A day in the life of a quarantined teacher

2020. What a year! As we sat planning our courses and curriculums at the end of 2019, could any of us have predicted how much of it would be delivered in lockdown, from home? I started this blog as a provisionally registered teacher in 2012 and have kept it up ever since. It has been a wonderful resource to show the development of my thinking, professional practice and knowledge over the years. I thought it was only right to capture some of the this latest development in practice too, that is, teaching while in quarantine.

9:30am - 10am Live Google Meet with Learning Hub in pyjamas

Every morning I have a live session with my Learning Hub. At our school, Learning Hubs have replaced form classes and tutor groups in favour of an advisory model. In a nutshell, this means I take more of a 'life coach' role than just monitoring student attendance. 

These daily hub sessions involve having a quick conversation with each of my 17 hublings (an HPSS term that has evolved to refer to the students in our Learning Hub) to check how they are doing, pass on any messages from the school or other teachers, help them set goals for the day/week and keep them accountable. We also go over their daily planner. 

The daily planner is a key piece of the puzzle for HPSS students. This helps students to manage their learning while off-site by helping them identify the learning tasks that should be completed for the day. As the hub coach, it also helps me identify when a student is not regularly checking in with what learning needs to be done. For students who do not yet have great self-managing skills, our morning check-ins involve me helping them to complete their planners for the day to ensure that the students know what they should be doing. It is important to remember that students don't all come to us with self-managing skills - we have to teach them how!

It's also worth pointing out that we tend not to turn our cameras on for this morning meeting. It's perfectly acceptable to plan your day while in your pyjamas you see...

10am - 11:30am Get dressed, check emails, schedule jobs, have coffee in the sun

After our daily hub check-in, I tend to get dressed in my lockdown work clothes. This involves some variation on my onesie, track pants, and sometimes a slightly tidier looking shirt if I have meetings where I have to be on camera. I then make a cup of coffee and sit in the sun (or under a blanket if no sun) to check my email. Email, despite being the bane of my existence, is also a key part of what helps schools function these days, whether we are together or apart. 

This part of the day also involves tending to various leadership responsibilities. For me, this involves dealing with various NCEA queries in my role as Principal's Nominee and updating my own to-do list accordingly. I also check in with my various Across School Lead tasks for our Kāhui Ako and follow up on any aspects of this work that need my attention.

11:30am - 1pm Planning time

Next, I like to spend a bit of time checking how my students are progressing in the tasks that have been set for them. To do this I use the Google Classroom grade book function to help me do this quickly or other websites that let me track student engagement. I tend to set at least one activity each week that 'self marks' so that it is really quick and easy to see who is engaging with the activities in the Google Classroom, but also who might be struggling with the basic language, concepts or skills we are dealing with. Tools I use for this include the auto mark Google Form Quiz, Quizizz and Playposit. During this planning time, I will also notify other hub coaches if their hublings are not keeping up with classwork so that they can notify their parents. 

As well as a quiz type activity, I also set an additional set that requires students to keep working on it for a more sustained period of time. This task is usually based on a SOLO Taxonomy scaffold to ensure that all students will be able to complete at least some of the task (see example task). Instructions are communicated to students in the same format on Google Classroom that I use when we are at school. I have found that using really consistent practice when in school and out of school sets my students up to be more successful for when I am not there to support them. 

Student voice that we collected during our previous lockdown indicated the students liked having:

• Tasks set at the start of the week that they can work on for the whole week.
• Must do, Should do, Could do tasks
• Video instructions

Hence, I make sure to include the student requests in my planning too. 

1pm - 1:30pm Lunchtime

Since we can't travel the world right now, I am using my meals to reminisce about vacations past. Crepes have been a lockdown favourite as they remind me of the wonderful time I had exploring the streets of Paris this December just past. So much has changed in the world since then and I am incredibly grateful that we got to have one last holiday before the pandemic. Other travel food favourites include homemade pizza from scratch (because you have time to make the dough from scratch when you are home all day) and fancy European cheeses and bread. 

