DFI: Creation is the Beginning

We need to ensure we focus on the opportunity to create. 

Creation is everything. Without creation we have nothing to share, nothing to offer. We are not empowered or validated. We are purposeless and limited, feeding off the creations of others.

Dorothy Burt did not call creativity lacking teachers purposeless life suckers, but she did stir an inner flame of creativity in the members of the DFI cohort today. She put creativity back on the platform of 'things that make the world tick'.

Quora succinctly described creativity by stating, 'When someone is creative they turn imagination in reality'.

Have the children in my classroom had the opportunity to create today?
Have I had the opportunity to create?

These are the questions that challenged me. These are the question that I should be asking myself everyday. The thought that niggled at the back of my mind while Dorothy shared was 'I need to be what I teach'.

I constantly need to be raising the bar in my own life. The children aren't mimicking or seeing the skills that I learnt before, the limited knowledge that I had as a child or even as a beginning teacher. They view the skills that I have now. The behaviour that I am displaying everyday. If I am encouraging them to be mindful am I demonstrating this in the classroom each day?

And so it follows:
Am I being Creative each day? What have I created today? As a teacher is it just new knowledge that I create? What about all of those other rich areas of creativity? Am I using these? Am I including them in my classroom everyday?

What is to stop us going back and re engaging with the richness of creativity of time and exploration?
We need to leave behind the old mentalities behind, as the weight of responsibility to 'do it all' becomes just too much to carry. Dragging old school approaches along within the phase of change fills me with a weight of guilt  and incapability. There is world of creativity waiting. In the building of new sites, the creation of new resources, the discussion and sharing of ideas. We should be excited and inspired by this and not overwhelmed.

What I love about the Maniakalani approach is the gathering of collective knowledge and the richness of meaningful experience. This gives such a genuine and grounded view. It is an old school view of the community carrying the knowledge. This is worth applying and hanging onto. It's another one of those 'things that make the world tick'.

Another point that resonated for me was something that I have been guilty of doing many times before. Dorothy went on to explain that...'Teacher's often expect that they plan for learning and the teaching of this incredible learning will go straight to the child's brain. Very few brains work this way. Most humans need a conduit to allow that information and skills to take hold. Something needs to happen to be done and this is the create process. All of these conduits can be amplified and are contained in digital technologies. An example of this was Lachlan's blog post. The head boy at a local high school who created and mixed multiple pieces of music, captured these with the digital processes and used his online platform to share and publicise his creativity to a wide audience.

Dorothy continued to explain that great shifts in learning and acceleration comes about when teachers intentionally plan rich tasks for children to create.

We can empower students through:

• choice
• information and knowledge
• developing skills
• building capacity
• scaffolding

Many of us create to learn. But learning and creation are synonymous. Learning comes from creation. The creation of a hook, event, assembly, moment, site or object can be the spark which ignites the learning. They are interconnected.

An example given in one presentation today explored the idea of starting learning with a hook. Teachers created plays, special assemblies and information videos to share with their learners the creation that the children would soon be partaking in. I considered wether the hook might the game away? Does it remove from the children the choice and the development of something new?
Why is it purposeful to learn prior knowledge if the task is already designed?

I am challenging this example because I accidentally discovered the richness of 'creation' when my class and I decided to build a canoe to learn about the process of paper mache. The project grew into its own beautifully unplanned rich inquiry. Experiments regarding, weight , balance, displacement, bouyancy, materials and all manner of cooperative learning ensued. because of this 'aha' moment I am always wary of the downfall of intentionally planning locked in content.

We can fall into the trap that one size fits all. This is the opposite to universal design for learning. I have fallen into this trap. I have been guilty of planning to use a special site, a special app, a technique or process without carefully considering the limitations of the 'create' section in my planning.

Dorothy explained it in, reffering to Chrissy Butler's work in universal design for learning, in words similar to this: As educators now, we cannot deny that everyone is different and unique. We know that learners don't learn the same way. If we give them one tool that they love and engage with even then it limits them to just one way.  The default used to be myself, starting from what I know - this is no longer true. There is no default. There is only multiple opportunities and modes and we need to use them.

It would be a scary downside if leaners and people simply consumed ( opportunities and technologies)  rather than created.

