ADSA: Success in School certificate

 

ADSA: Success in School Workshop: Day 1

 Hearing from Edward Borkin, sharing his story growing up with down syndrome. He is a founding member of STRIVE, Their main goal is:

Universal Design for Learning with Dr Jude MacArthur

When planning, plan for everyone is mind, from the start. Focus on what they can do, rather than what they can't do. 

Things that can support children include:

• Ensuring everything is in logical order.
• Have instructions written down with steps (visuals important here)
• Talk slowly and communicate clearly. Use sign. Teach this to the whole class!
• Keeping background noises to a minimum. (Can encourage students to use headphones for a quiet space)
• Give more time to process, especially during testing situations.
• Front load where possible. 

We need to remove barriers! Focus on the universal solution that can benefit everyone in class. 

Learning profile of students with Down Syndrome with Paula Beguely

There can be many things that we need to consider when we have a child with down syndrome in our classroom. 

Hearing - Often children with down syndrome have smaller ears and smaller ear canals, making hearing harder for them. Glue ear can become a barrier too. This is often like trying to listen to someone talking underwater. 

Vision - Often children with down syndrome may need glasses. They also often confuse colours. They are not colour blind, but may confuse orange, red and brown etc. Ensure they see the colours you are seeing. 

Low Muscle Tone - Children can get tired easily. They may even need to rest against something or lay down. This may come across as behaviour or not managing self, but isn't!

Pain - This is something to discuss with families. There may be some confusion around what is happening and the feeling they are experiencing. There is a chance they may not be able to explain what they are experiencing or may not react as we would expect. For example, the presenters daughter had trapped her finger in the cardoor. She only reacted when her mum came outside to see where she was.

For this reason, all injuries need to be reported to the parents regardless of severity. 

Speech - this can be impacted from hearing barriers, cognitive conditions and low muscle tone. 

There may also be other medical conditions present. These need to be discussed with the families. 

Have visual prompts, time tables etc available for the students.  Also remember that it can take up to 10 seconds to process information or questions, so allow that time when asking questions. 

We also need to consider whether our students in our class may be sensory seeking or sensory sensitive.

Sensory seeking - jumping, crashing, banging into things, spinning, chewing on things, stomping, placing items heavily

Sensory Sensitive - school bell too loud, overreaction, unexpected things, difficulty with teeth brushing, haircuts.

As there can be loads of challenges and barriers, focus on the strengths of the students.

• Visual awareness
• Responds well to praise
• Reading and Writing
• Thrive with structure and routine

Ensure we teach things correctly from the start, because once it has been added to long term memory, it can be hard to unlearn!

Understanding & Supporting Behaviour with Arul Hamill

When dealing with behaviour, we need to be doing the noticing for the students. We need to notice their body signals and identify these with the students for them to be able to notice these themselves.  Students with down syndrome take longer for them to notice their own body signals. 

When there is a heightened feeling, for example student with anxiety, or feelings of anger etc, they can't always hear or process verbal feedback. Use visual cues as needed. 

Many students, regardless of illness or disability, struggle with physical calibration. This is something that we need to model and practice with our students. For example, What is gentle? Slow? How does it feel? This is especially important when looking at students running in the classroom, pushing in line etc. 

When looking at behaviours that are unwanted, look at the behaviour and what lead up to it. What is happening during and after. Discuss these with the students to develop that understanding.

Always teach a functional equivalent behaviour! For example, instead of hitting, encourage high fives. 

Friendships with Fehm Hussain 

Connections before content!

When trying to encourage friendships, rather than saying, "Who is looking after Child today?" instead say "Child is having a challenge today on the monkey bars to see how long they can hang on. Whose up for the challenge?" It removes the stigma that the child cannot make their own friends, or being helpless.

Ensure there isn't a heavy teacher-aide or adult presence all the time. We don't want to interfere with friendships forming on their own.

Teach problem solving skills rather than removing the problems. 

Could have a coreboard. With permissions from families, a photo of each child and their name can go home with the child so they can have conversations about friends at home with their fmailies. 

Things to consider:

High viz for duty teachers?

Often the students will gravitate towards the adults, but for the duty teacher to re-engage the students with other children.

Term 3 Professional Inquiry

What are the priorities for my target learners? How are they going in relation to these priorities?

Scanning:  Target students are not able to identify what they need to be able to improve their learning. 

Focusing: I would like my students to focus on setting goals within the writing curriculum to improve their output quality.

