last post of the year......

So I haven't been on here since October. man has timed flies since there. It was funny what my DP said in assembly today about the year having gone by so quickly. As so has he said that I though to myself damn it has, hasn't. 

What a year it has been. the last few weeks have been a whirlwind of camps, reports and the generally craziness that come with end of term. I finish on Friday about 10.30 all going well, I have a suspicion i will have a very prompt form class who will just want to get their reports and go home. Plan is to wrap up all the house keeping on Thursday that include writing the testimonial for one of my Yr 12 who is leaving us. Having no senior dean is really hitting home.  So the person with terrible grammar and spelling is writing a testimonial. I am just grateful I have excellent collogues who will help me out.

Looking back on the last two weeks is awesome. I had the best time on camp at Raglan. The weather played ball when it was required to, the we got the tents up and down dry and kids had a ball. the highlight for me was the rock climbing and the walk to the Bridal Veil falls. Both the geology and geography of the falls was breathtaking!

Overall camp was a great 3 days hanging out with an amazing bunch of my school future leaders and a great way for them to celebrate finishing exams.  The only downside side it was a week after junior camps so I had to leave 3 days worth of relieve. that was stressful and hard work to organise. But everything went as planned and they got through everything with out incident which was a relief.

I was grateful to have 3 days while the juniors were or camp to get work done. having 3 interruption free days, except when I was supervising exams, was lovely and I got most of my Yr. 8 scheme review out of the way. Aim to have that finished this week as well. It is a very long to do list but it will get finished, at some stage this year. 

Ok, so this will not be the final post of the year. I can feel a big year in review post. It will be long and mostly likely posted inn many stages as it has just been such a wonderful year with so many new experience and meeting inspirational and amazing teachers along the way, but more of that in its own post. 

In closing, all I can say is bring on Thursday, last teaching day of the year!!!!! It will make the Christmas party on Friday just that much sweeter. So other than a couple of meetings next week that is me finished for the year.  Bring on December 5 last day of school and December 16 my long and much anticipated surgery date!!!! 

Until next post

Miss G science over and out

Group work

I love group work, I am coming to the understanding the students for the most part love group work. They get so much out of it, they are engaged and interactive with each other, they develop team work and understanding of each others weakness and strengths. I have been using it with my year 8 and year 10.

I really enjoy teaching through group work, yes it does require some extra thought when planning the lessons but I find that I find teaching the lessons far more enjoyable and easier to teach.

The lessons that I have been making group work focussed are either practical focussed or the students are teaching each other.

My favourite group work lesson with my year 10s this year was the end of last term. We were finishing up a topic looking at human transport systems and the focus was on the components of the blood. For this activity I split the class in half  (class size is 15 and 17) and had them work through the information I had given them and quick blurb I gave them at the beginning. Their task was to work through the four pages of notes filling in as much as they could as a group.  The had free range of sources they could use, their notes, textbooks, devices. I gave them a set time limit of 15-20 minutes to complete the task the I wondered round checking in and giving help as and when required.

This activity worked really well with one of my yr 10 and not so much with the other even though I gave them more scaffolding and assistance. They just didn't seem to be engaged and willing to take advantage of the opportunity. I suspect it has something to do with there maturity level of the two classes and the small class is at a higher academic level than the other class.

The other group activity I did with the year 10 last term was using the SOLO hexagons. I love this activity and used it to assess prior knowledge of the acid and bases chemistry topic.  This activity again had a very similar outcome as the previous group work activity. I structured this activity differently with them work in pairs or 3's to begin with and then coming together as a class to build the big picture.  What I really liked about this activity was how engaged the students were and the depth of their prior knowledge. This allowed me to really tailor the teaching to each of the classes and meant I was able to identify the knowledge and ability ranges that I had across the 2 classes.

With my year 8 I took a different approach to reflect the age and ability of the class. For this group work activity they had to write a title, aim, hypothesis and method for an experiment that we carried out.  Before that started I went over the experiment with the class as a whole and outlined on the board what equipment was available and the 3 conditions that needed to the tested.  In the previous lesson we had learnt about the theory behind the experiment and why it was important. I split the class into 5 groups of 4 and gave each group 6 mini white boards to complete the activity and to write up their experiment.  I gave them 20 mins to complete this and they worked really well. They spread themselves over the floor of the lab and everyone was really engaged and the ideas were flowing and good science was taking place.

After 20 minutes or so everyone sat back at the desks in their groups and as a class we wrote the title, aim and method for the experiment. These 3 parts all ended up been all the ideas combined and each group kept their own hypothesis and unsurprisingly the 5 methods were all very similar.  The next lesson we carried out the experiment and it will run for the next week or so while they have exams.


I am coming to love group work and the more I introduce it and use it in class the more receptive the students are becoming to it. I am also finding the engagement level is increasing and they are taking more ownership of their learning.

I love chemistry!!

