Being a good teacher is a lot like being a good gardner. Good Gardner's are optimistic and patient. They are able to see the potential in those struggling young seedlings and enjoy watching them grow and bloom-Elona Hartjes

What makes an effective teacher, that is the question? Today we had Jenny Thomas who is the Manager of Registration from the Education Council come visit us at Auckland University. Together as a team we went through the Graduating Teachers Standards. I have included a screen shot of the Standards below.

As an effective teacher under the Graduating Teachers Standards we as teachers should be covering three categories which are:

1. Professional Knowledge
2. Professional Practise
3. Professional values and relationships. 

During this course I have covered a range of these standards. Some examples of these are below:
Standard Six:
Graduating Teachers develop positive relationships with learners and the members of learning communities: I build good relationships with the other teachers in the TRC course. I had had collegial dicussions with the othe rteahcers regards to teaching as well as learning as we were also learners and learning news and extending out knowledge and learning.  I worked positibely in group settings as well as helped other teahcers in regards to their learning and using a digital divise. 
Standard Seven: Graduating Teachers are committed members of the profession

I showed co-operatively by working with those who share responsibility for the learning and well-being of learners. 

As teachers I believe that it is really important for us to always be reflective and always make sure that we come back to these standards as a reference and reflect on them so that we know we are meeting the standards.

It was really informative when the Education council representative came in and talked to all of us about the graduate teachers standards. 

Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn

TEACHING AS INQUIRY


Today we looked at Teaching as Inquiry. Teaching as Inquiry is the Teacher Inquiring about their own teaching and practice and how they can accelerate the children's learning. The big thing that I leant about teaching as inquiry is that it is about the "HOW" factor-How we as a teacher can accelerate our students learning and what strategies we can use to be successful at this. This also involves ongoing reflection on our teaching and practice and refining areas of weakness.

 Since any teaching strategy works differently in different contexts for different students, effective pedagogy requires that teachers inquire into the impact of their teaching on their students.

Ministry of Education, 2007b, page 35

The purpose of the Teaching as Inquiry cycle is to improve the outcomes for our students.
It also involves knowing your learner-What is knowing your learner?

To myself it means knowing the student and what they know and what their next steps will be and  how can i help them in meeting their targets. Using evidence as well as overall teacher judgements such as their work and in class conversations and group conversations. Students also need to be aware where they are at so that they can work towards meeting their learning goals. 

Why collaborate Inquiry (Reading)

By focusing efforts on professional learning approaches ccollaborative Inquiry for Educators. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over andover and expecting different rresults.” (Benjamin Franklin) that challenge mental models and engaging people in learning and working collaboratively, individuals and organisations will be more likely to meet adaptive challenges. 

Teams works together to question, develop theories of actions, determine action steps, gather and analyse evidence to access the impact of their actions. 
It had a measurable and significant effect on children's learning.


Teachers to take an active role in expressing and testing hypotheses and backed the notion that collaborative inquiry can have a profound impact on the professional practises not only of the participants but of their colleagues as well.

Collaborative 4 stage model for Inquiry 

Stage 1: Framing the Problem. 
During this stage, facilitators assist teams as they determine a meaningful focus, develop an inquiry about a particular link between professional practices and student results, and formulate a theory of action.

Stage 2: Collecting Evidence.
 In the second stage, facilitators guide teams in developing shared understandings and building additional knowledge and competencies. Teams determine the type of evidence to collect. They also determine when, where, and how it will be collected.


Stage 3: Analysing Evidence.
Once teams feel they have gathered enough information to address the question posed, facilitators guide teams through a five-step approach to analysing evidence. Teams learn how to make meaning of data by identifying patterns and themes and formulating conclusions. As teams refine their thinking, they revisit their theory of action
accordingly.

Stage 4: Documenting, Sharing, and Celebrating.
During this final stage, teams come together to document, share, and celebrate their new under-
standings. Teams consider next steps by identifying additional student learning needs and reflecting on what they learned through their inquiries. Finally, teams debrief the process by considering how their work was reflective of the characteristics of collaborative inquiry.