Inquiry Question: Will using goal setting strategies with my target writers make them able to choose sensible ‘next’ steps. How will the goal-setting look? What resources will I need to support these students to set SMART goals?

Developing a hunch:  

I will need to

• Unpack Level 3 of the New Zealand writing expectations with my students.
• Provide exemplars of what each of the expectations looks like within level 3. 
• Unpack students writing, and identify which areas they need to improve on.
• Encourage students to order their areas of improvement, starting with areas that will make the most impact on their writing.

What do I need to know/learn in order to effectively respond to these priorities?

• Expectations of Level 3 writing
• Exemplars of level 3 writing
• How to set SMART goals with students
• How to unpack the literacy progressions into kids speak with the students.

Therefore what are my development goals?

Taking action: 

• Find ‘kid-speak’ level 3 learning outcomes.
• Display their goals on pencils.
• Kid speak writing progressions from TKI 
• Find professional readings about improving writing outcomes through goal setting. 
• Setting literacy goals and recording progress

TOD - Christine Davies - High Expectation Teachers

Christine Rubie Davies - Teacher Only Day - Research on high expectation teachers and the effects on students outcomes. 

Mixed-ability grouping - provides students with more motivation to persevere with their learning. When students are in ability groups, they quickly are able to identify where in the hierarchy they are. Provide more opportunities for lower-level students at the same level as everyone else.

How can I change my reading, writing, maths groups to allow for more mixed ability learners?

Useful links to support Mixed ability grouping in maths - TKI  and Youcubed

Motivation

Extrinsic motivation - Tangible rewards significantly and substantially undermine intrinsic motivation… there is indeed reason for teachers to exercise great care when using rewards-based incentive systems.

Non-contingent vs contingent rewards - When students expect a reward for their behaviour, the behaviour is less likely to continue to happen naturally.

Benefits of intrinsic motivation -

• Persistence
• Creativity
• Conceptual Understanding
• Optimal functioning and well-being

Benefits of using student interests

• Strengthen students motivation
• Promotes peer communication
• Reduces disruptive behaviour
• Enhance student-teacher relationships
• Promotes active learning
• Increases responsibility for own learning

Setting Goals

• Need to be realistic, achievable, measurable.
• Goals should be focussed on gaining skills, rather than competing with others. 
• Provide feedback 
• based on the learning intentions
• which becomes the basis for setting goals
• based on progress
• Long term goals need short term goals to work towards and needs to be monitored and reset often. 

Key factors of effective goal setting.

• Motivation
• Attention
• Challenge
• Feedback
• Self-efficacy
• Self-regulation
• The proximal versus the distal nature of the goal
• Self-set versus teacher-assisted goals 

Teacher Strike

Today we strike!
We strike for better working conditions.
We strike for more support for our students.
We strike for easier access to support for our students.
We strike for smaller class sizes.
We strike for work-life balance.
We strike because we need new teachers.
We strike because we want to keep our skilled teachers.
We strike for pay parity.
We strike for OUR students.
We strike for YOUR children!

Stand with us.

My placard.

My daughter's placard (7 years old)

My son's placard (13 years old)

Manaiakalani Facilitation

Day three of Manaiakalani facilitation, done and dusted.

It impresses me how much students already know regarding technology, and how quickly they pick up the new skills taught.

What went well?

All the students in each of the classes that I have been in to this week have been focused and engaged. I have expected that students that don't have posts of their blogs, post one before my session was finished - most of them achieved this.

In classes where students were well on their way with blogging, we focused on creating positive, helpful, thoughtful comments to leave other students on their blogs.  This was a very positive session with the two classes at Pompallier Catholic School.  The students enjoyed looking at other school blogs, and finding people they may already know outside of school.  The comments they were leaving other students showed depth and thought, and fit within the Manaiakalani kaupapa. 

What needs modification?

As this is my first week, some things have been less organised than what I would have liked it to be. For example, not having access to class sites to be able to upload work I would like the students to have access too.  This is now sorted at Pompallier School and some of the teachers at Ahipara School. Allowing me this access will make life easier when sharing documents to students. 

I'm also very used to have my own projector and being able to display the activity I would like the students to complete. This allows me to show them exactly what I would like them to do.  This has been a little bit more challenging as the different schools have different systems in their class for projecting student work. 

Next goals/steps:

I would like to get all the students in the Far North cluster collaborating via their blogs.  This has started successfully already with some students from Pompallier commenting on Paparore School Blogs and on Ahipara School blogs. I would like to match all the 'like-aged' classes together to increase their audience they already have on their blogs.