Or should I say I love watching students doing chemistry and having fun while doing it.  This week my Year 10 start is student driven topic looking at acid bases and salts. I first saw this in action at Rangitoto College and it worked really well with the students their and worked really well last year at my current school. The way I run the lessons is very simple the 4 periods a week we have in the lab are wet, that students are doing the experiments, getting there hands dirty doing chemistry. The one lesson a week when we are not in the lab is theory or the learning outcome for this topic that is dry - looking at the effect acid has on the environment. This lesson is going to be ICT based and will focus on group research to complement the notes I have given them.
The way I run the wet labs is very simple, the students come in sit down and I give them a brief - 5-10 minutes max run down of what I expect to be achieved in that lesson, I may go over some concepts on the board if specifically ask and then I let the students loose. I have very strict rules in my lab and they were put in place on day 1 and my students are very comfortable with the expectation and consequences.  The students for the most part work in groups of there own choosing, this is novel for them as the rest of they were assigned. They are pretty good at it they have worked out who they work well with  and who they don't. I have yet to have to step in (except with my new internationals) and change groups. As long as they stick to the size limit and don't do anything silly I leave them to it.
Today was the first full day of lab work and both classes had a double period. The amount of work one of the classes got through was amazing, they were working really hard and getting through all the experiments, asking question of each other and me, answering their own questions when asking me to give them the answers (it doesn't work that way any more).  The other class was the stark contrast, they are admittedly a slightly less able class and there work ethic and and self reliance is lower and they are more needy. I have a rule, one of my golden 5 that only only explain things twice, 3 at a stretch. This class really tested my patience today, especially after coming from the other class this morning and they are self starters and motivators (for the most part). One of the experiments I covered in the intro and briefing, what need to be achieved, what was in their group trays etc. I then set them to work. 2 groups got started right away, they were happy with what they were doing. I asked the class as a whole before went to the benches of they understood, no comment. sweet I though to myself, this should be as easy as this morning, no hassles students happily working way. How wrong was I, about 5 minutes later I had to stop the entire class and explain 2 experiments again. This time with a fine tooth comb, they couldn't or wouldn't stop to figure it out for themselves. I had already directed 3 groups this way and they kept asking. So to save my sanity I stopped them, the explained it bit by bit on the board, purely to save my own sanity. It wasn't rocket science, all they were doing was test 5 indicators to see what happened when a few drops of an acid or a base was place on them. they were then to use those results to identify 4 unknown solutions. As a class we wrote the method for that second part of the experiment at the beginning of the lesson so in my mind and previous experience it was a very straight forward task.  Anyway once we got over that irritating hurdle the rest of the double went well, that figured out I wasn't going to give them the answers of do the experiments for them. I was answering questions with questions and occasionally answers and supervising the use of 2mol H2SO4.

It will be very interesting to compare the progress of both class on Monday, I have my suspicions that one will be much further ahead of the other. Oh well, just gives me an excuse to watch Cosmos.
In saying all of this the main aim of science is for the students to have fun while they learning and they were so I am a happy science teacher!!!

The week that was......

You know its been a good week when P3 on a Friday is a McFlurry run. So this week started as such a downer from an amazing weekend. figuring out how to implement some of the awesome ideas into the topics I am already teaching or am going to be teaching, I will be honest is a very daunting prospect especially working with in the framework I am in. I am finding it is much easier with my Yr 8 class as they are a lot more open to new ideas and approaches that either of my Yr 10 classes. I fact that saddens me a lot. My year 10 want me to give them all the information and not do any fun activities to acquire it. To be fair I do hand them all the notes they need but my reason for doing this for both my Yr 8's and 10's is that they just take so damn long writing notes and it is time wasted.
What I would love to be able to do is give them the notes, and use that as a platform to build on there knowledge and to build on the key competencies in class, not just run them through them and move on.

On Monday it was a pretty cruisey couple of lessons we were looking at speed time and distance time graphs, just the theory behind them and getting the students to work through the tasks in their booklets and too practice their graphing, boring but very practical. On Tuesday and Thursday we had the real fun.
The lab that I planned for them was to set up 3 obstacle course for the students to complete in groups. The premise behind it was really simple, the students take turns completing the course and time how long it takes them to complete each stage. Once we had the data we all went back to class to do the analysis and calculations to enable them to draw distance/time and speed/time graphs.  One of the biggest thing I saw the students take from this activity was cooperation and problem solving. I gave them there instructions once for doing the activity and the analysis. The rest of the time it was up to them to work together and figure it out as a group. Everyone got stuck in, even my 3 new international student. The students made sure each other was on task and that everyone was doing there bit. Each of the groups showed good levels of leadership, team work, cooperation and problem solving. With out each of these attributes this activity would not of work as well as it did, and most importantly physics was fun!!!!