We worked in teams after doing numerous amounts of readings in Teaching as Inquiry. We than came together to create a fish bone on what Teaching as Inquiry is to us. We collaborated out ideas together form our readings and put it onto paper. Below I have included photos of the different teaching as inquiry fish bone activity. 

Today was really helpful in regards to learning about Inquiry as teaching. Inquiry as teaching is about the teacher and refining and reflecting on our teaching so that we are able to cater as well as  accelerate the children that are in the priority/target group. This involves a whole process of: Knowing the learner, having the strategies, refinement, collaboration as well as many other aspects. 

The more that you read, the more things that you will know. The more you learn, the more places you'll go!-Dr. Seuss

Today we looked at Literacy and the literacy learning progressions.
We were given a journal article: Family photographs to read on our own. We then were given a group follow up task to do in regards to the journal article that we had read.  The lecturer using a really good learning tool which I had not used before, so I was great being able to learn a new interactive tool that I could use next term in my digital classroom.
I have listed the learning tool that was a a whole team used for the follow up activity.

Learning tool: Kahoot! Join at Kahoot.it- For reading activity-If done with the class there can be a prize for the the winning team.  

Kahoot! can be used for deep thinking as well. Use between 6-7 questions. Kahoot! can show you the weakness in the class when you go to feedback and results as a form of assessment and where to next. This app is really good for teaching vocabulary as well as other areas of reading and curriculum areas. 

We also looked at ESOL online. This was familiar to myself as at our School have had ELLP professional development and training as a whole staff on how to do these forms. 
Below is a link to teaching literacy strategies which I also found useful today. There are helpful DVDs which show literacy strategies. 

ESOL online- Teaching literacy strategies. 

The Making Language and Learning Work DVDs demonstrate how to effectively integrate content-area teaching and language learning in mainstream subject classrooms for students from diverse language backgrounds. They show how to integrate effective literacy strategies, and how a range of teachers in different subject areas scaffold language and content area learning. The materials model how to personalise learning by supporting students at different levels of English proficiency in a manageable way in mainstream classes (TKI website)

There are three sets of videos in the tabs below:

• DVD 1 : Integrating language and learning in secondary maths and science
• DVD 2 : Integrating language and learning in secondary English and social sciences
• DVD 3 : Integrating language and learning in years 5 to 8

We also looked ESOL teaching strategies which I found helpful. 

We also looked at the New Zealand Curriculum thoroughly and looked at an exemplar of a Unit plan and looked at how we could annotate and justify why we chose the learning outcomes, key competencies etc. 


We also looked at "Scenario's around curriculum levels" and had to justify in collegial discussions if we agreed if the students were put at the right level or not and why.

What does an ideal School look like?

Today at University we worked together in groups and talked about "What does an ideal School look like. In my group we decided to draw our school out and put out ideas together. This was a fun activity together and be able to talk together and share out ideas-Learn, create, share.

Here is our plan for our Ideal School below.

As you can see from our plan we decided on a range of things to include in our School such as outdoor learning areas, specialised learning classes for Languages, Art, Music etc. We also thought it would be great to be inclusive and include a Satillite classroom where children with special needs could be included in a mainstream setting. In that classroom we included sensory areas so these children were able to have a sensory diet as part of their learning programme enabling them for better learning.

It was very interesting to see the different range of Schools that the other teachers came up with. It was great to see that one group had a mission statement on their School designs. It was also interesting to see how the other teachers were inclusive of other learning areas and needs for the children.  I really enjoyed collaborating ideas with my group as well as sharing ideas with the other teachers.

Writing moderation

This term for one of our School assessments our School did e-asTTle writing assessments.
During our  Kia Manawanui team meeting we had a chance to moderate writing samples from each of our class-Below, At and Above for years 4s, 5s, 6 and 7s.