Dewey said, "Give the pupils something to do, not something to learn; and the doing is of such nature as to demand thinking; learning naturally results."

Leading companies have hooked into the creativity-less vacuums and theories and systems are beginning to emerge and flourish. Free tools are not only available but rampant. There are no barriers and anyone with the time to dedicate can access and create powerful ideas and methods of connection. Children are empowered by creation and the imbalance of power between children and adults is diminishing. But this is another curious social development altogether.

In finishing, I would welcome your feed on the thoughts, questions and reflections that I have shared here. Also, dear readers, this particular post was prompted by the Maniakalani Digital Fluency course in which Dorothy Burt presented via google Hangout.

Nga mihi



(The following notes are in reference to the DFI course and the new  tools and techniques I hope to action this week.)

Things I learnt:

• Make a new google site in a folder by just clicking on the plus button and selecting new google site.

• Get funky with slides: Change the html from 'present' to 'edit' to 'copy'.

• Sharing resources and the weight of creating multimodal learning pages is a treat. Thank you to all the amazing teachers who have shared their hard work and knowledge. I will be calling into the shared Excel document, adding to it and referring to it to boost, develop and create my own multi modal docs, slides, drawings etc.

• Sites can be used not only as a platform form class learning and planning but to collate information greater than can be contained in a multi modal artefact ( I don't know if this is the correct term.

• I am currently working on a Sight Sound and Motion sight to collate the vast amount of tools and creation possible fo our learning this term.

Things I have learnt and am definitely sharing with my learners this week:

• You can change the size of a google drawing by going, file > page setup > custom > pixels, and changing the size of your drawing by inputting different values.

• Don't go to google and find the image! Create the image: make it yourself!

DFI: Help! It's Hangouts!

Kia ora again,

It's good to have the reflection time to catch up with you all here and unload the hefty amount of learning that is pumped out for each of our Digital Fluency sessions.

Here's a shout out to all our great leaders and support crew that ran the session!

Workflow is one of my main weaknesses in my digital fluency journey. This started back in the junior school when I was teaching Year 2s with a limited amount of ipads in the class and enviously stressing over how to build a site and create rewindable and accessible learning while it seemed as if all the answers were being poured into the senior school. I am now sheepishly having to undo some of the bad habits that I have impatiently stumbled into at that stage.

I am desperate to increase the productivity of my design for teaching and learning and hope to start in the following areas addressed today:

Hangouts

As in all social situations, etiquette is important. Some of the etiquette of Google Hangouts is...

When group calling:
- use headphones
- mute your mic unless you are talking
-don't laptop share ( you end up too far away from the laptop to both be in the screen and this creates unnecessary sound feedback)
- always have your video turned on this is recognised as being part of the chat ( If you turn of your video it is as if you have walked out of the room.)

At the end of the day, we had a session where we had to create a google hangout with a small group of people to put into practice the skills that we learnt through out the day.

New knowledge and skills were leaping out about in my brain and in a near panic I managed to organise and capture a few following thoughts:

Quicktime player can be used to record your screen. Screen Castify is what I would normally use as this is what they children and my self are most familiar with in the classroom. As a teacher when using the internet and recording your screen using a non web-based program like Quicktime will be less of a drain on your streaming and internet usage.

It was interesting how members of the team responded to Mark and Stephany's instructions differently. I was internally feeling the need for support and validation and once again felt grateful for the reminder of what it is like to be a student. To feel what my students feel and understand the healthy 'stress' of gathering, remember and applying newly taught knowledge with the 'imagined' pressure of having to get it correct the first time.

It was also interesting speaking to others with the team muted. The lack of verbal validation and feedback was an interesting experience and made me consider how much I look for non verbal and verbal feedback when having a conversation. It also highlighted the familiarity with filming themselves that I notice in my children everyday and the lack of practice I have in filming myself and having conversations online.

The Maniakalani Pedagogy with Dorothy Burt

Prior to this practice session, we again had the privilege of hearing and interacting with Dorothy via Google Hangouts earlier in the morning.

She took us to the heart of teaching and learning by breaking down the 'what' and 'why' of LEARN.

This begins with accessing and engaging with exisiting knowledge ( in a digital learning environment), recognising effective teaching and accelerating learning with the consideration of moving teaching and learning pedagogy into the digital world without disrupting current learning ( not throwing the baby out with the bathwater) and even accelerating and improving learning outcomes within the digital world.