My Yr 8's have had a pretty fun week. We have been looking at the spectrum of light as an extension of refraction so lots of hands on activities with the light box kits and prisms. The weather has been playing ball to with lots of rainbows to have discussions about. We even tried a really cool activity (it failed but who cares) where the students put the spectrum on a piece of circular card divided into eights and spun it to make it look white. the concept is awesome, but who new finding indigo and violet would be so. Really obscure colours that are not in students pencil cases. They loved making them and connected with the idea behind them so it is a win in my book.

Friday, the McFlurry run was my solace for a pretty interesting double first thing. In hindsight I pitched the work a bit to high, but in saying that though it was really nice to see the students really get stuck in the give it a really good go. lots of positive encourage and hints and tips. They showed me up which was embarrassing but to be expected, it is reassuring when they prove me wrong and really stick to their guns. The double was suppose to be P1 recap P2 next part of the topic but ended up being P1 and half P2 recap and just intro of the next part. And you know what I don't care. It was a really good extension exercise for them and it made them think and problem solve and work together, yes it was messy, yes it was confusing for my less able students at time, but by the end of it they finished and all had the right answers and the ways of getting to each answer were numerous which is great, and they proved that I am a fallible human not some super, knows everything science teacher.  The other Yr 10 class I had P6 and 7. Completely different class completely different outcome. P 6 was finishing up the first part of the topic, looking at acceleration, it went smoothly, I have to take a different approach with this class as the ability is slightly lower and it is majority boys. We had more fun, more laid back, it is P 6 and 7 on the Friday after all. Anyway we did the equation work a detailed answer on the board to get everyone up to speed and on the same wavelength then set them to work for 30 mins. P 7 was a recap lesson that pretty much end up with students catching up with work that they either hadn't finished in class this week, or hadn't completed for homework. I was generous, the music was playing and a lot of really good work was achieved, questions were answered and confusion cleared up. It was a great success topped of with one student at the end remarking it was "the fuunnest lesson this year". High five, pat on the back. Teacher win!!!

#edchatnz Blogging Meme

#edchatnz Blogging Meme

Thank you Janna Brewster (@jannabrewsterNZ) for the tag in the #edchatNZ Blogging Meme!

If you get included in the blogging meme: copy/paste the questions and instructions into your own blog then fill out your own answers. Share on Twitter by tagging 5 friends and using #edchatnz. Make sure you send your answers back to whomever tagged you, too!

1. How did you attend the #edchatnz Conference? (Face 2 Face, followed online or didn't)

I attend only the Saturday face 2 face, I had to teach on the Friday so I followed online when I was free. Loved the Saturday especailly meeting everyone F2F, it was like catching up with old friends again, really funny when we had never meet in person or only briefly meet before. 

2. How many others attended from your school or organisation?

I was the only one. I am my schools lone nut and I am dancing loud and proud and ruffling a few feathers in the process. Senior management respect what I am doing, they kind of understand what I am trying to achieve and support me from the shadows. The parents don't like or understand what I am doing or why I am doing it. The students do, and it is getting results so I will keep on dancing!!!

3.How many #edchatnz challenges did you complete?

 Sadly none, I forgot about them in all the excitement.

4. Who are 3 people that you connected with and what did you learn from them?

Meeting Cath from Science Learning Hub. Such a pleasure to meet and chat with her, got some really cool ideas and to continue to persevere with what I am trying to do. Catching up again with chasingalyx. I love this girl, her ideas inspire me and make me think of news ways to put the students first and to work with there strengths and weakness. Finally Pam Hook. OMG with woman blew my mind, I am in love with SOLO taxonomy and has inspired me to make it fit and work with the Cambridge syllabus that I teach. I am going to use the hexagons as a review activity with my Year 8 and 10. So inspire and I am in awe.

5. What session are you gutted that you missed?

Friday, as a whole. I would i love to go to any of those sessions especially the debate #3moreyears. 

6. Who is one person that you would like to have taken to #edchatnz and what key thing would they have learned? 

That is a really hard question, to be honest I would of loved to take our Business studies teacher Alva. She would of loved it as much as me probably would of really enjoyed the SOLO session and most likely taken ideas from that and she would use them in amazing ways with her students.  I am going to break the rules and say  maybe even our DP just to open up his mind to the possibilities and how awesome 21st century learning is. 

7. Is there a person you didn't get to meet/chat with (F2F/online) that you wished you had? Why?

I would of loved to have a really good chat with Matt Nicoll from StAC. He is such a swtiched on guy and I have a lot of respect for what he is doing and I feel I could learn alot from himl,

8. What is the next book you are going to read and why? 

I am not a big reader of non fiction or education books. But I am keen to follow the lead of #nzbookchat and give some of them a read. I am interested in reading about SOLO taxonomy and why and how to use it with my students. That will have to wait till I finish the 2 novels I am currently reading.

9. What is one thing you plan to do to continue the Education Revolution you learned about at #edchatnz?

As a lone nut dancing in a environment that seems to have a severe nut allergy I will continue to take very small steps with implementing the ideas of SOLO and making my lessons more student focussed. It is an uphill battle but I am willing too keep up the good fight because I know it is making a difference for my students and keeping juniors engaged and excited about science is key to me and is one of the main reasons I became a teacher.

