Week 8 - Changes in Practise

Week 8 - Changes in Practise

The past 32 weeks has certainly been a journey with straight flowing roads, many speed bumps and many twists in the road where I am left thinking, processing the information I have read and looked at from week to week.  Even when not sitting completing an assignment / blog, I am often reflecting over what I have seen and always thinking how can I make improvements for the children in my class and at our school.

Osterman and Kottkamp (2015, pg 2) stats that we know from research that learning is most effective when people become personally engaged in the learning process and I feel this has been the case over the past 32 weeks.  In the first 16 weeks I felt like a new student in my class as I had no colleagues with me and I had to work and collaborate with others.  At the end of the night I always went home on a high as I thought - 'wow, I did that'. Some of the experiences we completed were also new.  The children in my class knew I was completing this and the next morning were always interested to know what I had been doing.  

Such a range of activities kept me interested and in many different formats.

The Mindlab study complimented the Practising Teaching criteria.  3 areas that I would like to comment on are - 

Criteria 4: Demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of professional personal practice.

Criteria 6: Conceptualise, plan, and implement an appropriate learning programme.

Criteria 11: Analyse and appropriately use assessment and information, which has been gathered formally and informally.


Criteria 4: Demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of professional personal practice.
I have always been interested in latest developments in Education but becoming more aware of 21st Century thinking skills, having to include such models as Kotters model, SMAR model in a practical way has embedded strategies for me.

Criteria 6: Conceptualise, plan, and implement an appropriate learning programme.
I thought my programme was for children to work on in an individual manner but this was highlighted to me that I was giving the same information but just in a different format.  My programme has changed to reflect a collaborative, problem solving, critical thinking approach.

Criteria 11: Analyse and appropriately use assessment and information, which has been gathered formally and informally.
For many years now we have been asked to complete a Teacher as an Inquiry, whichI have always done but looking at it more in depth from paper 3 I feel 2017's TAI will be more in depth with a more complete analysis reflecting change to the students.

Nobody said this was going to be easy but I enjoyed the thought provoking ideas over the 32 weeks.  I still struggle putting information online, I can see the point and instead of being one of those 'lurkers' it is good to give back and raise my opinion.  I would like to take the rest of this year exploring Jo Bolar as she was someone I read a lot of information about during my lit review.  I also want to take the time to consolidate my new found strategies and information into the classroom to the people that matter the most - the kids.

Thank you.





References - 
Ministry of Education (nd). Practising teacher Criteria and e-learning . Retrieved from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/

Osterman, K. & Kottkamp, R.(1993). Reflective Practice for Educators.California.Cornwin Press, Inc. Retrieved on 7th May, 2015 from http://www.itslifejimbutnotasweknowit.org.uk/files/RefPract/Osterman_Kottkamp_extract.pdf

Week 7 -

I really enjoyed creating my map as there were things and people involved in my life that I had never thought about how they influenced the way I am professionally.  It showed me that yes I do have a lot of specialist professionals coming through my door of the classroom and as I thought about them, it made me reflect on how they influenced my classroom programme for all my children.

Andrews (1990) defines interdisciplinary collaboration as occurring "when different professionals, possessing unique knowledge, skills, organisational perspectives, and personal attributes, engage in coordinated problem solving for a common purpose" (cited in Berg-Weger &. Schneider, 1998). 

The video from the Thomas McDonagh Group discussed how educators and learners should have a sense and understanding of people and happenings around you, they call this Apathic Horizon, (Thomas McDonagh Group, 2011).  I thought about this as I was thinking about my colleagues.  We are a small rural primary school and as I started to think about them in a more indepth way, I came to realise our staff have many strengths and passions that we should all be utilising within our programmes.  We need a discussion about how we can incorporate everyones strengths rather than feeling we have to teach everything but would be on a more superficial level.  

We have begun to think about this in our programme as my colleague has a strength on Science and we have been joining together to work through some Nature of Science activites.  This has also been some of the best professional development for me - to observe her in action and the children benefit from her knowledge too.