Of course, 1pm is also when we watch the 1pm Daily Update show - you can read the reviews on IMDB! The storyline on IMDB reads:

"Set in a dystopian world where autocratic and populist leaders are in charge of the USA, China, UK, Brazil and many other nations. 1pm Daily Update takes place in the imaginary island nation of New Zealand, a utopian society where science, facts, strong leadership and a genuine care for its people and environment take precedence over money and big business."

 

 

1:30pm - 3pm Teaching time

During this time of the day, I like to actively engage with my students online. This has involved everything from running Kahoots and running a 3 minute Art History Challenge. Most of the time, however, live teaching time is reserved for one of two things:

• Drop-in question and answer sessions: During the regular class time, I let my students know that I will be online if they have any questions or if they need any help. Attendance is not compulsory and essentially this is just a chance for a face to face conversation if a student needs it. 
  
  
• One on one sessions: One on one slots are usually reserved for my senior students working on assessments. Students are asked to book in a one on one session for us to check in on how they are going with their assessment. This can help the student overcome any obstacles they might be encountering and help keep the student accountable. Additionally, it has the added benefit of helping me to feel confident about the authenticity of any student work done at home as I can hear students talk to their work. We use a Google Sheet for students to make their appointment times.

 

3pm to 4pm Feedback and marking

As well as the usual marking of NCEA work, I spend quite a lot of time giving feedback to my students. Before beginning an assessment, I give my students a practice task. For the practice tasks, I give them an abundance of feedback that I ask them to address before beginning the assessment. This means that rather than just resolving my comment, they actually have to 'fix' things to ensure that they really take the feedback on board. Google Classroom makes giving feedback a whole lot easier these days. I love the comment bank which lets me upload common statements that I use again and again so that it is faster and easier to get through big classes. Sometimes I will come back to marking after dinner too. Usually with a hot toddy for motivation! 

4pm onwards

From 4pm I have device free time. So much of the day is online at the moment in in reality, I'm finding this quite difficult. Hence, I make sure that when I finish the workday, I try to get off my computer for a few hours. During the many weeks of lockdown this year, non-screen time activities have included flexibility training, circus training and conditioning, drawing, reading, sewing facemasks and cooking.

What about the next day?

I'm not really a creature of routine. So while the above might be one day's schedule, it is definitely NOT every day's schedule. Our daily 9:30am hub meeting happens every day (to help our whole hub get out of bed and get to work at a reasonable time), the other things shift around in the day based on meetings, my motivation levels and when the sun is out to go for a walk. 

The day we colonised another planet in class

This post is being jointly written by Danielle and Steve and cross-posted on both of our blogs. We are co-teaching a Science and Social Studies module called Post-Mortem for the first half of this year. This post is to share a learning experience that we designed to kick off the second term of our course. If you haven't yet, make sure follow Steve's blog. He shares great stuff!

Idea/Aim:

To Make Sense of the Treaty of Waitangi by developing empathy for the perspectives involved

Planning:

This term our Social Studies focus is on Responses to the Treaty of Waitangi and understanding Biculturalism. The premise for our module is that these historical responses have contributed to making NZ society the way it is today. To truly do this, I wanted students to understand why people felt the Treaty was needed and why people had responded to it differently over time.

Both of us had been unduly influenced by our time at KiwiFoo. We had many conversations about how Werewolf could be used educationally and had also both just read The Martian which was highly recommended at the Reading List workshop (about a man stranded on Mars and his attempt to survive).

Whilst discussing plans for Term 2, one of the ideas was “What if we ran a simulation of the British colonising NZ but had it as humans colonising another planet”. In this way we could attempt to develop empathy for the situation without students’ preconceived ideas about the Treaty blocking their view.

To have this close to reality we decided that there had to be communication issues (mistranslations etc.), the colonists needed a superior attitude (to match the civilised barbarians view of Maori held in the early 19th Century) and some differing attitudes towards resources.

