"I inquire into my practice all the time!" Yeah right.

I got stuck in traffic a few weeks ago. I decided that I would use the time productively by dictating a blog post to my phone (thanks to Richard Wells for the voice dictation inspiration!). This post has been distilling in my head for some time and seemed a fitting post at this time of the year where we often have a moment to reflect on our practice.

When the subject of Teaching as Inquiry or Spirals of Inquiry is discussed in schools, one of the phrases that I have heard numerous teachers say over the past few years is "I inquire all the time, I just don't write it down". Sometimes this sounds like "I reflect about my practice all the time, I just don't write it down." Well, today I would like to go out on a limb, put on my devil's advocate horns, and say... I think that is nonsense, baloney and rubbish. I better explain...

There are two reasons for this, the first is the nature of memory. The way I memories work, is that every single time we access a memory, we modify it slightly. The more times we have recalled a memory, the we have manipulated it and changed its shape. If you don’t believe me, take a look at the video below from Dr Julia Shore.

Dr Shaw's research into memory showed that people who had never been involved with a violent crime, could be 'memory hacked' to believe that they committed one. Alarmingly, the memory hacking experiments was so effective, that the research had to be shut down early. While Julia's work is targeted at criminal psychology, this is very relevant for all of us who have a "but I inquire all the time, I just don't write it down approach". The reality is, that unless we write things down, we are like to bend and flex our memories to suit us. And, every time you recall a memory, you bend, shape and flex it even more. So while you thought you were inquiring into your practice, what we might really doing, is modifying your memory to suit our purpose. And every time I remember it, I convince myself just a little more. In other words, the retrospective recording of your inquiry just before your appraisal meeting is not great for critically reflecting on your practice...

The second bit of research worth paying attention to is the work of Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman and his book, Thinking Fast and Slow. One of the key ideas that Kahneman talks about is cognitive bias. Through great examples in his book, he shows us just how biased we are without realising. Have a go at some of these problems that illustrate our biases if your don't believe me! What this means is that if we are "inquiring all the time but not writing it down" and not formally collecting data, and attempting to analyse it objectively, it is very likely that we might in fact be feeding into the cognitive biases embedded in our thinking.

I’ve been reading Ann Milne's book, Colouring in the White Spaces.  What really stands out from this book, is the generational prejudice and bias in our system that we don’t even notice. We are biased and prejudiced in ways that we are not even capable of identifying. The same is true for biases about women, race and more.

Consider for example the following,

"In 2003, Columbia Business School professor Frank Flynn and New York University professor Cameron Anderson ran an experiment to test perceptions of men and women in the workplace. They started with a Harvard Business School case study about a real-life entrepreneur named Heidi Roizen. The case described how Roizen became a successful venture capitalist by using her “outgoing personality … and vast personal and professional network [that] included many of the most powerful business leaders in the technology sector.” Flynn and Anderson assigned half of the students to read Heidi’s story and gave the other half the same story with just one difference—they changed the name “Heidi” to “Howard.” Professors Flynn and Anderson then polled the students about their impressions of Heidi or Howard. The students rated Heidi and Howard as equally competent, which made sense since “their” accomplishments were completely identical. Yet while students respected both Heidi and Howard, Howard came across as a more appealing colleague. Heidi, on the other hand, was seen as selfish and not “the type of person you would want to hire or work for.” The same data with a single difference—gender—created vastly different impressions." Exert from Sandberg, Sheryl. Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (Kindle Locations 723-728). Ebury Publishing. Kindle Edition. 

Ultimately, if we are really committed to make a positive change, it is necessary that we become aware of our biases. For many generations now, we know our education system has not served our Māori and Pasifika students well. We know that not as many girls stay in the STEM subjects. Whether we like it or not, some of this is as a result of our biases, and unless we are able to identify, critique and address them, change is very unlikely. Fortunately, Teaching as Inquiry and Spirals of Inquiry models help us to do just this. By forming a hunch and seeking ways to test our hunches, it allows us to challenge our assumptions. However... when we adopt an "I inquire all the time, I just don't write it down" attitude, we are in fact at risk of continuing to be subject to our biases, particularly given how our memories are modified every time we recall them. Additionally, perhaps when we write things down, when we deeply challenge our assumptions and beliefs about the world, the need to change ourselves comes to the forefront. Once we realise our bias, we have to do something about it. But making genuine change requires an investment of physical and emotional energy. Often making change is really uncomfortable. So perhaps when we can't be bothered to write things down, to do the work required to make change, what we are really saying is that we are not prepared to make change.