She highlighted the need to recognise effective practise - What is it that teachers are doing that is effective? How long do I spend noticing the practices others engage in? Do I look for good practice?

Google Class on Air

Effective practice is then to turbocharge the new learning practice by extending it in multiple ways. (SAMR) Rewindable learning is a big part of this: everything accessible and fast paced.

It was noted that these seven actions were synonymous with effective teaching practice.

Embedding effective practice in  technology enables us to remove barriers and provide opportunities for children that have never been possible and will not be possible within the schooling system. It allows solutions to problems in way that were never before considered.

 
Below are a collection of notes and learning from the day:

Things I've learnt from my colleagues:

• Focus sessions on Hapara con be set up through using 'Highlights' to lock certain students into a set screen. I have a lovely little autistic child in my room who 'stims' by setting timers that countdown, and will search bells and his favourite youtube songs in seconds when not monitored. This is going to be a great setting to help remove the distractions/ barriers to his learning.
• Right click on any open tab and select ' pin tab'. This feature remembers your tab and reopens it whenever you open chrome. I am going to teach this to the children tomorrow.
• 'Colour Picker', 'Eye Dropper' and 'Colourzilla' are all extensions that be used to selct specific colours. This is a tool for designing slides, DLOs and sites where the designer wants to match a background with a particular colour in an image.

Google Hangouts:

1. Create a new event in Google Calendar.
2. In the 'Advanced Settings/More Options' select 'Add Conferencing'.
3. Choose 'Hangout Meet'
4. Select the meeting url and paste it into an accessible location ( ie. shared document, site, or minutes)  or personally invite members by email.
5. Enter the Hangout link and admit any members who are joining.
6. Mute your microphone and message the group with a greeting.
7. To share your screen click on the screen to get your action toolbar within google hangouts and then click on start presenting - allow your entire screen to be presented. Move into the desired page. Don't forget to unmute at this point when you start talking. Click on stop presenting then mute when finished.
8. It is good protocol to have a member of the group act as MC. in essence chairing each meeting, prompting, providing feedback ad keeping the session on time. 
9. The entire conversation can be recorded. ( Quicktime is the best non internet program for doing this.)

Google Keep:

• Is the place for taking notes!
• use labels to keep track and organise your notes
• Install 'Google Keep' on your phone. Images can be taken on your phone and turned into text using the camera in Keep and selecting the three dots after taking a photo. Use the 'Change image to Text' option.
• Use Keep for reminders. Keep can send you reminders for birthdays, or, if a location is added to a note, will send you a notification when you are in a location that is connected to said note.
• Once Keep is installed it becomes an optional side bar in your documents. You can use it to ...keep... canned comments or stickers for adding to children's learning as feedback. ( Shoutout to Murray).

To wrap up, I hope to keep this learning fresh, integrating it in everyday use and coming back to this post to revisit my thinking and learning. I hope you will do the same!

DFI: The Journey Begins

Welcome to Day one of the DFI, Manaiakalani Digital Fluency Course... and what a treat it has been!

This is the first session of a nine week course held each Tuesday of Term 3. Many thanks to Gary and the awesome senior team from Hornby Primary for the opportunity to up my skills in this course.

The learning from today has been applicable into multiple areas and the ones I have found most helpful I have categorised below.

A huge thank you to Gerhard and the team for a content rich and fast paced teaching filled with gems for the class.

Enhancing Professional Workflow

Connect the Docs

Headings and Table of Contents was a delight to discover today. This was a practical session outlining the use of Headings, Sub headings etc. and using the table of contents efficiently to give learners better access. A great way to visualise and organise.

A few key tools to implement:

Always Crtl + Shift + V when pasting as it pastes content without its formatting.

When requiring folders or documents in multiple folders or saving information that has been shared use 'Add to' rather than 'Move to' . Use Shift + Z to do this.

Any G-suite app can be accessed via the omnibox using ______ .google.com

Learn Create Share Pedagogy

Connecting the Docs Again

The practical session of the day spurred me into changing my mindset on how I viewed Docs. A view that was limited my my original and outdated understanding of a Word Doc. It helped me understand what the Google Doc app is actually capable of and how can I use design skills to make both the document more functional and accessible for both myself and the children.
The learning accomplished in my pedagogy was developed through creating a new collaborative writing Doc updating my previous more messy old school version.

