Mentoring New Teachers

I have just been listening to a radio talk (November 2018) with a neuroscientist Mary Anne Wolfe on the difference between skim reading on screen vs deep reading in print. The screen develops faster processing of information and so can cover larger areas of a topic while print develops slower processing and deeper reading which is good for comprehension and critical analysis. This may mean less time on checking facts and alternative viewpoints but she noted that teachers can teach deep reading on screen. The teacher must ask "What is the purpose of the learning" and match purpose to mode as students need to have skills in both skimming and deep reading. When I started working in a paperless school with Beginning teachers, I noticed the difficulties they were having in keeping students on task and not being distracted by the digital media. I suggested that perhaps in the afternoon periods when the students are usually less alert that they use textbooks and paper. It w...

There has been much talk about reviewing NCEA . NCEA was implemented in the 2002-2004 and has been changed, upgraded and the like over time to make it more equitable. But NCEA is a qualification based on given standards not a true reflection of a students' strengths and capabilities. NCEA is supposedly an assessment of what students can do. But we know that there are students that do amazing things outside of NCEA but these abilities do not count. Unfortunately NCEA has led to some degree to over-assessment, credit counting (if it doesn't give me credits, it doesn't count) and extraordinary pressure on schools, teachers and students. NZAI was set up this year to look at quality assessment across the education system. Schools came together in seminars across NZ to look at positive ways of assessing student progress. Avonside Girls' High School suggested integrating learning across multiple standards to minimise the NCEA effect using connected learning across m...

A provocative statement! Younger people socialise more through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and any new technology that comes along. Older people perhaps stay close to their roots and stick with Facebook or Blogger which can be akin to writing a letter. Many people use Facebook as a way of connecting with others and keeping in touch particularly when family are living overseas. I use instagram as a way of developing my photography skills and get to see what people in other countries are doing artistically and how others see my work. NZ is a long way from the rest of the world but not a long way from the internet.

Working in a school that is made up of mainly Pasifika (62%) & Māori  students (33%) means getting to know and understand the Pasifika & Māori cultures that the students have come from and are enveloped in. New teachers to the school, especially non certificated teachers, sometimes have difficulties in getting the students engaged and motivated. This video "Strengthening Relationships" with teachers from  Aorere College, McAuley High School, Mangere Bridge School, Sylvia Park School, Mary MacKillop School and Wymondley Road Primary School  gives helpful advice and strategies on accelerating the learning of Pasifika students. " Where teachers and Pasifika students develop strong relationships with each other , they each gain a more holistic view of the other person as an individual. Teachers who integrate cultural values and socio-cultural norms explicitly into their pedagogy increase levels of trust, acceptance, sharing and mutual support between students....

Hattie (2012) “teachers need to change to far less talk and much more listening”  Visible Learning for Teachers (p. 80).  “Teachers talk between 70 and 80 percent of class time (p. 80) Student engagement is higher when teachers talk less, this is especially true for at-risk students  Only “5-10 per cent of teacher talk triggers more conversation or dialogue engaging the student” (p. 81)  Research shows that “when highly effective and other teachers were compared, the former had more general class talk and less directive talk” (p. 81) How do we light the fire within students to express their thinking? Dr Aaron Wilson and Jacinta Oldehaver in their research in Talking about Text (TaT) worked to change traditional patterns of teacher dominated talk in the classroom and found that achievement rates in TaT classes were higher than in previous years and also higher than students in non TaT classes because of the changes in teacher talk. They found that ...

What is collaborative sense-making? I've come to that part of my appraisal where I need to show evidence of my collaborative sense-making this year. It does sound like more of education jargon but at the same time needs to be investigated in order to get it right. It is one of the 6 components of the appraisal cycle put out by the Education Council. Luckily I went to their workshop this year and this was explained as: How you collaborate with others who have different perspectives from yours eg experts, colleagues, mentors etc through conversation to look at different perspectives on a situation. From these conversations you share findings, learning and implications for changes in practice. An example given was to use another person eg have a conversation with the Te Reo teacher to give you feedback on your work with Standard 1 (Treaty) Questions from ERO include: What do we already know about this? What do we need to find out? How might we do this? Catalysts that lead ...

