Week 32

A Key Change In My Professional Practice

I have used  Rolfe, Freshwater and Jasper’s model of reflection to reflect on this weeks activity.

Step 1 What?

Taking this course was to improve and enhance my own professional learning, so that what I teach, say and do, has an impact on student learning and achievement in the 21st century era.

In this blog post I will focus on the Professional Standard of Professional Learning from Our Code Our Standards (Ministry of Education, 2017).

According to Daggett (2014) digital learning is a catalyst for college and career readiness. Today’s learners are digital natives—yet they come to school and power down their devices. As educators, we need to embrace the power of technology to make learning relevant for all students and adults. Using technology effectively in everyday learning can help students to strengthen their learning experiences and build on their intuitive technology skills. Using technology thoughtfully for instructional purposes will allow us to stretch learners’ thinking in ways that will lead to success in today’s increasingly global economy and rapidly evolving digital environment.

Children these days have been brought up with technology. They are accustomed to things such as laptops, phones and ipads. They want and need to use these devices during their daily learning.

Step 2 (Now what): Evaluate the identified change

By 2020, all schools in New Zealand should have digital technology learners. As educators, it is vital for us to prepare our learners for the future. Using technology effectively in everyday learning can help students to strengthen their learning experiences and build on their intuitive technology skills. I have seen the benefits of gamification in my classroom. It has raised student engagement drastically. My attendance has been exceptional. I will definately continue with that in the future. Coding is something that my year 5’s enjoyed. I have trialled using Coggle and Padlet for brainstorming.

Step 3 (What next) Share your next plan(s) regarding your future professional development or your future practice.  

The digital knowledge I have gained has been amazing, but I need to keep working on this. I will continue to use mind lab knowledge and work in collaboration with my other three colleagues by sharing ideas and reading new research to implement in the class.  I can foresee time as being a biggest barrier for me. We are a busy school with lots of disruptions. My goal is to do the best I can with the time that I have available.

References

Daggett, B. (2014). Addressing Current and Future Challenges in Education. Retrieved from http://www.leadered.com/pdf/2014MSC_AddressingCurrentandFutureChallenges.pdf

Ministry of Education (2017). Our code, our standards. Retrieved from https://educationcouncil.org.nz/content/our-code-our-standards

Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., Jasper, M. (2001) Critical reflection in nursing and the helping professions: a user’s guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Week 31

Activity 7: Indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness in my practice

Step 1 (What)

For this activity I am using Rolfe et al (Rolfe, Freshwater & Jasper, 2001) reflective model to demonstrate my understanding of indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness from a school practice perspective.  I have chosen our school values and school-wide activities as the things that we do well.

I think of indigenous knowledge as the accumulated experiences, history, culture, beliefs and values of the first people of a country. The indigenous knowledge and cultural responsiveness are understanding the values and beliefs of the indigenous people of a country.  In New Zealand, Māori whanau are indigenous.

Culturally responsive pedagogy is defined by Gay (2001, p.106) as “using the cultural characteristics, experiences, and perspectives as conduits for effective teaching.” Culturally Responsive to me means embracing the Native (Maori) language into the classroom, understanding the history and culture, bringing the community into the classroom, and having family involvement in the class. We as teachers are not only supposed to know our learners well but we are meant to use what we know about them to give them access to learning.

As Russell Bishop stated;  teaching is about relationships of caring and learning with each other. A school that has learning contexts that are responsive to the children and their cultures will have high education outcomes, high engagement and show a caring for the learning. Schools that learn alongside their students with both teachers and children being agentic learners make learning meaningful for all.  I feel we do this well at my school. Our school has a strong vision, mission and core values. Another area I feel we do well at our school is school-wide activities that incorporate and bring together our community together eg. whole school picnics, cultural assemblies, Arts production, parent interviews, galas etc.

Our values which form our Rowandale PRIDE - Participation, Respect, Integrity, Determination and Empathy - reflect our focus on helping students to reach their potential in their learning and within themselves.

Step 2 (So what)

I will use the The Action continuum - eliminating the White spaces evaluation tool to reflect in where I think I am at with my practice.

The green section of the continuum is where we are at as a school. Gay (2001, p. 106) says "the cultural characteristics, experiences, and perspectives as conduits for effective teaching”. This is well integrated into our  Motto, vision and values.

Step 3 (What next)

As educators our practice needs to be responsive to the cultural identities of our students. Because we live in a multicultural society, being culturally responsive is the only way to be inclusive.

