He Kaitiaki

Blogpost 5 for Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori

Today I went for a walk around our school at our learning break time (morning tea). 

I took the following photos in just one ten minute block of time.

In the staffroom I found a Year 11 boy proud of baking his first pavlova lats night, having brought it in for teachers to sample.... unfortunately by the time I ran back to the office and got my phone to take a photo the teachers had devoured it!

In the gym were a group of Early Years students having a game of netball against some teachers, teacher aides and administrative staff, being refereed by a couple of Year 10 girls

Coming out of the gym I encountered  teacher carrying a box of bananas and oranges outside for students to eat
(thanks to the Fruit in Schools programme)

Walking past the whānau room I said hello to the public health practitioner setting up ready to start hearing and vision testing after morning tea.

In the sick bay I found a young Year 3 student who was sick, waiting for her father to pick her up. her older Year 13 sister had come in to check up on her.

Walking outside I found a group of students ranging from Year 4 to Year 9 all playing a kicking version of four square

Further along the verandah were a couple of teachers working on laptops out in the sun, rather than inside in the cold.

And at the other end of the verandah were some super heroes hard at work.

Out on the field a group of boys were playing some kind of hybrid game- again students ranged from Year 2 through to Year 8.

And others are playing in the sandpit (bad photo!)

A teacher is talking to one of the pre school teachers over the fence that some senior students built for the pre school last year.

A teacher aide wanders out for a chat in the sunshine about what she needs to do next period.

What a wonderful display of aroha, manaakitanga and whānaungatanga I saw in just 10 minutes of a learning break.

Students and staff of TKAS- you rock!

He Kaimahi

Blogpost 4 for Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori

Today has been one of those days of true work ethic:

7.00 At school to prepare for a training session I was running later in morning

8.15-8.45: Individual coaching session with a teacher

8.45-9.45 Run a Teacher Aide training session

9.45 drive into town

10.15-12.15 Attend community principals meeting

12.30 Drive back to school

1.00-2.45 SLT meeting to confirm some details of upcoming events, and to spend time discussing our coaching and appraisal focus for the next fortnight

2.45-3.30 Planning meeting with a learning community

3.30-4.30 Attend an in-house PLD session on Te Reo

4.30-5.00 Meet with office manager to discuss and approve financials

5.30-8.00 BOT meeting

8.30-9.30 Participate in edchatnz

Wow, thank goodness days like this don’t always happen and I normally get to spend some time in classes with learners. But sometimes circumstances conspire to give Principals days like this! Thank goodness for edchat so that I could spend the last hour of my full day focusing on some positive educational connections and collaboration.

He Kaiako

Blogpost 3 for Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori

Today I am writing this as we wind up the third night at Mindlab where there are a group of local educators working towards a postgraduate certificate in digital and collaborative technology. 

Tonight we have learnt some basic programming and made music using play dough and assortment of toys in collaborative groups. We have discussed collaborative learning and assessed rubrics about them. We've completed a survey about educational researchers using a google form and looked at the results. 

We've explored digital tools to make compiling and accessing research easier. 

And while this has all been great learning- and I've certainly learnt new things and been pushed out of my comfort zone to explore things I might not choose to when left to myself the most valuable thing of Mindlab I am already coming to appreciate is that forced thinking, reflection and discussion time.

To be physically in a space for four hours, where you are exploring and thinking and discussing and justifying, sharing, listening and learning seems like a real luxury in todays world. It's already making me realise that I can lead very busy days and I need to make sure I continue to make time to do this. 

It's such an important part of learning and one that can go in the busy-ness of a leaders life.

I love learning- but as well as my usual work I am also completing my last Bachelors paper at Uni and doing a Te Reo online course. Sometimes I get caught up in getting assignments completed rather than focusing on the learning (exactly what we get frustrated with our senior students doing with NCEA) 

So I'm now seeing Mindlab as a great privilege to be part of. Its affording me the opportunity to me, take stock, really think and justify some of my learning beliefs. It is helping me ensure I am being a real learner.

And I'm looking forward to the seven hour drive with Morgan and Tara to Palmy and back at the weekend for Educamp. Was kind of wandering if I should be going with all the assignments I have due and the times Im away int he ext three weeks. But the thought of seven hours of time to talk about the stuff we are thinking and doing and seeing. And then a day at educamp talking with lots of different people. And then a seven hour drive home to talk more with Morgan and tara about what we learn during the day is exciting!