In her paper The Natural Flow of Learning, Dr Julia Atkin (1994) looks at a connected curriculum as a means of making learning relevant and concludes that we need to approach the curriculum in a way that "connects the powerful ideas, models and processes within and across traditional disciplines; a curriculum which connects with, and then extends, the learners' personal, experiential knowledge."  Thinking of this reference it makes me reflect on working to our passions and strengths and working smarter within our school.



References - 

Atkin, J. (1994). The Natural Flow of Learning: Conditions which enhance and maximise learning. Retrieved from www.learning-by-design.com/papers/conds_learning.pdf

Mathison,S.. & Freeman, M.(1997). The logic of interdisciplinary studies. Presented at the 

     Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, 1997. Retrieved 

     from http://www.albany.edu/cela/reports/mathisonlogic12004.pdf

Thomas McDonagh Group. ( 2011, May 13). Interdisciplinarity and Innovation Education.[video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kDdNzftkIpA

Week 6 - Professional Social Online Networks

Activity 6: Using social online networks in teaching and professional development 

The use of technology has grown in an exceeding rate in our classrooms with devices being a more accessible to school.  In my classroom there has been a real shift away from using the devices - ipads and chrome books for 'games' to activities that involve more creating, problem solving and sharing / teaching others.  

Don't get me wrong there is still a place for those but there seems to be more buy in from the children when they see their final product on the screen being shared with others from all over the world.

As a school we use Facebook and our blogs to connect with families.  I am just trialling Seesaw at the moment with the hope to include parents next term.  As a class we use twitter and skype to connect and broaden our horizons. We have a private class account with You Tube as many videos are shared to the parents using this.   As a professional I use Twitter, many pages on Facebook, electronic publications such as Mind Shift, Pinterest and now Google+ to build my scope on teaching ideas.  At my school we all have our own Teacher Action Inquiry (TAI) that drive our professional development and teacher registration requirements. As a result of this week’s activity, I now realise the value of social networking and social networking is now going to be a larger part of my TAI process. We have been asked to create our TAI as a digital document and up to now it has just seemed like another thing to think about as paper is easy but I am sure this is my step going forward - to create my professional digital footprint.

I have found, particularly this year, the range and options of courses that are more to my interests and needs online.  I feel attending conferences, while beneficial for face to face and networking will become not as important to attend and I can do all of those things online and at a time that suits me, which is really important with having my own family to think of.  I think it is really important to still have a balance in your life no matter how interesting and stimulating your work is.

While using social media within the classroom, I am aware of what I can use as I have a class of younger children who are not yet 13 and many media sites have an age restriction on them.  I am aware many of these children have their own accounts at home but I will not endorse them at school.  Concerns about privacy, both for themselves and for their students, and about maintaining the class as a private space for free and open discussion, have been at the top of the list of concerns in all of reports conducted in Pearsons: Social Media for Teaching and Learning. (Seaman, 2013)

Through regular participation, I would improve my ability to self-direct my learning, which would motivate me continue my personal development (Melhuish, 2013). Social media networking would continue to make it possible to connect with people around the world that I would otherwise not communicate with (Sharples et al., 2016), and it brings the world to the children.

Social technologies can provide new opportunities to engage learners and many educators are discovering impactful strategies for using them in face-to-face, blended and online classrooms. (Seaman, 2013)

References - 

Melhuish, K.(2013). Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’ professional learning. Master Thesis. The University of Waikato. Retrieved on 12 March, 2017 from https://app.themindlab.com/media/32455/view

Sharples, M., de Roock , R., Ferguson, R., Gaved, M., Herodotou, C., Koh, E., Kukulska-Hulme, A., Looi,C-K, McAndrew, P., Rienties, B., Weller, M., Wong, L. H. (2016). Innovating Pedagogy 2016: Open University Innovation Report 5. Milton Keynes: The Open University. Retrieved from http://proxima.iet.open.ac.uk/public/innovating_pedagogy_2016.pdf

Seaman, J., & Tinti-Kane, H. (2013). Social media for teaching and learning. Babson Survey Research Group. Retrieved from http://www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/social-media-for-teaching-and-learning-2013-report.pdf