PRACTICE - Changes in Practice

Wow! My learning journey at Mindlab, has been exciting, challenging, thought to provoke and at times really, really hard!! The hardest part was re-learning how to be a student again, write formal essay’s in university-speak, AND  use correct referencing. Oh my gosh! The referencing! I know this is super important, but on my list of priorities, this just wasn’t up there for me, even though I got marked down on it in every single assignment.  If it wasn’t for the support ( and at times, giant push) from my colleagues. I’m not sure I would have completed the course- Thanks, Mindlab Buddies!!!

Criteria 7: Promote a collaborative, inclusive, and supportive learning environment:

The best part of my learning journey was having the opportunity to do this with 4 of my colleagues. I really enjoyed our Wednesday night Mindlab sessions, that we continued until the end of the course. Unfortunately, in the busy world of school, we don’t have enough ‘protected time’ where we are able to think deeply, reflect, research, discuss and debate the things that are happening in our school and what drives our teaching practice. We worked collaboratively on all assignments, even the weekly reflective tasks we had to do in the second half of the course. We would go through the readings and videos together, discuss how it fitted with our school vision and our own teaching practice, before writing our reflections independently. Kate and I often shared stories about our learning journey at Mindlab with our students, as it was a great way to role model collaboration, lifelong learning, what it feels like to be in the pit and how we had to persevere to get out of it. Because this has been such a collaborative, inclusive and supportive learning journey we are hoping to keep Wednesday nights as our ‘protected ‘ Learning time where we can spend more time working on our teacher inquiries, sharing ideas/ best practice and discussing the latest research.

Criteria 12: Use critical inquiry and problem-solving effectively in their professional practice:

Mindlab has also provided me with an opportunity to record my teaching and learning inquiries, especially the change initiatives that I have helped drive and lead, in a professional and engaging way that can be shared with others, as a learning tool. It has also helped us to plan future change initiatives and inquiries and how we are going to implement these and get others in our school onboard the waka. One of the biggest changes for me and my co-teacher this year has been how WE and our student's problem solve using the same model of inquiry. We have realised that we don’t have to follow the model as a spiral or move in any one direction, but instead, you can move fluidly between the stages of inquiry and are continually reflecting to know what your next step is. This has definitely created a much high level of engagement and excitement from students and staff about how we learn.

As a staff, we are really excited about our next learning steps. We will be continuing to develop our knowledge and practice of PBL and focusing on how we improve whanau and community engagement, as well as cultivate global citizens.

Interdisciplinary Connections

This is a map of our school’s interdisciplinary connections. It shows the schools in our newly formed CoL, the school support Agencies we work most closely with, as well as the people and services we collaborate with in our local community. Each of these connections supports our students, teachers and whanau to achieve our school vision.

The Interdisciplinary connections I am going to focus on is the School Support Agencies. As our school SENCo and a classroom teacher, I work with a range of these agencies on a daily basis to support students to achieve at school.

When a teacher identifies a student who needs additional support either for learning, behaviour or social/ emotional difficulties the classroom teacher, discusses this student with their Syndicate leader and team. Together they decide if the school has the resources and knowledge to support that student in-school or whether they require more specialised support. If it’s the latter, the class teacher would then refer the student to the SENCO.

We hold Special Programme meetings each term in Week 5 for every class. At these meetings, we discuss students who are currently on our Special Programmes register and new referrals. The role of the SENCO is to facilitate these meetings and coordinate ‘Interdiscilinary Learning Teams’ for individual students. This usually happens in the form of an IEP meeting, once the team has been established.

Based on discussions at Special Programme meetings, the SENCO will consider the students needs and what agencies need to be involved. The SENCO then makes referrals to the necessary Support Agencies and is present with the classroom teacher at pre-referral meetings or initial information gathering meetings. Although the SENCo facilitates these meetings the class teacher is always the ‘lead’ professional in the interdisciplinary team. This is because they know the student best and is responsible for managing the IEP.