He Kaiwhakarite

Blogpost 2 for Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori

Today I am thinking about how I manage all the resources in our kura in order to  produce outcomes that positively transform learning communities.

Managing physical resources- spaces, finances, administrative systems er all imprint part of the role and if we don’t ensure those systems are in place, operating and regularly reviewed then things can fall over and we spend a lot of inefficient time trouble shooting rather than focusing on learning. So those systems are definitely important.

However it os often said the most important resource in a school are its people. We have staff that have been with us for our entire five years, and others who are new this year, and a few in between. Everyone is at different places of their understanding of the curriculum we are trying to deliver. One of the things we identified last year was that to take our curriculum delivery to the next level we would need to implement a detailed coaching programme for our staff. 

We have trialled lots of different ways to manage this, as the ambition to meet weekly with every staff member and coach them was rather challenging to meet time wise. I know I ended up meeting the people I was coaching in teams to try to manage time for both myself and them. This wasn't always effective as although they may be wanting to work on the same thing they are at different places in their own capabilities. And the whole point of coaching is to ask the questions that get people deeply reflecting on their own practice in order to effect change in their practice.

This term we have redefined our coaching model a little and set up some small coaching teams that will meet every second week focusing on the workshops being taken in a particular learning area and targeting student progress over the following fortnight, On the alternative week we will meet with each person we coach them individually more around their individual responsibilities, teaching and school-wide and their own self management strategies.

I have a reminder in my calendar to spend 30 minutes every Friday making the meeting times for the next fortnight- we are aiming to do a mixture of in non contact time and before/after school meetings. 

 So far, so good. Two weeks in and its working. Ive managed to meet all my teams twice and all individuals at least once in the last fortnight and its becoming much more manageable with a little more focus, purpose and deliberate timetabling.

He Kanoi Matara

Blogpost 1 for Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori

It's an ongoing challenge recognising and valuing the past but envisioning the future and continually reaching for new ways to do things to engage our learners and prepare them for the future.  
To capitalise on innovation and simultaneously embed cultural imperatives into our learning programme is no easy feat. 

What are the ways we are trying to do this at the moment? 

Innovate by teaching multiple years together- our senior learning community has 90 learners from Years 6-13 learning with 6 different kaiako in one connected series of seven learning spaces. Embed cultural imperatives be embracing the notion of tuakana-teina. The learning community is really like one large whānau all learning together.


Innovate by collaboratively teaching and learning. Embed cultural imperatives by recognising the value of one village working together to raise a child. WE do not have individual responsibility for a learners achievement and progress- academically or "whole-life." We embrace collective respsonsiblity for all learners within our learning community and across the school.

Innovate by devolving some of the hierarchical structures of leadership traditionally present in a school. Embed cultural imperatives by taking different roles on different days, by being aware of each other and when others need support (whānaungatanga.)  We do not have official leaders of learning communities but expect them to operate as a team. Our leaders lead schoolwide teams where they are responsible for developing an aspect of our school curriculum further across the school. They are given whole day release times to meet each term and further this work. If we want them to have value we have to give them the time.

Innovate by thinking what it is we really want our learners to leave us with after 13 eyes and making this come alive. Embed cultural imperatives by placing the concept of hauora firmly in the centre of our graduate profile, and ensuring that both we and our students are constantly reflecting and assessing our students in all four aspects of the Tapa wha model.

My Learning Muscles and Me

Last week at Mindlab we got to talking about the key competencies and how we show them ourselves as leaders and teachers. It’s an interesting concept. Teachers are often very good at expecting these things in students but sometimes forget about them themselves. Have you ever tried to facilitate a room full of teachers working on something and get everyone’s attention at the same time? Often those very same people who take a long time to focus their attention on the facilitator would expect immediate attention from children in their class. 

It was interesting to do a short survey of where people saw their strengths. The overwhelming response was that  the majority of people thought they had a strength in relating to others. Perhaps, not surprising in  rooms full of teachers we decided. However I happened to be sitting next to another principal and we were both quietly saying to each other that we hadn’t put that as our strongest, that sometimes it was just useful to get on with things by ourselves. Is this a signal of the kinds of people that become Principals, or a signal of the way the position can drive you at times, or a combination or perhaps just a coincidence?