So here are my questions for you. How well did you record your inquiry? Did you do so regularly? Did you collect data in such a way that you could challenge your own assumptions? Just how committed were you to making change? Or will 2018 be the year where you inquire all the time and write it down?

All this reading is making me wonder...

source

Behind the scenes of all things #edchatNZ, my teaching, learning and leading within my school, and my masters, I have been reading like crazy, watching videos and curating content. The more I read, explore, make sense, listen, the more I wonder...

• How 'future ready' are New Zealand teachers really? In fact, are New Zealand teachers even coping with today? I just think about my unruly and out of control inbox, as well as the mental aerobics and resilience it has taken to reimagine learning at my school.
  
• What kind of future are we heading towards if we retain our current mindsets? What kind of a future might we head towards with a shift in mindset? I worry about the paradigm of growth that appears to dominate everything from economics to education in our society. 10% increase here, new target there...
  
• How do New Zealand teachers and schools cope with complexity, rapid change, radical change? What about our schools and their policies and procedures? I think about how challenging it is to navigate the space where my students' lives are overlaid by a digital parallel universe, where their alternate selves are roaming far beyond the walls of the school and classroom.
  
• How do we know if we are coping? How do we know if we are thriving in complexity? Just because it feels like we are thriving or doing well, doesn't mean we are. It is easy lulling myself into a false sense of security as I go about my comfortable daily life, forgetting the impact of the bottle of water I bought because I forgot my own, forgetting that the cheap T-shirt I got on special was probably made by an underpaid child in a developing country somewhere. Surely thriving doesn't mean that I am happy and comfortable at the expense of others? 

I am not alone in wondering about all these things. In fact, a research study from the Auckland University of Technology is doing exactly this - wondering about teachers and how 'future ready' they might be. 

"The last two decades have seen a paradigm shift in international thinking about education. Driven by an awareness of the massive social, economic, and technological changes taking place in the world outside education, there is now a questioning of the role and purpose of “traditional” forms of schooling. The literature in this area argues that today’s learners need knowledge and skills that are qualitatively different from those the current system was set up to provide. But more importantly, if they are to thrive in today’s world, learners need new ways of knowing. They need new and different “dispositions” towards knowledge, thinking, learning, and work. 

There is now a large literature on how we might go about developing these dispositions in students, but very little work on how these dispositions might best be fostered in teachers. While there is a great deal of New Zealand-based research on teacher professional learning, much of this is oriented towards “improvement” or “best practice”, not “transformation”. Research investigating the demands “future-oriented” education makes on teachers’ thinking, learning, and ways of knowing is, as yet, in its infancy."

The survey takes a while to complete. It's thorough, so rather than wondering about the future, future readiness, complexity, etc, I am now going to take the time to actually do the survey... I know that the team behind the survey would greatly appreciate if you could take the time to do the survey, but also to share it with your colleagues. The more people that do the survey, the better. Even better, the more diverse the groups of teachers who do the survey, the better.

You can access the survey here. 

PS: I completed the survey, it didn't take me nearly as long as they said. There were some pretty fascinating questions in there too! 

Don't just own your learning, write your own story!

Reflections are often one of those words that are touted around as a good thing for students and teachers to do. But why? Although I am sure that there are likely many great psychological, scientific and other reasons, my own experience has led me to believe that without deep critical reflection, one keeps making the same mistakes. Without deep reflection, we can not hope to challenge our assumptions, perspectives and hidden commitments. Without reflection, we can not take ownership of our lives and its direction.

The reality however, despite my love of reflections, student (and sometimes teacher) reflections are often shallow, and as a result, have little benefit. So when does reflecting have the greatest value? At what point does it actually become worth the investment in both effort and time?