As mentioned by the Ministry of Education: Home-school partnerships, “The better the engagement between parents, families, and schools, the greater the positive impact on student learning. Partnerships with whānau/iwi and the wider community can be enhanced by the use of technologies. Technologies facilitate on-going reciprocal two-way communication between students and parents, giving parents anywhere, anytime access to their child's learning. This leads to improved learning outcomes for students through blended, culturally inclusive, and sustainable practices”.

References

Gay, G. (2002). Preparing for culturally responsive teaching. Journal of Teacher Education, 53(2),106-116

The Ministry of Education. (2014). Beyond the Classroom: Home-school Partnerships. Retrieved from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Beyond-the- classroom/Engaging-with-the-community/Home-school-partnerships/?tab=js- tabcontainer-1-tab-2

Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D. and Jasper, M. (2001). Critical reflection in nursing and the helping professions: a user’s guide. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan

Savage, C. (August, 2011). Culturally responsive pedagogies in the classroom: Indigenous students experiences across the curriculum. Asia-Pacic Journal of Teacher Education, Volume 39 (No.3),183-198

Week 30

Week 30 Activity 6

Contemporary trends in New Zealand or internationally

I am going to use Rolfe’s reflective model (Rolfe, Freshwater & Jasper, 2001) to analyse and evaluate my thinking regarding global trends and the impact on my practice.

Step 1 (What)

The trend that I will focus on is ‘Impact of Digital Technology’.

I make it my duty to provide opportunities for students to actively engage, explore and collaborate through the use of digital technology. This ties in with what Daggett (2014) mentioned about using technology effectively in everyday learning can help students to strengthen their learning experiences and build on their intuitive technology skills. I have 14 devices in my class and I ensure that it is used productively throughout the day. It is part of my reading, writing, maths and inquiry rotations. Students have personal emails and passwords that they can also use at home. I use Hapara Dashboard to create and share lessons with students. I frequently use YouTube videos, and also get students to create slideshows or iMovie to share their learning. Next year, I will be introducing Seesaw to my learners.

Research suggests that educators need to embrace the power of technology, and if used effectively it can help learners build on their intuitive technology skills and lead them to "success in today's increasingly global economy and rapidly evolving digital environment" (Daggett, 2014, p. 4).

The classroom is becoming very integrated, thus allowing teachers to explore a variety of ways that will best deliver the NZ Curriculum for the 21st century learner. Gamification plays a major role in this and it has become a growing teaching trend around the world. The success of gamification have intrigued educational researchers to look into how it could be used to increase student engagement and motivation.

Step 2 (So What)

The creation of jobs in the future will have technology emphasis, it will involve problem solving and will require an ability to interact with others (Levy & Murname, 2004). The skills that will be needed exceeds what is traditionally taught, this being reading, writing and maths. The content that they need to learn is changing, with this comes changes in how they learn and when they learn it. Children these days have been brought up with technology. They are accustomed to things such as laptops, phones and ipads. They want and need to use these devices during their daily learning (NCREL & Metiri, 2003).

Dagget (2014), shows this trend of school students using technology at school and comparing it with how much they use it in their personal time.

Daggett states that schools should understand why they need to change before they start thinking of how they are going to change.

Step 3 (Now What)

The only limitation or barrier I can see which may impact on the adoption of digital learning for educators around New Zealand could be that the school leaders or teachers resist change or need to make improvements.

To manage emerging trends - our school needs to follow the 5 steps outlined by Daggett, B (2014).

At our school we use Reading Eggs and Mathletics from 3P Learning to help support our children’s learning in literacy and numeracy. What have been observed is that children are really engaged in their learning due to the interactive nature of these programs through gamification of learning. Games designed specifically to teach a certain skill or solve a specific problem have considerable success. We have also experienced this in classrooms through the use of Prodigy Math Game to support our children's learning in Mathematics. Children are learning concepts in a safe environment, they are challenged by the competitive nature to succeed, and endeavor to progress in levels.

References

Daggett, B. (2014). Addressing Current and Future Challenges in Education. Retrieved from http://www.leadered.com/pdf/2014MSC_AddressingCurrentandFutureChallenges.pdf

Levy, F., & Murnane, R. J. (2004). The new division of labor: How computers are creating the next job market. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Week 29

Activity 5: Using social online networks in teaching or professional development

To reflect on my own use of social online networks in my teaching, I will be using Jay and Johnson's (2002) reflective model.

Step 1 (Descriptive stage)

Whitaker, Zoul and Casas (2015) “define connected educators simply as ones who are actively and constantly seeking new opportunities and resources to grow as professionals.”  I am constantly searching for ways to improve my practice and make my teaching engaging and fun.