At Te Karaka Area School we talk about and use learning muscles rather than the key competencies- although the learning muscles clearly relate to the key competencies. As a staff and leadership team we have developed skill and expertise in facilitating the understanding and development of learning muscles school-wide and it was our intention to try and use them to develop our staff PLD programme this year although that hasn't really happened.

I thought I’d take this opportunity to reflect on myself as a leader and set some targets in relation to our learning muscles.

COURAGE- I’ve got increasingly discouraged about the big gap out there between what teachers want to do and what they are “being allowed’ to do.  I need to have the courage to continue sharing our school story, and challenging the practices out there in other schools which are restricting innovation and growth to flourish.

CURIOSITY- One of the things I decided to do was take the opportunities for post graduate study through Mindlab. Although Ive worked with digital and collaborative technology for a while there’s always new things to learn.

I need to have curiosity to explore old and new- not assume IT’s stuff I might already know.

EXPERIMENTING/INVESTIGATING/IMAGINATION- Ive been working in the field of MLE/MLP/FF learning for a long time now- over 10 years and it’s easy to flick back to old solutions when people I work with have challenges.

I need to keep an open mind and spend time and energy collaborating and exploring all kinds of solutions rather than flicking back to some of the things that worked for me as they won't necessarily work for other people.

EMPATHY- It’s very easy in this job to get very task oriented because there is always so much that needs doing. 

I need to continue to take the time to have empathy for the stress and workload that people may be feeling and appropriately challenge and support.

STICKABILITY- Feeling a little like Ive bitten off quite a lot this term- last paper in bachelors degree, postgrad diploma at Mindlab, learning Te Reo paper by distance conference Im on the executive for and presenting at, a couple of national leaderships teams I’m on, coaching a significant number of our staff individually and in small teams, as well as all the normal principal stuff, and perhaps a little bit of teaching too!

I need to plan time carefully and stick to it!

SOCIABILITY/ REASONING- See stickability

I need to ensure I plan some time out and social stuff to balance things out a little. I need to ensure I use reasoning skills to prioritise and manage my time effectively.

REFLECTION- I tend to reflect much better on teaching and learning than on leadership.

I will put aside reflection time each week that focuses specifically on leadership

Thanks to Mindlab and @timgander for the amazing post grad study opportunity and for provoking my thinking already. Looking forward to the next 40 weeks.

Passion Class Experiences

I have been participated in some interesting discussions lately about genius hour or 20% time or passion based learning. It certainly seems to have gained traction with lots of teachers. Again like anything else that's being done it will fall over if yo go into it without any structure. If you go and look at schools running this successfully and just try to do it in yours it could quite possibly fail. It has to be purposeful. It has to explicitly fit inside a learning vision- preferably a school-wide vision. You need to be able to articulate this.  Learners and teachers need scaffolds and buy in and understanding of why it is being done.

Invariably alongside these discussions comes the questions about how to deal with students who just don't have anything they want to engage in when you give the learning over to them. 

We run passion classes at TKAS every day. (Our Inspire programme was the forerunner to this-see appendix below.) We run three period days and our passion classes run for one of those each day. They are a third of our total learning programme. Our learners don't have much choice about passion classes. They are assigned to them on a weekly basis. Teachers repeat a passion class each week for 3-4 weeks and then design and teach a different one, so most learners get to do most passion classes.

@garystager said on twitter earlier this year: schools should introduce kids to things they don't yet know they love! This is what our passion classes are for.

Our learners have huge choice in the rest of their learning. They learn through inquiry. They are expected to be working on at least two inquiries at any one time. One that has been offered and designed usually by two teachers working together, and another that is their "flow inquiry." Students self direct their learning in these other two periods. They construct a timetable and follow it. Teachers are available to support and assist learning. They offer workshops to help students progress their inquiries.

Flow inquiries can be anything that learners want to be inquiring into. 

When we first started offering this as an option, we found so many of our learners just couldn't decide on anything to inquire into outside a very narrow range of interests.

Our passion classes are designed to help this. We make them compulsory and assign learners to them, and we talk to learners about the fact we want them to try things out for a week, and if they want to take that learning any further then they can start a flow injury on it; if not they have had a valuable learning experience.

They are designed to promote high levels of collaboration and engage learners in developing high levels of oral communication. We run them multi level (all Year 3-7 together, all Year 8-13 together) which means learners can be exposed to a range of classes that may become passions for them from a range of adults. The beauty of a school set up around collaborative teaching is that we can offer this flexibility.  