Here is an example of my previous collaborative Shared Writing/Modelling Doc.

Here is an example of my new structure.

Click on the link here to check out the slide of examples.

Skills to Teach the Children and Apply in Class

Chrome and extensions:

• commenting and assigning questions to children in class from a document

Speech to text/ Voice Typing:

• Begin to use speech to test more often.
• Use a cup with its base removed to direct the child's voice or sound to their mic.
• Change the accent to 'English ( New Zealand)'

Extensions and Add Ons

I'm excited to use Talk and Comment, an extension that allows you to leave verbal feedback as a comment on a child's writing. I can see this being very handy especially to engage the children who find written feedback difficult to follow through with.

Doc to Form and Word Cloud Generator will be definite 'go-to's from now on including a few fun sites quickly bookmarked including:

• Vector icons - fo shoozing up Docs and Drawings
• Remove the background - a free lasso tool that... removes the background.
• The Most Dangerous Writing Prompt Generator - a website for quick write practice where if you do not continue to write for more than 10 ten seconds your words will slowly fade away and be lost forever!!!

Personal

Google Groups

What a relief to finally fully appreciate that a system has been created to keep organise emails and the information that is constantly flying through my inbox. Google groups will now be visited by moi more often. To practice my Google groups skills I set up a new social group for the school, however, in the future will aim to use it to organise and collate parent emails, class emails and information and access other professional group information especially items that have been shared via email.

Today has been a flood of information and I look forward to the content and skills that will fill my kete over the coming term.

Site link to Cohort

Child Well-being Symposium: My Thoughts and a few notes from Experts

Research and data can be incredibly dry especially when one is not involved directly in a distinct discipline. However the driving force that connects us all is our humanity. Children are the preservation of our humanity and future. The opening address by Vice Chancellor Cheryl de la Rey of the University of Canterbury resonated powerfully as it highlighted the necessity of cross-disciplinary collaboration and wholistic strategy to address the complexity of child-wellbeing in New Zealand.

As a teacher the multiple and complex factors that affect the well-being of the children in my class are often out of my reach to change. This leads to a certain level of frustration and a desire for change. In a positive light, this barrier to change is the multiplicity of the problem. It is the necessity for relationship, family, health, and culture. It is the requirement to collaborate. It is the understanding that I cannot make this change as a teacher on my own.

On the route to university, I considered the requirement for change in society in order for the well-being of society, specifically of children to increase. I noted a personal recognition of the current societal fashion for individuality, separation and advancement of the individual and the lens of success as individual accomplishment. This modern and generally Americanised or European view differs from what we know about Pacific and Maori culture. While the focus is on the individual it follows that there is a hunger for and lack of engagement in the wholistic success of a community.

For example, I have recently taken up pottery classes, dance classes, mountaineering and and the learning of a new language. All for the advancement of my personal development. These pursuits have taken over the time that I spend at home in the evening. I no longer have family and friends over for dinner because I am not at home. My interactions with family and friends have diminished significantly.

I would suggest that attention on individual success, individual desires, the idea that a successful family includes two working parents on a career pathway in a modern home, has created a drought of relational interactions and wholistic success. I would add that it is exacerbated by the introduction of a constant personal device of the modern digital era and attention directed to the device drains from significant relationships.

I am suggesting that as a society we lack consequential relationships with our children and each other.

In conclusion, I have chosen a responsibility to check, balance and question the motivations and values of the actions that I take. Am I valuing the interactions that I have with my colleagues family and children? Do I place a priority on the success of a whole or are my motivations self-focused?

Is our selfishness as a society directly linked to the well-being of society?



The following notes are the highlights and thoughts that have stuck from the second day of the Child Well-being Symposium.

Vice Chancellor Cheryl de la Rey address:

Child well-being is a highly complex. It is influenced by a multiplicity of factors that  includes culture, societal factors, sub cultures, environment, health and education.



We need a broad view, a meta analysis of what we know already and we need to formulate it into a better analysis of well being.