With the above in mind, I have been doing some reading about adult cognitive development (the things one has time for over the holidays...). Using the ideas from experts such as Robert Kegan and Marcia Baxter Macgolda, I then set about developing some sort of a guide that might help me to generate deeper, more purposeful reflections - and hopefully my students too! The idea is to move through increased levels of complexity towards greater ownership of my experiences, perspectives, assumptions, commitments, relationships etc. in order to make better decisions around the course of action I will take in being the author of my life story. So basically, I'm hoping to take the "learner agency" buzzword to the next level - don't just own your learning, write your own story!

Click here to download

I have been grappling with how to scaffold students towards more depth in their thinking for some time. Below is a resource I produced last year. Students were asked to draw two cards from the pile. They would have to address the question in their reflection. I have also used these cards in discussions to generate more depth. During the discussion, you have to 'play' your card by asking the question at a relevant moment. This is great for a staff discussion to move beyond the day to day! I've also made two levels of cards to provide reflectees (see what I did there?) a choice as to their level of challenge.

Level 1 questions: Click here to download

Level 2 questions: Click here to download

Growth at Hobsonville Point

Still working on the A to Z challenge...

So here is G and H for Growth at Hobsonville Point Secondary School: It is my sincerest belief that I can never be the perfect teacher. What I can be, is a teacher who is always striving to get better. And that is something that I hope to teach my students too. To always keep growing. Gaining an excellence in NCEA is great and should be celebrated. But learning should happen after this too. We should be asking what next? Where to now? What is the next frontier? What can I get better at next? So as we near the last week of the first term as Hobsonville Point Secondary School, I want to celebrate our growth. We have grown from being a rainbow unicorn school with no students and lots of ideas, to a school with 120+ students who are certainly the happiest year nines I have ever met. We have one term down and many more to come. With every term, I trust that the team at Hobsonville Point will keep growing our vision, our hopes and our dreams because they are able to collaborate, prototype, iterate, evolve, innovate, question, evaluate and most importantly, learn from mistakes and research.

E-portfolios are like holidays

I spend a lot of my time thinking, learning, teaching and reading about e-learning, and lately, a lot of this time has been focussing on e-portfolios. Although the concept of a portfolio is not new, the e-portfolio has become increasingly trendy of late. However, personally I hope that e-portfolios transcend trend and make their way into the realm of common practice.

Personally, I think the biggest value in e-portfolios lie in that they exemplify the learning progress. Learning is not a destination, it is a journey. After all, why do people go on holiday? We go for all the experiences along the way. We all have to start somewhere, some of us stay longer in certain places, and ultimately, we may all end up in different places. The experiences along the way is what matters, and I believe learning should be the same. We should be celebrating with students all the amazing things that happen on the way of their learning journey. We should stop to see the sights, and help them make plans when their flights get stranded. Although it is great when we come home, it is the journey that we cherish. Learning is not about the grade that you get, but about the lessons your learnt and the progress you made. I think a well executed e-portfolio does just that. It's a photo album of the holiday rather than the homecoming.

At Hobsonville Point Secondary School, we will be using e-portfolios with both staff and students. For the staff, to document evidence towards the New Zealand registered teacher criteria (RTC), inquiry into their own practice but also as part of the appraisal process. Since there are so many teachers who blog at Hobsonville Point, we have also set up these e-portfolios so that blog posts can be tagged and automatically filed as evidence for the relevant RTC.

Our students will also have e-portfolios. In a school where nothing is the way it used to be, it is a very tough ask for one teacher to be able to report on a student's progress in their seven modules, big project, and dispositional development. (If you don't know about the unique structure of our school, see Claire Amos's post). 

