Manaiakalani Toolkits - Coding and Ban the Boring

 Coding  

Ever since I learnt about scratch and coding at DFI, I have wanted to share a forgotten passion. Forgotten because I last used it in Sixth Form/Year 12 many years ago when they first introduced coding and robotics. Back then, it was just basic javascript. 

Malcolm Bignell had a wealth of knowledge of all things electronic and code-related. 

However, Malcolm let us navigate around his teaching and learning site. The activities and challenges for the high school students were amazing and easy to follow sequentially. Something I hope to inspire too, but more at an intermediate level.

I found it reassuring was even though he was showing us what Year 10 are doing, the code and systems are familiar. My students who are learning coding through Scratch and Edu-Sphero are not at a disadvantage because the coding blocks have similar headings, E.g. Event, Control, Sound, Looks...

Ban Boring

This is looking at creating slides that inspire and encourage students to interact with the learning. Once you have created a set of backgrounds, you can reuse them. This will be really helpful during lockdown times when you are trying to get students to engage in learning, as you can make the class slides more relevant. 

We looked at a range of slides and how interactive, exciting or inspiring they were. Were they overpacked and distracting? We had the opportunity to look at other sites offering slides templates and how to make the bitmoji. Now to create my bitmoji. 

Sharon, thank you for your inspiring toolkit.

Toolkits - Students teaching Teachers

 We were at a Staff Meeting run by the local Ako Hiko Facilitator. The Focus was on creating and with the work I have been doing with writing and reading over the last few years this toolkit was awesome. 

We as teachers and students can create a range of styles of music using Incredibox. This music can play in the background while students read aloud a passage they have written. If they have an image or recording/screencast of their reading or the work they have accomplished they have created a multimedia. 

The slides the students created to teach other students. It was wonderful when I thanked them for teaching me, initially they were confused as I was new to the area. - Rewindable learning at its best!

 

 Thanks Boys!!😁👌

MIT - Planning for Writing

We all know even the best writers have a plan before they start writing. I have always found this part of writing tricky to teach as everyone has their own style. Hence I initially left it off my website. But with practise and determination things come to fruition and I have added to my site a Prewriting page.

Teachers have different styles for different age groups. Some encourage students to draw a picture and add words that turn into a sentence. Some want 4 boxes with Who, What, Where/When, Why/How described in them. I personally make notes and add to them as time goes on, often rewriting to ensure I can still read the plan (it was for writing a novel or two).

Talking with a colleague, they mentioned the students I had last year had great ideas. But sometimes forgot to include them, so they were making a storyboard plan using 6 boxes. 

I have Year 3 and 4 class this year and wondered could they do a storyboard. I couldn't see why not they love to draw, anything to thwart writing.

We were planning our writing using a single picture which just wasn't the same for inspiring ideas. They would write one or two sentences and often thought they were done.

We divided the page into 4 the children had to draw before, 2 images showing during the event and an after. These images allowed the students to think past one image, and they started writing more. It was exciting to see.

Currently, we are writing Explanations - how to make /do /create...

So we started with a picture of what we need to use and a drawing of what it hopefully looks like at the end.

We are getting multiple sentences out of them without it looking too much like instructions.

Farewell

Time has come to take on new challenges and travel down a new path. After eight inspiring and stimulating years here it is time to say farewell. The staff, students and community will be missed, however, it is time to use my creative and digital skills in different ways so I am moving on to a new venture. 

I was given a handful of paper swans from the littluns at school,  a show of love and good wishes on my journey.

The Year 7 and 8 (who I had taught for a few of their years at this school) made beautiful cards, it was great to see the skills they had been taught with card making come out.

It was also nice to remember all the different things we have done together as a group and a school.

Stepping out into the unknown is always something I have found tricky, but I know the path is lit and bright. New challenges and adventures await.

Dear Tanya 

Kia ora koutou ka tipu haere tonu koutou.
(Wishing you all the best as you continue to grow and flourish)
Arohanui

ADHD - PLD at Papakura Intermediate

What do you know about Executive Functions?

Brain talk

Executive function and how the brain works to students with ADHD -

• 10 yr - the world was spinning and she was standing still
• 16 yr - walking on the road covered in marbles where does my next step go?

