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. 

Buzzwords are not enough

Visitors to Hobsonville Point Secondary School's beautiful, new modern learning environment are often distracted by the broad open spaces, the bright furniture. However, visiting the school with students in action leaves one with a completely different experience of a modern learning environment. Here are just two examples from my teaching for term three that illustrates this point.

What's a Squircle?

This module combined visual arts and mathematics. Students were exploring geometric properties of shapes, and using these to create screen prints. Using translation, rotation, reflection and in some cases, enlargement, students have created their own tessellations. Students then took a step further and completed a detailed write up, explaining the mathematical principals behind their work of art. 

Student work from 'What's a Squircle?'

 Age of Ultron

This module combined social sciences and science. Together, we have been looking at some of the ideas that sit behind artificial intelligence. In science, we unpacked some of the ideas around circuits including components of circuits, insulators, conductors, types of circuits etc. In other words, the very basic physical aspects of how machines, including smart machines are constructed. Steve Mouldey, my social science co-teacher for this module looked at the sustainability aspects of the rise of the machine, including automation and smart machines. He touched on ideas around economic, social and environmental sustainability. Student learning experiences in this module included modelling of Moore's law and the related chess board problem (see video and images below). We had the team from Thought-Wired in to talk to our students about machine learning. as well as playing with some breadboards, Arduino and also making some wobblebots (checkout the Mindkits website for gear). We deconstructed old computers and servers. Students have even had a go at constructing various parts of a policy statement for New Zealand regarding Artificial Intelligence. 

Student work from 'Age of Ultron'

So what?

I know that the students in 'Age of Ultron' were not just engaged in deep thinking about current, topical ideas, they were engaging with evolving ideas (we have a timeline constructed in class where we track artificial intelligence news as it is released throughout this module). The students were constructing ideas and questions together in spaces and ways where there is no textbook telling them about a single answer, or how to think. These students were dealing with the true complexity of the real world, not some contrived, oversimplified, fake version, and this includes everything from policy statements, killer robots, and even the ethical and social implications of sex robots. In contrast, the students in 'What's a Squircle?' were using existing knowledge of geometry, translation, rotation, properties of shapes etc. to create new meaning, new ideas, new interpretations. Students were not just replicating a method, they explored a method and applied it to create something completely new. Throughout the process, students were able to experience the real problems that occur when physically applying rational mathematical concepts. Students could recognise how two disciplines could find a way to work together.

Intended as a brief snap shot of my practice from last term, I realise that I could easily have turned this post into a buzzword bingo experience. Maker Ed? Check! Authentic and relevant context? Check! Learning from experts (other than teachers)? Check! Project based learning? Check! Elements of design thinking? Check! Blended learning? Check! Robotics and coding? Check! Assessment for learning? Check. Again, much like only looking at the beautiful modern learning environment spaces of schools like Stonefields, Hobsonville Point or Albany Senior, none of these genuinely capture the true complexity of what is going on. Too often in education, we grab the buzzword by the handle, and we leave the very important thinking, the bulk of the suitcase behind (thanks to Creativity Inc. for this metaphor). We look for answers, for recipes, for programmes, rather than actually engaging with the deeper thinking about what is going on, for our students, in the world, in the future. What would our practice look like if rather than talking trends, rolling out literacy programmes and preparing students for the working world (one that is changing so rapidly that this almost seems meaningless)?

The two modules above certainly tick many of the boxes around modern learning practice. I also know that the students were for the most part, highly engaged, they were learning and enjoying it. But is this enough? I hope that the learning experiences that I design changes the way the students think. I hope that the learning experiences I design enables students to collaborate, not just cooperate. I hope that students can recognise diversity (in people, in information, in knowledge, disciplines, experiences, etc.), learn from, and draw on the strengths and weaknesses. I hope to help students discover their passions, so that they may turn them into purpose. I hope to help students tackle challenges, to create brighter futures for themselves, for each other, and the world. I hope that I awake intellectual curiosity and determination. 