10. Will you take a risk and hand your students a blank canvas?

 I have already tried this with my year 10s and it went down like a lead balloon. As a result I modified it slight and my year 8 lapped it up and there were know complaints. I teach in a very traditional environment so blank canvases are from upon by everyone. I see the benefits of doing it both for me as a teaching and assessing prior knowledge but also for the students to establish what they know and how much they do know. They are awesome resources that need to be tapped into more often. I just need to find the right ways to approach it in my classes.

I tag
@tcliffin
@ariaporo22
@Lasampsonator
@aannekenn
@eMPOWERedNZ

Creating visible learners

Went to the most amazing PD session on Monday Session Notes. Out of the three I attended during the day it was the most useful and gave me a lot of reassurance that what I am trying to do with my class is supported by evidence and research. As a scientist that is really important to me and I respect the work of John Hattie so much. The man is a genius and a wonderful statistician and his looking into effect size is brilliant and so very useful.

Anyway the PD session was primary focussed on the creation of visible learners. What it looks like in a classroom, how we as teachers can achieve it and what it means for the students. I took a lot of encouragement about the small things I am doing in my classroom and it also was a good reminder of things that I should be doing like constantly referring the students back to the LO of the lesson and also how it fits in to the topic and referring to the I can do sheets a lot more so the students can keep track of and monitor their own progress.  One of the biggest ideas I got was for the students to become visual learners they need to be shown how to be visual learner and that initially I really need to plan it into my lessons so it become habit for both of and by doing this hopefully the students will become very comfortable with there own learning and be able to take real responsibility for it.  This I believe will be beneficial to all the years I teach.

Another really important take home message was reflecting on the learning not only in the one lesson but over a series of lesson and over whole topics. This idea is not new to me, I just don't know the types of questions that I should be asking and the type of survey I should set up. Any help in this area would be greatly appreciated.  Reflection is a very powerful tool that I personally use, I am my own worst critique so for me self reflection needs to be undertaken very carefully as I have a tendency to see the worst in my own teaching. This often leaves me digging very large pits of despair that can take other people a while to remove me from, I am getting better, baby steps like everything in my teaching, the more I do the more I learn better ways of doing and appropriating situations.

One the methods suggest was to have students self reporting the grades they expect/want to get in a topic test. I have been doing this for most of this year with my year 10's and the students are very in tune with there own learning and what they know and don't know. I am hoping to use this as a platform to start slowly introducing some of the other ideas and methods that I learnt from this session as the effect sizes are very good and I am very interested in to measuring my own effect size on topic and on students. To do this mean extra work for me, but I think it will be worth it especially if what what I am doing is successful but also it will show me approached that aren't' working with a specific class which is important knowledge about how I am teaching a class.

The biggest take home message I got from the session is that the students need to be taught how to take responsibility for their own learning and their own success and to do this they will need help, encouragement and guidance from their teachers and most importantly it needs to be very positive and safe for everyone involved.  The skills that the students will learn from this type of classroom learning will bee invaluable and will stay with them forever.

Visible Learning Plus PD session

Visible Learning Plus session.
My notes, blog to follow

gathering student voice
what makes a good learner -what makes students good learners
what strategies do you use to problem solve
knowing the questions to ask - asking the right questions
knowing what you don't know - getting the most able students able too ask questions - confident in getting it wrong and asking questions and feeling safe to ask questions when they don't know

developing the shared language to learning -
reflection on learning for day
not just surface learning but also deeper learning
what does it mean to be a good learner
is it getting through to the student- checking in with the students - check your impact


self reported grades/student expectations/assessment capable learners - worth spending time on, very good impact on student achievement -
 - where am I going
- how am I going
- where to next
lesson by lesson or unit by unit

stretch goals for topic tests
focus on progressions
use I can do to check progress and stretch using core and extended content

teacher/student clarity
learning intentions/success criteria
- students know why they are learning
- the success criteria I understood by all
- share rubrics and examples

what am i doing to be very explicit and clear - what do they need to do to be successful

checking in with students to ensure the students know what they are doing - what are they learning about

more student involvement in the LO and goals  - letting students taking more involvement and ownership, co design and creation

feedback is evidence about - where am I going, how am i doing, where to next
needs to be relevant and useful for the student - knowing where the student is at for a given task
instructional feedback to key, needs to be at right level for the student and targeted

Check my impact!!!!

The term that was

What an interesting 9 weeks. They seem to go way to fast but in saying that it did drag a little near the end as the kids really started too wind down and my stress levels increased.

