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