For professional development the range of social online networks that I use include:

Facebook: I belong to facebook forums where they focus on specific education areas to broader facebook groups like NZ Primary teachers, my school group, my school staff group.  

Twitter:  Recently I have started to use twitter for Mindlab communication and sharing of ideas.

Google+ Communities: I have used it for Mindlab communication, contribution and locating ideas.

Blogs: I also use Blogger a lot as a tool to help me in my own reflective practice during my Mindlab course.

Youtube Videos & TED-Ed: ongoing to support my teacher inquiries for my class, teacher professional development across the curriculum, Mindlab research information and weekly class notes.

Content Documents (Google slides, google docs): It is ideal for staff meetings and professional development days where we have a place to collaborate ideas together and add to a continuous document.  Within my team we also use this to reflect and develop on our own planning documents.

As many teachers recognise and was mentioned by Whitaker et. al. (2015) teaching could seem like an isolated career if you don’t make the time to connect with your colleagues across the hallway or, as social media has allowed, across the globe. At times I can find this quite overwhelming as people are often sharing their ‘best practice’ and I have felt inadequate or behind in my pedagogy.

Step 2 (Comparative stage)

When looking at my peers responses to the 'social media tool survey' (MindLab, March intake, 2018), I noticed that the most popular use of social media for teaching and leading in the classroom was the use of videos (Netflix, Facebook, Pinterest and YouTube). I found this very fascinating as I have not used Netflix in my classroom teaching.

If I am to support my students in developing their skills in using social media effectively, I need to upskill myself. I need to become more connected and expand my professional learning network in order to better meet the needs of my students. They need to see me modelling being a lifelong learner (Whitaker, Zoul & Casas 2015).

Step 3 (critical reflection)

If I want my students to become effective communicators and competent digital citizens I need to start being more adventurous with what we are doing and find ways to embed social media into my classroom (Magette, K. 2014).

I would like to introduce Evernote ePortfolio to my Year 5 students. I have previously used it with my Year 7 students. It is a great tool for students to track their progress, identify their goals and share with their parents during student led conferences.

Seesaw which is an online learning journal is something that I would also like to trial. The blog in Seesaw can be used to share publicly aspects of student learning. Although this is not engaging with students on a global scale, it is a start. With the continual use of social media for my own professional development I know that this can be something I can provide for my students in the future.

References

Magette, K. (2014). Embracing social media: A practical guide to manage risk and leverage opportunity. Rowman & Littlefield.

Whitaker, T., Zoul, J., & Casas, J. (2015). What connected educators do differently. New York, NY: Routledge.

Week 28

Week 28: Influence of Law & Ethics in Practice

Step 1 (What): Ethical dilemma 

A student/s abuse of a digital device use in the classroom. It is difficult to have eyes on all things when students have been set with a task on the school COWS (laptops). With 21st century learning, the only way forward is giving students the experience to do so. Digital learning plays a huge part, therefore it is important for myself to provide students with these opportunities. I strongly believe that gamification plays a huge role in student engagement and achievement. Students enjoy using digital devices however, students quickly loose my trust by not doing what they are suppose to be doing and visit inappropriate sites. Two students used Facebook inappropriately and the whole school had to suffer the consequences. Facebook was blocked.

Step 2 (So What): Ethical decision-making framework – Enrich (2011)

Not following in class rules and expectations when using a school digital device is breaking an agreement. According to Ehrich et al. (2011), when a critical incident occurs there are a group of people or individuals that sways your decision to what happens next. The organisational culture came to mind at first and the question lingered around in my head, “Was my organisation to blame?”, did I have good procedures, expectations and eyes when students are on the computer? In terms of professional ethics, I believe that students know and understand that what they have done is wrong and inappropriate. If they’ve done it once they can do it again. As part of school policy students fill in a cyber-safety contact when enrolling into the school, so parents and students are fully aware of the school policies. Therefore as a student / teacher the individuals each have their own perceived values and beliefs that they were either doing nothing wrong, or have lied. Thereafter, students make their choice/s and can choose to ignore it or act upon it. After the Facebook incident, all teachers including relievers signed an internet agreement. Students also signed another agreement which the teacher had to read aloud and explain fully. Student Agreement    Staff Cyber Safety Use Agreement