The term started off with a really hiss and a roar. Attending inspirational PD days can do that. The ideas and concepts were all there but the execution was off  just a bit as I have stated in previous blogs. The new way I want to teach.  My new approach is having is student and inquiry centred has worked wonderfully with the year eights and has been heaps of fun implementing. I has helped slightly that I am redoing the Yr 8 course as it has given me a lot to scope to try new things and ways of teaching. My biggest problem is that this term I just have not been organised enough. This has presented it challenges that I have meet and overcome as the come up.  I really need to sit down and plan out the entire topic in one go instead of bits at a time. Teaching the year 8 is so much fun. I am really enjoying it and the students are having heaps of fun as well. I am trying to make the learning as hands on as possible with lots of circus and other activities and very little book work. The book work we do do is sheet based to reinforce the ideas and skills learnt though the activities that we do.

The year 10 have been another kettle of fish completely. They are two very different class that each have there own issues and problems. one class I have only just noticed is nearly 75% boys whereas the other is more 50/50 gender split.  As a whole it has been a very productive term. We are right on track for where we need to be in the topic sequence. The biggest issue is that I have gone back to my old style to teaching the year 10. I was trying to make the teaching in a style more similar to the year 8's but it just isn't working. the students pretty much expect me to give them the information which yes I am there to do that, but to me I kind of defeats the purpose of why I am there. the information I am giving them is is pretty common knowledge and they could find it them selves easy enough simply by goggling it.  I am at the point now where I am handing them all the notes and I am trying to get them to do activates that are based around the information that they need to know, to make them take some of the responsibility because it has no bearing on my life if they pass or fail. I am keeping up many end of the bargain by giving them in the information and asking any questions they might have. It is up too them to do the supporting work and to ask the necessary questions or for help.

There were a few interesting incidents through out the term. I look back on them are I have learnt a great deal from them. Most of them were due to me letting the leash go a little to slack and on reining in the minor stepping out of lines. I probably gave them the slack and a bit more freedom as they have been so good up to now and it was a reward, it was probably me getting a little to comfortable with the students in both classes and not following through was much as I did in the first term, I got soft. The big major incident in week 8 I could not off pre-empted I don't think, I student choose to cross a line, a pretty obvious line in my opinion and he paid the price. The consequence were well deserved and hopefully a lesson was learnt....I doubt it but you can only try so hard with some people. Some kids are just douche bags and have no brain mouth filter.

Over all i am very pleased with how the term went. I have a number of things to continue to work on, the biggest one is the loudness of my voice, the problem is I cant hear myself when I am in front of the kids so it is hard for me too moderate myself. Other than that I need to be a lot more organised and have the rest of my topics planned out and have the activities and resources ready to go so i can stop my last minute planning.

Exam post mortem

So last week was mid year exams. It is a very interest process to watch as you see how different students cope and react with the stress and pressure that come hand in hand with exams. When it came to marking them I was very pleased with the of all three classes. The all pretty much fitted a perfect bell curve. I had my low and my high marks, all of which was expected. There are a number of disappointed students and and number of were pleasantly surprised.

Each  student did a post exam reflection which asked them to reflect and amount and quality of their revision, if they were happy with there marks, the areas they struggled and how the could improve with and a few other questions. The answers from the students were really pleasing and showed that they were taken the whole process quiet seriously and were all wanting to improve throughout the rest of the year and things to work on form finals.  It was a wake up call of some and highlighted clearly that what they are currently doing is not working and the need either a new approach or to take studying a lot more seriously whereas for others it was a validation that what they are doing is working for them and is bring them success.

Inspiration Lost

So over the last few weeks I have lost all inspiration for my new approach.  I do admittedly have an obsessive personality and I do lose interest in thing easily if I am not constantly inspired or engaged I get bored and forget about it.  This has happened to me this term. It started off with a hiss and a roar and has fizzled out over the past few weeks. Exams in the middle of the term did not help nor did writing reports and new topics. In hind sight the writing of a new Yr 8 topic should of given me plenty of inspiration and new ideas and I has. My year 8 topic was investigation based, lots of student driven activities and work. they were taking charge of the the learning in the topic with scaffolding from. This has been very fun and the students were engaged and having a good time. I endeavour to make junior science as fun and as engaging as possible and I am finding the students are really responsive to that style of teaching.

The Yr 10 on the other hand are getting old school me talking at them. I have lost inspiration for new ideas in teaching this class. The investigation inquiry based learning disappeared, I started being the focus of the lesson again and I really don't like it at all. I have ran out of ideas for the topic we have just finished. I have just started a new topic and in writing this blog I am slowly regaining the inspiration, I desperately need an injection of new ideas and ways to present the topic I have just started. I could teach this topic in my sleep, which should mean I should have heaps of new exciting ideas but I just don't.  Teaching plant and human reproduction isn't the most exciting topic for the students, and I want to find exciting ways to approach it.  I am then finishing up with genetics,  one of my fields of expertise and a great love of mine. I have always approached this topic as enquiry based using case studies and heaps of real life examples.