I have just been re-reading the notes I took at the Education Council (EC) workshop on the new standards at the beginning of this year. Provisionally certificated teachers (PCTs) are always worried about having enough evidence and what to record. I currently mentor 7 PCTs, 3 of whom are coming up for certification this year. What the EC has said is that they do not want voluminous portfolios of stuff and that they want to shift the emphasis from the showing of evidence to improvement of practice done through discussion and documentation. Teachers engaging in “learning talk” analyse, critique and challenge their current teaching practices to find and/or create more effective ways of teaching. ( Annan, Lai & Robinson 2003) The current situation is that ERO will audit the documentation for certification of teachers recently certificated. They are looking to see that the school has a robust system well founded in evidence. They will be looking at the level of support and inducti...

Mahi = work kotahitanga = working together ERO: " Mahi tahi (or mahi ngātahi) describes the unity of a group of people working towards a specific goal or on a specific task, often in a hands-on fashion.   In the school context, mahi tahi describes the business of working together collaboratively in the pursuit of learner-centred education goals. ....." At Tamaki College, staff are working together to raise student achievement in NCEA. I am on the Change Committee which meets every few weeks. We are a group of innovative educators who try to find different ways of approaching the challenge. We discuss and work on this sitting around the table eating brain food and then take it back to our respective PLuG groups for the group to share strategies and ways of working that have helped reach the achievement goals for priority students. It seems to be working because the list of priority students has become shorter as students go from no credits (red) to some credits (gree...

There has been much discussion around dropping NCEA Level 1 or reducing it to 40 credits in order to focus on bringing students up to the required levels of Literacy and Numeracy in order to be able to succeed in NCEA Level 2. Hobsonville Point secondary school had already dropped NCEA Level 1 before the Ministry review took place. They saw the focus on credits and constant assessment as limiting deeper learning as there was less time to explore topics of interest and less time for learning.   " International studies have confirmed that a credit-focused educational model promotes superficial learning, not the quality stuff that sticks with us" (Stuff June 2018). Fairfield College and  Rototuna Senior High School have also dropped NCEA Level 1 but Rototuna gives the students some experience of sitting an external assessment ie not everything needs to be assessed. Students at all 3 schools will still do Level 1 courses but not assessed for NCEA leaving more time for lear...

Ensuring all students achieve success Last Night I attended a lecture by Christine Rubie Davis on High Expectation Teachers. She was talking about her findings from a recent research project. What I took from this talk was that high expectation teachers: use flexible student grouping (according to activity) and a variety of learning experiences. Use assessment information to set goals for each student and support the student to achieve them through high expectations. Students have autonomy over their learning through setting goals and selecting activities to work on – for example with " must-do, can-do” options. It is essential that: expectations for each student are appropriate. teachers provide the scaffolding learners need in order to progress (Vygotsky). the impact of teaching practice on student learning is monitored in an ongoing way. teachers take action to change their practice if it is not having the desired effect. Low ...

Digital Intensive I learned some basic things that will make my life easier this week. Gmail - Put Gmail on compact settings and then I  seem to have half as many emails to attend to! Put a pink flower theme into my Gmail and I feel a lot calmer when writing and answering emails I don't like the way Gmail nests conversations because I sometimes miss new emails so I can use "conversation view off" and "new mail notifications" on. The problem is we get into the habit of just doing what has already been set up rather than looking at other possibilities. One Tab I now have the OneTab icon on my computer " Whenever you find yourself with too many tabs, click the OneTab icon to convert all of your tabs into a list. When you need to access the tabs again, you can either restore them individually or all at once. When your tabs are in the OneTab list, you will save up to 95% of memory because you will have reduced the number of tabs open in Google Chr...

AKO featured in the Practising Teacher Criteria - in fact it underpinned those criteria in that the word ākonga was used throughout " to be inclusive of all learners in the full range of settings, from early childhood to secondary and beyond, where the  Practising Teacher Criteria  apply. Ako, on he other hand, " is a teaching-learning practice that involves teachers and students learning in an interactive dialogic relationship". These words don't feature in the "new" Standards for the Teaching Profession but come through in "seek and respond to feedback from learners" (Standard 2); "engage in reciprocal, collaborative learning - focused relationships....." (Standard 3) Kia Eke Panuku   Teaching and learning roles are interdependent, fluid and dynamic; students and teachers are able to learn with and from other learners ( ako ). This aligns well with the idea of peer tutoring and peer assessment used in Assessment for Learning  a...