When we were moderating our writing samples we used the writing rubric to help us with finding out where the children were at in their writing. For example: looking at spelling and the rubric and the child's piece of writing and seeing if they are at R1,R2,R3,R4,R5 or R6.





We also used the Narrative writing examples to help us with moderating our writing samples. These writing samples gave us an ideas of where the children's writing should be at and what it should look like. Having another teacher moderate my classes writing samples helped because they write examples of what they saw in the writing as well as what was missing. So I really found this very helpful in my teaching.

I found it really helpful when we came together as a syndicate and moderated samples together so we could see what other children's work was like in the other class and compare our results.  It was very useful. Im looking forward to when our School collates together a set of exemplars of students writing from years 1-8 in the different ranges so we can use then in our moderation as well as use then as examples of good writing in our classroom teaching.

Writing is one of my passions, so being able to look at different strategies and reflect on how I can help the children accelerate in their writing is what I have passion for as I believe writing plays a significant role in life and being able to give the students the tools to be able to develop their writing is a really good life skills which will help them in the future.

Teacher overall teacher judgement

Today in Team meeting we discussed what Overall Teacher Judgement involves.

Overall teacher judgement comes from a range of sources such as children's blogs, antidotal notes, classroom observations, modelling books, tests, group learning. End of year 5-using national standards grid.

Overall Teacher Judgement means focusing on and using the learning evidence gathered to make an overall Teacher judgement on a students learning and progress.
This end of term we have had to put together our Overall teacher judgements. In our Kia Manawanui team we discussed our Overall teacher judgements and presented the evidence that we had gathered.
It was really useful because we could see the different levels in the children's learning as well as the different evidence gained. We used children's work that they had blogged as well as testing results, learning tasks done in class.


Here is an example of how evidence is collected from the Tki site.

Maths planning for the bigger picture-Sue Pine

Today we had Maths professional development with Sue Pine our Maths facilitator.
Here are some of the things that we discussed regarding planning for mathematics in the classroom as a team.

Goals- Identify the purpose of a task and what a lesson will look like.
Establish group norms for working collaboratively.
Motivate and engage students with group worthy tasks.
Develop a sequence of purposeful lessons.

Question that we discussed as a whole group:
What are the kind of things you don't like children to say or do when you are working with a group with a maths problem?

• Calling out. 
• Working our answer really fast but not explaining how they solved their answers. 
• Not thinking about the question.

What would you like rest of class to do when you are working with a group. 

• Listening.
• Sharing ideas. 
• Positive reinforcement. 
• Working collaboratively on a maths problem as a group task.
• Managing themselves well and knowing exactly what they should be doing. 

Giving children the chance to work out the problem on their own. Teacher then comes and checks and then moves away so that she does not solve it for the children. 

Where do the problems that I devise sit on the national standards? What is it that my students should be  doing at their level. How can we accelerate their learning at the level that they are at?

Task Purpose-Independent VS group worthy

1. What kinds of tasks would you use to find out what the students know
2. What kinds of tasks would you use to develop students mathematical thinking?
3. What kind of task would you use to check in on student progress and understanding?
4. Which kind of task would you use to gather national standards evidence?

Group setting: get them to use one paper and have shared thinking/sharing of ideas. 

What does a good mathematician do? 

1. Shares their thinking.
2. Represents their thinking in many different ways.
3. Able to explain their thinking and how they go their answer confidently. 

What kinds of problems can we use for our students and is it at the right level?

Useful Resource: Fraction frames, figure it out booklets, numeracy planning sheets, NZ MATHS. 

What might your sequence of lessons look like?

Develop a sequence of lessons to support students learning at your level. Keep in mind the purpose of each lesson.

Posing of questions to find out what the children already know-Accessing prior knowledge.

I found the Professional development very useful and how I pose Mathematical questions based on the national standards.

At year 5 and 6 level children should be at stage 6 by the end of the year. So being able to have the national standards up in the classroom and being able to refer to our year 5-6 Target goals is really helpful towards accelerating children in their learning.