All of our learning focuses on and aims to build our students "learning muscles." (See previous blogposts.) Our passion classes are about opening the doors to curiosity for our learners. Our desire is that by developing their curiosity  we are giving them multiple opportunities to discover a wide range of passions. This is a really important learning muscle for our learners and a positive outcome from passion based learning.

And all passion experiences contribute to our learners growing their understanding of themselves as a person aligned to the Tapa Wha Hauora model. At the end of each week learners reflect and summarise their learning within their portfolio. They identify the learning muscles they have stretched, and the quadrants of the Tapa Wha model they have strengthened. And only after they have done that do they get to considering learning areas they have developed knowledge and skills in using school learning area progressions.

A "senior class" with a Year 7, Year 10 and Year 13 learners all working together to create kaitiaaki maara.

A "junior" passion class on forced perspectives.

Appendix:

In 2011 when we opened we started running a programme called Inspire. All day class every Friday. The classes ran for a term. Year 7-13. Students selected their class, although some had a number limit. 

Because we were on a temporary site and we were squashed we encouraged staff to take classes out of school. We ran surfing classes, and fishing classes. We took environment art classes, and ran survival type classes. We used a relieving teacher to offer French one term. We ran some music and dance classes. We tried to get learners out into the real world. 

In our second and third year we operated with no access to any specialist technology facilities at all. So we ran all these different Inspire classes to expose learners to things upside of the school environment. Things they might not get exposed to on their own. 

These classes were designed to inspire our learners and to get them to transfer this part of their learning back to other learning. And they worked. Learners and teachers did become inspired in a range of  things over the years. They were our first attempt as a school at passion based learning. Now, when so much of our normal classroom learning is based on inquiry learning and self directed learning we identified we had changing needs to meet and have moved to daily passion experience classes in 2015.

MLE and MLP- a returning fad, or something that could be truly transformative?

I have some real concerns about some of the things I have been reading from teachers struggling in new MLE’s this year.

If nothing else changes except collaborative spaces and collaborative teaching then the end result will not change. You are just repeating the open plan experiments of the 70s and 80s and it will fall over sooner or later.

If you are still taking reading groups and writing groups and math groups in the same way, just on a bigger scale with more teachers and with several classes, then you are just streaming and making more work for everyone, because of the communication and organisation required. You are teaching traditionally in a shared space. You are using a MLE, but not practising MLP.  There is a huge difference. 

If you have not spent time seriously exploring pedagogy, andragogy and heutagogy then you are going to fall into the trap of teaching the same way, just on a bigger scale.

Truly interrogating what you currently do requires some serious consideration of what is currently seen and accepted as best practice. Why is it best practice? Who decided? Is it best practice for all groups of learners? Is the numeracy project really meeting your identified student needs? Who says it is best practice? How well does it marry our curriculum? How well does it marry with BES? Is it moving your kids? Is there stages that they just roadblock at and need something different? Same for writing and reading? Where are the authentic links? Are they authentic for the actual kids in front of you? Or are they authentic in an adults head and world? According to what is what we are doing best practice? 

Is what you value being assessed with the same degree of importance attached to it? 

Or is it what you say you value but not what you really value? If we say we value confidence, then are we finding ways to evaluate, assess and report this just as vigorously as we do reading achievements or do we just measure what is easy to measure therefore giving strong messages to our learners about what we really value?

What is your graduate profile, and how are your day to day interactions and practices helping this? What do you do every day with your learners to explicitly move them towards this? Do your kids have true ownership of their learning? Can they evidence learning against your graduate profile? Or do they just know about their reading, writing and maths levels and next learning steps?

I believe one of the keys to MLP is self regulation. Kids practicing self direction are practicing for directing their own lives. Developing self directed learners requires us to design learning in some very different ways. If we are trying to get them to do the same old reading, writing and maths group follow up tasks and just putting them on a “must do, can do” list has our practice really changed that much, and is it going to affect any great different outcome? 

Self direction, coupled with infusing reading, writing and maths into chunks of deep learning- preferably driven by engaging learners in big problems and helping them develop real passions in learning that can take many paths over time is an important key.

This won’t fit into neatly packaged 10 week term overviews, and some of these archaic requirements from schools and leaders need to change from the top to give our teachers license to innovate. 

