Term 1 Week 5 - differentiation

Upcoming Events
3 March World Book Day - http://www.worldbookday.com/
6 March National Children's Day - www.childrensday.org.nz

Professional Reading

PISA 2009: Our 21st century learners at age 15
This report published in December 2010 provides a picture of New Zealand’s 15-year-old performance in reading literacy (main focus), mathematical literacy and scientific literacy. It compares New Zealand’s results with other top- and high-performing countries. In July and August 2009 4,643 New Zealand 15 year-old students from 163 New Zealand schools took part in PISA 2009.

Positives:

• New Zealand 15-year-old students’ overall reading performance was substantially higher than the average for the 345 OECD countries.


• There were Asian, Māori, Pākehā/European and Pasifika students who performed at the highest level of reading literacy.


• New Zealand students’ overall mathematical literacy performance was significantly higher than the average for the OECD countries.


• New Zealand students’ overall scientific literacy performance was substantially higher than the average for the OECD countries.

What we need to work on in NZ:

• While Pākehā/European and Asian students were more likely to be at the higher end, Māori and Pasifika students were over-represented at the lower end.

More complex than skills: Rethinking the relationship between key competencies and curriculum content - Dr. Rosemary Hipkins, New Zealand Council for Educational Research
I have been thinking about how I can encourage my junior students to goal set and reflect on their use of the Key Competencies during learning in English. This conference paper gave me some ideas to get me started.
Abstract: Drawing on the New Zealand experience, this paper outlines two possible implementation pathways. The “skills” pathway could lead to modest improvements in teaching and learning. It is, however, unlikely to achieve longer-term goals such as strengthening citizenship, enhancing creativity and fostering lifelong learning. Such goals have future-focused and dispositional components. The “participatory” pathway could support these longer-term goals. Students are challenged to use knowledge, not just get it. However following this pathway requires a rethinking of how curriculum content is used, with implications for what is seen as evidence of learning. The presentation will draw on several common science topics and two of the key competencies as they were developed for the New Zealand Curriculum (Thinking; Using Language, Symbols and Texts). These will be used to illustrate possible changes in teaching and learning approaches. Implications for curriculum support processes will be raised.

Differentiation Strategies

This article ("Defining Differentiated Instruction") expands on Edutopia's definition of differentation. It covers:

• Starting with the student


• A classroom example


• A matter of fairness (using sentence starters, graphic organisers with some students)

Pre-assessment: A Differentation Power Tool

Pre-assessment is often the first step to differentiating in our classrooms. This document goes over some of the ways that you can pre-test students - academically and in terms of their interests.

General Resource

"Becoming a master asker" - this article explores the question what makes a good question? Very helpful tips for us teachers.

Term 1 Week 4 2011 - thinking & creativity

Professional Reading/ Viewing
How can we ignite the creative spark in our students?
This talk (Gever Tulley teaches life lessons through tinkering) given at a TED conference by Gever Tulley uses engaging photos and footage to demonstrate the valuable lessons kids learn at his Tinkering School. When given tools, materials and guidance, these young imaginations run wild and creative problem-solving takes over to build unique boats, bridges and even a rollercoaster!

Gever Tulley founded the Tinkering School to offer an exploratory curriculum designed to help kids – ages 8 to 17 – learn how to build things. He says "by providing a collaborative environment in which to explore basic and advanced building techniques and principles, we strive to create a school where we all learn by fooling around. All activities are hands-on, supervised, and at least partly improvisational. Grand schemes, wild ideas, crazy notions, and intuitive leaps of imagination are, of course, encouraged and fertilized."
If you want to know more about Tinkering School check out their website: http://www.tinkeringschool.com/

Thinking/ Creativity
This short video (Exploring Thinking Processes) shows how a secondary school teacher uses the wrong answers as a tool for teaching.
Summary: A secondary teacher shows how she reveals the thinking processes behind students' answers in a Year 7 maths class, using a technique which can be used across Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4 as part of Assessing Pupils' Progress (APP).