The class (45 students) were split fairly evenly, with a mix of natural leaders in both groups and slightly more colonists than aliens.

Pre-Sim with students

Aliens:To begin preparing for the simulation, the aliens were divided into six groups. Each group contributed a different part of the planning by addressing one of the following questions:What are the distinguishing characteristics of your species? How might you ensure this is communicated (without speaking) in the simulation?How might you communicate to ensure we understand each other but the colonists do not?How do we live? e.g. niche, habitat. And how how will we set up the space (cafeteria) to reflect this?What are our resources and why are we so protective of them? Eg. food? What do our communities look like? Eg. social hierarchy, cultural norms.What are our most important values? Why?
The aliens decided on the following:They would operate in factions, each faction would dress similarly. Hence, we ended up with one faction in onesies. Their most valued resource was metal because this is what they ate. This worked well as it meant that I could represent this resource in the simulation with tinfoil!Each faction would live in their own ‘home’, a space constructed with two large tables turned on their side with legs facing each other to create a square area to sit in. In some cases it was a single table with legs turned towards the wall. There were also some free ‘homes’ set up. The students decided to communicate through a Facebook messaging group.

On the dayAliens set up the space. 

Satellite image of planet pre-colonisation 

Resource to utilise? Or sacred mountain?

I set up the sacred mountain where the food was located and told students that once every ten minutes, one person from each faction needed to go and collect a single piece of food and bring it back to their faction. Because it was a sacred mountain, students were not allowed to step on it.Students were told the pre-negotiated (negotiated between Steve and I, the teachers) hand signals. This included hand signals for friend, jail, food, trade, grow, land and person. We also included hand signals that had slightly different meanings for each group. For example, share meaning borrow and give back to one group vs. use long term together for the other group. There was also a gesture for referring to different groups. The aliens had a separate gesture for a faction and all the aliens. No distinction was made between signals for all the factions and one faction for the colonists.

ColonistsThe Colonists were told that Earth could no longer support life for all humans. This group had been selected to colonise the planet “Epic”.
It has lots of land for growing food and plenty of resources to be claimed to use for their needs. There are space creatures that live there who seem to have some form of intelligence but are not as advanced as we are. They seem capable of trade so are more civilised than creatures found on other planets but still act like barbarians at times.
In small groups, the students decided what their plan of action would be upon arriving at their destination: settle land first, source resources, seek out trade opportunities.
We had an opportunity to send 2 scouts to the aliens and ask questions that would help the group of colonists. They found out that there was plenty of metal available. The group decided this was a valuable resource and some groups started planning mining operations at this point.
On the Day:
Each group nominated 1 group member who became part of the police//military and was given a gun. We had a visiting student for the day so she became Governor as she had no pre-existing alliances with any of the students. She quickly selected 1 group to be her advisers.  
I taught the Colonists the pre-arranged hand signals that would allow some communication between the groups. I did however, purposefully mix up the signals for trade and share as miscommunication was vital for ensuring some authenticity in this simulation!
A photo was taken from the mezzanine showing how the area was set up. This “satellite image” was shared with the colonist groups so they could plan where they would head to on arrival at “Epic”.
One group of only 2 students were given a lot more resources so that we had some wealthy colonists as well as the rest.
The groups were sent down the elevator as our spaceship to Epic. They arrived in their groups of 4-5 students with the Governor and her advisors the 2nd group to arrive.

During the simulation

This is best described by the students in their own words:

