Class Magazine Pages

Although this is a very hectic time of the year, I must say I always enjoy putting together the class pages for our school magazine. My go to website has always been Photofunia. I love the templates, it does take some time to set up, but it is all worth it when you see the end product. 

Sites used as a learning platform

Google Sites has been an amazing means of providing learning for children that they can access from their chrome books. I really am enjoying planning collaboratively with my colleagues. I feel like the workload has definitely been reduced. We as teachers should be working efficiently and this is definitely a wonderful way of doing it.

Middle School Sites 2015

Middle School Sites 2016

Voyager Programme with Vikram Murthy

This was my presentation for Voyager. We had to identify a problem within our current role, then turn it into an Appreciative Inquiry.

ULearn 2016

This year we were given the wonderful opportunity to attend the ulearn conference. The first presentation is what was presented to the staff at staff meeting. The second presentation were my notes taken from the breakouts attended at ulearn.

Maths Reflection on PD

I was asked by some staff to provide some feedback on the Maths PD we have received over the past two years. This was video was played at the BOT meeting.

Reading at Assembly

Louise Dempsey and Sheena Cameron Writing workshop

Reading Together

Along with another staff member I have been leading the Reading Together programme for some of our parents. There are 4 workshops and this was workshop 2, where parents try to identify whether a text is at the right level for their child. It was a very good session full of meaningful discussions.

Fijian Dance

Our pasifika kids learnt a new dance today taught to them by Sika a family member of Elenor Rounds who is a parent at our school. I think it is great for my Fijian learners to shine in their culture as well as building up home/ school partnerships. We have some wonderful parent helpers.

Emily Reading

Emily reads so beautifully. I love her fluency and expression.

Maths Inquiry

Notes and reflections on our Maths Inquiry for this Year. We have been working alongside Honor Ronowicz and she has given us a few ideas on what to focus on.



Short Refections on the PD. This was feedback that I provided for Honor.: It has been wonderful working alongside Honor and having her support me through my teaching of maths. I can see the importance of giving the children a voice, especially those that very rarely have that voice, or when the only voice being used is the teacher's ( yes I am guilty). By doing this they are building on their knowledge and understanding on mathematical concepts being taught. The use of talk moves is a great way of eliciting children's ideas as well as getting them to be active listeners and hearing the different methods of solving a problem. For my students who need extra support, it has given them more confidence when they are presented with a maths problem. Ideally we want these children to have a love of maths. This is a work in progress, one I am sure will have positive effects on all learners over time.

Looking at National Standards and what they would look like at each level has been very informing also. It has definitely helped me when making my overall OTJ.

SOLO refresher on Teacher Only Day

Notes taken from our TOD. Solo refresher with Pam Hook. We managed to plan/ implement SOLO into out concept for next term: Globalisation, with the context the Olympic Games.

To be honest I felt quite bad that we hadn't used Solo in the classroom at all this year. Our students have been learning their way around the use of a chrome book and google apps for education.
This PD gave some good tips of ways of re introducing SOLO back into the classroom.

Problem Solving

As part of our team's Maths Inquiry, we have been looking at the benefits of teaching children how to problem solve.
Last term it was my responsibility to find research that proves this.

Taken from

NZ Maths

Benefits of teaching children to problem solve:

• It bases students’ mathematical development on their current knowledge;
• It is an interesting and enjoyable way to learn mathematics;
• It is a way to learn new mathematics with greater understanding;
• It produces positive attitudes towards mathematics;
• It makes the student a junior research mathematician;
• It teaches thinking, flexibility and creativity;
• It teaches general problem solving skills;
• It encourages cooperative skills;
• It is a useful way to practice mathematical skills learned by other means;
• It is similar in approach to the way that other subjects are taught in primary school.

Problem Solving Strategies to teach

Levels 1 and 2

• Draw a Picture
• Act it Out
• Use Equipment
• Guess and Check

Levels 3 and 4

• Draw a Diagram
• Act it Out
• Use Equipment
• Guess and Improve
• Make a Table
• Make an Organised List

We also showed/ taught the different methods of problem solving and used this unit:

Maori language Week

For maori language week we have been learning how to say what day of the week it is in Maori.

K te aha tenei ra? ( What day is it today?)
Ko te ______ tenei ra. ( It is __________ today)
Rahina ( Monday) Ratu( Tuesday) Raapa ( Wednesday) Rapare ( Thursday) Ramere ( Friday).

We also learnt some hand games this week. The kids did look highly engaged.

Middle School Sites

We are using Google Sites as a platform for parents, teachers and students to view their earning for the term/ week. Link to Middle School Learning Site.
Our syndicate have been planning collaboratively to ensure that our learning engagements are at the right level for our students.
In our classroom I have found that our planning for reading has been going extremely well in a shared learning space. The children are getting better with knowing where exactly they need to be during guided reading sessions.
Next term, myself and the teacher I am team teaching with are hoping to get our Maths programme running successfully just as our reading programme has been going over the last term.

Pasifika Fono

In term 2 I lead a Pasifika meeting for parents that were able to make the meeting.
We have 34% of our PI students on our At Risk list. 

What are my goals in supporting our Pasifika learners?An ultimate goal is to have a group of Pasifika parents meeting regularly (x1 a term) where we discuss how we can best support our Pasifika students, may be through highlighting Pacific Island Language weeks, more expertise in song and dance for our PI group, or having information evenings for parents to support their children at home.