So I would love some new ideas of teaching plant and human reproduction as inquiry based. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

The term so far

So it is the Friday before the long weekend, the Friday before exams next week. A good Friday to look back the reflect on what has been a very interesting and trying second term. This term I tried a new approach to teaching with inspiration from Claire Amos and #hackyrclass. Doing the background research and reading really inspired me, probably a little to much. I forgot the culture of the school and boundaries that I am expected to keep within. I jumped in feet first and really did not remember the parameters i am expected to work with in. The outcome of this was not necessarily negative, the students gained a lot of positives from it. The biggest issue looking back was the way I carried it out. It didn't have the necessary scaffolding to guide the students through and it was a brand new concept that I admittedly just told the student they were going to do. They all got on with the assignment, with some groups really tackling it head on and making a really amazing job while other spent the time messing round, no matter how much redirection they were given.

The overall success of the modified jigsaw assignment was good. The parts of the topic I chose to do it with were small and the class set of notes that I did give the class was all the information that the students needed to know. The feedback I got from students was mixed but very useful.
The rest of the topic I took a slightly different approach after a very useful and insightful conversation with my PRT mentor.  The approach was still very much with in the #hackyrclass idea and the growth mindset but also was more sympathetic to the culture and expectation of school.  The students were still expect to actively investigate and problem solve but I greatly increases the scaffolding and also introduced new concepts first with a quick power-point or discussion. This method the students didn't even the notice the difference. I found this work really well for investigation the difference between parallel and series circuits and also to teaching equation. A quick overview reinforcing the key ideas and things to remember then giving the student time too work it out it for themselves.

This whole experience has been really rewarding if not a little challenging, not just for me but also for the students. I am not longer spoon feeding them information, but making them find it whether it is on their devices or by using the notes and powerpoint I have posted on Blackboard. I am making them take charge and I am now using student examples and ideas a lot more, putting them at the centre.
This is how I have started our new chemistry topic and it worked really well this morning. The student with thinking, listening and really had to work to find the information. the question asked were great and insightful.

A new outlook

What an interesting week. I had the flu.

Last week despite looking and feeling like death warm up was very interesting. The conversation I had had made me really sit down the reassess what I was trying too achieve. I have taken a new fresh approach which I am really enjoying is a much better way to approach what I am trying to achieve, more independent and intinstically motivated learners. We still have a very long way to go, but I now know what my learners want and also what their parent want. My teaching style has adjusted, I am teaching a very short sharp blocks, and then I set them written or experimental task to reinforce the short sharp information load. I have made a vow to not spend another whole lesson talking again. I will give in the information and break it down, emphasis important point and then let them discover and learn how it suit them. It is working very well with my physics topic and if the students need extra help they are asking each other first before they ask me.
I am seeing really great results and progress and understanding I am seeing is very good.

My aim for the next week in the lead up to exams is to reinforce and go over how questions should be answered especially and explain and discuss type questions. This is goes along in the our year long PD we are doing. I finally understand what we are trying to achieve which is awesome.  Up until this point is was really confused of how I was suppose to implement in the class. Now I understand the rational and really see why it is such a benefit. It works really well in with everything else I am trying too achieve.

This term has been such an amazing learning journey not just for me personally and professionally but also for my students.

Lets take a step back

So I have had to slam on the breaks to the changes I have started to make. I had a really good conversation today with my mentor, tears includes about what I am attempting to do. I have support for what I am trying to do which is great. I am just going about it in the wrong way for the culture that we have at school. To be fair I didn't really take this in to consideration and I when I try new things I do jump in with two feet and I am admittedly a bit ideological, a bit too green. I am a beginning teacher, and I completely agree. To day was all about saving my sanity and saving me from myself with help from my knight in shining amour.

So we have agreed that what I am trying doing is good, but I need to do it in away that the students won't really notice so I can implement the changes seamlessly. I now have some ways of doing this which are really exciting and I look forward to share these with the students.

 The reflection I have had today and the many conversations I have had with different colleagues have being very reassuring and inspiring. They have made me really though about why I am trying to do this and in practically how I am doing it. I recognise now that the way I was going about implementing this new style of teaching is in stark contrast to the expectations and culture of the school community and really made me think about the type of questions I need to be asking myself and in these conversation. It was a really landmark day for me as a teacher I have really began to understand what it is to be a teacher at this school and what the real underlying expectations are and that anything that try need to be done in a way that is all me but is also the students ideas. The way I am going too do this is with end of topic surveys of the students to see what works and what didn't work and why. This will allow me to tailor the course to the students.

It is this type of meeting that makes me realise how much I love my job and reinforce my passion for educating young people. Most of them do not realise how hard I work and how much of a toll it takes on me. I am a very passionate person but also very self critical and I find it very hard to take a few step back and look at a situation from a distance. I know this is a fault and that once I start down a road I put up my blinkers, put on my rose quartz glasses and charge at it head on like wounded bull.  These traits also mean I need saving from myself on occasion, people older and wiser than me who have tread the path I am just beginning need too step in front of me, stop me and make me look at the bigger picture and how what I want I to achieve fits in. Today was one of those days. A water shed moment, a pit stop that not only benefits me but will also benefit my current but also my future students. Its was a great day for personal learning, for pedagogical learning and also more about thee nuisance of the school that I hadn't really considered and given much thought too.  This has left me mentally and emotional shattered which on top of a head cold sucks. At least my netball team had a massive win in there first game of the season!!!!