“Once the Skypeople arrived in our village/colony we were automatically put underneath them on their hierarchy, they stole resources from the sacred mountain and begun tearing down our bunkers. Attempted trades didn’t last for long and they begun putting us into prisons (which they had previously set up upon arrival) due to not signing their suggested treaty. Keagan, Micah and I hid in our secondary bunker which proved to last throughout most of the fighting outside (although they didn’t have much respect for personal privacy). The overall habitat was mostly destroyed towards the end of the fighting (and little attempted communication was used to benefit the previous environment).”
“Signals were used for a variety of things such as communicating about trading, jail and whether you were friends or not.Some of the things that were communicated on facebook were about people asking for help if they were being invaded and people letting each other know who is taking whatSome things weren’t communicated well as some people didn't know what had been going on e.g the marriageEach person at the start tried to be friendly by signaling friendship but the invaders took all of our food and then tried to trade still.The communicating started to fail for us (the aliens) as we started talking verbally which we couldn’t do.Some of our stronger members started to talk with Raley who was their chief and we figured out a treaty by writing on paper and signing it. We used some hand signals that hadn’t been created yet (improvisation)Someone added a person from the colonie to our messaging system so they overtook it and started to delete people.”  

“Their first steps on our planet were a mistake (literally) as their first action was to trod our holy temple into the ground. (An action of the highest blasphemy)  And to collect our offering to the gods as an attempt to blackmail us. My first actions against these vile invaders was to (I am ashamed to say) cower in my home, but the fear soon turned to anger as the tyrants began imposing rules and laws to steal our land. Without food my only option was to steal, and to say the least it didn’t work. I amassed a grand total of three  steel pieces for consumption before I was hauled (kicking and clawing, literally) off to jail. There was where I met the first civilised human, ironic really, isn't it? Who confessed to trying to take land with force (not so civilised then.) Three unsuccessful attempts later I was out! Using only persistence and a good hiding spot I had evaded the guards! I moved back to my land and kept away from anyone who might be able to identify me. This didn’t settle well with me, being a fugitive and watching them take our land. Using the telepathy our specie possessed I attempted to catch up on what I missed. OUTRAGE! They were attempting to sign a treaty with our people, (after their hideous treatment of us) and what was worse people were buying it! I was soon approached by some  colonists bartering peace, intrigued I set aside my distrust  and asked them what they wanted.  It seemed they wanted my land and they were willing to pay for it too! Grudgingly I accepted the deal (what choice did I have?) and took leave of my land.”

"Throughout the process of the “invasion” of the planet, I was put in charge of protecting and accompanying the governess while she attempted to trade and communicate with the savages. I also helped the governess reason with the savages to sign a treaty to end the violence going on between our kind. I believe that I managed to succeed in helping her do that, as I helped her also get married off to one of the savages. Although I didn’t succeed in keeping hold of our groups food supply, as our chicken was stanched from me by one of the savages, who ended up being sent off to prison for committing the crime of stealing the governesses food. If I was to improve what I did next time, I would probably spend more time trying to communicating with the savages to find out more about them rather than just trying to avoid them."  

"Today we colonised the planet epic (aka The cafeteria). My recollection of things is that when we first arrived from the elevator it seemed quite normal. My first alien “encounter” was an alien coming up to us and just grunting. But then if kind of went downhill. Lots of the aliens were acting psychotic, yelling, throwing chickens and attacking. And someone (i think) stole my backpack as it was gone from our “house”. I was sent to jail in-lawfully but luckily was understood. People kept stealing our weapons and someone stole my chicken as I was trying to defend myself whilst protecting my “house”. A lot of the time I was completely confused about what was going on so just kind of went with the flow. I think that the rich people definitely had an advantage because they were able to trade easier. There was no order and everyone just kinda did what they wanted, took what they wanted and did not obey any guidelines." 

"The colonisation was a success in our eyes, during the colonisation we succeeded in gaining their resources such as food. After this happened things got out of hand. Josh got mugged about 5 times they never succeeded and Brennan was imprisoned and escaped four times. Our Governess got married, had three kids and then got divorced. Campbell was sentenced to death and I had to kill him, I shot him many times but he did not die. "

After Sim reflections and discussion

Alien perspective

Colonist perspective

We were incredibly excited about the success of this lesson. As Steve put it... on second thought, it’s best left censored. It rocked (or choose another appropriate excitable word). What made this such an exciting day for us, is that the events and perceptions that emerged paralleled those around the Treaty of Waitangi amazingly well. There were no teacher prompts to make a treaty, to interfere with communication, etc. In other words, the students had full autonomy, yet acted in such a way that led to many of the events around the treaty being naturally recreated. For example:

• Misunderstandings on what resources represented lead to conflict
• A Treaty that was signed by some was attempted to be enforced on all
• The majority (from both parties) felt that the Treaty was unsuccessful
• Some had no idea a Treaty had been signed at all
• Guns traded by colonists were used by Aliens against other factions of Aliens
• Once Colonists got access to the alien communication, they hacked it and kicked out the aliens from the system - remind you of Te Reo being banned from schools etc.?