Step 3 (Now What): I have created a digital citizenship lesson plan for our team of year 5 and 6 teachers. It has the achievement objectives followed by the learning experiences and weekly breakdown. Digital Citizenship Plan. It is written in ‘Our Code, Our Standard’, that it has been developed to “provide learners, their families and whanau, their communities and the public with trust and confidence in teachers and the profession” (Education council, 2017 p6). I had the belief that I could trust my students, which I do with most students however there are a few students who test you and your patience as a teacher. I put in place a buddy system (which works well with working collaboratively). Students are buddied up, and I choose their buddies so that I can have more than two eyes. Our school uses Teacher Dashboard (Hapara) which has a Highlights feature that displays the current screen that students are on. I display that onto the class t.v. It is visible to the entire class. The wrongdoer is easily caught and the class decides on the punishment. Net-safe have worked together with the Ministry of Education and compiled a guide for schools in ‘Digital Technology – Safe and responsible use in schools. This resource includes contents in dealing with the Roles and Responsibilities of a student when having access to digital technology. This has given me more options of what I can do, to be net-safe and keeping students on task while at the same time, being respectful when working on any given task using the school laptops / iPads.

• Ehrich, L. C. , Kimber M., Millwater, J. & Cranston, N. (2011). Ethical dilemmas: a model to understand teacher practice, Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice,

• Ministry of Education. (2015). DIGITAL TECHNOLOGY Safe and responsible use in schools. Wellington: New Zealand.

Week 19 - Activity 3 Contribution of Teacher Inquiry Topics to my Communities of Practice

Week 19 Reflection

For this weeks reflection, I am using the Jay and Johnson’s (2002) reflective model on the two possible inquiry projects. I will then link it to my community of practice.

Descriptive:

According to Wenger (1998) community of practice is when people learn collectively in a shared domain of human endeavour eg. a group of students. A community has to have three characteristics: the domain, the community and the practice. The domain is a shared interest between the group. The community is when the interest is the same and the members engage in a joint activity or discussion to assist each other. The practice is when a group shares resources, tools or expertise.

Possible inquiry topic 1:

Domain: I would like to look at the use of gamification to engage students who do not engage with current practice. Kahoot, Scratch, Minecraft, Prodigy, Prototec etc. Turning useful activities into games is called gamification and it has found its way into many uses such as education. This will underpin all the learning activities within the CoP.

The Community: The Year 5 and 6 teachers, staff that participated in Mindlab. Engagement (Wenger 2000) was formed over 16 weeks during our Mindlab sessions. There was deep engagement and links to theory that assisted us to understand the benefits of gamification in the classroom.  

The Practice: Reflections, Mindlab course, discussions, sharing of knowledge

Possible inquiry topic 2:

Domain: I would like to look at the effective use of ICT in our classroom eg. ePortfolios/21st century skills eg. STEAM, Canva, Piktocharts, Coggle, Padlets etc

The Community: The Year 5 and 6 teachers, staff that participated in Mindlab.  

The Practice: Expert teachers sharing knowledge

Comparative

The community of teachers will work together to achieve the same goals. Evidence claims that the use of digital technology helps students achievement engagement levels. Our team goal will be to ensure that our students are skilled to become future orientated learners. Gamification does not imply creating a game. It means make education more fun and engaging without undermining its credibility. According to (http://gamification.org/wiki/Encyclopedia) engagement is the important metric for success in gamification. It’s main goal is to rise the engagement of users by using game-like techniques such as scoreboards and fast feedback (Flatla et al, 2011) making people feel more ownership and purpose when engaging with tasks (Pavlus, 2010). Shneiderman (2004) states that by incorporating game elements into work activities we wish to raise motivation. Gamification encourages more efficient and engaging learning behaviour. B.J. Fogg argues that people respond to computers as they were persons, especially when gaming (Fogg, 2002). Students need to be motivated and challenged at the same time.

Critical Reflection

The biggest challenge for me will be ensuring that they are sufficient devices. Another challenge will be time. We are a very busy school. How are we going to work around our tight schedules to meet regular and discuss goals and next steps. Overall, I think that our team of teachers will be excited about using digital games to promote teaching and learning.

Reference

Flatla, D., Gutwin, C., Nacke, L., Bateman, S., Mandryk, R. (2011) Calibration Games: Making Calibration Tasks Enjoyable by Adding Motivating Games Elements UIST 2011, Santa Barbara, California

Fogg, B. J. (2002) Persuasive technology: using computers to change what we think and do. Ubiquity 2002, December

Pavlus, J. (2010) The Game of Life. Scientific American, 303, 43-44

Shneiderman, B. (2004) Designing for Fun: How Can We Design User Interfaces to Be More Fun? Interactions, 11(5), 48-50

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press