This has implications for other departments, a horizontal resonance across all policies, reflected in housing, health education and more. Child well being is linked to house hold income.
This makes it one of the worlds grand challenges, a wicked problem, - obvious in its need to be addressed - and is a huge struggle to address because of its complexity for policy makers.

We cannot address this in a traditional way. It requires a linear approach, a multi-disciplinary approach. The University of Canterbury is looking for groups to mobilise together to address key issues in society. We must move out of our disciplinary silos as experts - no single disciplinary science has the expertise necessary to assist us on the issues of child well-being. It requires working across boundaries and facilitating networks and collaborative arrangements for local problems and developing good practices that can be replicated.

A holistic view of old methodological problems should be included and re-addressed. There is often a specific hierarchy of academic methodologies where some are viewed as more important than others.
Knowledge in all its manifestations is valid and pertinent. It is our role to recognise knowledge in other forms not to just reject this knowledge as anecdotal, local knowledge, or generational knowledge. This knowledge needs to be brought together to breach the divide.

There is strong evidence that inputting into child well being really pays off but it is our responsibility to find the evidence and act on it so that we can make a difference in society for many generations to come.

In reference to our research studies: How does our collective knowledge make a difference to people's lives?

Children, their well-being and their learning: Notes from an Interdisciplinary learning panel

What does doing 'well' mean? It means a 'well', healthy culture, a healthy iwi,  a 'well' whanau. This translates into a well individual.

Half of all homicides are family violence related. Pasific children are 5 times more likely to die from family violence. See the following link to NZ statistics.
https://nzfvc.org.nz/family-violence-statistics

We build resilient children by building their language and thinking. After a while the abstract becomes concrete. ( Vygotsky)

Andy Blunden, 1997

Vygotsky and the Dialectical Method

Teacher Dispositions - Misty Sato

Dispositions are only apparent within a context in response to a contextual antecedent.
Pedagogical choices are a reflection of a teacher's dispositions.
Who am I and what is the person that I am? What effect do my dispositions have on others?

Literacy Success and Self-Concept in Older readers - Professor John Everatt

Well being and emotional factors highly influence a child's literary success.
See  graph slide and insert here.
Social and emotional skills integrated with literary skills have the most effect on overcoming difficulties dyslexic children face. The feeling of success needs to occur for developing approaches to overcoming problems.

How do we teach a strategy within the context that the child or adult needs to learn?
 ie. a 13 year old does not want to sound out d/o/g. Teaching strategies need to be interesting and build coping strategies within the child. The student needs to view themselves as a successful learner through the strategies being used.
There is a cognitive aspect - how good you feel about yourself- and a resilience factor - do you feel you can cope - in literacy.

There is a massive social element involved in literacy intervention and literacy difficulties. Individuals don't put themselves in isolation from others intentionally. The context of the child in isolation is how they feel about themselves in relation to others.

Some strategies:

• Think about getting students to do the things they are going to be successful in.
• Focus on meaning first rather than on phonology, but, after success begins, start to introduce the phonology as these are vital and necessary skills. 
• Use texts appropriate to the age of the child. 
• Get the child re-engaged in learning.
• Act on the intervention in groups of individuals rather than singularly.
• Develop fluency through repetition - the re-reading of a text.

The following is the 2018 data from the research programme.

Insert data slide
Results at the end of 2018 - intervention in blue waiting to go through intervention in green  ( green no intervention)

Second slide
Group B has now gone through intervention and the green bar catches up with the blue.

Did this have a knock on effect in self-esteem and academic self concepts ( ability to do things)?
See slide

These factors do develop but it is delayed. It does not happen after the intervention but over time. Progress must not be ascribed to the intervention. ( ie. "I went to see Mr. __ and he was a good teacher." but rather "I know what I'm doing and I have the skills to overcome certain problems when they arise.") Resilience decreased during the intervention but negative mindsets decreased during the intervention also.

The Importance of Sleep - Associate Professor Laurie McLay

Insert slides

When we are deprived of sleep cognitive functions are compromised

See slide

Higher levels of externalising and internalising behaviours were noted from children who are sleep deprived.
We don't know the directionality of these behaviours - Do ASD/ ADHD / External behaviours cause sleep problems or vice versa?