Given these hopes, there is no literacy programme roll out that will cover it, and no buzzword without the bulk of its meaning and context that will allow me success. There is no recipe that will allow me to meet these goals. There is however Dr Seuss; "Think left and think right and think low and think high. Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!". Here's to term four being about taking the thinking about my practice to a whole new level. Join me?

Reconciling knowledge and application

I only have about 15 minutes to blog today, so I'll go with the old saying of a picture paints a thousand words. This means that technically this post is uber long!

Yesterday I talked about the need to reconcile academic knowledge with application to increase the meaningfulness. (Post here - Stripping, romance and learning in context). Below is an example of how I attempted to do so.

Here are some photos from my spin (special interest, once a week for 90 minutes) megastructures module from last year. Students spent the term learning about different forces (shearing, torsion, etc.) and how these apply to different materials. They also learnt about distributing load. And then, they used all this knowledge to construct a bridge out of dried spaghetti, marshmallows, play dough and cello tape. To ensure that students really thought about the forces, they had a 90 minute session to plan their bridge and justify it in regards to the science they had learnt. Students also had extremely limited resources however could earn more if they were able to justify using scientific vocabulary. We then used weights to test (and break) each bridge with students then having to explain why they bridge broke using their new knowledge. 

Am I teaching in a multiverse?

Today I took a risk. It was the first day of my new My Time slot called The Science of Sheldon Cooper and Stephen Hawking. This is the stuff of multiverses, space time continuums, singularities and string theory, dark matter and quarks. If these words make no sense to you, it is ok, they make little sense to me too! So if as the teacher, I have almost no knowledge of the topic that I am teaching, what exactly is my job?! And if you were in my situation, how comfortable are you with the idea of actually being just as clueless as your students?

Well, turns out that I am very comfortable in the role of clueless. I had the enormous good fortune of spending the weekend at kiwi foo, surrounded by truly brilliant people. Rather than feel the impostor syndrome I had somewhat anticipated, I felt a desperate need to spend every waking minute engaging with these incredible individuals. Every moment I slept would have been a moment I missed out on learning. There was just not time for feeling like an impostor. And today, in the classroom, introducing the idea of multiverses, I was too busy learning alongside the students to have time to deal with the fact that I was only about a millimetre ahead of the students in understanding at times. Sometimes mores so, but most of the time, I too am still trying to get my head around the idea that there might not be one universe. And where exactly are all these multiple universes?

I asked before, what is my job then if I am learning alongside my students about the same material? Learning about other things, or about your students is one thing, but learning with them, about the same thing, searching for complexity and depth, evaluating your own understanding against the rubrics? Is that a step too far?

Well, I happen to think it is a step in the right direction. I have absolutely no interest in teaching my students a whole bunch of facts that they could have googled anyways. What I am far more interested in is teaching my students how to learn. How to wonder about the world, the universe (or the multiverses in this case), and then, how to make sense of it, understand it, find patterns, use the information. I want to show students that nothing is out of their reach, I want them to believe that they can learn anything and everything. And I want them to know how to do this. My expertise comes in around teaching students how to make sense of new ideas, concepts, information and more. And role modelling, obviously.

So what does a lesson look like where you introduce students to multiverses? Well...

1. You go to the experts! Brian Greene has great TED talk that introduces the ideas. (Keeping in mind that in a world of internet, flipped classes, YouTube and MOOCs, students have a choice anyways about who they learn their content from, it doesn't have to be from me).  
2. Pause the video, ask students to generate questions, as many as possible, model posing questions for the students. Ask questions that you genuinely do not know the answer to.
3. Rewind the video when you need more time to make sense of an idea.
4. Ask students to share their best questions. 
5. Record your favourite questions on a post it with your name. 

All of a sudden you now have key questions that students can start researching by looking for key words, key people, diagrams and more related to their personalised questions. And what great questions! Here are just a few...

