Term 1 Week 6: e-learning

Upcoming Events
11 March: World Kidney Day - http://www.kidneys.co.nz/
14-20 March: Brain Awareness Week - http://www.neurological.org.nz/
16 March: Westie Brain lecture, Ak Museum, 7pm -
http://www.fmhs.auckland.ac.nz/faculty/cbr/brainweek/brainweek2011/westie_mind.aspx
20 March: Brain Day ,9am - 4 pm, Owen G Glenn Bldg, 12 Grafton Rd, Ak.

On Wed 23 March at 7pm in the Events Centre, Ak Museum the 2011 Royal Society of NZ Distinguished Speaker Professor Robin Clark will be speaking on "Science meets art: investigating pigments in art and archaeology" at four locations around NZ. Professor Clark is an internationally celebrated UK scientist and an expert in forensic archaeology. The lectures are free and open to the general public. Please register online to ensure a seat. http://www.royalsociety.org.nz/events/annual/distinguished-speaker/2011/

Professional Reading
Reshaping the secondary school curriculum: Building the plane while flying it? Findings from NZCER National Survey of Secondary Schools 2009 - Rosemary Hipkins
This report draws on data from the NZCER National Survey of Secondary Schools 2009. The final version of the New Zealand Curriculum (NZC) was released in late 2007 and the survey carried out in 2009 so the findings are a snapshot of the thinking and changes in practices that had occurred to that time. The report focuses mainly on secondary teachers and their views of curriculum change. It explores their professional learning and how they have changed or plan to change their teaching as they delve more into the intent of NZC.
The title of this report reflects both the complexity of the process of giving effect to NZC in secondary schools and the ongoing, evolving nature of curriculum change. Schools cannot stop, take stock, redesign and then start again. They have no option but to “build the plane while flying” if they perceive that significant change is required. NZCER, 2010

Although the report is pretty long there is an Executive Summary at the beginning and a comprehensive index which means that you can just look up the bits that you are interested in.


e-learning Strategy:

Are you using digistore? Digistore has been created by the NZ Ministry of Education and is a storehouse of digital content to support learning across the curriculum, from early childhood through to senior secondary. You need an Education Sector login to be able to access the resources. The site tells you how to get one if you haven't already.
How to use digistore: On the digistore wiki (http://digistore.wikispaces.com/) there are examples of how you can use the digital content in your classroom.

• http://digistore.wikispaces.com/Science+Snaphot1 - Teachers and students at MRGS have explored how an online learning environment can enhance learning opportunities. Teacher Alison Cook created learning paths to support her Yr 9 science students and shares how she has integrated digital content to support learning. Useful tips for teachers exploring using learning paths with their school's learning management system.
• A Secondary English example: Using a learning path to support the teaching and learning for close reading of a visual text - This learning path is designed to be used to prepare students for the new Level One NCEA English Achievement Standard 1.11 Show understanding of visual and/or oral text(s) through close viewing and/or listening, using supporting evidence.
• There are also examples for The Arts, Careers, Health and PE, Languages, Maori, Mathematics and Statistics, Social Sciences and Technology.
  

I'm not sure if this link will work but it is well worth reading edutecher's February newsletter for updates on new online tools. These include:

• WebTool of the Month: Popplet
  Popplet is a wonderful engaging web tool that allows for a collaborative mind-mapping experience. With lots of great features, a slick interface, and easy to use note-taking or organizing tool. This is a full-featured site that can be used with multiple subjects and for myriad reasons. This is a must-try site and there is also an incredible iPad app available (Lite and Paid versions).
  Click here to check out Popplet
  
• Resource of the Month: Lesson Writer
  Lesson Writer is a fantastic free resource tool for teachers. Using this site, educators can automatically pull vocabulary words, create exercises, create questions using Blooms Taxonomy and then quiz students. The site lets teachers customize the lessons based and even allows scaffolding for students of different abilities. While no tool is able to automate lesson writing altogether, this comes in as a very handy helper to allow provide a lot of assistance.
  Click here to check out Lesson Writer

from http://www.edutecher.net/

General Resources

‘From Good to Outstanding’: Tips for Teachers
Based on extracts from an extended interview with the series’ Inspector, Clare Gillies (CG)

Planning For Individual Learning - Contributed by Dr Alan Davison, Pivotal Behaviour Management Trainer

Curriculum planning is the point at which educational philosophy meets practical teaching and learning.

So... what is your philosophy?

Do you see your learners as empty bottles waiting to be filled up with your knowledge, beliefs and perceptions? Or are they active bundles of potential awaiting the opportunity to burst into learning and develop dormant skills?

Is pedagogy dead?

Things have changed so much that we no longer hear school masters mutter, "If you can't beat pupils, why teach?" as they look back on cheerier days the world has left behind.

There are now very different values woven into our educational structures, many given shape and meaning through "Every child matters". The elements "be happy", "enjoy and achieve", and, "make a positive contribution", are reflected in what have become key learning targets.

1. Teach learners as individuals, and enable them to become independent learners.

2. Enable learners to develop their awareness and management of their social and emotional skills.

3. Enable learners to internalise positive reinforcements and motivation through a growing sense of belonging and purpose.

4. Ensuring all learners have a voice in planning and evaluating their learning opportunities and the issues based on their own safety and well being.

5. Develop a form of independence that encourages learners to know when and how to do things for themselves, and when, how and where to find support and help when they need it.

Curriculum planning which both incorporates these elements and supports a teacher training programme which ensures staff understand how to achieve these aims, will prove effective for school, college, teachers, but most of all, in meeting the aspirations of the learners.

© Pivotal Education Ltd 2001-10

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