New referrals can be made at any stage of the term, but our Special Programme meetings are seen as ‘protected’ time.  This enables us to reflect on the needs of our students and the progress they are making both academically and socially, to ensure every student reaches their potential.

An example of the agencies that are involved in an Interdisciplinary Learning Team for one of my students is RTLB, GSE, SWIS, Public Health, IWS, Oranga Tamariki ( when they are involved with his whanau), Strengthing Families, Well Stop and Te Whare Marie. My job as SENCO was to get all of these agencies on board, advocate for the needs of the student and his whanau, coordinate and facilitate meetings, and hold everyone accountable. My role as his classroom teacher is to provide evidence of his needs, lead the IEP and implement, monitor and assess plans.

At our school, we also hold monthly interdisciplinary meetings with the liaison person from each key support agency that works regularly in our school. This normally involves me, our principal, SWIS, PHN, and RTLB. At these meetings, we discuss all students on our Special Programme’s register that is supported by more than one agency. This is so we all have a very clear about what each agency is doing for the child and what other supports/ resources we might need to consider getting involved.

Overall, I think our school has excellent systems in place to work collaboratively and effectively with School Support agencies to ensure our students get equitable access to the support they need to be the best learner they can be. This requires us to build strong professional relationships with each support agency and individual working in our school, and always have open, honest and respectful communication.

Using social online networks in teaching or professional development

So Dictionary.com defines social media as “websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking”. I have to be honest, this is news to me. I thought social media only included web apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and snapchat etc. and were only just about social networking. My eyes have now been open and my view broadened, which has helped me realise that our students and staff actually use quite a few social media networks in our teaching and learning.

These are some of the social media websites and applications that I use in my class:

Google Apps: Most students in my class own their own Chromebook. We also have access to ipads and iMacs.  We have been using Google Apps such as Docs, presentations and google forms as a part of our everyday learning for about 5 years. Students mostly work with others, so Google apps work perfectly for students sharing and collaborating. One of the greatest benefits is that students are able to work together anywhere/ anytime. Learning doesn’t just have to happen in the classroom or school, it goes beyond the gate. A challenge with shared docs, presentation etc that we sometimes have, is students accidentally deleting and moving someone else work. Thankfully this doesn’t happen quite as often as it uses to when we first got our Chromebooks.

Blogs: Every student in my class has an individual learning blog. This replaced paper-based student portfolios. The purpose of their blog is to be able to share their learning with others, especially their whanau and the wider school community. Although we encourage parents to post feedback on their child’s blog this rarely happens and is something we want to improve. The students love their blogs as they can show their learning in lots of interesting ways such as writing, videos, photos, screencasts etc. It makes them feel very proud. A challenge we have with blogs is that some (a very small handful) of parents do not want their child’s blog to be public. We are OK with this, but it makes it really difficult for the student to have a wide audience and get feedback from others.

These are some of the social media websites and applications that I use in my professional development:

YouTube: Thank god for YouTube!! I love youtube!! When I moved from teaching in a Y4-5 class to teaching a Y6-8 class and suddenly had to teach Level 4- 5 maths it was my saviour!!! I’m also quite a visual learner so often find videos more engaging and easier to follow. It’s also made me find more interesting and transformational ways to use YouTube in my classroom as a learning tool or a way for either myself or my students to share their learning. A challenge we have around this is privacy and safety. I’m not sure how we can limit this except for being aware and well informed about the dangers and how to be a responsible You Tuber.

Facebook: Facebook can be hard to keep up with sometimes, and sometimes there is a load of rubbish posted on there, but at the same time I follow some great professional groups such as Longworth Education, Mindshift, Tedtalks, NZ Primary Teachers, etc. I find Facebook especially worthwhile when I am focussing on a specific inquiry and need to keep up to date and on top of new and current research. What ‘s even better is that I don’t need to go and search for things, they just pop up on my newsfeeds and can be saved for when I have time to look at them. I can also share these easily with my colleagues, or with whanau. The challenge with Facebook is similar to YouTube. A growing digital footprint, and cyber safety.