Changes in my practice

Activity 8: Changes in my practice

I am so glad to be at the end of this epic journey. Epic in a number of ways. The learning journey has been epic, I will elaborate more later. Epic is the amount of times I have wanted to give up… it’s too hard, I don’t have the time! I should be concentrating on my class, my family, my pastoral care job as a ‘Housemaster, my personal health and wellbeing! Epic in the number of assignments, just finished one and oh dear there is another one! 

I entered this journey pretty much uninformed about what to expect. I was wanting to improve my teaching practice and in particular, get up-to-date with some of the latest digital practices in teaching and learning. A few years ago, I completed my postgraduate diploma in Educational Leadership, so I didn’t take the leadership part of the course into serious consideration. Having done a half day PD session with my school at the Mindlab, I was encouraged to take the next step.

What a leap!

Right from the first session I was challenged to jump out of my comfort zone and collaborate with other professionals. I was exposed to new knowledge and ideas from the beginning. There were little things, like ‘apps’ I had never heard of before that I immediately took back to my own practice and eagerly trialled with the students. I felt very positive about trying these new things and received an enthusiastic response from the students. I shared with them that I was a learner too and they needed to help me by taking part in some of the activities we were doing at the Mindlab.

Early on, the biggest paradigm shift for me was examining the 21^st Century skills in conjunction with key competencies. This made a great impact on my thinking and I immediately looked at what I was doing in the classroom to see if it matched what relevant practice should be about. In this regard, this led and continues to lead to significant changes in my teaching practice, in my assessing, reporting to parents, and discussions with staff. As a result, I led a staff meeting on 21^st Century skills and the key competencies, along with a few other practical ideas (digital) we were learning about at the Mindlab.

The first assignment was challenging but also very useful to reflect on my past practice and take on an innovation that would bring about new collaborative digital learning. It was interesting to hear what worked in other schools and what other teachers had in mind. Eventually after hearing about the success of ‘Seesaw’, a digital portfolio, and the way it led to collaboration between students, parents and teachers and its feedback capabilities, I chose this to trial in our school and evaluate as part of my assignments.

Having already completed a Postgraduate Diploma in leadership, I was pretty much up to date with most of the leadership theory, however, even over the past few years ideas have evolved and changed, so I found this part of the course interesting and the professional readings very helpful. Also, very practical, as I have been involved in leading change initiatives throughout the school and with staff and the theory has helped drive the way in which I have gone about bringing about change.

Overall, the past 32 weeks have not only inspired and challenged me but also those I work with. It has generated a lot of talk and has been quite disruptive as far as challenging their ideas, and allowing students new learning opportunities. Professionally, I have grown, particularly in the reflective blogs; thinking about and commenting on issues that have made me grow in my understanding as well as establishing blogging as a reflective learning habit. 

From here I intend to encourage others from my school and cluster of schools to take up the challenge and sign up to the Mindlab for this PD. I intend to put into practise what I have been learning and to continue looking for opportunities to become a better teacher and to invigorate young minds.

Interdisciplinary Teaching and Learning

Activity 7: My interdisciplinary connection map

"The fact that the national curriculum specifies only general outcome goals, rather than the path by which to attain them, means that teachers in schools have to work together to develop the curriculum and instructional strategies tailored to the needs of their school (students)." (McKinsey, 2007)

 http://nzcurriculum.tki.org.nz/Curriculum-stories/Keynotes-and-presentations/Curriculum-integration

I teach in a school that has homeroom teachers who teach a class of students the core subjects of Numeracy and Literacy and Social Science. We have specialist teachers for science, art, music, dance and drama, health, Maori, and P.E. We are preparing our students for Secondary School where they will be taught separate subjects. There is some integration, as you can see above.

Do I agree with this set up? After doing the readings and watching the videos this week I have reasons to believe it is not the best way to proceed. 

Reasons why we should consider a more interdisciplinary practice

We are part of a society that has changed …

Notions of knowledge have changed - whose, what and how it is used.

Our current model of learning fragments content so that each teacher is given a defined time block to cover material to be assessed. As a result, many topics are not addressed in schools. Interdisciplinary learning uses themes, topics or problems that need solving rather than along traditional subjects.