General Resource
Term 1's Good Teacher Magazine has articles and readings on the following topics and is worth a look:
Creative emergence or planning studies - Bruce Hammonds
A Student’s Voice for the 21st Century - Anna-Rose Davies
UK approach to degrees supports productivity
Taking Strategic Steps Towards a Focus on Learning

School’s in for finances - Anneli Knight

Tools 4 Talent Development - Elaine Le Sueur
Talent Spotting & Creativity - Elaine Le Sueur
Big bang or slow burn - Laurie Loper
The History of St Valentine
Responding to a Child in Crisis - Gary Weber
Using Irrational Behaviour to Your Advantage - Michelle LaBrosse
Changing Lives - Bernie Hiha
Books and Things

Term 1 Week 3 2011 - literacy

This year the PD bites will be a little more structured. Each week will have a theme (literacy, thinking/ creativity, differentiation or e-learning) as well as a professional reading and a general resource.

Professional Reading
3 edtech realisations
This blog post by David Truss explores how educational technologies are transforming education. Here is the introduction to the post:
There is a lot of talk about ‘New Literacies’ and ’21st Century Learning’ and about transforming education these days. As I approach my 5th year ‘blogiversary’ I have come to some simple, but I think important, realizations about how educational technology (edtech) has and will continue to transform what it means to be an educator today. I believe that together, these three realizations are key to sharing and advocating for technology integration.

An article about the importance of Literacy Strategies and Activities
This article from the Adolescent Literacy website (adlit.org) emphasises the importance of all teachers explicitly teaching reading comprehension strategies to help students better understand what they read. There are strategies given to support students to overcome the main difficulties they have when reading, which are:

• difficulty monitoring their own understanding while reading,


• difficulty making sense of unfamiliar content,


• difficulty making sense of specialized terms and concepts,


• difficulty making sense of familiar words used in specialized or unusual ways.
  

Literacy Strategies: (from adlit.org)

Before Reading - Vocabulary

Concept sort - A concept sort is a strategy used to introduce students to the vocabulary of a new topic or book. Teachers provide students with a list of terms or concepts from reading material. Students place words into different categories based on each word's meaning. Categories can be defined by the teacher or by the students. When used before reading, concept sorts provide an opportunity for a teacher to see what his or her students already know about the given content. When used after reading, teachers can assess their students' understanding of the concepts presented.

Comprehension
Previewing Texts - Textbook previewing strategies focus not only on the structure of the text — such as the table of contents, index, chapter introductions, and so forth — but on a content overview, which focuses on the concepts and questions covered in the chapter and their interrelationships.

General resource:
This document by Peter Leech on behaviour (Responsible Behaviour: Teaching children to take responsibility for their own behaviour)- covers how to set the school and classroom environment for Responsible Behaviour- focusing on teaching children to take responsibility for their own behaviour. It offers a step-by-step pathway for teachers wanting to improve the learning climate in their classroom. It is quite long but it is in a slideshow format so it is easy to read.

Term 1 Week 2

The Font Debate
I belong to a couple of teacher litserves and over the last few weeks there has been much discussion about the use of fonts and in particular which fonts are best for our students. I have my favourites and find Times New Roman and Comic Sans especially revolting to read. However, according to The Times Educational Supplement Comic Sans may just help our students to remember what they read. Read all about it here.

This website (http://www.comicsanscriminal.com/) looks at the use of comic sans and typography (briefly) from a design point of view. There is also a link to a dyslexia website (http://www.dyslexic.com/fonts) which explains which fonts are better for students with dyslexia - which is useful for the many of us who teach dyslexic students.

Lesson ideas:

• Try out this puzzle generator at Discovery.com


• Do you teach your students about Fairtrade? The TES has some fairtrade resources which may be useful.

If you want to access any resources about setting up for learning at the beginning of the year, check out this post from the beginning of 2010.

Term 4 Week 9 - last PD Bite of the year ...

Something to share with your students:

Friday 10th December is Human Rights Day. The theme is human rights defenders who act to end discrimination. Human rights defenders acting against discrimination, often in the face of great personal risk to both themselves and their families, are being recognized and acclaimed on Human Rights Day, 10 December 2010.
Human rights defenders speak out against abuse and violations including discrimination, exclusion, oppression and violence. They advocate justice and seek to protect the victims of human rights violations. They demand accountability of perpetrators and transparency in government action. In so doing, they are often putting at risk their own safety, and that of their families. Check out the United Nations website for more information. These information notes have further detail.

For you mountain lovers out there Saturday 11th December is International Mountain Day. International Mountain Day is an opportunity to create awareness about the importance of mountains to life, to highlight the opportunities and constraints in mountain development and to build partnerships that will bring positive change to the world’s mountains and highlands. For more information check out the website.

