Here is the list of the professional development I completed this year. Not a long list, but very impactful.
Professional Development Log 2024
From within the log you can access my reflections on each of the PLDs I attended.
The one I enjoyed the most was the airport kōrero because I had no idea about the significance of the area and was just one of those people who walked the airport and thought it looked nice! I should have known better.
A great year this year!
My class tends to see blogging as a requirement and not as an opportunity to learn further. It is beholden upon me to turn this around, to embed it into our work and also to get them to reflect better.
We have sentence stems laminated and on every single chromebook.Nearly every time we blog, I get the same questions “how many stems do we have to do” (nothing has changed, still the same amount), “what does this mean?” (explained EVERY time) and the waiting for me to type it out for them (which I do not). They see it as a chore, as they do a lot of work in the classroom. “Do we have to read ALL of this?”, YES.
Another issue is the lack of participation and commenting from whānau despite notices, posts online on different platforms and discussions kanohi ki te kanohi with them. We aren’t particularly good at commenting on others’ posts either. I feel this will be a focus for term 4, learning to comment better and setting aside time each week to visit others’ blogs and to give good feedback on their peers’ posts. It doesn’t help that our teachers aren’t particularly good at commenting either on each others’ professional blogs or those of our tamariki, although we are changing this.
The tamariki do not see blogging as part of their learning. Being able to write coherently and reflectively on their blogging is reading and writing! To express themselves and to think about what they are learning is the cherry on the top and a way to accelerate learning if done often enough.
The biggest thing I need to do as a teacher is to actually timetable the time to A) complete a blog and B) to comment on other’s blogs. It is not enough to say “blog your reading” in the response to text or elsewhere because if they do not manage to complete the mahi, that is the first thing that falls off. It needs to NOT be a perfunctory “here’s my work” and that’s it.
Research shows those tamariki who blog at a "high" level (2.5 posts on average per week) actually gain levels in asTTle writing scores. By writing and reflecting, they become better writers. This could be a game changer for some of my tamariki.
I currently have non-negotiable blogs (they HAVE to blog about something) but they are perfunctory reflections based on sentence stems we have provided. I am going to show them blogs from other schools that show how much more thinking has gone into their blog reflections.
I will also make a concerted effort to comment on their blogs more often. It is something if I don't timetable it into my life, it will not happen except in random bursts!
Another aspect of sharing we looked at today was collaboration. Completing "creates" with other tamariki in the class. I can see this sometimes going pear-shaped so I will need to set some ground rules with input from the tamariki as to how this will work and how they are held accountable in their pairs or groups. I will also be asking them how they would like to collaborate and creating success criteria with them around their dispositions and expected behaviour.
We blog about once a week at the moment and it happens at odd times. I will formally timetable these into the day and also have a time for them to post comments on others' work. Some have completed how to write a good comment, but I think all will actually benefit from another round of lessons on how to write great blog comments (along with blog posts!)
As the diagram shows, commenting and responding is not linear! But it hits all aspects of the curriculum with regards to English (as the curriculum currently stands anyway!) It is one way to help increase literacy time while doing something the kids usually enjoy.
My biggest area of concern though is the whānau engagement. i have two parents who comment on blogs. One is a high school teacher who understands the benefits of commenting (also a Manaiakalani school). How do I get others involved? I liked the ideas of sending home reading "homework" to do as a whānau. I will think long and hard about a few activities that whānau do not find difficult or time consuming to ensure they do want to do it and get it done. The kids won't be hard to convince but I don't want meltdowns at home if there is raru about having to do it.
It is the final day of the course, I am happy in one sense that I have achieved a lot on this course and that it is done. But I am also unhappy as there goes the accountability, learning, collaboration with teachers all over NZ and the myriad of other benefits being on this course has meant. I can't wait to get on the MPI and hopefully a writing version of this same course. Excited!!
This is by far, the best PLD I have been on regarding reading. I completed a one year Graduate Diploma in Teaching and Learning after 30 years away from University and my initial Law degree. This one year diploma was mainly theory with 14 weeks of placement. Although we learned how to plan etc, a lot of it was not very practical as to how to set a reading programme up, what to do with the kids, how to do rotations, what to put in rotations, it wasn't even explained why we use rotations! It was an eye opener to get into our practicum classes and see how things were run. Different teachers did different things, for different reasons with different theory behind it. WHAT WAS I TO DO?