John Hattie mentioned in one of his talks at the Festival of Education that teachers need to be more efficient, in my mind, student e-portfolios is one way that we can be more efficient. Having students collate their work in one place allows teachers to be able to track the learning of students across all their subjects. At Hobsonville Point, this will mean that a student's learning coach will be able to evaluate their progress based on both academic and dispositional goals such as SOLO, the fluencies (problem solving, information and communication), and the hobsonville habits (resilience, compassion, creativity etc). An individual piece of work can have multiple designated tags, one piece of work can thus be used as evidence of a student being resilient, showing creativity and showing evidence of communication. This single piece of work could also be anything from a reflection, a formal assessment, a video, content embedded from another site or even an audio recording. Hopefully, once our students reach year eleven, they will already have some evidence that they can use towards their NCEA accreditation. I was fortunate enough to attend the Mahara Hui in Wellington this week where NZQA (New Zealand Qualifications Authority) expressed how keen they are for moderators to submit student work as e-portfolios. Can you imagine how much postage will be saved? 

So if you are yet to buy in to the e-portfolio trend, don't you think it is time?

The spirit of Waitangi

"Demonstrate commitment to bicultural partnership in Aotearoa New Zealand"  From the New Zealand Registered Teacher Criteria

The Spirit of Waitangi - A Partnership in Action
(and yes, I took this photo at our Waitangi celebration)

I never really did understand Waitangi day. It seems like the closest we get in New Zealand to a national day where we celebrate New Zealand yet, Waitangi day is littered with protests, endless debates and a general sense of irritation. Yet, this Waitangi was different. For the very first time I saw a true celebration of partnership. As one of my students so aptly put it on Friday, "we hacked Waitangi." Rather than a presenting Waitangi day as a commemoration of a boring historical event strung out by endless negotiations, we presented and celebrated Waitangi as a partnership. And yes, we really did celebrate.

We started they day with exploring the treaty activities such as Guerrilla Waitangi , Treaty Treasure hunts and Treaty Drama. This was followed by workshops such as wood carving, painting, flax weaving, fishing and so forth. After school the community was invited to join us for a few sport games and some amazing kai, made by our staff and students. It all sounds simple enough, but there was nothing simple about the beautiful community spirit that was so tangible as our school and our community celebrated their partnership. I was lucky enough to be designated photographer for the day so was able to walk around the school and see how the Maori elders from the community taught our kids. I could see our teachers and our community, in a true partnership for the good of our children. And together, the school, the students and the community celebrated partnership, the spirit of Waitangi. 

Of course this post would not be complete without recognising the outstanding vision of our school leaders and the hands on efforts of all the teachers. I feel privileged to be part of the team.

I'm washing dishes here. There was this amazing solar powered dishwashing cart to help minimise waste. 

Serving up the amazing food 

Print making

Magic diaries and why you NEED to blog (more)

The iconic image from Charles Darwin's diary
image source

I'm not sure where it came from, but I have a certain fascination with diaries. I don't want to read them necessarily. But rather, the idea that a person can collect their thoughts in one place, seems like it gives the diary almost magical powers. It contains thoughts, ideas, emotions, it documents the ups and the downs. It is a reflection of a person or a journey. Somehow a diary and all its magic has so much character. Sometimes a diary contains iconic thoughts, from before they were famous. Take Charles Darwin for example. This little tree diagram is famous now, and look, it was in his diary. It literally says "I Think" at the top. Here, one can witness the birth of a great thought.

So I have always wanted a diary too. One that has character and magic too. One that you want to read just because it looks like it would contain profound insights. Or one that would contain a mystery. I never knew what to put in the diary though. Talk about life? No. Profound thoughts? Still working on those. I had a few false starts too. But maybe this time is different. This time, I am documenting every thought, question, idea and everything else related to a possible topic for my masters. By July of this year I will be ready to start my masters, IF I can choose a topic. So I decided that this seems an appropriate thing to put in a diary. A book that one day might have character and magic too. Even if the magic is only visible to me. However, I suspect it also doesn't help that my diary of choice is a spiral notebook from Typo that says "life is too short to wear boring clothes".

The thing that really drove home why this particular diary was so important, is a realisation that I made whilst spending my summer holiday nerding it out at university. I realised, that my constant reflections on this blog over the past year or so had made me a better writer. Structuring arguments? Using figures and images to make your point? Connect to other readings? Making your writing concise? Proof reading? All blogging skills. The benefits of blogging doesn't end there. Evidence for registered teacher criteria? Check. Need inspiration for a university assignment? Oh wait, my inspirational thoughts are documented. Ready to inspire again at a moments notice. And these are just the benefits without the extra input you get from occasional comments and Twitter.