How do we teach children to sleep and sleep independently?
See slide

Disclaimer: These notes may not accurately represent the theories and data as presented by these studies. They are simply my interpretation of what has been presented at this symposium and how I currently understand and rephrase what has been said.

Maths Talk: Starting off Fresh

Module ONE with Jodi Hunter

What a session! After the one and a half hours that we spent at the end of a long school day on Tuesday, I marvelled with another teacher how a presenter/ teacher who is animated, articulate, and an expert in their field along with effective and purposeful group participation can really stimulate a tired brain.

Here are some of the key ideas and 'learnings' I gleaned from yesterday session.

Prior to attending the first session we were asked to read this journal article.
Reading Link - Questioning
Teacher Questioning to Elicit Students’ Mathematical Thinking in Elementary School Classrooms

A Maths community Includes

• Balance between teacher and student voice - the teacher has an important role in listening and modelling not fully directing all talk.
• Collective thinking
• Multiple zones of proximal development - other children have different experiences and knowledge. Children can call others into their area of proximal development including the teacher.
• Intentional engagement in the reasoning of others - teaching children to talk productively - what does listening look like - not sitting but hearing, linking to experiences, forming an opinion and taking a position

All of this ( the above) requires high levels of cognitive demand. Unless we as teachers start upping the level of challenge in the classroom none of this will work. If children don't need to work together to solve a task there is no point doing it. Give students a task where they need to work together in order to meet the challenge.

A Lesson

1. Conceptual knowledge/ warmup- patterns, numbers after eg. using a pattern and transferring this into other areas... categories of knowledge or concepts, relationships

2. Launch a problematic task

3. Small groups - groups of 4 (3 is better than 5) Half working with the teacher - half working independently.

4.  Large group discussion where students are chosen to share back.

5. Connect - if the idea has not arisen in the problem solving this is where the teacher

Teacher as Facilitator in a Cognitive Discourse 

- Talk Moves ( See link for examples) 

Teachers need to guide the children to enable the cognitive discourse - this is not for the children to use but for the teacher ( children sometimes pick this up and use it too) Talk moves is to find the 'why' in the classroom.

Revoicing - As a teacher start using re-voicing in a purposeful way. Stop and think about what needs to be re-voiced and what not. The purpose: clarify what a child has said or highlight and idea.

Elicitation - ask the students to agree/ disagree and the reason why - needs to be agree/disagree with a reason, get rid off fence sitting - if they don't have an opinion then they need to ask a question to clarify their opinion

Repeat - get the children to repeat what other children have said to give them a purpose for listening. Don't use repeat as a behaviour management strategy use it as a tool to ensure that an important idea is being heard and processed. If a child can't repeat ask them to say 'Can you say that again?' or I'm going to ask you to repeat this idea but I'm going to get 2 other children to repeat that idea first and then come back to you". Wait time is important for 'repeat'.

Wait time - process time, allow children to think before they speak, to process other children's ideas and form their own opinions. Start teaching them to use it with themselves. ( Notice this was used in the choral counting video)

Add On - asking children to extend or add to an idea that someone else has shared.

Choral Counting

Jodi used role play to teach the group how to use choral counting as a conceptual knowledge warmup.

Choral counting notes - when you hear children tapering off stop and go back. Notice the pattern. Start from the top and reinforce the count. Make sure that you give the children wait time to process the first few numbers before you start counting. Tell them the idea is that they are saying this together and not rushing ahead. As a teacher think about what number you start with- check before and make sure how you are going to record it ( rows, numbers)  and what shows the patterns best. If you have repeated the group before from 1 don't start from there again. Start from a different number each time you stop and restart.
You could get the children to design their own choral counts. Teaching - 10 to 15 minute warm up.
Record it on the board - not hundreds board. Prepare carefully first.

Types of Talk

How to engage in productive types of talk:
Working in groups? = lots of unproductive talk going on.
We need to teach children how to talk in groups. Researchers ( Mecer and colleagues - Go and check out their free resources - Thinking Together) tracked children's types of talk and found that unless children were taught how to talk productively in groups they didn't talk productively at all.

Cumulative talk - this is my way, this is my way, this is my way - each child explains their idea, it accumulates but does not discuss or develop any new knowledge.

