TeachMeet NZ meets Kahui Ako - 2017

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I had attended a couple of PD sessions by Brian Annan and Mary Wootton from Infinity Learning Org. about Learning Maps with the purpose of launching awareness of Agency at my school as part of our ACCoS focus. I subsequently led a couple of presentations to our staff to introduce them to Learning Maps and their administration to our students.

Before administering the Learning Maps to all children in may class about learning in general, I decided to trial it with a small group of children on reading because my team was focusing in this area for the school SAM's (Student Achievement Monitoring). That is how the idea for my inquiry started.

Later on, at EduCampAKL 2017 I ran into Sonya Van Schaijik and she asked me if I would like to be part of an online presentation for TeachMeet NZ about my ACCoS inquiry. Initially I was flattered and excited about the idea, but as the day drew closer I thought I started having second thoughts! Especially when I saw the line out of presenters!

Sonya made the process very accessible and smooth.
She provided me with a template and clear tips for my presentation.

We had a couple of video conferencing practices to iron out equipment procedures we needed to use on the day of the presentation, such as: how to enter and display our details on our Google Hangout screen, check if the sound in our laptops was working okay and how to screen share our presentation. We also practiced how to mute our own mic and stop our own camera from casting to avoid interference with the presenter who was having her turn.

Then it mas announced to the world via Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and e-mail!

We had a dress rehearsal three days before the event and I had the opportunity to listen to feedback and feed forward about my presentation. I reduced the amount of writing in my slides and I cut down on my oral presentation to fit the allocated time.

The days following the dress rehearsal I worked on my slides furiously and I practice my oral presentation with a timer several times a day.

NOTE: I used the Presenter's Notes option in my Google slides for my practice. Earlier on the day it dawn on me that the notes will be broadcast as well, interfering with my slides... So I had to print my notes and read them from paper.
I am yet to find out how to have the notes on screen without broadcasting them!

The time came!
My mic wasn't working!
I heard Sonya's calm voice saying "Turn off your machine". I hesitated because I knew it would take a long time to start up my laptop. I did it and I was back just in time to introduce myself!

All the presentations were relevant, captivating and extremely informative!
I was excited to have been part of this amazing group of presenters.

The following is my video and presentation:
Teachmeetnz-Whitmore_Patricia

See all presenters in the following video:




Thanks all presenters and special thanks to Sonya!

The Learning Pit

At the beginning of this year, in Term 1 2017, I decided to bring to my class the Learning Pit to compliment the use of Growth Mindset. James Nottingham created the Learning Challenge or Learning Pit to enhance challenge and inquiry based on the works of Butler and Edwards in Transformational Learning  who described the process of learning and transformation as going through a pit.

James Nottingham loved the pit analogy and named four different stages:
1.- Concept- The learning challenge begins with a concept which was found in the local news, in a book, a child brought in, a teacher suggested it. This stage is the equivalent to the Uni-Structural stage of the SOLO Taxonomy.
2.- Conflict- At this stage the students are brought 'into the pit' by creating a conflict in their minds. When the children are at the bottom of the pit, they can be encouraged to use Growth Mindset ideas and self talk to build up resilience and to get ready to climb out of the pit. This stage is equivalent to the Multi-Structural level of the SOLO Taxonomy.
3.- Construct- After students are in the pit for some time gathering information from peers and by quality teacher questioning, the students start to build new meaning which leads to a sense of 'I got it!' (labelled by Nottingham as 'Eureka'). At this stage children help peers come out of the pit. This is the equivalent of the Relational stage in the SOLO Taxonomy.
4.- Consider- Once the children are out of the pit, they reflect on the journey through the different stages of the pit (and the SOLO Taxonomy) and how they can apply this process to different concepts and / or contexts. This is the equivalent to the Extended Abstract Stage of the SOLO Taxonomy.

The Learning Pit A video exploring the concept of what a tourist is.

http://www.jamesnottingham.co.uk/learning-pit/

Growth Mindset

In 2016 I introduced Growth Mindset to my Year 2 class by talking about mistakes and asking children for their opinion about the roles of mistakes in their learning. I was lucky that a number of children already displayed a Growth Mindset by expressing the mistakes were okay, but no one was able to expand on what to do after we made a mistake. A few children were silent during the discussion - a couple of them happened to be ESOL children and one of them placed great importance on getting answers to questions right.
We had lessons on Growth Mindset every two weeks on a Friday morning. We had a session where children wrote their before views about What do we Use Our Brain for?  on Post-It notes and displayed in the classroom. After that we watched a video Video: How the Brain Works and we revisited our before views on the brain and added new information to the display.
In the following lesson I read the book 'Giraffes Can't Dance' to the children and explained to them about how we make use of self talk all day every day especially during important events. Using 'Think, Pair, Share' children talked about their thoughts during the race 'Run, Swim, Run'. Show children a set of sentences expressing Fixed and Growth Mindset thought and ask them to classify them accordingly.

I showed children the different Class Dojo videos on Growth Mindset where perseverance is mentioned Dojo Class Video and other videos about experiencing failure / making mistakes and learning from them Famous Failures which lead to the following activity.
I set up three tables where children had to write in Post-It notes activities they did. In Table 1 they had to mention an activity they did yearly and we displayed them hanging from a cotton thread. In Table 2, they had to mention an activity they did only on summer and we displayed them hanging from a piece of yarn. In Table 3 they had to mention an activity they did daily or weekly and we displayed them hanging from a piece of cord. We discussed the frequency of activities and the strength of the skills related to the activities and then I asked them why I chose different thickness of thread to display their activities and a couple of children hit the nail on the head by comparing the different threads to the different kind of connections in the brain and their relationship with the frequency we practice something.

To prepare for these lessons I read the following books:

Appraisal 2017