I would also like to comment on every student's blog that is in the Far North cluster Pilot classes. So far, Ahipara school blogs have been commented on - as long as the students had a post.

I look forward to extending my knowledge of Manaiakalani and building relationships with all the students I have met and will be meeting.  This is a great opportunity, one that I will embrace while I can.

Parent Interviews

At the end of Term 2, we had our annual parent interviews.  This year we had to think of another way that we were going to run our interviews as we had 54 students with two teachers. This would have only given our whanau and students 7 minutes each to talk to both teachers. We decided this was not long enough for students to be able to share their own learning - student agency.

To trail a new system, we had four students within a half hour block along with their whanau.  We had an introduction korero sharing how we work within our learning spaces and what our expectations are for the students.

The students were set-up around the room with their books, portfolios, chromebook and a STEAM kit each.  All students actively discussed their learning with their parents, sharing what they have been learning, what the enjoyed and what they found challenging.  As teachers, we roamed around the room and sat with the parents for short sessions to answer any questions and concerns.

Deb and I felt that this worked really well in the sense that it was less intimidating for students and parents. This gave students ownership of their own learning with less of a focus on the teacher.  We are currently surveying our parents to find out what their thoughts were on the process and any suggestions that they would like to make.

Manaiakalani PLD - DFI Week 7

On Wednesday Deb, Robyn and I went to the Manaiakalani headquarters for a professional learning day with Dorothy Burt.

What I've learnt about the Kaupapa of Manaiakalani

• Sharing to students blogs could and should include a variety of student learning from plans and drafts right through to published work.
• The devices isn't the magic bullet. Instead, effective pedagogy is needed. The device is only the tool to support their teaching and learning.
• Commenting on students blogs are essential and could/should be part of our daily programmes to allow students to leave comments on other's blogs.

What I would like to try with my class:

• To connect with the class that we visited at Panmure Bridge
• To schedule in time for our students to comment on other's blogs
• To use the 'Learn, Create, Share' when planning

The students accessed a blog log to share all their blog posts with the teachers. Teachers are able to easily see who hasn't added posts that were required. 

DFI Session 6

DFI Session 6

What I have tried before this session:

• Students posting their blog profiles to their blogs.
• Students using screencastify to record how to post to their blog.
• Share their screencastify video onto their blog also.

What I need more support with, or what hasn't work:

• Lack of devices in our classroom to fully implement all learning
• Students needing more time to familiarize themselves with google and the device, ie. navigating between tabs, etc.
• Students knowing how to make a copy of a document correctly, naming it properly, and saving it in the correct folder.

Visible Learning

The Manaiakalani kaupapa is for all learning to be visible.  This includes the learning, planning, etc.  This is why creating class sites. Students can share - this is what I'm learning, this is the purpose of my learning. This is beneficial to teachers also, as more ideas are shared across schools. Teachers can access other teachers sites to find ideas, resources etc.  

Having all learning, including student blogs, visible creates connections between home and school. The sites allows students to read what's in the teachers mind. 

Having learning visible ensure there are no surprise. Students know where they are starting from and where they are going. 

Hapara enables visibility for the teacher to see where students are, what they are doing, follow up on work etc. 

Keeping learning visible makes it easy for anyone to access. As soon as you put up barriers like passwords etc, people usually only try a couple of times then give up.  Then this is a learner lost, or a lost connection with whanau.

Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu

A collaborative sharing platform using blogger to connect to a school. This is something I would like to have a look at doing next year when our students have their learning blogs up and running and we have 1:1 devices. Students make comments on other students learning. 

Hooking Student in

Teachers at Pt England school hook students into their inquiry learning at the start of each term. This is showcased as a large assembly at the start of each year.  An example of new entrants teachers can be viewed on this slide, slide 6.

Google Sites

Today we are creating google sites.  We were given information to use, and with that we had to create an engaging site for our learners.  In our group, we created a garden breakout. This requires students to find hints on the site, to answer questions on a form. Here is my example.

Reflection

Today was an exciting day for learning. I have enjoyed learning more about google sites and how they can create a learning platform for students to use, for example a hook into an inquiry topic. 

Experimenting with Slides with my students

After our DFI session 4, I was excited to continue building my class site, as well as using slides to make my planning and teaching 'rewindable' for students.

I have a long way to go towards creating my own learning videos for students, but to experiment with my new learning, I was able to embed a relevant youtube video into my slides.  My slide is also embedded into my class site, for easy student access.

