A quick visual guide to online learning at HPSS

For all those visual learners out there... Here are two visuals that I have developed in my role as e-learning specialist classroom teacher to briefly summarise e-learning at Hobsonville Point Secondary School. The first graphic is aspirational, the second is essential!

PS: All images shared on this blog are creative commons, hence feel free to share.

Why have an online home for your class?

In an effort to remind myself why I believe in e-learning tools, as we as to encourage others to do the same, I have created a summary that might be useful. Feel free to share and distribute. You can access the Google Drive drawing here for editing and easy sharing purposes.


I would love your feedback on this, as always!

Hexagons

SOLO is a thinking taxonomy that is used widely here in New Zealand. It is a great way to scaffold students towards increased complexity. Although I am very much a newbie to using SOLO taxonomy, I have very much fallen in love with one of its tools, the SOLO hexagons.

Although most teachers are familiar with matching card activities, SOLO hexagons take the tried and true kinaesthetic task to a new level. Rather than just matching definitions, or building a table of ideas, etc. SOLO hexagons allows students to visualise where key ideas might link. When two hexagons touch, students must be able to justify the link between the two hexagons. This is a great activity to quickly visualise just how well students are making sense of the ideas in a topic, especially in a content heavy subject like science.

Yesterday, I tried a new way of using SOLO hexagons. Although the class had that mild state of unease and chaos when you ask students to do something new and challenging, students got settled fairly quickly to a task that really saw all students in the class challenged at an appropriate level. Being able to challenge students at their appropriate level means that every student can feel successful in their learning, hence, my great love for differentiation. The really visual nature of the links also meant that  I could very quickly identify the students that needed additional support. Hence, these students could then go through and identify the words they were unfamiliar with so that we could generate a glossary for them together.

However, this week, I took my hexagon use to the next level with some additional differentiation. Of course, with e-learning and universal design for learning always lurking somewhere in my mind, I made sure that there was a range of references available including videos, articles and cartoons. Some students were given a full set of hexagons with which to find links. Those who managed it quickly were asked to rearrange the ideas to find additional links in the concepts. After that, students were given blank hexagons on which to add additional key concepts or observations from practicals in class. Other groups were given blank hexagons from the beginning with only two or three to get them started. Finally, yet another group were only given blank hexagons. Again, the students who generated their own hexagons had to find and justify their links, and then rearrange to find and justify additional links.

Now am I wondering, how will I refine my SOLO hexagon use next... I'm sure there will be something on Pam Hook's fabulous site. Or on Matt or Andrea's...

Timetable 2.0 and Rainbow Unicorn Schools

It has come to my attention that we have been called the rainbow unicorn school. I should point out that this was before Halloween on Thursday where the staff of Hobsonville Point made an excellent effort to get dressed up. No unicorns though but certainly an excellent Medusa (Natural Confectionary Company jelly snakes attached with hairpins) and of course Thomas the Tank Engine.

I suspect that part of the reason for being called the rainbow unicorn school is our tendency towards blue sky thinking. Lots of teachers have thought "what if..." What if we could do this? Change that? If we had this and we had that. The difference when you go to a rainbow unicorn school, is that it is not enough for people to think what if. They actually have a go at changing things. And they take the what if one step further, we actually believe that things can change. That said though, passion is not enough to create effective and meaningful change. One needs research, strategy, determination, resilience, collaboration and a whole lot more. However, from my own experience, I know that it is passion that allows me to put in extra hours, gladly, even when I am tired. It is passion that allows me to have another go at something even if I have failed miserably a few times before. It is passion that allows me to keep revisiting and idea, question it, turn it over, learn more about it, try again. And so, I think it might be the collective passion of the staff at Hobsonville Point that might allow our new school to succeed. It is passion that has allowed the team to break down the old school secondary timetable into a model that allows personalisation, autonomy and choice for students but teachers too.

Personalisation will happen at Hobsonville Point through three parts, projects, learning hubs and modules. Big projects will be a whole school approach however with an emphasis on service learning. Passion projects will be just that, passion projects. The learning hubs will replace the old idea of a from class. Learning hubs will use the advocacy model to ensure a focus on a dispositional and academic curriculum but also to ensure that every student has one person in the school that knows them really well. Hence, every student will have a mentor. The modules will be the vehicle for curriculum delivery. Each term, every student will select one large module, two small modules and four spins (mini modules) as well as hoops (workshops). Cross curricular teaching teams plan these modules together however all under an overarching theme for the term. The SLLs (specialised learning leaders) then have the job of ensuring curriculum coverage.

Myself, and the rest of the team are hugely excited about the new timetable and the possibilities that it holds.

Happiest most excited I have ever been professionally. Inspirational world leading leadership by @DianeCavallo @GeoMouldey Kylee Jill Lisa
— Maurie Abraham (@maurieabraham) October 29, 2013