It enables students to study material in depth and to make connections between subject areas and topics, providing authentic experiences with greater value for the students

Interdisciplinary units enable teachers to use classroom time more efficiently and address content in depth. Digital technology promotes the collaboration of information between subject areas and students.

Students and teachers are able to see connections and relevance between topics and provide a variety of perspectives.

Students should be involved in the planning and development of interdisciplinary units.

It is time to address change in the way we teach.

Using Social Media in Learning

Activity 6: Using social online networks in teaching or professional development

Social media has become a ubiquitous form of communications and marketing tool for a growing number of schools, and teachers are utilizing social media in the classroom to engage students in the learning process. Although I am not an ‘out there’ user of social media in the classroom, I am active personally on several social media platforms (having had my own teenage children and children living overseas makes this essential). At school, our approach to using social media for learning is far more conservative. This has been prominently for two reasons, as a boarding school, the digital department are very protective of the students and as a result the students are prohibited from accessing social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. The other reason is, as an educational community, we are still ‘feeling our way’ and are having discussions, and have begun trialing some of the ideas we are learning about regarding using social media safely, and effectively in our classrooms. 

Over the past 6 months we have used ‘Seesaw’, an educational, ‘safe and friendly’, software that empowers students to independently document their learning and provides an audience for their work—their peers, parents, and a blog that is shared globally. The main benefits from using Seesaw in my classroom have been the sense of community it fosters among the students, and the ability for the students to share their learning and learn from others. It is naturally collaborative, as the students critique and comment on each other’s assignments. They work in teams to create content, often posting videos of their learning and then easily accessing each other and the teacher with questions. 

Furthermore, the ability to participate instantly with parents and to receive feedback has made a huge impact on the learning for the students. Student engagement and excitement for learning has grown as they participate in a “Facebook’ like environment, one that is very familiar to what they use, to communicate with at home. Students are also using this software at home to add and comment on their and others’ learning. 

The success of this software, and the fact that it is ‘free’, has enabled deeper conversations around the use of social media, its safety and the value it adds to learning in the classroom. As a group of educators in a digitally rich environment (our school) we are currently looking at more ways we can enable social media to engage the learning of our students.  

Influence of Law and Ethics

Activity 5: Legal and ethical contexts in my digital practice

This is a ‘biggy’ and we can not bury our heads in the sand because the dangers of ubiquitous, social media and online media are far too real, for both ourselves and our students. As teachers, this is our number one occupational hazard. To combat this teachers and students must be informed and transparent and have clear rules of engagement when it comes to professional standards of using digital media and socialising with students.

It is the teacher’s professional responsibility to create an emotionally and physically safe and healthy learning environment.

Boards of Trustees have responsibility for cybersafety under NAG 5 and establishing and maintaining a ‘cybersafe’ learning environment.

Here are a few of the areas I have encountered.

• Students filming teachers unawares during a rant or a particularly unflattering moment and later posting these, usually on Snapchat. Sadly, teachers don’t even need to be doing anything untoward to end up online.

• Students filming or taking pictures of other students and using theses to bully.

• Email/texting conversations of a personal nature that may produce an emotionally unsafe environment. Particularly conversations deemed to be cyberbullying.

• Online “posts” and communications that have reached beyond an intended audience and have gone on to have unintended consequences.

• Student privacy. Regardless of whether your account is public or private, teachers must be careful about posting photos of students if parents have not signed the school’s media release documents. 

What we do for classroom interventions

1.Promote safe and responsible use of technology in learning environment

2.Develop a “class contract” which includes appropriate behaviour online/on mobile both inside and outside of school time.

3.Ensure all students understand the school’s ICT Use Agreements and have parents sign a responsible use agreement.

4.Make sure parents and caregivers are informed about what cyberbullying means and that it is not tolerated among your students.

5.Organise netsafe information evenings for parents and children

6.As part of our Heatlh programme students take part in a Netsuke Unit, ‘Owls’.

7. Provide interesting, 21st century, digital learning opportunities for students, that engage them in positive constructive use of digital media.

Websites

https://education.govt.nz/school/student-support/student-wellbeing/health-and-wellbeing-programmes/bullying-prevention-and-response/bullying-prevention-and-response-a-guide-for-schools/section-3/15/

http://netsafe.org.nz/owls/