A day or two with Tom Markham

This week I spent one and a half days working with Tom Markham who is an expert in Project Based Learning.  I feel like I got a lot out of my one and a half days and I know that this blog post is one I am going to refine as I probably won't do it justice.  I have come away with a much better understanding and appreciation of PBL and the opportunities it will afford our children. 

This is such a big topic to blog about but here are a couple of things that resonated with me during the course

• Being a good PBL teacher comes about by talking and sharing skills and working together.
• PBL can be quite demanding- beyond the usual skills for teacher ( I like that it challenges me FYI) 
• Ice burg effect- the tip is the results that we can see but nowadays we need to dig deeper below the iceberg- persistence, failure, sacrifice hard work etc. are the things we don’t see and these are some very important skills.
• Social emotional development is achieved in high quality PBL.  Great projects encompass social emotional learning. 
• Rubrics are an important part of the assessment process. You need to have a set of great rubrics so that you can assess a number of different skill sets
• “If it doesn’t challenge you it doesn’t change you”- Fred Devito

Many changes in education are driven by societal pressures, not so much by ministries because the way in which children need to be prepared to enter the world we live in today has changed significantly.  We work in different ways.  We are more collaborative and there are different skills that have emphasis placed on them if they are to be successful in the 21st century world.

The four c's are important in PBL

Collaborate (this can look different at different times.  At times the collaborative approach can be formal and other times this looks less formal.)

Critical thinking (we need to incorporate and deliberately teach these skills)

Creativity 

Communication

Through PBL we are setting children up to realise that we are learning at school, but we will never stop learning.  We learn everywhere and all the time.

Some of the things that can be challenging for the PBL approach in the beginning include

• Controlling mindset- it is hard for some teachers to let go and shift their mind set.
• PBL works best when we shift some of the control to the students but certainly not all of the control.
• It follows a process as illustrated below and for some, this is challenging.

The Driving Question

The driving question is considered by some to be the hardest part of PBL. It is rare for the first question drafted to be the final choice of driving question.  We spend a lot of discussion and time refining this.  The "why" behind the question is really important.  It is important that we know the reason why these children will be interested in this project and why we have chosen this (what is the benefit to the children.)

The Critical Friends Protocol was a very valuable exercise that was conducted with the teachers.  This could be very valuable for the students also.  The language of I like, I wonder, I suggest was especially useful.  In fact I saw many situations (not just in PBL) where this could be useful.  I noted that no project should be entering the classroom without having gone through this robust process.  

Rich attended the parent evening and I thought it was interesting to note what he got out of it.  He felt he didn't know a lot about PBL prior. (Clearly he doesn't listen to me as I suspected!!!!!!!!!!)  He was impressed with its application- He liked the fact that it can mature children earlier because their behaviour improves due increased engagement.  The proposals (driving questions)  put in front of kids need to be well prepared and researched to make sure that it challenges their thinking.  In order for this to be successful, you cannot just throw them int he pool of PBL, they need to be coached to be Olympic swimmers through a well thought out design.  It teaches them soft skills earlier such as self-management and problem solving, critical thinking, empathy, communication.  Something that he found challenging was understanding  how do you manage late adopters?

This was a great couple of days and it is always a bonus when you get to have a facilitator who was so friendly and genuinely passionate about his topic.

Changes in my Practice

Week 32

Changes in my Practice

Create a blog post where you first reflect on your personal 32 week learning journey through the whole postgraduate programme and provide a critical discussion of two key changes in your own research informed practice in relation to the Practising Teacher Criteria (PTC) in e-learning. Then share your next dream regarding your future professional development.

As I come to the end of my Mind Lab course I am able to reflect on my journey and what a journey it has been.  In some ways, it feels like it has flown by and in other ways it seem to have taken forever to reach the point where the light is shining brightly at the end of the tunnel.  It has been challenging to say the least- as I have tried to balance the busy life of teaching with family life and Mind Lab created a whole new dimension into my world.  One of the best things about the journey for me has been the people I have met and the connections I have made.  I even managed to reconnect with a couple of people I trained with many years ago.  It was great to have a sense of belonging and connectedness.  The face to face part of the course was fabulous and I enjoyed being part of our Christchurch community of Mindlabbers.  In the later part of the course, I felt that I wasn’t travelling the road by myself because we had the Google+ community where we could connect with others also.  I found the assignments thought provoking and challenging and mostly valuable.  It was nice to know I can still write an essay after all these years.  Probably the hardest part of all was the finding the time to actually sit down and complete these assignments.

