Growth mindset ludo

 

A resource I have been working on this year is 'growth mindset ludo'. As students move around the board, they land on various reflection questions about fixed and growth mindsets to help them identify the patterns in their own thinking. After all, it is reflection that helps us learn from our mistakes and improve. I'll make sure to share more about this game when it is done. 

("It's been a little while since I've blogged regularly so to get back in the habit, I thought I would share one photo every day for the remainder of the school year to capture some of my learning, reflections, and creations for 2022. Each photo is accompanied by a short caption. The idea is to keep it short, simple, and reflective. I would love for people to join me - if you do, make sure you include #edphoto22 on whatever platform you share it (Twitter, Mastodon, Facebook, Instagram, wherever...)." 

Ngā tuna me ngā arawhata - eels and ladders

 

Two photos today, but of the same thing. One of my roles is as an Across School Leader for our kāhui ako of 12 schools. As we come to the end of the year, the teams I work with will be reflecting on the impact they have had in 2022. To help those conversations along I have reinvented snakes and ladders. Firstly, since we don't have snakes in New Zealand I changed it to eels. Secondly, on each open space there is a question to prompt deeper reflection about the focus of each team's inquiries this year. When you land on the space, you will need to answer the question you have landed on. 

"It's been a little while since I've blogged regularly so to get back in the habit, I thought I would share one photo every day for the remainder of the school year to capture some of my learning, reflections, and creations for 2022. Each photo is accompanied by a short caption. The idea is to keep it short, simple, and reflective. I would love for people to join me - if you do, make sure you include #edphoto22 on whatever platform you share it (Twitter, Mastodon, Facebook, Instagram, wherever...)."

Battleground - generating inquiry questions

Students in this photo are playing Battleground. In order to have agency in their learning, students need to be able to ask good questions. I invented this game as a fun way to have students practice generating questions. When playing this game students can develop their critical thinking through both generating questions and the strategy that they try to use in order to win the game. 

PS: It's been a little while since I've blogged regularly so to get back in the habit, I thought I would share one photo every day for the remainder of the school year to capture some of my learning, reflections, and creations for 2022. Each photo is accompanied by a short caption. The idea is to keep it short, simple, and reflective. I would love for people to join me - if you do, make sure you include #edphoto22 on whatever platform you share it (Twitter, Mastodon, Facebook, Instagram, wherever...). 

Digital Citizenship Cranium

Post number 2 for my 10 posts in 10 days challenge...

How is your school supporting students to become good digital citizens?

We live in a time where successful navigation of digital technologically is a critical part of success. Don't believe me? Did you use any form of digital alarm this morning, including a digital clock or phone? Did you call or text the school when your child was sick and you were keeping them at home? On your lunch break, did you pay for your coffee with EFTPOS, credit card or Apple Wallet? Perhaps you used a GPS to find your next meeting. In the meeting you may have showcased some of your latest work using a presentation or augmented reality. Chances are that you used Spotify to get you in the zone at the gym, while out running, or in that fitness class you've been taking. When you're ready to crash tonight you might watch a show on Netflix before a quick scroll through Facebook to see the birthdays you should have remembered today. Before you go to sleep, you might turn off your phone, and settle in for a little bit of quiet reading on a Kindle before doing it all again tomorrow.

While digital technology is ubiquitous in our life and the lives of our students, it is important to remember that is only increasing. Already self-driving cars are on the increase, as are autonomous drones. An increasing array of wearable tech is also augmenting our lives. Just think Apple watch, Fitbit and bluetooth headphones. All of the above doesn't even begin to address the wide range of digital skills that our students already need (and will need) in the workplace. Additionally, the students who are in front of us today do not remember, a time before the internet, or even a time before YouTube. For some of them at least, there may not be a separation vs. online and real world, instead, it is just the world.

The explosive and exponential pace of change in digital technology means that we are essentially in a new Wild West, characterised by new frontiers, rapid expansion, and some degree of anarchy as law and order struggles to keep pace with the rate of change. It is my belief that any school that intends to prepare and support students in the world in and beyond school, needs to help students navigate the challenges and pitfalls of digital technology, as well as enable students to seize the opportunities and benefits on offer.