Professional Reading
A blog post from Bruce Hammonds' blog "Leading and Learning". The post is titled "Who am I?" and provides lots of reflective material for us about whether or not the classroom experiences that we provide for our students contribute to their development of a positive sense of self. Holiday reading perhaps? I am going to keep this idea of ensuring that students develop a positive sense of themselves as learners in mind as I begin planning for the classes that I will teach in 2011.

Term 4 Week 4 - eday & online learning

eDay 2010 is tomorrow (Sat 6 Nov). For the uninitiated, this provides an easy and environmentally sound way for households and schools to dispose of old computers and mobile phones. Close to 40 drop-off locations have already been confirmed and as many as 50 sites are expected to participate! Check out www.eday.org.nz for information about eday and venues in your area.

K12 online conference - "Cultivating the future"
Although the conference is finished you can still access the keynotes and other presentations.
K12 Online is for educators around the world interested in innovative ways Web 2.0 tools and technologies can be used to improve learning. This year’s conference began with a pre-conference keynote the week of October 11, 2010. The following two weeks, October 18 and October 25, forty presentations were posted online for us to view, download, and discuss.

Check out the link here to see the schedule for links to presentations:
http://wiki.k12onlineconference.org/home/for-participants/2010-schedule

Of particular note, is the presentation by NZ’s own Allanah King which looks at ‘A Week in the Classroom 2010’. Check out the presentation here: http://k12onlineconference.org/?p=606

Other interesting topics include: ‘Creative Commons: What Every Educator Needs to Know’ and ‘The Classroom Social Network’ – lots to check out!


Professional Readings

• How significant a role does critical thinking play in your school?
• NZCER 2010 Primary & Intermediate Schools National Survey: A snapshot of overall patterns and findings related to National Standards

Term 4 Week 3 - how to keep up to date with e-learning tools & building on excellence in our school system

The post today shares some websites which help us keep up to date with new online tools for teaching and learning and also provides a link to a document about how to make our school system even better.

These two sites are ones which I know staff are already using but have absolutely up-to-date information about new web tools and how to use them:
edutecher
This site's most recent links include:
Docs Teach - an amazing Web Tool that aims to make History come to Life. Each of the several activity-creation tool helps students develop historical thinking skills and gets them thinking like historians. Teachers simply find and insert primary sources into a customizable and very slick template in order to customize the activity to fit their unique students.
YouTube Instant is a super quick way to search through videos on YouTube. Using the Google Instant idea and turning your search terms into instant playlists, this is a very easy way (and cleaner than YouTube) to find and create playlists to share with colleagues or students. Teachers can choose tags that are student-safe and get a slick looking playlist with a nice interface that is easy to share or embed.

free tech for teachers
This blog's most recent post introduces - Twiducate - Social Networking for Schools
Twiducate is a free platform for creating your own micro social network in a Twitter-like format. Twiducate allows you to create a private network for posting assignments and messages to your students or other people you invite into your network. As the creator of your network you create and administer the accounts of the students in your network. Students in your network can reply to your messages and to the messages of other students.

The following websites aim to quickly teach teachers how to use these online tools:
Learn it in 5 is a library of how-to videos, produced by technology teachers, for the purpose of helping teachers and students create classroom strategies for today's 21st century's digital classroom. These step-by-step how-to videos walk teachers through Web 2.0 technology, demonstrating how to use Web 2.0 applications like blogs, social networks, podcasts, interactive videos, wikis, slidesharing and much more.
How 2 do it - A wiki which has a similar focus.

Professional Reading
This paper "Building on excellence: How to make a great schooling system even better" was presented at the PPTA annual conference 2010.

Introduction: A favoured theme of successive governments has been the need to improve the achievement of New Zealand students, especially those in the lowest 20 per cent of achievement. Attention is often drawn to an apparent wide disparity between the highest and the lowest achievers in New Zealand, and it is common for politicians to blame schools and teachers for that disparity. It is rare to hear politicians affirm New Zealand teachers for the excellent achievement of the majority of our students.

This paper challenges the validity of government claims about low achievement and inequity, and suggests that the government goal that all students be able to experience success at Level 2 NCEA, while a laudable aspiration, is not achievable in a low-trust environment where teachers and schools are facing cuts across a whole range of support services, in tandem with a burgeoning workload.

The paper then tackles the vital question of what is needed, and what is not needed, if secondary schools are to make significant improvements to levels of student achievement in New Zealand.