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...

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...

This week we focussed on our pepeha . I do have Māori heritage and know my ancestral line but have not been brought up as Māori. I have developed my pepeha using screencastify (see read more)

Digital Intensive 2 I can't believe that a week has passed since the last digital intensive. Today we were looking at Google Forms, Google Sheets and Google maps. We began this session with the history of Manaiakalani around Learning and the pedagogy of "Learn, Create, Share". Research underpinning this came from John Hattie's constructivist and metacognitive approach, Russell Bishop's culturally responsive pedagogy, the global study for the Ministry of Education that showed acceleration can be achieved through inquiry driven exploration and the use of the Google platform. We learned how to set up a Google form with many available options that would give us data that we can analyse either as baseline data, feedback data or exit data. I created a Google form with questions around the new Education Council standards and sent it out to 10 teachers - have had 3 responses so will send again. I had recently attended a workshop on these and will be using th...

Today and for the next 8 Fridays I am on a Manaiakalani digital intensive. I am reasonably confident with digital technologies but, as we all know, there is always more to learn. Firstly we were given an introduction to the Manaiakalanai kaupapa and pedagogy. It was interesting hearing about the history of Manaiakalani and its early beginnings . Then we were into Google Docs. I work sometimes in Google Docs & sometimes in Word (which is apparently a no-no). Another no-no is NO underlining because that means a link and capitals mean you are shouting. But I did discover things like Find and Replace, Table of Contents and voice typing in which I just have to speak the words (and punctuation) and it writes for me! This will be a good thing to pass on to the PCTs I work with. As for my personal life, I don't think I really want my computer to be writing down everything I say. So we may have to negotiate on that one. The only time I use my home computer i...

Tamaki College has been working with Ngahuia Lott over a period of years and she has been running workshops for us this year. This diagram shows the extent and meaning of what we have been learning. At the beginning of each year we need to build relationships with those we are working with including students. This comes under the heading of whanaungatanga. What is whanaunagatanga? For myself it is developing relationships with each of the teachers I work with. These are mainly beginning teachers who I will be supporting over several years but also in my role as the SCT I work with other teachers who would like support. I am lucky that I have been given time to do this important role and although I am not teaching in the classroom, I have had years of experience teaching in low decile and high decile schools and also with Team Solutions, University ofAuckland. Being able to work in-depth in one school is a privilege as one can work at a deeper level. Each of the beginning teachers...