Alien perceptions of the colonists straight after the simulation:

• Colonists automatically assumed they were better than the aliens.
• The aliens felt that the colonists would do anything to get you off their land
• The aliens found the colonists were brutish, abusive and violent
• The aliens thought the colonists acted in a way that suggested that everything was theirs
• The colonists automatically thought they had authority over our land as soon as they arrived
• The aliens felt the colonists had little respect for privacy
• The aliens found the colonists disrespectful
• Aliens felt the colonists were not making anything, they just destructed what we had built

Colonists perceptions of Aliens straight after the simulation:

• The natives were psychos/savages
• If trade wasn’t exactly what they wanted they attacked you - no understanding of negotiating
• They made really weird growling noises
• Frustrated that the aliens didn’t pay attention to the Treaty that was supposed to stop conflict
• A couple were interested in learning our language but the rest didn’t want to learn anything

How we debriefed the students

• After the simulation, students were asked to write a reflection about the events from their perspectives.
• From there, students were then asked to share their reflection with a member of the opposite group. They then had to come up with one thing that they found funny about the experience, one thing they found interesting and one thing they wondered about. These were shared as a class.
• From here, students were asked to complete a Y chart (looks like, sounds like, feels like + wonder about) from the perspectives of both the alien and colonist groups. The students started with the group they were part of, and then had to use the combined narratives to create the Y chart from the other group’s perspective. The students very clearly identified how challenging it was to empathise and understand the other group’s perspective.   
• Finally, we will finish this week with a SOLO hexagon task where students will be given hexagons with events that led up to and followed the treaty. They will then have to add their own hexagons of events that happened during the simulation. Students will have to find and justify the links between the hexagons. As we move through this module, the plan is for students to go back to their hexagons, adding more as their understanding develops in complexity. 

F = funny I = Interesting W = Wondering

What would we change for next time?

• Missionaries amongst the colonists who actively try to convert and civilise the aliens
• Wider gaps between groups of colonists arriving to allow events to unfold a bit slower
• Guard the jail!
• Set a maximum number of times people can die. Each death represents 100 people etc.
• Moonshot(ish): Put chalk on colonisers to act as a disease that colonisers are immune to. When the aliens get it on them, they get sick and have to slow down, return to their home base for a while.

Other thoughts

Danielle’s nerd moment: Piecing together the story from student reflections is like doing historical research, piecing together different artifacts to get at what the story might have been. This sits really really well within my current thinking around exposing students to the ‘nature’ of each academic disciplines way of thinking and creating new knowledge. Hence, a new nerd high reached.

Steve’s term for Social Studies focusing on Biculturalism, Responses to the Treaty of Waitangi and Perspectives is set up perfectly!

The increasing role of philosophy in my day to day life

It seems that the past year has seen an increase in the role that philosophy plays in my day to day life. This has included introductions to relativism, realism, critical realism, egalitarianism, modernism and post modernism. Thanks to Grant Lichtman and The Falconer, there has even been some ‎Sun Tzu and the Art of War mixed in. Of course don't forget Plato, John Dewey, Kant, Popper and Foucault. If you asked me ten years ago whether philosophy might play such a critical role in my day to day life (yes, I did say day to day), I would never have guessed it. Perhaps you are wondering why I might be using philosophy on such a frequent basis...