The only big issue that I face at this time, trying to make learning sites and learning slides available to my students, is the lack of technology in my class.  I can see the benefit of students being able to access all my lessons and links at all times, but until we have 1:1 devices with our students, this won't be effective or even viable.

I will continue to work on my site and slides, in preparation for the day we have access to 1:1 devices for our students. I'm excited about the prospects of this, and the opportunities for learning this will create for our students.

DFI Session 4

Creating

Back in the days students used many natural resources to create learning - making huts, weaving flax, build mud sculptures, etc. These days we need to think about ways that we can allow this freedom to create for students, using digital technologies. Many options are available for this purpose: stop motion animation, videos, writing music, virtual tours of the world, and so much more.

The illiterate of the 21st Century will not be those who cannot read ad write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.

Youtube

Creating playlists for students to view can decrease distraction for students viewing irrelevant videos. Below is a playlist I have created to experiment with this new learning.  Embedding playlists (like how I have done here) into class sites makes it easier for students to access the right video, first time.  My next learning steps are to remove the 'extras' that are part of youtube, ie, removing the comments, the side view, and the option to view the videos in youtube, rather than remaining on the class site.

Live Streaming

Students can live locally, but learn globally. This can be used to live stream sporting events to whanau, but also throughout the school so that students can watch the events as they happen in class.

Google Draw

Had a go again today creating buttons using google draw. I created buttons that will be used for our new school site, giving students access to all their learning and blogs. Google draw can also be very useful when creating infographics.  Pictures can be loaded to google draw, and overlays can be used so that when clicking in certain parts of a picture, it could link you to another page, or give some information.  This would be great for our current learning about the Marae. Students can create an infographic labelling the parts of a marae. 



Google Slides

Google slides are useful for creating animations, lesson plans and much more.  From what we had learnt today, I'm excited to give google slide a go for my planning. I'm hoping to create a flipped learning environment for my target maths group (this is currently my teacher inquiry). Students would be able to access the slides at all times, meaning that any past learning can be 'rewinded' and revisited again.

Reflective Questions

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

• Google slides for planning flipped learning content
• Google draw for creating my class and school site

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  

• Google draw to create infographics
• Google slides to share their learning - possibly use this with screencastify

Term 1, 2018 Reflection

Term 1, 2018 Reflection

This term is the first time in my teaching career where I taught in an ILE environment alongside another colleague. At the end of the term we had 52 students in our care.  This is been a new learning journey for both Deb and I.  

It has taken us all term to find our feet, set expectations, get to know the kids, and iron out some challenges.  The first challenge that arose was the location of stationary and equipment.  With our students learning across two spaces to create our ILE, it meant that students had books, etc in both spaces.  This was a nightmare at the start, students not being able to find their belongings and not knowing where to start looking.  We decided to have all our student's books in tote trays stored in one space so students always knew where to go looking.  This created the next issue of students having to remember which hub they would go to next for their next lesson in order to make sure they have their tote trays and belonging in the right hub.  This is still a work in progress, but we have the maths rotation sorted.  

The next challenge we both face is the lack of time we have with each child.  With there being 52 students, we find it challenging connecting with each and every child on a daily basis to build strong relationships for learning. Some students haven't been in either of my learning groups, which means I haven't been able to connect with them on a learning level, and it means I have no idea where they are in their learning. I'm hoping as our groups change next term,I will be able to connect with a few more learners.

My biggest challenge I face, is working alongside my colleague, knowing that not all the decisions lay with me. Having worked in single cell classroom environment my whole teaching career, I have never had to check with anyone before changing my daily plans, ordering stationary, deciding on teaching/learning topics, etc.  Being consistent is also very important. We need to have clear understanding of each others expectations and boundaries as to not confuse the students. I have not wanted to say one thing to my students only to find out that my Colleague has said the opposite.  This meant that I have taken on more of a backseat approach, checking in with her before giving any instructions. This at times makes me feel as though I am incompetent, however I know it is just as to not step on any toes. I do feel however, the more I take the backseat approach, the less competent I will become, especially when moving back to a single cell again one day. This is where I will need to find the balance for myself.  Deb and I have discussed this and have agreed that we should have set days to be 'in charge'.

With all the challenges that have faced me so far this term, I do feel that lots of meaningful learning has occured and I have changed my practice therefore. Deb is a very experienced teacher with a wealth of knowledge, having shown significant shifts in student learning across the curriculum throughout her teaching career. I have enjoyed shadowing her, seeing what she does that makes a difference, and applying it to my own practise. So far we have made a great team and have worked well together. I look forward to us growing as a team this year, because together we can achieve great things with our students.