SIX MONTHS OF SILENCE!

I always thought I'd never be one of those people who would start a professional blog only to write a few entries then leave it dormant for SIX MONTHS. But I often make assumptions about my own behaviour and get it very wrong (there's a lesson lurking in that statement!).
BUT, I do have several reasons for my silence, so allow me to attempt to condense six months of work and holidays into one brief, informative blog entry.


Great Barrier Island:

My initial lapse in writing was due to a five week trip on Great Barrier Island. I accompanied 29 Year 10 students on a program run by what was then the Outdoor Pursuits Centre and is now Hillary Outdoors. This trip consumed all of Term 3 - I was at school for the first three weeks of term and entirely focussed on preparing my remaining classes for my absence. The last two weeks of term were all about supporting the Year 10s upon their return and catching up my other classes.
In my naievty I had intended to blog once or twice from the island. There was no time for that! While away I was mother, nurse, teacher, slave driver, friend, coach, chef, cleaner, photographer... And still managed to spend plenty of time fishing, snorkeling, tramping, reading and watching Blackadder!
The five weeks was not devoid of writing - the class's form teacher provided them all with journals in which to record their experiences and a printer to keep up with all the photos. I devoted a lot of time to this project as well in order to preserve my memories of this hectic time. Below is a photo of one page of this journal.
This year I am very fortunate to have the 2014 GBI group as my form class, and I will again teach the 2015 GBI class for English. While I could go on and on about this amazing experience I will save my stories for the future and dish them out in moderation.

A journal entry. The photo is of a beach that Sir Edmund Hillary used to play at, taken by my colleague Nigel.

Returning to school last year:

Just like the students I found the return to school very challenging. I had already decided I would not dean in 2015 and felt demotivated and sapped of energy - not by my time on GBI, but from being back at school. One significant way in which our perception had changed was that we all noticed negativity much more readily. I, like the students, longed to return to our paradise. I knew that I would adjust in time, but did not expect it to take all of Term 4 - it is only now that I am starting the year fresh that I am feeling back to my old teacher self.


The holidays!

These summer holidays we chose to stay at home almost the whole time which has been a first for us. We had two very good reasons - firstly we just bought our own house and secondly we got married mid January. This summer was perfection - full of swimming in the sea and the river, gardening, nesting, family time and the best party ever. I refused to talk about school and avoided reading anything about education online! Without a doubt those six weeks have enabled me to return to work itching to get back into the classroom.

Those are my three very good reasons for not blogging until now. A five week island retreat (yeah right!), a two month period of soul searching, buying a house and getting married!


Term 1, 2015:

Well, a lot is different this year. I am back to a full teaching load and can focus solely on my own classes and being a supportive and productive member of my department. I have two Year 9 classes, one of which is a BYOD class, the Year 10 English class who will go to GBI for 5 weeks, an internal Year 11 class and an exam Year 12 class. I think my next entry will be about the texts I intend to teach. I have lots of new ideas, but for me it's always about trying to limit the amount of new texts I teach otherwise I make it too hard on myself.
The second major thing that is different this year is that I am post-GBI, where I did learn a lot. As I wrote above, I struggled to remain positive upon my return. And so that is my main goal for this year: to remain positive. It is a struggle. So often we want to vent with our colleagues. But a significant component of my training at NZGSE was an acknowledgement of the 'culture of complaint' prevalent in most workplaces and the need to deal with it. I'm not suggesting that my school has a 'culture of complaint' any worse than any other New Zealand secondary school, but I am saying I will try to be more positive this year.


A new year! A new me! A new you? I'm looking forward to the adventure!

 Whāia te iti kahurangi ki te tūohu koe me he maunga teitei

Pursue excellence – should you stumble, let it be to a lofty mountain

Myth & Magic - Conference Reflections Part 2

We had two further keynote speakers: fantasy author Michael Pryor and New Zealand Children's Book of the Year winner Ted Dawe. These two speakers were as diverse as Joe Bennett and Dame Fiona Kidman, but of course in entirely different ways. Michael spoke of five kinds of magic and Ted of the round about way he discovered writing.