I had a fabulous Mentor Teacher and colleagues who I gathered information and ideas from and away I went. We were always changing things up but I had a few misunderstandings practically which have given me a good laugh in retrospect, but the revelations in the Manaiakalani RPI course came thick and fast.
The practical advice and modelling backed up by robust research was very very helpful. My favourite sessions involved vocabulary and the create session. I am the first to admit that I am not very creative at times and find it difficult to come up with engaging content for the tamariki digitally. The suggestions and the way to develop these was extremely helpful. It made me feel more confident I could actually do things that make the tamariki use their brains and new found knowledge into new contexts to help it transfer to their long term memories.
Vocabulary is a passion of mine, but the way to teach it was varied and this course gave me a clear pathway to teaching it. My teacher's aide, Te Arani made an amazing vocabulary tree for my class and brought my vision to life. It has been hard to actually keep up the use of it, but that will come with repeated use and reminders to myself!
I have changed the way reading is presented to my tamariki and the independent work is more aligned with their learning objectives. Before it could be a little hit and miss at times, but things have slotted into place now. Six years of teaching and I'm still learning the basics it seems sometimes. There's so much to choose from, so many things thrust at you and so many ideas about what is good to do, it is nice to have a clear path to take with reading.
This does not mean I didn't enjoy the other sessions. I absolutely did. I have slowly put into place nearly everything now that I have been taught. I had to ensure that I didn't just change everything straight away, but be sure that the tamariki in the class were ready for change and that I could model it, practice it and embed it before I added more change into the mix. Some of my tamariki do not like change so I had to take moments that I knew I would succeed or succeed with most of the kids otherwise it would be a disaster. I did get a bit excited once or twice and have to back a change out due to the tamariki becoming discombobulated! Nothing like a sense of chaos to upset the apple cart.
The reading pillars, or pou, are extremely helpful in developing my classroom programme. What I am doing, what I need to do, where I am going and how I am going to achieve the lift in reading we need to see. The checklist makes it eminently practical to implement. Moving forward I am going to continue to blog about how I am going with ensuring my programme refers to and uses the different pou. If I haven't done a blog in a few weeks about this - comment and give me a kick in the proverbial!!!
I'd like to thank the facilitators of the course, particularly my group leader Anna for her caring attitude and down to earth understanding of the pressures teachers are under at times. It made for great sessions and learning opportunities.
Creating. This is my biggest weakness! I often struggle to come up with ideas. I am a creative person in my own time - photography, art, crafts, writing... why can't I do this in class?
This session made me realise it is much easier than I had lead myself to believe. Seeing others' work has set off a few lightbulbs for more and having a resource bank I can use as is, or to springboard my own ideas off, is just a godsend.
Creativity is what sets humans above animals. We need to create beyond just making a bed for ourselves or a functional home.
Creativity helps us come up with new ideas and make progress in different fields like science, technology, business, and the arts. It allows us to think outside the box and find solutions to problems. Without creativity, we would not be able to move forward and face the challenges of our changing world. These changes are coming thick and fast and it is essential our tamariki learn to harness their creativity.
When we think creatively, we can approach problems from different angles and find unique solutions. This is helpful in our personal lives and also when dealing with big issues like climate change, poverty, and healthcare. Creativity helps us find new ways to solve problems and make the world a better place. In a world that is constantly changing, creativity helps us be flexible and adapt to new situations. It allows us to think on our feet and make the most of opportunities that come our way. With creativity, we can overcome obstacles and keep moving forward.
The underlying kaupapa of Manaiakalani is "the hook". What is going to hook tamariki in so they excel at everything they do. What is going to excite them? What is going to motivate them to learn and change the world? Creative work is one of these hooks. Get them to create something exciting and they will learn more and achieve more with what they believe is no more effort.
It is important to come at their learning from all angles and opportunities. Multimodal creativity ensures that the tamariki are more engaged and that as many as possible are hooked in.