Our Brain Functions in 3 different States:

Executive State - What can I learn from this?
Emotional State - (Limbic system, Emotional) - Am I loved?

Survival State - Baby needs milk cry Am I safe?

If you Ask:
Why am I repeating myself 5-50 times, first thing in the morning

Emotional State

Frontal Cortex and settling to class
Flipping the lip - Daniels Siegal’s - Hand model

The student isn't ready for learning yet today they are dealing with other stuff they need to process first before learning can happen.

Survival State 
Fight or Flight I have to be here but I don't want to and don't know what to do.

Executive State
Brain fully developed - Early research said the early 20s, it's now thought the late 20s to early 30s 

What are executive functions?
We are not born with these, they develop over time.

Introducing Executive Functions

3 Core Executive Functioning Skills, used to diagnose ADHD
Working memory - short so can’t
Response Inhibition - constantly distracted
Cognitive Flexibility - strange to change task midway or the method of working it out

Other Executive Functioning skills:
Time Management, Task Initiation, Goal setting, Planning, Organisation, Metacognition, Goal setting

Development tasks requiring executive function skills for Year 6-8
Help out with chores around the home
Have daily responsibilities or tasks that can take up to an hour to complete
Use systems for organising school work
Follow school schedule, including changes

Four-steps for executive function and coaching

1. Teacher Check-in (identify 1 or 2)
The brain was made for social interactions
The highest score on teacher check-in sheet areas to target

Or Executive Functioning skills Rubric 

(Green, Yellow, Orange, Red - red out of control, green - shows control)
Self-control
Emotional control
Work habit
Flexibility
Time management and work completion

2. Student Voice

Student reflects on strengths and weakness to use strength to develop weaknesses
Identify the ways they use, they know they are struggling but know why this stage helps to identify often they know the strategies they use when things are working.

3. Collaborative plan
This is meaningless without steps one and two
Choose 1 or 2 skills to develop, Help them pinpoint when and what beginning of break, middle or end. Was it your voice struggle to control, that crowd that triggers me maybe I should be

4. Visual Support
Visual Representations of What we discuss!!!!!
Visual Representation better than oracy skills, auditory processing weaker than visual Create this image together
Picture to remind, chart to rate - use their creativity to support

E.g. Stop - image
Think
Act
Debrief/Revise - (Coach and Student Discuss how the tool is working decided when success is achieved and pick another problem situation to focus on)

T1 2021 Online Toolkit Preparation

On Thursday I am leading a Writing Toolkit for Manaiakalani, based around my MIT project. As this is the second of these Toolkits I am leading I knew it was time to check the site and make sure the resources I added were accessible.

For this toolkit, I had added a set of slides with activities for students about Similes (as you can see above) and the Structure of a recount as this is our focus in Tui for younger students to help them add more description.

I have even reviewed the process I follow for the home page and changed step four to reviewing the structure of the piece of writing rather than ending the writing. As the end of a piece of writing is often short and is a summary of the main points for an exposition or a personal statement for a recount and of course, the narrative could have and they lived happily ever after.

Teaching Parts of Speech

 Yeah, I know, just like any other teacher, that yes, we need to do this. However, with restraints and the curriculum as broad as it is, I didn't realise I had missed a stage until I tried to get the students to write a sentence one word at a time. 

The fun fold your paper over once you have written your word and pass it to the next person. Took too long and wasn't a lot of fun. (Please forgive me, I had a group of students for 4 years before this class, and I knew exactly what they had been taught over the previous years. I assumed this group had learnt it too.)

We had talked a lot about onomatopoeia, so that was where our sentences started.  

Onomatopoeia, the name of a person, was adverb, verb, in the adjective, noun.

As we went, we brainstormed examples for adverbs, refreshed their knowledge of verbs, made a list for adjectives and then refreshed our understanding of nouns. 

So as I said, what should have been a quick fun activity, wasn't. But we still come out with some fun sentences.

Smash, Clyde was silently trodding in the fat grass.

Agh, Shony was silently dancing on the long tv.