Being reflective is something that goes with the job.  Even if we are not conscious of being reflective I think we constantly are reflective to some extent.  Teaching is something that is never far from the front of mind for most of us and I find myself always looking back and wondering how it could have been better.  What Mind Lab taught me was to look forward into my practice more.  The Practicing Teacher Criteria (Ministry of Education, nd) requires us to be reflective, however it can be difficult to reflect individually on each criteria as they cross over and are interconnected.

I feel that in my Mind Lab journey, Criteria 1 (Establish and maintain effective professional relationships focused on the learning and well-being of all ākonga.) and Criteria 4  (Demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of professional personal practice) saw the biggest changes in my practice.

Criteria 1 is about establishing and maintaining effective professional relationships.  I believe I have demonstrated that I have established positive relationship with my learners and colleagues through working collaboratively with them.  Google docs has been a great way to plan together both with my teaching team but also with other professionals if required. This is a great way to work because we share ideas and resources so that everyone benefits.  Through this course I have challenged my thinking around why we do what we do (collaboration) and tools and strategies to help support it.  I have become more aware of how connected we need to be as teachers with each other and I have developed some new relationships with other professionals from different schools throughout my Mind Lab experience.  I believe that every professional relationship has something to offer.

How have I demonstrated a commitment to ongoing professional learning?  I had to stop and think about how passionate I am about continuing my professional learning journey now that Mind Lab has come to an end.  I have decided that my learning journey is exactly that- a journey in which I have come to another cross roads.  Fortunately I have had my eyes opened to many more opportunities in education and I want to continue with my journey to keep learning and introducing new ideas into my classroom.   Exactly how that is going to look for me remains to be seen but I know it will involve more learning in some way, shape of form.   Mind Lab has enabled me to think more critically about what I am doing and why and to take more risks with technology.  It has also really got me thinking about the challenge we as educators face with the 21^st century skills.  I am committed to continuing my professional leaning journey and Mind Lab has had a significant part to play in this fact.

This 32-week journey has given me the confidence and mindset to try new things out in the classroom and to be more reflective in so doing. I really wanted to increase my knowledge and gain experience of digital technology and the part it plays in today’s education system.  I found that my journey through Mind Lab has gone a long way in enabling me to begin to do so. 

Where to next for me?  I have just begun an online course around PBL so that is something I will continue to learn about in the next wee while.  I am looking forward to getting more of a handle on how PBL for juniors and putting it into practice.  From there –who knows? I am open to suggestions!  Thanks Mind Lab- it has been a great ride.

Week 31

Professional Context- Crossing Boundaries

Create a blog post where you first draw a map which demonstrates your current and potential interdisciplinary professional connections Identify one of the potential interdisciplinary connections from your map as your near future goal. Then, critically discuss the benefits and challenges of interdisciplinary practice in relation to the identified connection.

When I stop and think about how my teaching has changed in the last few years I am actually quite amazed.  It is fair to say that the biggest shift in both my teaching and my mindset has happened in the last couple of years since I have started working at St Francis of Assisi and with the introduction of Project Based Learning (PBL). I didn’t realise how “connected” I have become.

As Mathison and Freeman point out, the introducing of two or more disciplines, pedagogical approaches, skills and people is not a new concept.  This concept goes as far back as the 1920’s.  In order to discuss Interdisciplinary connections, we first need to know what interdisciplinary means.  Interdisciplinary “involves the bringing together of two or more things under one roof” (Mathison &Freeman, 1997)

I see many benefits of the interdisciplinary approach.  Jones (2009) states “the interdisciplinary approach provides many benefits that develop into much needed lifelong learning skills that are essential to a student’s future learning.”  Jones (2009) goes on to say that “ Interdisciplinary techniques are not only important for a student to learn any one single discipline or solve problem in a synthesized manner, but it also enriches a student’s lifelong learning habits, academic skills, and personal growth.”