To truly personalise programmes means being responsive to individuals needs in an ongoing way. And you cant personalise programmes when learners are stuck in set, inflexible groupings. And you cant personalise learning if you are trying to fit it into neat 10 week packaged sets of learning intentions. 

MLE and MLP should not be just the return of another fad of teaching. But it runs the risk of being if there is not serious exploration and interrogation of pedagogy, andragogy and heutagogy. And it will be unless schools change what it is they value assessing.

And this requires courage. Because the system will always be slower to change. So those that change first run the risk of failing the system. But isn't the risk of this better than failing our students? Many of them (even the ones showing so called success) have been failed by the system for a long time. 

Join schools like HPSS in having that courage. Their approach to NCEA needs to be lauded. Ive pondered the purpose of NCEA Level 1 ever since I began working with secondary learners. HPSS have  identified what is important for their learners and put a plan in place to meet that even though this will ruffle feathers and affect their short term “statistics.” Whats more their learners will be truly engaged in learning, rather than counting credits. 

We are doing the same by basing our foundation years on play. This will affect our national standard statistics for the first 2-3 years of school, but every indication we have been able to see tells us we will maintain learners engagement and as they are ready to begin more formal instruction their ‘statistics” will then truly accelerate. But its a long term fix not a short-term one. It’s about building on the natural enthusiasm and engagement in learning our kids come to school with. Not about assessing what kids cant do and then making them do more and more of the same thing in an attempt to improve them. And at the same time often unintentionally completely disengaging them from the learning process.

Isn't truly engaging kids in real learning what we all should be truly passionate about?

If you are not managing to find time to connect with learners in conversations focused on their learning individually on a very regular basis then you are not leveraging the opportunities MLE and MLP can provide. 

It could be you are trying to do everything you used to do in a single cell classroom on a big basis and that is not MLP or the purpose of working in a MLE. 

Start some conversations with your colleagues as to why you are using your current practices? And dig deep. Keep asking why

We Need to Do Different

Thirteen years ago marks a transformative change in my approach to teaching and learning. Its when I realised it was about learning not teaching.

I wrote this in 2006:

At the end of 2001, 14 years of experience in the classroom along with some very motivating professional development experiences - including attending NAVCON and visiting the new Primary School Discovery 1 after it had been in operation for two terms had me convinced learning should and could be very different than what the traditional classroom allowed. In 2002 I was very lucky to have the opportunity to work with a colleague who had very similar thoughts to mine and after a lot of professional dialogue and debate we set about changing the face of our classrooms. 

The classroom programme we developed together for our combined classes involved students writing individual timetables each week. They were provided with a list of set times they would need to attend workshops for some basic learning needs- sometimes in core curriculum areas, and then given a list of optional workshops teachers would be running through the week, some of which they can choose when to attend and some of which they could choose whether to attend. All students had differentiated core personal learning plans they followed for stand alone Maths and Literacy learning. They could then select independent learning from any of their learning plans and from the constructed, independent learning theme activities for the term to complete their timetable for the week. 

The crux of the rest of the learning programme had integration at its core. One classroom theme was explored in depth for the term with both class and group workshop learning experiences as well as independent activities provided to enhance the learning points. A real effort was made to include out of classroom experiences at this stage in the development of the theme. Various learning strategies are included in workshops in the first half of the term. In the second half of the term students worked on an inquiry in an area of personal interest related to the theme. The level of inquiry could depend on the students’ learning ability and can range from completely independent and in-depth over 5-6 weeks to a more structured inquiry where we as teachers facilitated some of the inquiry at the knowledge and comprehension levels and then the students took more control at the analysing and synthesising stages of the inquiry. 

Completed inquiries over the years we worked in this environment both excited and enthralled me with the level of understanding and development I have witnessed in students once they are given the freedom to pursue learning in this way. 