Swish, Harlem was happily sleeping on the skinny chair.

Splash, Lexus was sadly lying on the hairy table.

Pop, Davis was quickly fishing on the spotty whiteboard.

Smash, Marcus was patiently riding on the tremendous hairy cow.

You can just hear the laughter we caused reading them out to the students.

I am looking forward to trying this task again but this time making sure the students are well prepared beforehand and not making an ass of myself.

MIT @ KPMG - Final Meeting

Today we discussed... 

Identifying students who didn't return to school quickly after each lockdown to ensure gaps are plugged after COVID-19, for future years. 

Identifying students who were online to access learning and how this impacted on their learning during the year and how are could tracking this.

How would we present this work (Creating Writers) in a non-digital environment? e.g. the Cook Islands. E.g. Using different medium to make the body of work accessible.

My Woulda Coulda Shoulda for MIT 2020

Woulda  (with 20/20 hindsight)

I wish I would have pushed for access to Chromebooks for students in class earlier in T1, to train them to 'log in' efficiently, and where to find things they would need during lockdown for learning to continue. 

I would have like to see SLT engage with the MIT process helping to breakdown barriers and time restraints.

Coulda (woulda but circumstances challenged)

I could have pushed for time to teach all students to 'log in' and taught them how to locate the class website, linking into meets and put the learning on the class website as I have previous years but was restricted this year. 

Shoulda (simply shoulda but didn't have time)

Having been to the Manaiakalani Outreach and Principals Wānanga, I should have asked to attend earlier ngā Wānanga to see what is needed and the focus for the coming year. As this would help with direction and evidence of what needs to be done to help accelerate learning.

I was intrigued to find out that the term 'Phonics' has changed to 'Structured Language', useful for students with dyslexia and it is something I would like to investigate more of next year to help students with spelling.

Although we are done for the Year 2020, I will continue to add to the Creating Writers site and develop it with the aim to create easier tasks as I have Year 3 and 4s in 2021.

Final Writing Results for 2020

 It is interesting looking at the results in writing after using the tools I have created and added to 

my site Creating Writers

Thursday we went to the zoo and saw lots of animals. I saw a baby baboon. We saw a lion moving to eat and the other lions were sleeping under the tree. Mr John took a picture of us. - This is an improvement from one of our ESOL boys, who would write one sentence when he arrived.

Arriving at Auckland Zoo everyone waited for the other bus to arrive at the zoo. When the bus finally arrived we all sat down and listened to the rules, from the zookeeper. We all got into our groups and grabbed our lunch. Then our group sat down and ate our rolls. After finishing our rolls we ran to see the animals. First animals we saw were the emu, zebras and giraffes. They were so tall. Next, we ran off to see the scary lions sleeping. The last animal we saw was the big fat elephants. - Previous a reluctant writer.

Year 4 students in our class had also received the same teaching. I was curious about how their results looked from the beginning of the year. 

Stomp! Stomp! Stomp! 

"We are going to do this all day. If you can't stop your chitter-chatter!" Mrs Kereopa shouted, "Heads, shoulders, knees, toes!" She kept shouting.

Finally, we stopped talking and shut our mouths. It was only Kereru we were waiting to come, so were can start our day off at the zoo. Just then Ms Castle came in and shouted loudly, "Is everybody ready for the zoo?"

"Yes!" everybody shouted yelled.

Then we all got up and into our groups. I was in group one, and group one was the last one to explore the ginormous zoo. At last, our group was off and we were very excited looking forward to seeing all the animals in the zoo. - Due to unforeseen circumstances this student only wrote for 20 minutes but what an interesting beginning.

"Put your hat and shoes on," Mrs Mundy said.

We put our hat and shoes on, all except Dakora. Miss did the roll call, and gave someone from each group the name tags, to give to us, so people know who we are. We went outside and got some instructions. I was in group 2, we walked down the driveway to our bus and got on. 

"Shanell, come sit by me." Te Hanni said.

"Ok," I said back. 

We talked and talked until, Ms Kereopa said, "We need some kids to go with Ms Castle."

"Ok," Matua Samuel said, "You can go you can your whole group can go!" - This student would previously write one or two sentences and never attempted to use speech.

