Professional Development


Educational Leadership with Joseph Driessen
Date: Monday, 4th September, 2017
(see Blog RSS fed for reflection & notes)

 CORE Education Digi Road Show - Coding and Robotics (Dunedin)

Date:  24th August, 2017 



 Writing Apps to engage and promote writing in the Junior School - CORE Ed (Ngaire)
Date:  Tuesday, 8th August, 2017

Collaborative teaching and learning in flexible learning spaces - Neil O'Reilly, Waitakiri Primary School 
Date:  Monday, 15th May 2017

 Reflection:  I attended this workshop with Shane and Anna (our other middle leaders) to hear Neil O'Reilly talk about whether collaborative teaching works.  Firstly, effective pedagogy is at the heart of collaborative teaching.  As a school we need to define what quality teaching and learning looks like (e.g. for things like homework, worksheets, goals, class contracts, inquiry etc).  Once this is defined then everyone delivers and uses the school message.  This shows consistency, unity, professionalism.  

 Therefore, the building blocks of an effective teaching and learning environment have effective pedagogy (quality teaching and learning) at the base (not the flexible learning space - physical environment).  Secondly, you need a shared understanding of what student centred learning looks like.  Thirdly, a growth mindset (shared mindset and beliefs) to co-teaching is required.  Fourth, there are six collaborative teaching strategies.  In sum, one teach/one observe, learning coach (one teach, one assist), targeted teaching (workshops and needs based teaching not ability grouping), station teaching (children in groups that rotate through repeated lesson - rotations), team teaching (both teachers teach at one time to a large group), experiential teaching (workshops where student choose based on needs).

 I think what stuck with me was that I felt my practise had gone 'backwards' this year e.g. with ability grouping.  With a change in year group and children/parents coming from a single-cell environment has meant I have not implemented the practise I see as quality T & L in a collaborative environment. Therefore, we will start writing workshops for children that haven't been identified as targets needing small group teaching to accelerate their writing in term 3.  One teacher will have these 10 children throughout the term, and two teachers will run workshops around the children's needs.

 Lastly, having consistency through the school, pin-pointing our definition of quality teaching and learning (including competencies/values to be focused on) and public unity I see as important steps forward for our school.

 CORE Education Professional Development

Term 2:  Writing Professional Development with Ngaire - term 1 & term 2 2017


Term 2:  Leadership review with Janelle Riki Waka - 3rd May 2017
Focus - Team Whanau inquiry - Are we on the right track?  Where to next?

Reflection:  After working with Janelle a number of changes and steps that we missed needed to be taken.  This included reframing our inquiry questions so it had less of a data focus and was more student centred.  We also needed to gain student voice to our inquiry.  This lead to all 4 children being interviewed (links in inquiry doc) so we could target our practise and also gain insight into their interests and passions to increase engagement.  After this we reviewed our current practice and began to make changes.  In term 3, we will regularly reflect on our practise and what is working, not working yet, or not working at all.  We'll continue to implement changes we reflected on.  With the introduction of writing workshops (instead of ability grouping) we will need to ensure the four target children are still in focus and tracked.  I look forward to researching and beginning the writing acceleration program to boost these children.

Term 1:  Writing with Sue Bridges - 28th March 2017
Focus - Tools to support literacy learning & teaching (TKI literacy online & PACT)

Google Summit - GAFE 2-day course  
Thursday, 27th & Friday, 28th April

 Resources:
Ed Tech Google Summit link to overview & resources

 Reflection:  A good course again with some value taken out of it for the development of my ICT knowledge and integration into classroom learning.  The sessions I added were:

 Keynote:  Agents of Change (Dorothy Burt)
Session 1:  Guide to the Google Apps Admin Console (Kern Kelley)
Session 2:  Basic Animation with Google Slides  (Madeline Campbell)
Session 3:  Personalising the Maths Curriculum with Google Forms  (Marty McGauran)
Session 4:  The junior global classroom (Juliet Revell)

 Session 5:  Invent everything with Makey Makey (Kim Sutton)
Session 6:  Put CS first - Coding in the Primary Classroom (Marty McGauran)
Session 7:  Advanced Google Form (Kern Kelley)
Session 8:  The Stress Less Classroom (Simon Ashby)

 The most valuable session I added on Day 1 was the insight into the Admin Console and also personalising the Maths Curriculum with Google Forms and using Flubaroo.  I will need to review notes and put learning into practice.  The later course will be harder to implement in the junior/middle school but would be a great tool for pre-testing and marking, with instant results and goals given to the children.

 Day 2 was more engaging and interesting.  I found Makey Makey a little gimmicky but would be great for creative based learning (music, art, technology etc).  It is something I can see the children being very engaged with.  CS first was invaluable as it supported what I learnt from my course earlier in the year and provided a way for me to use a structured program (CS unplugged and CS first) to teach programming and coding.  Advanced google forms I plan on putting into practice next year when we create new data spreadsheet.  I have some great formulas that I want to try out!  Simon's sessions are always great.  Very practical ideas of apps to integrate into classroom learning.

 Overall, another great summit.  The downside was the venue was old and cold.  The session choices were less than in Wellington and there was less of an international feel with the presenters. 

Primary Education Phonics Training - Yolanda Soryl 1 Day Course
Tuesday, 4th, April, 2017

 Resources:
Hardcopy course booklet with detailed unit planning.
Yolanda Soryl website
Literacy first resources recommended by Yolanda

Reflection:  An excellent course on phonics and introduction to the importance of phonics and how to teach the seven stages of phonics.  Need consistency through the school with phonics so need to talk to junior syndicate to ensure the program is being followed throughout the school.  Middle syndicate to begin in term 2.  Phonics to be taught prior to writing and transference made explicit so see improvements in writing,  Beneficial having Mrs Paul to take the stage 6/7 students, Miss Gardyne to take stage 4/5 and me to take stage 2/3.  In reflection, I believe a lot of the low students are struggling in literacy as they cannot hear, read or record sounds accurately.


Middle Leaders One Day Course - Somerfield School
Wednesday,  29th, March 2017

 Resources:
Fostering relationships in school
Middle leadership inquiry template
The ways we speak
CPPA
Other middle leadership resources used during the course

Reflection:  A very quick look at middle leadership, best practice (BES), questioning and difficult conversations, leadership inquiry.  Valuable insight into middle management practice.  Most valuable to me were emphasising the 'why' in classroom teaching and learning programs.  Making sure what teachers are doing is backed by research and evidence (the program has proven quality that will have a positive impact on learning).  Also, ensuring consistency across syndicates and meeting regularly with other middle leaders to keep developing knowledge, leadership and consistency across the syndicates.

Computer Science for Primary Schools (CS4PS) - 2 Day Course University of Canterbury
Monday, 23rd January, 2017 and Tuesday, 24th January, 2017

 Resources:
CS4PS resources

Reflection:  This course was a good introduction to Scratch and computational thinking.  I found it challenging.  The jargon was quite tricky getting my head around!  I found the teaching not scaffolded enough at times and a bit all over the place rather than sequential.  I will need to revise the resources and begin to think about teaching this in Code Club to put into practice what I have learnt (especially before I introduce to classrooms).  Comparing this to Hour of Code, HOC is much more structured and easier to follow.  I think I need to attend the course again to get the full benefit out of it or a different course on computer science to reinforce concepts and teaching sequences.

1 comment:

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)