then have follow up with those that need extra help.  

Other follow up activities that I would like to do with this group (and others)

• is have a piece of their writing and look for where they have used tense incorrectly and make corrections
• exceptions to the rules (on the sheet handed out) e.g. swam not swimmed

I think the lesson went well.  I liked how engaged they were.  The thing I liked the most was the change in how unsure Martino was at the beginning to how confident he was in the end.  They were all giving it a go.  I was also pleased that Hamish prompted me to build the SC with them at the end of the lesson.  I had forgotten about it after hearing the bell go and trying to wrap up the lesson.

Digital Modelling Books - 6/6/16

One of the things that I wanted to try after attending the VPLD Hui was DIGITAL MODELLING BOOKS.  One of the ladies that attended created her own Digital Modelling Books for Mathematics that included questions, teacher tools videos, a word problem etc.  I like the model that she used, however as always I have been thinking about how we could change it and make it work for our class.
This is an example of what was presented at the VPLD Hui.

My thinking is that I would like to be able to write on it - maybe using Notability as well as add pictures of the lessons or the work done on the whiteboard table.  

I like the idea of being able to add the teacher tools video to the modelling book, and I like the questions that are visible for the students to see and ask themselves.  

I would like to include the Success Criteria that we generate as a group.

I also think that is important that we include the students' names on page.

If we were to use Notability we would be able to project the iPad screen on the TV/projector and would also be able to write on the document for all the students to see.

Other things to consider:

I am thinking that we would use more than just one page for each lesson too.

Where would be the best place to put them so that the students can access them? Maybe a google slide?

I look forward to talking to Buffy about this a bit more.  I will repost an update once we have made a decision and have sorted out a template to use.  

VPLD Hui 2016 - 25/5/16

Turangawaewae 

A great first activity done at the VPLD Hui 2016.
After meeting a buddy we drew around each other feet and named the feet VPLD and ME.
Then joining with a group we gathered ideas and found similarities.

Am i courageous enough to abandon a practise that has made me successful in the past?

I thoroughly enjoyed my 2 days at the VPLD Hui - I am very sad that this was the last one and also very sad that I missed the two years before this.  What I enjoyed the most was hearing about everyone's journeys, how they were so willing to share their knowledge with others, and how great it was to talk to like minded and passionate people.  The connections that I made was just amazing.  The reflection that I did throughout the whole 2 days was priceless.  Someone would talk about something and I was constantly thinking - Would that work for me? Would that work for my students?  How could I adapt that to make it work in our class?  By the end of day of day 1 I was exhausted - brain drain - and by the end of day 2 I was dreading the drive home.  However, the drive home provided even further reflection and thought.

I was pleased that I was able to share my journey, resources and knowledge with many over the 2 days.

How lucky am I to be on such a great programme.  I started to think about what a wonderful opportunity it would be for our Taumarunui teachers to have mentors like Merryn and Hazel.

The mentor presentation got me thinking that this is a role that I need to step up into, especially if we are wanting to keep the VPLD going.  Over the next few weeks I will go back and relook at the Virtual Mentoring Rubric and will discuss this further with Merryn at our next meeting.

Cyber Safety with John Parsons - 18/05/16

Notes taken from his presentation

Teachers are often left cleaning up the misuse of internet due to the failure of parents not putting restrictions on at home.

Teachers protecting themselves - keeping themselves safe

Rule of optimism - can lead to more harm than good.
If you have concerns...
Don't think what if you are wrong, think what if you are right.

Child protection policy - do we have one????  YES

It is barely impossible to not have contact with a child that needs some kind of protection (based on poverty, abuse statistics in NZ).

Make sure that nobody has access to laptop/device by any children, family
Important that teachers don't have social media connections to students.
Need a statement - saying that no student may take photos or videos of staff/other students.

Sign once - show twice
Send Policy home to be signed - send it home again later in the year as a reminder.

ICT policy - 95% should be behaviour focused

Our profession needs to become less apologetic - it is often not our fault - don't need to apologise - defend yourself.  We have not failed - your son/daughter has made a poor choice.  It becomes a teachable moment - it is not the fault of technology or IT

Capable Guardian - parents that are already Police Vetted already that will help with school trips etc.  Attach this question to enrolment form to gain more parents.

Two most important rooms in a democracy - are the living room and the classroom.

Duty of Care - Importance of Teacher looking after themselves - keeping themselves safe.

He had very kind words to say about teaching and the impact that we have on children's lives.

Based on John's presentation, these are the things that I would like to follow up with
ICT Users Agreement - see if Skype and emails are included in it.  

Techy Breaky - 12/05/16

Last week we had our first Techy Breaky.

This is a morning slot from 7.45am - 8.15am for staff to attend and gain support, ask questions and have help around technology.  With all staff having appraisal blogs and class blogs, as well as Class Sites and devices in their classrooms, this has provided and opportunity for staff to come to a relaxed environment and do some simple professional learning around digital learning and digital technology.  

Our first week was successful and it was neat to have a real hum in the staffroom before school.  Currently Nat and I are the 'help', however I do hope that others will develop the confidence to become the helpers too.  

Sharing Room M learning - 12/05/16

Today we had some year 5 students and their teacher join us in class for the morning and middle block.  It was a great chance for some of our students to buddy and share some of the apps that they use for learning and to be the 'teachers'.

It was also a great opportunity for me to share some of the teaching and processes that we have been using in our learning programme.  Talking about the steps that we have taken and the reasons behind how and why we teach and learn the way we do was a good chance for me to be reflective.  Sharing what has and hasn't worked for us and the importance of using what best works for the students was a great chance to be reflective without actually realising I was.

