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.

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 ...

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...

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...

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...