The Ross spiral curriculum encourages an interdisciplinary cohesive integrated programme.   Students acquire the skills native to each discipline and examine the world as a hierarchy of interconnected systems.  This could be related to PBL because it has a focus on the ‘process’ as well as the ‘knowledge’.  The children need to show they can apply that knowledge to their everyday lives.  Project based learning lends itself well to interdisciplinary learning because it is follows a theme and a process and has a final authentic “product” as its destination so it helps students gain a deeper understanding of a particular topic through engaging and, of course, authentic tasks.

If I am to delve into my own practice, I feel that I cannot help but be an interdisciplinary teacher to some extent because I am part of a team where we work and plan collaboratively.  Dr Deana McDonagh (2011) explains that we should be encouraging our students to see life through a variety of lenses and perspectives.  I believe that working collaboratively is a step in the right direction to ensuring this happens. In today’s education system we need to be constantly aware of the individual learning needs and therefore, we often find ourselves bringing in a number of outside agencies to help us with our planning and help us to create programmes which will provide best practice for the individual learners.  If you study the mind map below you will notice there is a wide range of internal and external connections. Each and every connection is important and provides a different perspective to a situation and often fresh ideas.  This reminds me of the saying that “it takes a whole village to raise a child.”  I have identified this as an area for future focus.  If I am to be teaching PBL and using authentic topics and problems for my children, then I need to look more closely at my external connections so that I can draw upon the expertise and knowledge of other professionals and community members to help enhance our PBL. I take a great deal of comfort from knowing that I don’t always have to know everything and that there are other people who are know more about certain topics and who can be of support with particular subjects that I can call on.

REFERENCES:

Jones, C. (2009). Interdisciplinary approach - Advantages, disadvantages, and the future benefits of interdisciplinary studies. ESSAI7 (26), 76-81. Retrieved from http://dc.cod.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1121&context=essai

Mathison, S. & Freeman, M. (1997). The logic of interdisciplinary studies. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, 1997. Retrieved from http://www.albany.edu/cela/reports/mathisonlogic12004.pdf

Online Social Networks

Week 30

Professional Online Social Networks

Create a reflective entry where you critically discuss the use of social media in YOUR teaching OR professional development.

When I started to think about whether I use social media in my teaching, initially I thought- certainly not.  The children I teach are five for goodness sake- no I do not use social media in my teaching.  Then I had a rethink.  It turns out that I actually do use social media in my practice- in fact quite a lot it is just that it might look a bit different at my end of the school than it would up the school in Year 7 and 8.

I started to think about some of the ways I do use social media in my practice. There are a number of ways that I do.  I use Facebook a lot, not just in my social life but also in my professional life.  In my social life I am very much a ‘lurker’ on Facebook.  I love to read what other people are up to and to occasionally ‘like ‘or on a rarer occasion comment.  It got me thinking about why I am a lurker in my personal life and I think if I am honest, it is because of my profession.  I am fully aware that what I post could easily connect with my professional life and I really don’t want to be implicated in anything and for that matter- I actually just don’t really want my two worlds to collide.  My professional life is different again.  I am connected to a few teaching pages on Facebook that I have got to a point where I almost rely on them.  I am often inspired to use the ideas in my practice that I see on these social media sites.  If I need advice or have a question, I can jump on Facebook to ask my “friends.”  I have also enjoyed the way in which my ideas and inspiration does not have to be found in my own back yard- it could be from anywhere in the world.  Once or twice I have even shared some of my ideas that hopefully have been helpful to other teachers.

To a much lesser extent I use twitter and blogger in my teaching.  I use twitter again as a lurker and I have sometimes stumbled across readings or information that I have interested me in my practice. I could and probably should be far more actively involved in using this as a platform for my teaching.

The children I teach are too young to have their own social media accounts or even an individual blog and this is possibly the biggest challenge to me as a teacher.  We use a blog to connect with the parents and whanau in our community to keep them up to date with the goings on at school.  I have also used Seesaw in my practice to connect with interested parties about children’s work and progress.

A lot of criticism has been aimed at social media and the effect it has on the way students process and retain information and how distracting it can be.  I certainly believe that the social media needs to be carefully monitored but at the same time I feel that it offers opportunity for learning and interactivity far greater than it was when I went to school.  The technology that we are using in our classrooms and the skills these kids are gaining is reshaping the landscape of education.