Perhaps my blog doesn't contain the profound thoughts of Charles Darwin. But perhaps somewhere in this blog or my "life is too short to wear boring clothes" diary, a masters topic will emerge. Either way, along the way, I know I will become a better learner because of my reflections. And as far as I'm concerned, the better learners are better teachers.

The Reflection Pool in Washington D.C. as viewed from the
Lincoln Memorial. 

Entering a parallel universe

Every school is different. Every school has its pros and cons, its opportunities and challenges. But so far, my first week at Hobsonville Point Secondary School has brought nothing that you would expect in your first week at a new school. Granted, we do not have any students yet. The thing is however, that the absence of children is not what has made this first week of school so radically different from experiences in my other schools. For a start, on no previous occasion was the first official meeting with all the staff preceded by a performance of all the existing staff on their ukeleles. Shorty followed by the school handing over my own ukelele (in pink - they even try to match your favourite colour). I have since had two ukelele practices. So far I can only play C. 

The Hobsonville Point Ukelele Orchestra aka. The staff of Hobsonville Point Secondary School

Although the week has had multiple team building activities including sculpture making, the therapeutic hippie circle, using the design model to inquire into each other's high school experiences and a whole lot more, what has stood out for me, was the professional reading. One of our sessions on Thursday was spent with the previous intake's staff sharing the professional reading that they had done in the previous term. I love professional reading. It helps me to question and on occasion, if it is a good book, shift my perspective. More than that though, professional reading helps me to maintain my blue skies thinking. And in this, is why my first week at Hobsonville has been such a contrast to previous schools. Where I used to be part of a small group of people who did professional reading, where I use to be the one to question, to agitate, to dream. I am no longer alone. No longer does one get the feeling that you are swimming up stream. Everyone is swimming up stream and rather than spending time trying to convince people that things need to change, you spend your time figuring out how we are going to make it happen. This realisation, above all was the highlight of the week for me. 

My Reading List at the moment hence includes:

• The Element - Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica
• The Hidden Live of Learners - Graham Nuthall
• One Kid at a Time - Elliot Levine
• The Big Picture - Dennis Littky

 The other highlights were visiting the local areas where our students will come from next year under the guise of making a video for our new school website. We managed a visit to the Whenuapai air base in the process, Herald Island and a few other great spots.

We were also lucky enough to visit the new school site still currently under construction. The flow and the spaces along, without furniture and equipment was already enough to get us ecstatic about the possibilities. I sincerely hope that we have a massive treasure hunt, amazing race combo on the first day when  we move in with our students.

 

Endings and Beginnings

"Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." - Winston Churchill

Mixing it up with maths games -
 ...as often as possible.
Thanks to the students who were
always so keen to try out my games!

It seems that I have reached the ending of a major chapter in life. For the past year and three quarters I had been a science and maths teacher at a junior high school. A six month position as a long term reliever had turned into a year position as a long term reliever and finally into a permanent post. It seems that for many of recent teacher graduates, long term relief is the only way to get in anywhere. And luckily for me, it gave me a chance to work in an amazing school with inspirational people but in particular great coaches. I would like to dedicate this post to the people and the lessons I learn from them, the staff but also the students.

Some of the highlights:

• A visit in my classroom by John Key himself. 
• The annual year 9 geology field trip - there is no shortage of volcanoes in Auckland, but visiting these with a truly skilled storyteller who weaves the science and the cultural legends into one field trip is an extraordinary experience. 
• Being sent to attend the Spectrum Education Habits of Mind Bootcamp. Fantastic conference! The google apps for education summit in 2012 was also definitely worth attending. 
• Having an exceptional mentor in my head of faculty who was able to recognise that I may be a PRT, but I needed some kind of responsibility.



John Key visits my science classroom
to see ICT in action. 