The most obvious response is that in preparation to begin a research masters of education, one needs a bit of an introduction to these things. This is certainly the reason why I can now use big words like epistemology and ontology in a sentence and actually know what they mean. Although the serious introduction to philosophy came very much from university, I am increasingly finding uses for it outside of assignments and essays. 

Wikipedia explains philosophy as: 

"Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with reality, existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational argument." - source 

I work in one of the newest, most different secondary schools in the country. We do things significantly differently from most other schools I have ever taught in, and differently from the majority of schools in the area (with the exception of Albany Senior High School). Inevitably, this means a lot of time spent in the hypothetical. Although we firmly believe the model for schools in New Zealand needs to change, doing so, is more challenging and more uncomfortable than one might suppose from the outside. Even when you have an incredible team who all believe in the urgent need for change. However, what is it that has lead us to believe that this need for change is so important? Working in a school that is taking so many risks could potentially have a positive or a negative results on one's career. So why take the risk? I have increasingly found solace in understanding the philosophy that underpins our society, our education system, but also the philosophy that might underpin our work at Hobsonville Point Secondary School. 

#edchatNZ is also now more than two years old. As I seek to ensure that the #edchatNZ fortnightly chats remain warm and demanding, I am increasingly finding that I need to venture in unknown ground on behalf of others to ensure that we keep pushing at the boundaries of the teacher box. What better way is there to do this but through philosophy? Philosophy provides an examination of the fundamental ideas that underpin our society, the anachronisms but also the aspirations of our society. These all seem pretty relevant to education wouldn't you think? 

Where does learning happen?

Why do so many people think that learning happens in rows? Having had my fair share of sharing a class with other teachers, and visiting other classrooms on a regular basis, I have seen the rows over and over again. Why are there still so many classrooms (and yes, I witnessed some again recently), that are still set up in rows? As you can tell, I have a bit of an issue with rows...

Of course, the learning at Hobsonville Point happens in all kinds of places. Just take a look at these photos.

Inspecting 'crime scenes' inside and outside of the school.

Groups working on the gymnasium floor
(tables and chairs were available)

Students working on the auditorium stage
(nothing to do with any kind of performance)

In fact, I think you might be hard pressed to find rows at Hobsonville Point. You have a much better chance of finding campfires, caves and mountain tops (make sure you view this great visual from Core Education). The many visitors that we have at Hobsonville Point Secondary often comment on the size of the spaces, the furniture, the colours, and quite frankly, the sparkling newness of it all. The thing is, the space certainly enables much of the future focussed pedagogy that we strive for, however, the space is only one very, very small ingredient. Stepping back for a few moments recently into a 'traditional' classroom, I thought about what I would do differently if I was to teach in a single cell classroom again. Here is just a very quick list:

1. Scour inorganic day and Trademe for alternative seating options, couches, pillows and more. 
2. Decorate strategically. In fact, I even have a Pinterest board for ideas to construct spaces in a classroom. 
3. Remove the front of the room. Turn the desks to face in various directions. Remove the focus from the front and rather use the whiteboard as just another possible resource. 
4. Buy some of those stickers that you put on desks and then turn them into whiteboards!
5. Get outside of the classroom more. Use the school gardens, local parks, any other space.
6. Use more chalk, outside. Use more window markers. 
7. Move the furniture in the class more often, encourage students to move the furniture to create the spaces they need.
8. Give the students more choice, everyday, in every lesson. Choose where you work, move to an appropriate space that matches your task.
9. Talk to another teacher who teaches the same year group at the same time, split the two classes for a lesson. Students can then have a choice about which option they go to.

There are so many more things that we can do. The real change I have found in teaching in a modern learning environment is that I use the spaces as I do at home. For quiet time, I retreat, for conversations, I sit around the dinner table. For relaxing, I move again. Sitting on a bean bag is my favourite way to read. Essays I prefer typing at my desk. 

What spaces and practices could you create in your class? How would having no front of the room change your practice? I dare you, remove the front for a month and then see how you go!

#FOMO led me to join #28daysofwriting

If you started your teaching career at HPSS and then moved
somewhere else. (Yes I drew this terrible cartoon). 