Team teaching and the willingness to share with, learn from, celebrate success and reflect on disappointments with a colleague was an integral part of the success of this learning environment- for both students and teachers.
Other features of the learning environment included:

• ICT, with 15 computers in the environment used both as an information source and means of analysing information along side their use for more creative synthesis of learning. Producing animations of learning and using photography as well as keeping a digital portfolio to represent learning were both strong features of the learning environment. 
• strong communication with parents.E-mailed newsletters each Monday listed workshops to be taught, learning intentions to be covered and other general information for the week. 
• a learning celebration/ parent sharing evening each term where not only completed products from the term but the processes are shared. Strong use was made of digital images and a digital video to record the process all term. These are edited for sharing with parents as an integral part of the students’ preparation for the sharing evenings. These times are also used for students to share inquiry learning processes as well as final products with both family and the wider school community. 
• the majority of parent teacher meetings involved the students as well. The students developed the skills to take more leadership within this setting
  

Yes, we had to deal with questions and issues from other teachers and from parents. These kids had every perception of being engaged and achieving well already. It didn't appear that anything needed to change. In reality they weren’t that engaged in learning - at best they were compliant and achieving because they had the privilege of reasonable backgrounds, at worst they were going through the motions and just getting through from year to year.This was all done in a very old dreary two classroom block. We chainsawed a hole through the wall between them but they were old and cold, and in fairly horrible condition.

So why share this now? 

I have seen a lot of writing about MLE and MLP over the last few weeks. These are relatively new terms and in my opinion are being used as a cover all for many different things in schools. Ive read some particularly clear posts about this from Matt Ives at Amesbury and Danielle and Steve at HPSS. Having flash new buildings or furniture or open spaces does not mean that you have moved to a modern practice. Traditional practice is happening in some MLE. And MLP is being practiced admirably in some schools with old traditional buildings. 

To use Steve’s term I worry there is too much of an echo chamber in education at the moment. What we have done for years isn't serving todays learners as well as we could be. We still have massive underachievement of underprivileged learners. Learners of privilege in many schools are being compliant but not engaged in learning. But there’s a lot of back patting and accolades about things that are really very small changes. We need transformation. Learning needs to look different than it does in many schools. We need to stop fooling ourselves that our practices  have really changed very much if at all. The world has changed rapidly in the 28 years since I began teaching and yet, I am seeing planning and teaching that is pretty much the same- it just looks a bit flasher but its still the same and that is wrong. Its not the same world and the same things cannot be serving learners as well as we possibly can.

Im not saying teachers don't work hard- they do to the point where they can’t possible envisage how they can add something in or change something about what they do. Change is hard and change is tiring. But so is battling the same things year in year out. And transformative change is nearly, if not totally, impossible if you expect teachers to keep doing the same thing and tweaking it little by little. We need to give our teachers permission to change in big ways and in big steps.

MLP isn't new- the above example is from 2002. The fact that schools and teachers operating these kids of programmes are still being seen as experimental and come under intense scrutiny and negativity from some of those still operating traditional programmes needs to change.  Leaders need to be courageous and they need to give their staff permission to be courageous.  

I know that external pressures like NCEA and national standards make leaders and teachers scared to experiment with changes that may engage learners more. But you can get results. I have seen incredible results- both with privileged and underprivileged learners using learning programmes like the above. (Even using traditional assessments which I don't think should be the be all of everything we use to judge and evaluate our learners anyway.) 

Sure you may face an implementation dip when you first change from the traditional rotation force feeding of reading skills, writing skills etc and you develop engaging programmes that allow you to personalise the teaching of those skills as they are needed. When multiple literacies become something learners use to learn with and through rather than doing writing and reading or literacy at a certain time of the day, they wont be able to be assessed in exactly the same way and that is scary but we need to have courage. When older students are involved in project based learning that is rigorous and all involving you can't always evaluate their learning in a separate silo subject assessment approach.

In my opinion this change is taking way way too long to become the norm. Our young people need a tipping point and they need it now. 

We want our young people to grow up as confident life long learners who will take a risk with their learning. How will they if the leaders and educators and remain so risk-adverse to the transformative change that is needed? Leaders need to have the courage to open these conversations with the wider society as a whole. The same wider society who want to embrace all the change in the world but expect schools to look the same as they were when they were in them. Let's move on form 'it was good enough for me..." 

And leaders need to have the courage to experience the implementation dip and hang in there for the engagement and the real life learning that will occur.

Modern learning practice is not about making teaching and teachers less important, quite the opposite. Teachers are vital to activating successful and engaged learning for the learners they work with. They need to have personalised knowledge of each learner and an excellent knowledge of learning and learning steps, but also the expertise and openness to accept that learning is not linear and that the next learning step might look different for each person and cannot always be bound in a neat curriculum prescription. 

And modern learning practice is not about accepting the rhetoric we have accepted for years and saying we are doing our best, we cant do any more. 

We don't need to do more. 