Michael Pryor

Michael spent the whole week with us in Rotorua as he had traveled all the way from Melbourne. He arrived two nights before the conference began and joined us for dinner after 12 hours of travel. It was immediately apparent that he is charming, kind and sincere - his popularity was instant!
Michael spoke of discovering magic in C.S. Lewis' The Magician's Nephew and I was immediately hooked. When I first read the novel, Polly was the first character with my name who didn't do silly things like sitting in cinders or eating crackers.
What engaged me the most was when Michael spoke of world building in fantasy writing. I had never considered the investment needed to fully flesh out a new world before delving in. Michael mentioned one writer friend who had spent years creating a huge map of his fictional world before he even began to write about it - this of course put me in mind of George R. R. Martin who is clearly adept at world building. Listening to Michael speak about world building - climate, currency, units of measurement, fashion, diet - put me in mind of Philip Pullman, C.S. Lewis and Sheryl Jordan. It made me appreciate their adroit world-building even more deeply as I can still picture Mr Tumnus' burrow down to the rocking chair by the fire, the detailing of Iorek Byrnison's sky-iron armour and Elsha's firestones all these years later - and that is truly magical.

Ted Dawe

Ted was much more a man of mystery. He arrived in time for our conference dinner and after delivering a workshop and his keynote swooped out of the auditorium like Bond himself.
As I said above, Ted came to writing unexpectedly. While living in the UK he wrote regularly to his grandmother. At first his letters were stilted and dull, but soon he found himself writing screes back home to New Zealand. When he returned home and visited his grandmother he discovered she had bound all his letters into a book proudly placed on the coffee table. Once again, not a dry eye on the building.
What I really appreciated about Ted was his no-nonsense approach to writing. After frustration with boys in his classroom who did not want to read, Ted took it upon himself to write something for them, even coercing them into reading chapters in order to gain valuable feedback about swear-words, among other things. This resulted in the very successful Thunder Road. And who buys it most? Teachers and librarians. He writes to fill a niche, address a lack, and it works.
Ted is perhaps infamous more than famous as a result of his last novel, Into the River, which has been controversially classified as R14. While you might think 'that won't stop students from reading it' do bear it mind that it definitely discourages librarians and teachers from buying class-sets. I am yet to read the novel myself but have just bought it and will write about it here when I have finished it. And would you believe the classification office also reviewed Fifty Shades of Grey and did not place it under any restrictions?


All four speakers were edifying, thought-provoking and gracious. Joe Bennett even wrote about his conference experience in his latest column. Capital Letters 2015 have already confirmed three of their keynotes: Glenn Colquhoun, Bernard Beckett and Karen Melhuish Spencer - who I've never heard about but her blog is entitled Disrupt and Transform, sounds promising!

Whāia te iti kahurangi ki te tūohu koe me he maunga teitei

Pursue excellence – should you stumble, let it be to a lofty mountain

Bring Your Own Device

Around the same time I started to learning about flipping the classroom I also began to learn about the Bring Your Own Device or BYOD approach to education. This is a concept that many schools across New Zealand are putting into practice with varying degrees of buy in and success.

I am one of the first 'round' of BYOD teachers at my school. We have a pilot program of two form-classes (50 students) who stay together for social studies, maths, science and English (and PE, but two periods of PE a week does not lend itself to BYOD). I am one of the eight teachers of these two classes and have had my iPad since Term 2 of last year in order to prepare myself. During 2013 I attended a huge amount of BYOD professional development in Auckland, Tauranga and at Trident itself. While I didn't have an official BYOD classes last year I did use my iPad in class occassionally. It was especially useful for students who needed to watch a video in order to catch up. I was beginning to flip some of my lessons and a student might use my iPad to watch a video if they didn't have a smart-phone or tablet of their own. Over the year I did learn a lot, but ultimately you have to dive in to find out what works for you.

And it wasn't until I had 25 students in front of me with their own iPads that I could really begin to teach using the concept of BYOD. Before I talk about how I use this technology to improve the learning outcomes of my students, I think it is important to put rest to concerns about devices just being used as another fad or a way to engage students. iPads won't engage students any more than Smartboards will, it is still the strategies you use in your teaching that matters. And someone has come up with a lovely acronym to explain just this concept.

This link has some very detailed suggestions on what redefinition might look like in other subjects.

So you can see there is an acknowledgement that tech can be under-utilised if it is just seen as a replacement to pen and paper. At Trident we are finding the SAMR concept encourages us to review what it is we are really assessing at any given point and therefore how flexible the task can be. Sometimes it comes back to practicality and you may have to place limits on students to make your workload manageable. But ultimately, having 1:1 technology in your classroom can open up a whole new world. 