Disputational talk - 'Oh they think like that because they are the brainy ones' - disputing but not digging deep into learning eg. 'how do you know that?', using paper scissor rock or voting on opinions

Exploratory talk - productive kind of talk See slide: Facilitating Small Group Discussions

Key ideas from 'Types of Talk':
You're challenging an idea NOT another person
It's important to role play how to ask a question or what questions to use. eg. Can you explain that in a different way? pick out the part you didn't understand and ask about that. This is about slowing down what is happening in the classroom and pointing it out. Don't let children give long explanations.
Notice what is happening in the classroom - I notice that ...because...
DON'T ask for volunteers - lack of purpose is not structured to build to a big mathematical idea.
Fallacy - 'So many children think that maths is about getting correct answers and only those who have correct answers have a voice.'

Orchestrating Discussion: Five Practices  

The subheading of this section is also a book - note to self: research this book!

Anticipate - prepare and anticipate
Monitor  - for reasoning and understanding
Think - Who am I going to share back and why? Maybe prepare students for sharing just a certain part - I would like you to share this ( practice sharing this)


A few gems to finish with...

As teachers we should be using wait time but we also want children to be using wait time - thinking before they speak.
Use correct mathematical language and terms
As a teacher you should not be the authority on mathematics or your 'brainy' students. 'Maths' itself should be the authority. ( It's ok to say 'I don't know, lets find out')

Some of the jargon that was used throughout.
Jargon:
Status, discourse, justification, reciprocity - sharing ideas with each other across small and large group, challenge and debate, collective thinking, cognitive demand, conceptual warm-up, problematic task, social/strength based grouping - eg. has a strength in talking/thinking/ listening, low floor- high ceiling tasks, teacher as facilitator, mathematical practices, Number incorporated into strand, cognitive discourse

As you can see there was an incredible amount of content to cover, some brilliant ideas and learning to implement and many things to further research and explore. A brilliant first session!

Emotional Maturity from The School of Life

When do you know you are emotionally mature?

I was recently sent this article by a friend. It was not only a pleasant and thought provoking read but it sat comfortably in my understandings of myself and the people around me. In other words my developing emotions recognised the need and value in many of the points described in the article.

Happy reading.



( Click on the title or the picture to take you to the link )

Maniakalani - Urumanuka - Hornby: Notes From a Chromebook Session

On a blustery Friday afternoon in the holidays most of Urumanuka's senior 'chromebook class' teachers met together to refresh what learning one to one on a chromebook was all about and to get the best routines in place before the start of the school year.

Here are some notes, tips and tricks. Credits to Kelsey Morgan who ran the session and designed collate and built much of the content and resources linked in the the Uru Manuka site below.

All this brilliant information can be found in much more detail here.

Uru Manuka 

Key ideas from the day

Chromebook care:

Have a place to store your chromebooks:
What about chromebooks that the children bring to school as opposed to the ones that stay at school?
- tote trays
- specific shelf
- table area
- dish trays

Accessing chromebooks:
- lining up to collect their chromebook at the beginning or end of the day
- teacher hands out chromebooks
- line on the floor children wait behind the line until one child collects their chromebook
- teacher charges chromebooks

Kelsey's cheeky tip: 

Click the square 'view' button ( square with arrow) at the top of an imbedded slide. In the new window pop into the address, backspace to the last '/' and then type in 'view' or 'edit'

If you put your email on your site a teacher may email you ... this can help for credibility.

Hapara: Things to remember

Use smart share to ensure are in the right folder.

Use Hapara to see all your kids blogs. 

Keep track of who has recently posted. Keep track of who has recently been commented on and make sure that children have been commented on at least once during the week. 

Kelsey's cheeky Tip for blogging: 

Make sure the children (me too) click the 'notify me' button so they are aware when someone has commented. Bottom line- you need to reply and say thank you. Manners people!

 If a child has done incredible work but no one has commented pop it onto google plus and it will get lots of comments.

My task list from this session:

- watch the Hapara workspace video and explore on my own

- record my site video

- make a new class blog and link to the site: make a roster so that the children blog once a week including myself

- link to the twitter feed on the site on the blog page

- teach the kids \ make a list of people they know who they want to comment on their blog, link in their emails, send the email link to one of their favourite people each week.

- make an each week blogging checklist to work through each Friday with the children.