#28daysofwriting  - I think it was Tom Barett (my edu crush of 2014) who made this particular blogging challenge go a bit viral. It means you write for 28 minutes a day, every day, for 28 days. Of course prolific blogger Steve Mouldey signed up. And so did Ros, Kimberley and a few others people that I really admire on the education scene. So of course, what should happen but #FOMO, fear of missing out. Particularly as I know how powerful reflecting on a regular basis is. Without question, I believe that a big part of the positive shifts in grades in my university assignments has been due to my blogging and tweeting activity. And also, because I know that every day at Hobsonville Point is the equivalent of a week in any other school. Such unusual phenomena should be documented if you ask me! As I sat in the audience at our first prize giving as a school last year, I rather wanted to kick myself for not documenting my thinking to a greater extent. Being part of a foundation staff in a school that is pushing so many boundaries, in so many ways, working with so many inspirational educators has meant an enormous learning curve. I sincerely wish I had posted every day so that I could have gone back this year and worked through my thoughts. So, I might be a few days late, but better late than never. It's for this reason that Steve Mouldey and I had a serious (or as serious as Steve gets) conversation with one of our new teachers here at Hobsonville about joining the challenge.

Imagine, that as a beginning teacher, your very first job ever, was at Hobsonville Point Secondary School. How might this influence what you come to believe about how education works? What would you believe about the purpose of education in New Zealand? How might you interpret the New Zealand Curriculum? What would you believe about the role of collaboration in schools between teachers? What would you believe about pastoral care? For one thing, you would throw a serious tantrum when presented with a scheme of work. I mean seriously, how can you know that in week four of term three, your students will need to learn how to simplify and solve for x? What if some students are still struggling with fractions? Do you just ignore that and move on to decimals anyways because that is what the scheme of work says? How is that meeting the needs of our students? How does that teach students to have a growth mindset? Never mind mastery, lets just move on. Never mind practicing until you get something, or learning to apply something. We have to move on. Our curriculum explicitly highlights that we are attempting to create life long learners, yet, if we do not provide students with a chance for mastery, what messages do we really send?

Again, a beginning teacher at Hobsonville Point might be forgiven for thinking that teachers naturally collaborate. Without question, I have collaborated with many others in my past school. However, at Hobsonville Point, despite being a science and maths specialist, I have thus far worked with social sciences and health and physical education the most. This is a long cry from a faculty office, and even further removed from a past school where I used to avoid the staff room altogether for fear of conversations about how terrible colleagues in the school are. Just this week alone we have seen some exciting connections come to life between chemistry and the Treaty of Waitangi thanks to the cross school collaborations!

Wow 28 minutes goes fast. Especially if you add in the time to draw a terrible cartoon. But this challenge is about creativity. So I'm attempting not to judge my rambling thoughts or bad drawings. Instead, I am thinking of this as practice for writing every day. Since I also signed up to start my masters this year. 2015 is going to be busy.

Preview

Turns out planning a conference keeps one a bit too busy to blog regularly. However, I thought I would just share a quick preview of what I am teaching this term.

There is no I in team

Bryce's team work game in action
We are looking forward to having students analyse their behaviour!

On Wednesdays this term I will be teaching with Bryce. Bryce will be doing PE and Health while I will be doing statistics. We started the module with some team building games. Students were then able to reflect on the experience using a google form. The same google form was also then used as a means to establish prior knowledge about statistics. Students then worked in groups to have a go at analysing the results from the google form.

Population Explosion Project

Thursday afternoon is my SPIN (special interest module), that I offer by myself. This spin is a maths module, however mixed up with one of my personal interests - anthropology. We started the session by watching the first few minutes of a video from the fantastic and entertaining statistician Hans Rosling. Students were then asked to generate questions from what they had just watched using a question grid and dice. We will be using their questions throughout the term to inform our statistical inquiry and hopefully draw some conclusions. 