  Joosten (2012, p.6) explains that in today’s word is a virtual place where people can share anything with anybody anywhere.  The reality of the world today is that we are connected with many different people in our personal lives and also in our professional lives.  We can connect with people from all over the globe including experts in our field and better still, we can pretty much do this instantly.  The children we are teaching today have lived their whole lives in this world of the internet and do not know a world without it.  

I think the challenge we face as teachers is to accept the social media and the connections it creates is here to stay and the classroom or physical school environment is not the only place our students are gathering to learn and do their work.  They will be gathering on line.  For me personally, I need to find some ways that I can increase the use of social media for the children themselves, rather than just me using it. Davis (2017) agrees that it can be a challenging to incorporate social media into lessons. There are many gray areas for teachers to navigate, such as setting guidelines, accessibility at school, and student safety.   These need to have robust guidelines if we are to implement the use of social media successfully and this, I feel will be one of our challenges.

 For children to go to school and not be exposed to technology and the connections it enables us to have and the learning it enables us to do would be to fail to prepare these kids for living in the 21^st century and after all, isn’t that what school is supposed to do- prepare our students for the future in the world in which they will live and hopefully thrive?

REFERENCES

Davis, M ( 2017) Social Media for Teachers: Guides, Resources and Ideas. Retrieved from: https://www.edutopia.org/blog/social-media-resources-educators-matt-davis\

Joosten, T (2013) Pearson:Social Media for Teaching and Learning.  Retrieved from http://www.slideshare.net/tjoosten/social-media-for-teaching-and-learning-27456257?ref=http://professorjoosten.blogspot.co.nz/2013/10/pearson-social-media-for-teaching-and.html

Bridging The Gap

Today I went to a course that was about "Bridging the Gap."  If I am honest, I literally couldn't think of anything worse today than having to head to a couse/seminar- not really sure what I should call it.  I was feeling tired and it had been a big day- my daughter had just gone to her first ever night away from us (school camp) etc etc (I digress).  Ayway, my point is that I am really pleased I went to the seminar and I came away feeling professionally refreshed (but still a bit tired.)
It was designed to get us thinking about the transition between preschool and school and the challenges that this presents.  Here are some of the things that got me thinking (in no particular order):

• It is a fact that the vast majority of children in NZ are attending some form of early childhood center and for a very large percentage this begins in their first year of life. The services offered in NZ are incredibly diverse and this is something that, as a country, we value.  The diversity in services is quite significant and their approaches do vary too.
• Te Whariki drives the play based learning philosophy in these centres and provides a basis for working with parents, children and whanau.  Te Whariki provides a rich array of planned play based learning experiences that facilitate and focus on specific learning outcomes and thoughtful and intentional pedegogy. 
• Play based learning helps to meet the emotional, cultural, social, academic and behavioural needs of the children.
• Probably one of the things I really have taken from today is that we say that children are starting school and they are not ready, yet it is us, the school, that is not ready for the children. It is true that children are different than what they were 10 years ago and they have different needs today than they appeared to have 10 years ago- but they also have new skills than what they did 10 years ago- because we live in the 21 century- a  time of change and evolution.  It is not wrong- it is just different.

We looked at the psychological and physiological aspects of what is happening with these kids, and while I found that interesting, I feel that it is not what I took away.
A couple of teachers talked about what they are doing in their classrooms to help bridge the gap for these wee ones.  They set up a play based learning session from 8.30am-9.30am and they discussed the benefits of the quality time this is for these kids.  It is great for the children to 'ease' their way into the school day in a more familiar setting that is similar to preschool.  It is also great for the parents because they can spend time settling their children into the day, knowing they are happy and the teachers are given the opportunity to build realtionships with the parents.
We brainstormed some activities that could help facilitate self regulation which inlcuded:

• Teaching the children relaxation and breathing
• Physical activity
• Regular food/water comsumption ( Play Eat Learn)
• Teaching children about their body temperature
• Games and activiteis that encourage stopping and starting or extremes e.g: loud/quiet etc
• Playdough
• Painting/colouring
• Sensory materials
• Music, etc

All in all I found that I have my "concentration face" on as I contemplate this.  I am a processor and I am still thinking about how it would/will all look in my class, but I am convinced that I am willing to try the playbased approach, but I am nervous as I potentially step out of my comfort zone and will I muck it up?  Actually, upon reflection- is that even possible?  Maybe this translates to excitement????