In response, I ran a short professional learning activity today with our staff to help promote discussion about the many elements of digital citizenship - it's a lot more than just cyber bullying! I designed the activity to help build our staff's vocabulary and awareness of the scope of digital citizenship.

The activity is quite obviously inspired by Cranium, however I have made a few tweaks to allow you to play it with large groups. 


Digital Citizenship Cranium

You will need:

• One piece of paper and pencil for each group. 
• One set of playing cards for each group (see below). 
• Timer for each group.

To play:

• The object of the game is to guess as many correct answers answers as possible in the allocated amount of time. (We played for 10 minutes today.)
• Split into small groups of 3 to 6 people. You can have as many group as you like, however each group will need their own set of cards.
• Assign one person from each group as the game facilitator. This person will read the instructions on each card to the group and start a 1 minute timer. Groups can take turns to be the facilitator or keep the same one the whole way through.
• When the timer runs out or when the group guesses correctly, go to the next card.

Click here for the high resolution cards.

Term 2 in pictures

Year nine and ten students designed games for year seven and eights to teach them about climate change.

We made more progress in our Learning Hub Curriculum. In this session, students were discussing aspects of emotional intelligence.

Had a massive win for algebra. Students used algebra to test out their card game designs. Students found this algebra so useful that they kept referring to it!

I have been exploring triads as a means for gathering an overview of the class and their progress on tasks. 

You can never go wrong with a bit of model making! Students were asked to create sculptures that represented the habits of their organisms's environment. 

I was able to take three students and three staff to meet Jane Goodall at the Auckland Zoo. Wow!

7 new things I tried this term

1. I redesigned and adapted my favourite board game, Catan, in an attempt to engage some of my more passive learners in a more active way. It worked a treat, particularly for my Pasifika learners! Afterwards, I had the students evaluate their strategy from a mathematical perspective, and then plan a different strategy for the next time we played.
   



2. I decided that there was not enough ethics in addressed in our curriculum. So I have made an ethics section as part of all scientific investigations. As I expected, students have actually spent little to no time thinking about preventing harm in academic contexts. To be honest, this has me a little bit concerned given the state of the world.
   
3. I tried combining three achievement standards into one. This is a work in progress. I'll have to let you know how that goes. Essentially, the students are doing a scientific investigation and using the data gathering process and analysis as evidence towards two maths standards. My hope is that through combing the standards that students can gain an appreciation for the range of skills and knowledge that goes into the process of constructing new scientific knowledge. The standards are:
   

   • AS90925: Carry out a practical investigation in a biological context, with direction 

   • AS91026: Apply numeric reasoning in solving problems

   • AS91036: Investigate bivariate numerical data using the statistical enquiry cycle 

4. I have been trying to help students have deeper discussion with a more diverse range of students. To do this, I have experimented using question scripts that include a series of questions to interview each other about, question cards to have a bank of questions to help draw out each other's answer in more depth, and even setting complex tasks that required extended discussion and a range of perspectives to solve.
   
5. You may have already read about the Learning Hub Inquiry. The process of engaging students with actively developing a personal goal through a personal action research project. Again, a work in progress as this involves leading the HPSS staff through the process too.
   
6. I've been trying to engage students with the idea of cognitive bias. I am approaching this from the angle of why we have processes such as the scientific method and random sampling, and how this helps us overcome cognitive bias. This has been inspired through two books, Tomas Pernecky's Epistemology and Metaphysics for Qualitative Research and Daniel Kahneman's Thinking Fast and Slow.
   
7. I've been having a go at engaging students with futures thinking. By this I mean, getting students to engage with designing solutions for complex problems with no one right answer. Students have been designing a space city. They have been asked to make calculations about how much food, oxygen and water they will need. They have explored alternative food sources, energy sources and some even how to maintain genetic diversity in a reduced population in space. 

   

   Students planning their space city.