The results in student data have validated my efforts. I look forward to continuing to add to my site with alternate lessons and ideas for structuring the various forms of writing. 

I believe that not all students are ready for this input into writing at the same time. However, they still need the teaching and may need it more than once, like in other curriculum areas.

Online Toolkit - Creating Writers

Introducing my site Creating Writers through an Online Toolkit on Tuesday 27th was scary. 

Would people be as thrilled with the site as I am? 

Would the tasks be as useful to others as they are to me?

Little did I know that according to the sign-up sheet my toolkit was going to be one of the more popular on Tuesday night. I sent out the invitations with the link to the toolkit presentation and a link to the site.

2/5 of the people who signed up turned up to the online toolkit. Even though I had just been through the Wananga Presentation I was still nervous. But a colleague turned up and put me at ease and the comments at the end blew me away. 

Here are some of the comments:

• • Great idea to start with Onomatopoeia. Thank you.
  • Such an amazing resource, I have a lot of seniors who are very reluctant to write anything, so hopefully, this can spark some interest.
  • I look forward to using some of your ideas on your site. I can see a lot of work has gone into it. Thanks for sharing your resource.
  • Thanks so much, Tanya - What a great resource!
  • Big thumbs up Tanya, any rewindable resources are wonderful.
  • A fantastic resource and I will keep watching. Brilliantly visible and rewindable!
  • Thank you for sharing - looking forward to exploring further and using :)

  
  

  Have you checked it out yet? Come and visit Creating Writers to see how it can help your students.

My Presentation for the Wānanga

Here is a video of my final presentation. You will have to imagine me standing next to 2 large screens with the slides automatically flicking over every 20 seconds.

When recording my presentation for my blog I used this feature as I didn't like the clicking sound in the background as I recorded my speech to go with my slides.

My favourite part of the Wananga was the discussion about the learning results and how we can bring about change by working collaboratively across schools as well as within our own school.

Manaiakalani Outreach and Principals Wānanga

The Plan: Up early to beat the traffic is always a good idea. Made even better with a free coffee. 

Today is the day we have to give our presentations. It will be all over for us by lunchtime and I think that will be a blessing. Even if I am in the first group. 

We got this!

Woolf Fisher shared the results of the year to date assessment including the PAT Maths. Which showed low achievement but middle accelerated progress. We want high achievement and high progress.  If classes are falling in the low achievements and low progress not helpful to learning as many starting off behind and not given the chance of reaching their potential. 

We were informed writing is the opposite, high achievement and high progress. We need to do this for math and reading. 

Instruction in math is good but similar to national averages.

Reading is over-represented in low progress and low achievement. We need to disrupt this pattern with relentless focus from teachers.

Reading develop model 3 phrases of development  

Basic Literacy Skills are necessary, but not sufficient to lead to Intermediate levels of comprehension. Disciplinary for High School Levels of understanding need to be more than general reading comprehension and conventions of different genres.

Early years students need strong foundational skills and teachers need to be able to diagnose those who don't have the initial reading skills quickly and efficiently. Teachers need to prepare and look further ahead to prepare for more advanced reading leading to High-Level Practises HLP.

Not possible to do in class observations which was a challenge so changed to online observations where Woolf Fisher looked at text visible and activities from class sites for that week. Looking forward to possibly doing a mixture of online and in class.

What we need to know:

• HLP doesn't happen spontaneously need to be planned and prepared 
• Teachers need to plan for more sophisticated lessons for reading
• If teachers look at small samples it means less stable data
• Limited exposure to longer text such as novel biography at least 100 pages or 
• 1 hour plus movies

Things we need to consider with the text we use for reading:

• The balance at different levels on the class site, we do group reading so each group should have the same opportunity at their level.
• Who is in the text, how can we help students relate to these people?

This slide was interesting as we consider the above and try to help students to see it as Mirror text or Window text.

Mirror text - can see people like me relatable 

Window text - can see how 

Can make mirror text more relatable through the ideas of conflict and relationships...

What could we do better? (In reading)

Need to use a range of figurative at metaphoric language in the text

Draw attention to how text is structured at different levels may be doing this through modelling to groups but is it explicit enough?