• The professional reading group who met every fortnight at seven in the morning. This meant that in a casual environment, I had the opportunity to question the school principal and learn directly from him and other school leaders. 
• Being invited to attend a presentation by a student presenting his social studies project on his Iwi's land claim history to his whanau and friends. This was a truly special event as it was the first time I had witnessed what genuine empowerment of culture looks like. Seeing the difference between lip service and authentic empowerment was mind blowing.
• Experimenting with Bring Your Own Device and using ICT in the science and maths classrooms. Due to the school's policy for teachers to experiment and students to bring their devices to school, I was able to undergo an incredible learning curve in refining my pedagogy for e-learning. As a result, I am now an e-learning facilitator for NEAL and my next position also has an e-learning part to it. 



Watching the 2012 solar eclipse

• The GCC challenge. Our school participated in the global corporate challenge in 2013. For 16 weeks, each person wears a pedometer all day, every day aiming to get a minimum of 10 00 steps every day. In teams of seven we then compete against each other. The school funded this for us. This was a fantastic team building experience but also an exceptional effort of the school to emphasise, support and encourage the wellbeing of staff. Although the challenge was optional, almost all the staff participated. It also meant that for a little socially awkward moth like myself, making friends became a lot easier as you decided to go for walks together after school and to the sushi shop at lunch!

Incredible annual year 9 Geology field trip

A great moment from the
Spectrum Education Habits
of Mind bootcamp

Riding a hovercraft at the science
roadshow

Project Runway Wearable Arts

Baby Steps in Teaching Thinking

"I don't know" also know as "dunno" and "IDK." There is also "I can't remember," "I don't get it" and "I'm bored." Don't forget the texting, the staring blankly into space, or the talking to friends and passing notes. All of these instead of trying. There are also those students who won't try to answer the question in their books, instead they wait for you to give them the right answer. Don't forget those who do start but put little to no thought into the work. We have all encountered these problems. And sometimes I, and maybe you too, just want to yell THINK!!! But here is the thing, telling a student to think harder doesn't necessarily help, and neither does telling them to think. Sometimes, if not all the time, we need to explicitly teach our students how to think.

Over the school holidays I had the opportunity to attend Spectrum Education's Habits of Mind Bootcamp in Hamilton. One of the things about a great conference is that you come back with a bucket load of ideas, inspiration and a network to support you in doing so. This conference did just that. Inspiration to teach thinking skills by the bucket load!

Now if you aren't familiar with the Habits of Mind, they have been around for a long time now. But they are incredibly timeless and useful in teaching my students to think. They are a set of sixteen dispositions that allow you to scaffold thinking skills into your teaching, or rather thinking dispositions.

Here are some of my teaching strategies that I have been testing in my classroom this term:

Persistence:
I teach year eight maths for lower ability groups. As you can imagine, persistence can often be a problem for students who struggle with maths. For revision sessions I no longer give them lots of questions to practice and then mark the answers afterwards. I give the students a handful of questions with the answer. They have to then keep trying until they get the right answer too, labelling their working with first attempt, second attempt, third attempt. I get really excited for the students when they say "It's hard!" I tell them that means they are really learning and that I am so proud that they keep trying. There are many students who are now happy to share with the class when it took them seven times to get an answer right but they got there in the end.

Taking responsible risks
Even though it is exhausting marking test papers, especially in subjects like science where there is lots of writing, I still insist that my students attempt every question. For some students, writing something down that might be wrong is often a big deal. I now ask students to write RR for responsible risk next to any question where they made a best guess, in tests and in their books. Since more often than not students actually guess partially or completely right, students are definitely learning the value of having a go. By guessing, they are also forcing themselves to consider and even process the information, rather than simply being allowed to give up at the first sign of struggle.

Applying past knowledge to new situations
Write the date and heading, underline it, close the windows, chairs on the desks, pick up the litter, etc. Class room routines can provide opportunities for thinking too. I ask my students to use their prior knowledge of past lessons to get set up for today's. I give them a 5min head start while I do the roll. After 5min I get everyone to stand while I ask questions like, if you have not yet written the date, sit down. I go through my list of expectations like this. Those who are still standing at the end then get a reward (usually a monster point for good learning behaviours on class dojo). Students are thus given the opportunity to manage and think for themselves, rather than classroom routines simply becoming a listening task.