Success?!

What is success?? It is the question I am asking myself as I reflect and dissect a trial I have just completed with my Year 10 classes. This trail was of a new teach approach that I was inspired to take on thanks to the wonderful and inspiring Claire Amos of HPSS and others.  I divided each of the classes into 4 groups of 4 and gave each of them a physics subtopic explore and answer the learning outcomes. There next challenge was to then use that acquired knowledge to teach the rest of the class about their assigned subtopic.
Today was presentation day and as I had being reinforcing too both classes all week that this will not be a failure, it will be placed on the sliding scale of success. Everybody will learn something and whether it is physics or not it doesn't matter. I placed real emphasise on the journey and not the outcome, because that is what is really important. Yes they need to know the material for the topic test and exams, but in the wider scheme of things, knowing the order of the EMS is not going to impact their day to day lives and for most of them their future jobs or careers.

10A - This was the first class to become the teacher. Most of the groups took it really seriously and worked really hard during the week and respected what we were trying to achieve as a good. Their presentations and ppt clearly showed this. Other groups didn't take the challenge as seriously and again it was easy to see in the presentation and the way there were able to convey the information and answer the questions there classmates had.
At the end of the lesson each student filled in a self and peer review sheet (thanks Ros MacEachern, it is awesome!). I stressed the importance to them of being honest about there performance when filling in the self review. Looking through them the students have done a very good job at this, they clear took on board what I said and the results were really powerful insight to how the student thought they achieved. They are pretty much spot on to the grades I have given them.

The last 10 minutes of the lesson we spent as a class reviewing what worked and what didn't. I divided the board in half - good and bad. The response from the students were exactly what I had expected. They were very self aware of what worked and more importantly what didn't work and why it didn't work. The good aspects were things like participation, team work, being responsible, having fun, research skills.
The class was unanimous about one thing, they do not want to try this approach again. I respect them for this and have taken this on board and on reflection neither do I in its current format. I need to make some changes to it, maybe take a couple of steps back and use it group setting and not have so much knowledge riding on the activity. This in hindsight really did scare the students, I did put them in a sink or swim situation, most of them swam well, others just treaded water.

10B - this was the second class to be teacher. The difference between the two classes was very interesting. The presentations from these groups were excellent, included a good array of demonstrations, experiments and videos. As this was P 6 and 7 compared to P 1 and 2 the attention spans was greatly reduced but we managed to get most of them teaching done in P 6. Again the students were very honest in there peer and self assessment which was great.

Again we spent the last 10 minutes reviewing the week and each student told me the things they did and didn't like this modified jigsaw approach. The responses from this class were very different from the other class. They came from a completely different angle and really dissect the method as a whole. this was really pleasing to see. They did not right this approach off completely which was interesting. There criticism and feed back were fantastic and very useful for me as the teacher. I will be taking them on board as a couple were things I hadn't really considered to be issues, but I now know that they are. WIN!!

We are going to have a review lesson on Monday to address in areas students missed understanding of today. I think that this is very important as it reassures the students and rewards their participation and willingness to give this a go.

Tuesday will be the introduction of co-constructive unit planning. It has worked really well with my Yr 8's, so I am going to give it ago with the Yr 10s. It should be fun, and as I told them I write the test and exams so we can cover what they want to cover within reason and investigate ideas that interest them.

This week has been a success!! Each student has learnt something, it wasn't we just won the world cup success, but it was a success! The student may not believe me, but it was. Everybody tried hard and gave great presentation. They gave great feedback and criticism. We will move forward as one unit. The biggest success is the students to surprised themselves and gave this a good try. That is all I asked of them. That fact makes me very happy and keen to keep this way of teaching up. The more we do it, the more the students will hopefully get on board and demand it.

A fresh take on topic planning

I had my Yr 8's for the first time this term for a double period this afternoon. I had the entire topic planned out for the next four weeks, but decided over the weekend to dump those plans in order to try another approach to planning and in line with hack you class and the growth mind set. I saw this idea on twitter a couple of days ago and decided it would be really cool way to plan the topic. I did scaffold it as they are Yr 8 and this is probably very new idea for them. It was though a very cool lesson, lots of very cool ideas were discussed.

This is how I went about it.
I first introduced the idea to them and set up framework for how we were going to plan the topic. I handed out the I can do sheet of all the learning outcome we need to cover for Checkpoint just to give them an idea of the direction the topic was going to take.
After that I gave each pair a set of mini whiteboard to answer the 3 questions I posed to the class. What do you already know, what do what to find out and what do you want to know. I gave them 15 minutes in the pairs and wider desk groups to discuss this and come up with ideas.