We need to do different. 

And we need to do it now.

The blogposts referred to above:

Steve Mouldey- MLP not MLE

https://stevemouldey.wordpress.com/2015/03/02/mlp-not-mle/#more-1248

Steve Mouldey- shattering the echo chamber

https://stevemouldey.wordpress.com/2015/02/17/shattering-the-echo-chamber/

Danielle Myburgh- Coming out of the Class Size Closet

http://missdtheteacher.blogspot.co.nz/2015/02/coming-out-of-class-size-closet.html

Matt Ives

http://mattivesonline.com/2015/03/04/learning-in-a-modern-learning-environment/

Keeping us True to our Plans

I just looked at my Blog and realised its March and Ive written one blogpost in all of February. Don’t think I quite made the one blogpost a week goal I set in January. Time to get back on track.

So amongst the normal hectic February setting things up for the year stuff what else has got off track?

We have been struggling to help some students manage themselves. We’ve been encountering some behaviours we hadn't seen for quite a while. Refusal to engage in learning, physical fighting and trying to set up fights, lack of completion of any quality learning, inappropriate use of devices etc etc We tried various strategies to manage and manipulate these behaviours all of which fell over fairly quickly. So putting aside some valuable time we sat down as a team and put aside our ideas of “how to fix,” and thought about what was wrong. Who did we have concerns about and where did we think the concerns were emanating from? With a couple of explainable exceptions basically all of our concerns were about learners who were new to our learning programmes- either this year or late last year.

Now thats not surprising in itself. We operate with high degrees of self regulation. We teach integrated inquiries. We have 90 learners aged from 11 through to 18 in the same environment working with six teachers. Every learner has their own device and we don't operate a stringent net nanny programme. We have an open learning environment and when learners aren't required to be at a workshop with a teacher they can choose anywhere in any of the seven learning spaces in the hub to be working independently. We use restorative practices and there's no yelling at kids and no detentions. We don't have bells- what we say to our learners is “we expect you to manage yourself to be back in your learning environment at the right time,” because we believe thats a powerful way to authentically build self regulation for their futures.

When we explain to some of these students that we and other students learning are being affected by their choices and behaviours some of them are genuinely surprised because ‘no-ones ever yelled at me, and I haven't been on detention so I thought I must be being ok.” 

So its really no surprise that a significant group of new learners they were struggling and we were seeing some of these behaviours.  For learners that have been entrenched in a traditional system where they are told what to do, when to do it and how to do it, being thrust into an environment with so many choices and so much freedom is scary and unknown. Especially when you aren't as aware of the structures  that actually underpin all of those choices that the learners who have been with us form the beginning do get and understand.

But my concern me as a leader is that we foresaw this last year. When we created our charter and curriculum plan for the year as a leadership team, and then as a BOT and staff we spent a good chunk of time identifying barriers to the success of our vision. And then another significant chunk of time on how we could mitigate those barriers.

New learners to school not getting what we do and why we do it and therefore not engaging and and possibly derailing other kids was definitely a key barrier we identified. We were going to mitigate this by developing and running an induction programme for learners- an in-depth induction more than just a 30 minute this is how we do things here session. In fact writing that induction programme was on my Wunder List (https://www.wunderlist.com/download/) from Day 1. I kept deferring it to another day because I thought it wasn't as important as something else I would get doing. And then I got caught up dealing with the behaviours that were emerging- behaviours that ironically I may have been prevented if I had made sure that barriers document and a learner induction plan was a living document we acted on from Day1.

We now have implemented a strategy to help these learners. Its taking a lot of man power and time and energy but thats exactly what they need. There are huge structures underpinning what we do and they need to be directly taught those structures and the purpose for them and how that is displayed in the practices we use in the learning environment in order that they in their turn can become constructive members of the learning environment we run.

I’ve taken pride in the fact that we run, and continue to run in depth induction prroarammes for all staff at the beginning of each year- returning staff and new staff, teaching staff ad support staff. We spend days exploring the charter for the year, our curriculum plans for the year and how our eldership will work and support learning.

I’ve never wanted those documents to become something written to sit on the shelf.

Why did I forget it was as important to do the same with our learners?

We had barriers documented and plans to mitigate them but we weren't quick enough putting something in place. This weekend I will be revisiting that list of barriers and seeing what else we need to plan for now rather than waiting  until we get to a place where we have to be reactive.