I am sure when our school gets this up and running we will see improvement in achievement outcomes of our Pasifika learners. As the saying goes " It takes a village to raise a child."

Mindlab Assignment

For the last Mind Lab paper " Applied Practice in Context" we had to critically reflect on specific topics outlined.
A blog was created and each week we had to post our reflections and thoughts.
I enjoyed this paper the most as it unpacked many realisations I had never thought I had in me. I now have a clearer vision of what I would like to achieve in my leadership roles. See blog link above for more information.

Mindlab Assignment.

From our Literature Review, we discovered that the use of Digital tools have positive effects on student learning. Our next assignment was to plan an inquiry based on the information we found from our review. This inquiry focused on our priority learners specifically our Maori learners and how we use digital tools to cater to their learning needs. 

Here is the link to the blog that my group and I created. We worked collaboratively nutting out what we wanted to accomplish from our inquiry. We considered our stakeholders ( students/ parents/ teachers/ community) and how they can be involved to ensure positive gains were being made for our Maori students.

From this I acquired knowledge and understanding of how to be more culturally responsive in my pedagogy and also how the school is doing this also. See blog for more details.

Commenting on blogs

Today I asked children to comment on their learning buddy's blog today via the middle school sites links  Links to all class blogs. It was a great way to help the children to understand that their audience is not limited to just teachers and parents. From my studies at Mindlab I found that commenting is a powerful means of engaging children in their learning as well as giving them an authentic audience that will give them meaningful feedback. My next steps are to scaffold the children through the commenting process and hopefully, they can then become the experts and encourage their parents to do so too.

New Pasifika Uniforms

Here is our Pasifika Group rocking their new uniform. They were so excited to finally be wearing something that showed they belong to this group. T Shirts were kindly printed by a family member and lava lavas were sewed up by a parent in the schol community.

 

Questions raised from our literature review.

Click Here for Mindlab Journey

The Focus of our Literature Review was to investigate the effects digital collaborative learning had on our priority learners. This is a question that has resonated for me with regards to our priority learners, specifically our Maori Learners.

• How are the learning styles of Maori students in particular being met?

Have found these resources particularly helpful when answering this question.

KaHikitia: Accelerating Success 2013–2017 is a strategy to guide action to make a significant difference for Māori students in education. Ka Hikitia means to step up, to lift or to lengthen one's stride. It means stepping up how education system performs to ensure Maori student are enjoying and achieving education success as Maori.

Tataiako: Cultural Competencies for Teachers of Māori Learners: The purpose of this resource is to provide teachers with information, prompts and questions to stimulate thinking and discussion about their current practice and how responsive that practice is to the specific learning and cultural needs of Māori learners. It is designed to assist teachers to focus on what they are doing to support Māori learners in achieving their educational potential and to enjoy education achievement as Māori.

Upon researching the benefits of Kapahaka, have come across some of the preferred/ strong learning approaches/ methods for our Maori students. Exploring kapa haka as a culturally-responsive learning environment is therefore important in determining the connection between culture and learning and to consider its educational benefit in relation to improving how Māori students participate in their education.

 Kapa Haka has provided many Māori students with opportunities to learn, engage and experience their language and cultural meanings more quickly. It has also improved their confidence and motivation to want to be more involved in a wider range of learning activities, including reading and writing (Rubie, 1999). Rubie’s thesis investigation (1999), found that not only was there Page 7 of 14 http://www.review.mai.ac.nz MAI Review, 2008, 3, Article 8 a marked improvement in the overall perception of their school life, Māori students were also achieving better results in a number of age-appropriate standardized tests. Her study concluded that Māori student participation in kapa haka can improve levels of student achievement in other areas of the curriculum.

From MAI Review, 2008, 3, Article 8, student voice was obtained and they found that kapa haka
- reaffirms who they are (essence and identity) as Māori and therefore provides a collective purpose to want to learn;
- develops a sense of learning success by performing what they know through the art of movement;
- enhances and enriches the learning experience
- singing, dancing and performing actions simultaneously were considered a very dynamic, powerful and creative way of learning;
- constructs learning responsibilities that are shared (i.e., experience of whole-group or team learning) reducing individual learning anxiety, stress and isolation;
- elicits positive emotions including joy, fun and an overall sense of happiness about attending school and in some ways increases their desire to succeed at school; 
- improves individual confidence, self-esteem/self-worth and commitment to participate in the learning environment.

Student Led Conferences

Had a great turn out of parents attending our SLC's. My students did a wonderful job sharing their learning journey with their parents. Here are the comments from parents to their kids!

My Reflection on SLC's: Definitely has has it's benefits.
If you are successful with scaffolding your students through their learning processes in each area, and children know what they are learning and why, this can be a much more powerful way of getting your children to build on their student agency.

Created with Padlet

New Interactive Online Tool

Have been having a play around with a tool called Zaption, which you can upload a video clip from youtube and write questions/ or have live discussions on the content. It collects responses from the children and I like how you embed it into blogs. Here is my first attempt.

Positive Classroom Norms

Was given this as some professional reading from Honor to help with growth mindset and making children feel safe to share their ideas without the fear of being ridiculed if their thinking was off track. I love explaining to children that if a problem is challenging/ hard for them then they were the ones who were going to have their brains getting the most growth. I have a few chn who are not too confident to share within discussions, so will be using this resource as an aid for my teaching.

Maths Inquiry 2016