I love having the chance to share our process and journey and what is even more exciting is the fact that more and more are moving along the digital and collaborative journey.  The fact that we have had so much PL and now a lot of experience in these areas is something that I would like to continue to share with other teachers in our area.  How great would it have been to have others in our area that could have supported our journey.  Not having that just makes me want to share and support more people.

Having 52 in the class, it was pleasing to hear their teacher commend our learners on how engaged and involved in their learning they were.  This also got me thinking about the progress that our students' have made in their 'developing independence' journey.

VPLD presentation - 25/04/16

I have been lucky enough to be working with Merryn on the VPLD (Virtual Professional Development) programme for the last 3 years.
In a few weeks I am off to the VPLD Hui in Auckland and it will be the first one that I have attended (I have unfortunately missed the last 2 years).
Last year I was unable to attend because I was in a cast however Merryn presented this presentation on my behalf, followed by the Hui skyping me (while I was sitting in my bed resting my leg!!)

This year everyone has to do a 3 minute promo of something that is working well in their class or something that they would like to share with others.  I have focussed on the process that we are using in Room M - from Literacy Progressions to student goals, to workshops (Learn Its, Practise Its and Prove Its), to student work samples and finally student ePortfolios.  It has actually been a great chance for me to reflect on the process that we are using and identify any issues that we may have.  

I also thought that if anyone was interested that I could also share how we have flipped the learning in Te Reo Maori (as shown in an earlier post), how we are doing weekly plans now and how our students use our class Google Site.

It is a very simple presentation as we only have 3 minutes to present, however the idea is that those that are wanting more information will catch up with you after the presentation during an allocated time.  Fingers crossed all goes well.  This is my 2016 presentation.

ACET application - 25/04/16

After much thought I applied to submit an portfolio for the Advanced Classroom Expertise Teacher recognition.
Towards the end of Term 1 I received an email to say that I could submit my portfolio.  Very exciting stuff and so it is up to me now to get everything together and get it in before August 8th.

This was one of my goals for this year so I am glad that the process has started.  Now for the hard part!!

Unfortunately I did not get select for ACET.  
It was a real mad rush at the end as I left it too late - my plans to be organised and to get onto things early did quite work out.  I received some good feedback though, about having more evidence to support my application.  I am thinking about whether I should apply again for it next year or just leave it.  We will see.  I think for me it is collecting the appropriate evidence.  

Contact with students - 26/03/16

Home/School books are up and running and I sent students home with simple strategies and a picture to do some descriptive writing.
I am loving using the home/school books again and there are a group of students who have opted in.  I am getting books back quite regularly and I am finding these better than the homework sheets that they students don't do.  I must admit it is a lot of work to set up but because they are coming back at different times you only really have one or two to look at now and again.

What next?
I would probably like students to bring their homeschool books to workshops and then I can do some extra practise activities in their books for them.
I am also really making a conscience effort to not just do Maths, but also include Reading and Writing too.  I will continue to look for resources that they could use.  There are some good stories and follow up questions that I have used in the past that I could also include.

Exciting times - but I am hoping that the extra practise will really pay off for these target students.

Te Reo Maori - 25/03/16

So to be quite honest I was worried about teaching Te Reo Maori on a regular basis in the class this year.  What I really think that I was worried about was the harder learning that would occur.  Colours, names of things, moods, seasons etc those are fine, it is the sentences that I was concerned about but is what our Year 7 and 8 students need to be learning.

So after a lot of thinking I thought I would try flipping the learning with Te Reo.  I managed to find an excellent website that has videos for the students to watch and take notes.  There are also grammar and quiz questions for the students to answer after they have completed watching the videos.

The Students are LOVING it.  They are watching the videos, taking notes, attempting the words and when I come to do the lesson on the Friday they really have a good understanding of those weeks videos.  What I like is that it is a part of the students Learning Schedules and they are including Te Reo into their daily plan.  All the videos stay on our Class Site so they are always their for the students to refer back to.  It is exciting learning and the students are loving it, compared to really not being interested in learning Te Reo Maori in the last few years.

That is my feel good for the week.

Term 1 Observation Reflections and Next Steps - 19/03/16

I am enjoying the appraisal process that we are following this year. We kicked of the year with an early observation, which I must admit I was very worried about. After thinking about it a bit more I saw it as a chance to see what I needed to focus more on this year.

I enjoyed having both Kylie and Rikki in the class observing me teach and I really enjoyed the follow up session with Kylie and Erin (Rikki was busy). It really made me think about and justify why I was doing things certain ways and what I would do better next time.

I am looking forward to the rest of my observations this year and seeing whether I am progressing in my teaching and learning.

Below is my first observation, notes taken by observers, feed back and links to the PTCs. Enjoy!!

Observation - Term 1, Week 3 2016

PTC#11: analyse and appropriately use assessment information, which has been gathered formally and informally

Analyse assessment information and use student e-portfolios to show the ongoing progress and learning needs of students in reading, writing and maths.

Learning Intention (WALT) Basis:	Success Criteria
display our learning process, in Mathematics, for an audience.	This will be co-constructed with the students

Term 1, Week 3 - Full observation notes, post-observation reflections, next steps and links to PTCs

PD with Blogs - 03/03/16

I was able to share my basic blogging knowledge with some of my colleagues today going over how to do blog posts, adding pictures, labelling posts and the basic settings of blogger.  It was pleasing to see them develop a better understanding of blogger, which for many can be very daunting as it is new to them.  Small steps, however I am looking forward to catch up with them again and seeing how they are progressing.

I had to do some of my own research to find out a few things prior to meeting with them, especially around options for privacy settings.