Looking at the opportunities I offer my tamariki create wise, it is clear that I need to ensure that I am stepping up on what I give them to do. The biggest issue I have in class with offering new things is that it can sometimes take multiple sessions of "I do, we do, you do" for them to do the simplest of creates. I can have bulleted step by step instructions which they won't read, I use mote to give them instructions verbally - but they won't listen to it. They go straight to DOING it and doing it badly often. Or, after a whole class lesson on how to do something I can't run a small group as there are multiple interruptions with kids so far off course that I want to cry. We may have done a particular activity several times, and yet the same questions come up. They seem not to be able to understand instructions despite the five ways I have given it to them and the rewindable learning on it. This is something I have to work on and could well be my reading for a fortnight or more. I will have to go through an instruction and we discuss what it means, what are they supposed to do, throw some maths word problems in there, a few class activities with instructions, but really just be teaching instructional words, what they mean, testing if they understand (as a comprehension "test") and the sometimes fun consequences (with some tricks up my sleeve) when they don't read or clarify instructions up front. A few ideas are running around my head now.
What I love about Manaiakalani is the collaboration amongst teachers. The support, willingness to share ideas and mahi amongst everyone is amazing. Teachers too often are reinventing the wheel and you may have a 1000 teachers doing the same thing on any one day yet each of them have created their own resources to teach it. This doesn't happen in Manaiakalani and I love this aspect of the kaupapa.
I have come away from this session with many ideas and I am relieved that I am now armed with more creative ways of engaging my tamariki and hopefully boosting their rate and depth of learning.
This session has made me understand how much more deliberate and focused my comprehension questions and design of Guided reading needs to be. I ask questions, I try to ask "good" questions, but what is good??
My tamariki aren't particularly critical (from my general observations). They tend to believe things they are told and don't really think about it unless I point out things to think about or, what I consider to be obvious faults in their thinking. This session will get me started on thinking about getting more from the literal questions and far more into the evaluative end of the kaupapa. The critical thinking skill is one that is more important than ever to teach ALL tamariki as there is a world of information they are being bombarded with and a lot of it needs critical analysis. They need to be literate in a whole world that never existed when I was a child myself. Although there was still misinformation and misleading information when I was growing up, the invention of the internet and rise of information available to everyone now is overwhelming and needs to be looked at carefully. Anyone can say anything online now - ANYONE. It isn't just published authors or experts that are writing/filming or broadcasting their "facts" and opinions.
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| The literacies of today. |
Looking at Bloom's High Order Thinking diagram, we need to be pushing our tamariki into developing higher order thinking skills. Analysing, evaluative and creating. Rather than shallow thinking, they need to be deeply think about themes and get more opportunities to be challenged.
In reading there are three main levels of thinking:
Far too often I feel I don't get into Interpretative thinking enough and rarely into evaluative thinking and making judgements.
As part of the Reading Practice Intensive course we are working on timetabling of our reading sessions. Previously I disclosed that I had been doing far too many group sessions with every single group every day. Now I have backed off and am trying to work on fewer sessions while still seeing my lower kids every day. It turns out that backing things off is not as easy as it sounded!
From my perspective it has been easier, but from the perspective of the tamariki, it has thrown them through a loop. I had to back off from some of the sessions to enable the change in "feel" in the classroom to settle the tamariki. It was an odd situation. You'd think less time with the teacher would work out better, but no. They found it hard to spend more time doing their mahi or independent tasks. I realised I had created sessions that they needed my help with (or they perceived they did) and having to do more of it without checking in with me was too hard.
We are getting there though. The last thing I need or want is tamariki that depend on me or any adult for approval before they can do the next task.
Regarding the independent tasks; I was already using all but literacy planet as part of the options for independent work. I also use spelling shed with lessons each week they take themselves through. I will be introducing Literacy Planet after I have settled into the teacher groups better and "set them free" with their mahi.
All part of the learning process - particularly with these kids who tend to expect work to be super easy and that if it requires even a moment's thinking, that Whaene Vicki will do it for them or write it for them!
I do reading the same time every morning - it works well and I don't have any ins and outs that affect that time slot. I am looking to rejig this in term two to have some days at different times to see how that works out and to change the daily timetable a bit. I am loathe to do this in the final weeks of term as it will unsettle the routine we have got into.
