Gretchen's learning

  This webinar had important messages for schools that will guide us as we welcome students back. All teachers at our school have watched the webinar. We want to ensure we welcome our children back by going gently. We have permission to, and it is important that we work differently.  Professor Carol Mutch who researches the role of school in disaster and crisis settings (such as Canterbury earthquakes, the Christchurch terror attack and covid pandemic) was a on the panel as well as Professor Peter O'Connor who is one of the leads of Te Rito Toi. It was interesting to think about the fact that some families will have 'cascading trauma' - event after event (Lynn Mall Attack, West Auckland floods..) Children will return to school with different 'baggage' and need to reengage gently. We can't assume but must show awhi, aroha and inclusivity.  It's important schools acknowledge there's a lot we're trying to do and to take support offered.  From Carol...

 Thanks to Louise from Papakura Central who hosted this. It was good to have breakout rooms, polls and jam boards used in this toolkit too. Slides (There is another toolkit also available that Louise has done on Minecraft - Education Edition (M:EE).) We were encouraged to take some time to just get in there and have a play, cos apparently it's fun and you can't break it.  Keep in mind when using with our students, we'll be teaching to the experts - so they will be doing much teaching, talking, sharing etc. Minecraft is a great fit with learn, create, share. From the Minecraft EE site  you can join communities and the Minecraft Teacher Academy which offers training and badges! You can work towards becoming a Minecraft Certified Teacher. Louise recommends having a mouse as it is harder with a track pad apparently. This jamboard  from the toolkit shows learning topics/contexts and possible Minecraft tasks that could support learning. There are also pre 'built'?? lesson...

 This toolkit was hosted by Erin Connolly who teaches in Greymouth. Erin shared how she uses what she has learned about the Hikairo Schema . Her school has had impactful professional learning with authors Angus and Sonja McFarlane and she has used this resource to guide her own professional learning. Erin uses he poutama - a cultural competency framework - to track and scaffold her practice. She says it is clear and easy to follow. This gives Erin a structured approach to improve cultural compentency. She shared how she looks at these with a colleague and reflects on next steps. Erin also shares her own learning goals with her students. Her current focus is huataki (see image below) and Erin talked about how she starts her lessons and includes pepeha and music to connect with her students and also ensures her online learning easy to follow and is reflective of 'us and where we are'. I thought that was an important comment prompting teachers to consider our students' learnin...

 Rebecca Jesson ( slides ) is asking us to consider what has the greatest likelihood to work for our students. What is likely to work for a child and what is working for that child? Look closely and interrogate our practice. Refine and review.  executive function / inhibitory control - how children manage and regulate themselves. Important in reading.  making sure what you are doing is going to be successful for you. Reading with intent: 1. Purpose, 2. Learning Intentions, 3. Strategies. If we don't have purpose for reading - will we care? (affective?) Learning intention telling children what to notice. Strategy that you think is important. We think with language. background knowledge important underpinning of what we're reading. Avoid 'hodge-podge' vague collection and use connected text, layers, builds from one to another. Building unified theme.  Knowledge of learners to influence text selection 'mirrors, windows and glass sliding doors'. Opportunities to be...

Notes from Cognition Events wellbeing webinar - Transitioning Back to School: Dwell in Possibility presented by Rebecca Thomas and Steve Saville. What is the best environment for the students to come back to? Key message is the need to create a calm environment . Students and families might be anxious about what they've missed out on. It would be a mistake to think we need to 'catch them up'.  Teacher credibility is key ( research paper here ), as is the importance of routine, clarity of message and competent and trustworthy adults. Actively teach tolerance (this was brought up in context of high school setting - it was recorded by presenter prior to mask wearing in high schools being mandated, how will teacher manage transition back in terms of mask wearing and potential conflict) Tips: disconnect from devices for part of day - teachers and students. Engage in conversation, genuine connection, responsive interactions with others. caring for things - class pet, plant etc. ...

 Last week I attended a couple more sessions of maths PLD with Rob. The first was an 'open invite' zoom hui session - he's run a series of these. This one was looking at engagement and diversity . 1. using ARB s (Assessment Resource Banks). Rob's first guest was Jonathan Fisher from NZCER. He explained that ARBs support evidence-based teaching and learning practices. They are targeted assessment tasks and many suggest ideas for next teaching steps. For more info you can go ' about the arbs '. Arbs are flexible assessment tools - e.g we might use some of the multi-choice questions for a diagnostic move'n'prove activity, use them for small group explicit instruction or use for consolidating learning. Many can be done online or  on paper. They support teachers build pedagogical and content knowledge. Also - the researchers working on these tools really appreciate any feedback. A next step for me is to explore the  conceptual maps  within the arbs platform w...

 I've had Read&Write hanging out on my browser for quite a while now (it's free for educators) and more recently our school got funding to install it on all of our students' chromebooks (it's the little purple puzzle piece with 'rw' inside it). As far as I'm aware it gets little use.  I attended a webinar for parents yesterday run by Ben Dyer at Texthelp and was reminded what an amazing tool it is and how it can support our students. We can use it to increase reading accuracy, improve comprehension, improve vocabulary and improve writing quality and quantity. You can use Read&Write with google docs, PDFs and websites. You can even use it if you have a screenshot of some text - it can work on the text within the image. Some reading tools   Ben shared: Text to speech  (the play button) - this reads the text on the page to you - either highlighted text, the whole doc or text you have masked with the masking tool. This will assist many of our students a...