Questions covered information and plot others had no focus, looked at the theme or plot and other literacy elements but were limited. 

Reading needs more critical literacy needs to be deliberating planned and taught with higher levels of analysis, there was no evidence of this. 

How does T shape link to probe questions? 

Must be collaborative across school levels and schools to help build resources that dive deeper to develop more understanding so students are prepared for High School and University.

Need a balance between directed and choice text or students only might read the easier text!

Sarah's presentation build questions and showing the type of question with help with this in Reading Purple to Silver. Click here to visit site.

And Aletha is right, in the fact that if students don't know how to actively listen, how are they going to engage and develop their learning? So I believe these two sites will help us to build needed listening and reading skills.  

But we can still be thinking about what more can we do? Yes, many teachers are using multi models but do these show the skills and forethought to develop deep understanding? After lunch, we discussed this in our Cluster Groups and there was a range of ideas from developing teacher knowledge (possibly through Louise Dempsey and Shenan Campbell), slowing down our teaching so it is more deliberate, visible and rewindable, developing a shared way across school and clusters. So exciting...

Reflecting on Manaiakalani  

Manaiakalani is a foundation for future focus kaupapa. Creating a strong foundation structure but school and communities bring their own design flair to the learning and curriculum. 

Wānanga Presentation Preparation

 Here is my presentation - Attempt 1. 

Adjustment 2 - included changing the order of the slides, modifying my notes so I could keep up with the 20-second flip. Now I just wonder how it will all sound. 

Adjustment 3 - Background to match my original proposal to help break up all the white. 

Moving to Relationship-Based Learning

We are moving from Cultural Responsive Practise to Relationship-Based Learning. 

TOD and we are out at Awhitu Environmental Camp, thanks to our Board Chair. We are experiencing some of the activities our Year 7 and 8 do when they come to camp in January. 

We competed at archery and learnt the steps the students learn. Bows on toes, load, when you're ready to, fire. Don't forget to wait until everyone is finished. 

We hiked, the main hike is around 2 hours we tried to do the short version, but it was nice out in the fresh air and we did three activities. At the lookout, we stopped and shared one thing about ourselves depending on the lolly we grabbed. We visited the old homestead and had a history lesson, and then shared some more. Once on the beach, we had to create an image that represented us. Mine was footsteps in the sand. But I loved the frame around the layers on the beach. 

We had an excellent day for being outside. Inside we discussed What does Relationship-based learning look like and what does it mean for us as teachers.

Relationship-based Learning 

What does that mean?

What does that look like for students?

• Time for them each day
• Knowing your learners
• Patience
• Connecting

Why is this important?

• Accelerates Learning
• Fewer Behaviour Issues
• Students Teacher feel good
• Freedom to make it Fun
• Feel Valued

What does it mean for Staff?

• Knowing each other
• Helping growth
• Mutual Respect
• Tolerance
• Using each other's strengths/ help develop weaknesses
• Laughter/Humour
• Patience
• Honesty
• I got your Back
• Be Constructive
• Taking off Pressure
• Being Equal
• Knowing Vulnerabilities
• Showing Understanding/Empathy
• Trust
• Cohesiveness

Preparing for the Wānanga

Time is upon us, unfortunately, this weekend we were due to go to Cook Island but due to travel restrictions, this is not happening. As I sit here feeling cold I am slightly disappointed to not be in a warmer climate. However, I am glad we are all safe.

I am however getting ready for the main presentation of my MIT project that will be given to numerous principals and Manaiakalani Trust members. 20 slides that will go into a Pecha Kucha, which will make the slides ticket over every 20 seconds, so a total of 7 minutes I will be presenting. It doesn't sound long, especially when I stood in front of the staff recently and did professional development on sign language for 30 minutes (although that was partly hands-on). Not nervous, not nervous. Have I convinced you yet?

Here is what I have started with which developed into ... now to put together the slides and practise what I want to say (which will be in the speaker notes).

 

I am so grateful that we have had to keep this record of what we have done, as for this task I referred back to the posts I have created to help identify my original thinking and the revisit the process we have gone through.