Next time I will write about how I have actually used this tech in my classrooms this year and what I have have learned. It would be great to see your questions below so I can use them to inform what I write about! Have you got a BYOD approach at your school? Do you have any concerns? Have you had any successes?

Whāia te iti kahurangi ki te tūohu koe me he maunga teitei

Pursue excellence – should you stumble, let it be to a lofty mountain

Who is flipping what now?

The inimitable Grace Helbig became famous through her YouTube channel My Damn Channel. Last year I learned all about flipping my classroom and as a result started a channel of my own. It seemed only natural, and incredibly clever, to call my channel My Flipping Channel and the email to go along with it myflippingclassroom. And so the puns begin!

Flipping is a reasonably new approach to teaching that harnesses the use of technology to use teaching and learning time more efficiently. I'm sure there's not much I could say to add to the discussion around the benefits of flipped learning, but here are some links to people and places that provide guidance and inspiration on how and why to flip your classroom. 

This first video is adorable and from the Flipped Institute.

This article tells you what Flipped Learning is and isn't. The videos below were created by one of the authors of the aforementioned article.

Both of these gentlemen are on the board of this organisation. And finally, here is the obligatory Wikipedia page. 

These are the few pearls of wisdom I can offer that might have helped me when I started this process:

1. This approach can lead some kids to be quite demanding of your time. You will need to work at having clear boundaries around your availability, especially if you have a 1:1 BYOD class.

2. You will have to teach students how to make the most of all of this. Start small.

3. Try to make videos that can be used for at least of couple of your classes. Start with skills videos first. These are easier to make brief and specific so students can work out for themselves exactly where to go when they get stuck. Content videos will take longer to create and be very specific to one class and one unit which is not the best use of your time.

4. Quality, not quantity. Don't try to make videos for all your classes all at once. Just focus on one class until you are comfortable with this style of teaching.

5. Flipping does not just equal making a video. Students might be asked to read an article at home or watch someone else's video. Challenge yourself to work smarter, not harder. How can you flip without going to the effort of making a new video every time?

6. Keep videos as short as possible, 5 minutes max, 3 minutes is even better. In one video you may only teach students how to write one specific kind of sentence, or how to choose the best essay topic.

7. Make them rewarding: insert silly photos or a link to an entertaining video as a reward.

8. Flipped learning won't suit all students, especially if they don't have access to the internet at home.

I'd love to hear your thoughts below - do you flip already? If not, is there anything holding you back?
Get out there and start flipping learning!

My Flipping Blog

Robert Frost's words “I am not a teacher, but an awakener" resonate deeply with me. Before starting my teaching diploma I was not entirely convinced teaching was the best career for me. I thought I was too extroverted, not conventional enough, and I didn't think I would find it all that satisfying. It turns out the introversion and difference don't matter at all, and it's rare that don't have moments of immense satisfaction during my working day. 

The moments that satisfy me the most are the moments when I awaken my students; some literally, most metaphorically. I open minds and spark inquisition. I provoke reflection and advocate for the devil. I love to see students debate, puzzle of a concept with determination, pen an essay that articulates their unique perspective.

But there is the flip-side. The moments of boredom, discouragement, apathy. And unfortunately, these moments are all too prevalent. 

But! I am an optimist! In the classroom, anyway. Many students find me irritatingly upbeat and try to bargain with my unfaltering high expectations. And I refuse to give in. I'm the adult! I'm a professional! This is my job and I will do it well.

But... teenagers are persistent. The never-ending struggle between our high expectations and their lack of expectations can be mind-numbing. And that is why the current focus of my professional development is on my small Year 10 class. There are around 15 of them, but I usually only have 10 or so each lesson. There reading comprehension is a little low, but not terrible. Their writing skills are a concern. Their behaviour and focus is difficult to manage. But the main reason they are in such a small class is not because they are 'cabbage' or 'foundation' or naughty. It is due to their complete disengagement from their own education. They have shutdown. My job mission is to awaken them.

With the support of several highly skilled and knowledgeable colleagues, my goals are as follows:
1. By the end of the year each student in the class will care about their education.
2. By the end of the year each student in the class will have made measurable progress in their comprehension and writing skills.

Once our plan for these students has been developed, I will be able to make a goal as to how much 'measurable progress' each student ought to make in that time and how it will be measured.

These goals may be lofty, but it is our responsibility to practice what we preach and have high expectations of our own capabilities.