Shout out to Cindy for this fabulous resource

Student selections of their most complex and most interesting questions

Apocalypse now

Apocalypse now on Friday is a module that I will be teaching with Steve Mouldey. In this module, students will be examining socio-scientific issues, however particularly looking at 'wicked problems' specifically outlined in Steve's current read - NZCER's Key Competencies for the Future. Students started the lesson simply by brainstorming in groups everything that is wrong with the world. They were then asked to sort these into groups with descriptive titles and then asked to provide a description of each category. Students were  then given time to explore the resources (videos, articles etc.) that Steve and I curated. Even on day one, we already had some interesting discussions about different perspectives when gay marriage came up as a topic. Steve couldn't join us, however but we made sure to keep him in the loop using our module hashtag on Twitter #apoclyps. Our visitor in class, the lovely Alyx also made sure to share the events. 

What would you put in a museum of yourself?

M is for Museum of Mihi in the A to Z challenge...

Some teachers ask students to write a letter about who they are. Other schools might do a title page. Our school had students make a museum. The Museum of Mihi module as run by Sally, Megan and Steve had students explore their identities and then present it as a museum. They even took the students on a field trip to look at how museums were designed.
*If you are not from New Zealand, a Mihi is a greeting 

The photos below are artefacts  and parts of the students' museums that they either collected or made. They include everything from a walk through tunnel, a book, a wardrobe, celebrations, a family tree, an olympic swimming pool and a stable.

Learning 2.0

L is for Learning 2.0 in the A to Z challenge:

At Hobsonville Point Secondary School, we want to personalise learning. We want our kids to love learning. And we want the learning for both academic and personal dispositions to be rigorous. You might be curious about how a public secondary school is trying to achieve this. So here is the cheat sheet...

Start with Claire's blog post that describes the different structures of our school. Then read Megan's blog post that describes the anatomy of our learning hubs. And then, read through the modules we are offering for term two. In short though, modules cover the curriculum whilst learning hubs is where we develop the whole learner and where we make and develop our connections with families.

We still teach maths, english, science and so forth. But we do things a little differently. For example, you can choose how you do your maths and science in term two... So everyone is learning about maths and science, but you can choose to do it it in a visual arts context, a food and culture context or a social science context.

You might wonder what this looks like in practice...Below is a comparison between one of the modules I taught this term with Ros MacEachern called Larger than Life. You can see that I still taught statistics, however I just wrapped it in a context. And this clever wrapping allow us to personalise whilst providing rigour and curriculum coverage.

What we do: Maths at HPSS	New Zealand Curriculum
Modules take the place of subjects at HPSS. A module combines two or three subject areas. Students who have additional interests in maths will be able to gain extra coverage in  SPINS (special interest modules) which focus on extended coverage of learning areas	The New Zealand curriculum dictates what all students across the country should be learning at school From the New Zealand Curriculum: In a range of meaningful contexts, students will be engaged in thinking mathematically and statistically. They will solve problems and model situations.
Larger Than Life: (combining English and Maths) Under the English component of this module, students produced their own blog or vlog. Students in this module: Analysed graphs based on the content of their blogs/vlogs. E.g. Students who were blogging about gaming looked at graphs of console prices over time. Entered the amount of ‘hits’ from each of theirs sites in a spread sheet Posed questions about the amount of ‘hits’ that we were getting as a class. E.g. Did YouTube channels or blogs of the students in our class have the most hits? Did the boys or girls in our class get more hits? Calculated the averages to determine the answers for the questions above Begin to manipulate a spread sheet to input formulae and produce graphs	In statistics students will: Interpret statistical displays Use a calculator to determine averages Undertake a statistical investigation Flow chart from NZ Maths http://www.nzmaths.co.nz/elaborations-level-five-statistics

Of course, because the learning for every student looks different, we need to make sure there is consistency across the modules. This is gained from the learning design model which was constructed by pulling the New Zealand curriculum to pieces and the putting it back together again. Just one term in and most of the students are able to verbalise the main parts of the model and understand its process on driving learning.