I then got them to write it all on the whiteboard and we as a class discussed each idea and point. The first question was really useful to gauge the prior learning and knowledge of the students and did bring some really interesting misconception to light which were address as we game up on them. Each of the misconceptions I then added to the second column to address in class.

The what I want to know and do columns were very interesting because it revolved round food a lot which I think reflect the lack of food technology at school and it also very impractical to do in a science lab. The other suggestions were really good and fitted really well with the direction of the topic and showed that the students were really engaged in the process. carrying out a dissection was also very popular with some students and not others, but as soon as i told them it was optional they were all on board.

After recording all the amazing ideas the students had we then turned out attention back to the I can do sheet and all the point we needed to cover. The ideas they game up with on how they wanted to learn about each of the specific outcomes really surprised me. They were AMAZING, one such example that I would of never though off in my wildest dreams was to build a 3D food pyramid of the 6 food groups and foods that are rich sources. I am trying to currently work though the logistics of doing this, any ideas on how to make this work would be greatly appreciated.

The next 4 week should be so much fun and  I am really looking forward to using all the students idea to teach them about food and digestion. They are all as excited as me, let the fun begin.

Hack my class

So i have being think about doing this for a little while now, just as a way to get ideas out there and also to reflect on my own practise for registration but also because my student deserve me looking at me and critiquing me. So I have being at the teaching game for 5 terms, I am considered the baby off the staff at school, I am the youngest member of staff, and it also seem the most injury prone, hence my nickname glass.
You will also notice I have a really bad habit of getting off on tangents, I do it in class and generally my students sit back for the ride, that are all based on what we a covering in class but delve in to other aspect that are not really relevant to what we are doing but are (well i think they are) interesting packets of knowledge. they have in the pasted generated some really good discussion with the students, and I am now developing a way to filter them, which is making them into really useful teaching opportunities not just time fillers.

So the main point of this blog (see me and my tangents) was to follow my attempts at #hackyrclass. This idea of hacking your class was put forward by Claire Amos (DP at Hobsonville Point Secondary), I stumbled upon this over the weekend after attending the BYOD conference on Thursday at Hobsonville Point. That day I was fortunate enough to go to the talk by one of her colleagues Danielle Myburgh. This presentation really opened my eyes in combination with an earlier talk to the idea of 21st century learning and means to go about it and some ideas and apps etc. to try out. It during this talk i jumped on twitter and looked Danielle up, and you could say the rest is history. That day lead my too Danielle's blog and twitter and to all the amazing things she is doing and to Claire twitter and her website via Alyx, another 2nd year teacher who was on prac at Rangi the same time I was.  They say all good things happen for a reason and I am certain of it. It was like the stars aligned and now here i am wring my first ever blog post about a challenge Claire set down for term 2.

So what is this challenge i speak of, well it is very simple it is to hack your classroom and to adopt the growth mindset.
When I first read through Claire post it did reminded me of something a lecture did say to me at uni and it resonated with the way I want to teach. So the school I teach in despite being a relativity new school it is very tradition, I mean really tradition. So trying to break out of this setting is going to be interesting, even more so since i share my lad with our physics teacher, so I cannot make any drastic changes that will effect him, but in saying that he is very open to me trying new things with the space which is awesome and very accommodating.

So the the first thing i did after Thursday was to go home and over the weekend completely reformatted the unit of work i have just started with my year 10, making it way more student focused and driven that teacher driven.

So after spending all weekend thinking about how I am going to adopt the growth mindset and hack my class I introduced the idea to both my year 10 science classes this morning after we had gone over there topic tests from the end of last term.

when we were going of the test I was consciously reinforcing how study and hard work was important and praising the student for all there shard working during the topic and in there study for the test. With all my topic test I get the students 1 week out to write down what they would like to get on the test. I do this to help motive them and also so they verbalise what there expectations are. It really seems to be having positive outcomes as I have noticed the amount of work and effort put in has increased dramatically as they all want to succeed for themselves.

So I introduced the idea of the growth mindset and hacking my class to my Year 10 this morning and explained to them what I was hoping to achieve and what we as entire group was hoping to achieve. Apart from a few smart comments from some of my boys they listened intently and i could see them possessing this new method of teaching we are going to experience together. After laying the initial ground work i dropped the bombshell i had spent all weekend working on. How this new type of teaching is going to look.

This is what i am doing with my Year 10s, we are starting our first physics topic of the year and instead of me teaching for the first week they are going to be the teachers of each other. I have 4 groups of 3/4 students in each class (yes i have a class of 16 and a class of 15) and each of them was given a topic that they will be teaching the rest of the class. The were given the topic notes I had prepared and a guideline sheet.

This is my first attempt at doing anything like this and the looks on some of the students faces was priceless, it was a real mix of shock, horror and disbelieve. The interesting thing was as so as they had all there instruction and had asked the initial question they got right down to business and re remainder of the lesson was really productive. The proof will be in the pudding on Friday when they do there presentation in the doubles.

Wish me luck