• How did they find out about string theory and dark energy?
• Does the idea of wormholes which is travelling through space from one galaxy to the next, also apply for multiverses and universes? 
• Is the concepts of multiverses in the realm of science, science fiction or philosophy?
• Did the big bang have any effect on the multiverses?
• If galaxies are being pushed away from each other and if the multiverse and idea of infinite universes weren't real, what would happen when a galaxy reaches the end of the universe?
• And my personal favourite,  If our universe is expanding (faster and faster) then does that mean the multiverse expands at the same rate? (if so, would it have to be expanding squared to the speed of the amount of universes inside it?)

This last question was written by a FOURTEEN YEAR OLD!! On the first day of being exposed to the idea of a multiverses. Mind blown. Boom.

So it got me wondering, what possibilities might I hold back from my students, by not being willing to risk truly learning alongside them? And even more so, what terrible crimes against the potential of our students are we committing if we do not strive to live out the growth mindset every minute we spend with out students?

Now if you are curious about multiverses, here is the video I showed the students...

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. 

Volanoes

V is for volcanoes in the A to Z challenge...

Welcome to Auckland, New Zealand, a city built on a dormant volcanic field. As a result, we have 53 volcanoes in Auckland. There is also Rotorua, one of my favourite New Zealand cities where you can visit geothermal tourist attractions, or just watch the steam rise and the mud bubble in a local public park. This is of course a wonder land for a girl who used to collect rocks. My mum tells me that we used to have arguments when she unpacked my far too heavy school bags because I wouldn't let her throw my rock collections out. Apparently I insisted that each one had a special colour, a special shape or something else special.

Public park, Rotorua New Zealand

This term, I will be working with Sally and Pete on a module called The MASTER behind the chef. We will be exploring our geological past, present and future through food and maths. Since every year, I identify my insufficient knowledge of Māori language and culture as a professional development need, I am really looking forward to working with two educators who are role models in this field.

Even more so, I am excited to explore the great impact that these beautiful but vicious features of our landscape have had on New Zealanders. As a tourist in New Zealand, you can have corn cooked in a geothermal pit as Māori did in their past. A friend of mine has a tiny garden at the foot of Mount Albert, another Auckland volcano. She rarely buys vegetables because her soil is so fertile due to the volcano on her doorstep. Just as Māori found value in the geology of the landscape, so too can we find value in it now. There are parts of our knowledge about volcanoes that have evolved, but there are also parts that stayed the same. The New Zealand Curriculum requires that all students should learn about how scientific knowledge changes over time, and so, I am looking forward to a great term exploring the ties with which geology connects New Zealand past, present and future.

Rotorua, New Zealand

Rangitoto Island, Auckland, New Zealand

There is still magic in the world

U is for Unusual and unexpected in the A to Z challenge...

As a tweenager, I was somewhat obsessed with all things magic. I am part of the original Harry Potter generation after all. As well as Harry Potter though, there were others. Patricia C. Wrede's enchanted forest chronicles, Tamora Pierce's Song of the Lioness quartet but also Orson Scott Card's Enchantment. It was during this phase of my life that I discovered my favourite book of all time - Ender's Game (see the video below for the movie trailer). If you are going to surround yourself with magic and science fiction, and then mix in a very overactive imagination, there is really only one way things will end... A grown up who still believes in magic. The magic isn't so much fairies and dragons anymore though...

Take for example the incredible things shared on www.iflscience.com on a daily basis. On their home page right now is an article about a recently discovered earth size planet in a habitable zone and another about some super massive black holes that were discovered. On the BBC's science page you can find some wonder in the scientist who made an exceptional discovery using a kitchen blender, dishwashing liquid and pencils. It seems there really is magic in the world, and it is found in science.

As a science teacher, I often feel that I have two main goals. The first, is to introduce and expand students' knowledge and curiosity of the marvels, the magic, the unusual and the unexpected in science. The second is to teach them that with great power, comes great responsibility (yes that is a quote from Spiderman, but I think it's from Voltaire originally which gives it a bit more street credit).

With these two goals in mind, think about my term one module called glow in the dark cats. The magic and marvel part is obvious, glow in the dark animals! This then leads you to learn about genes and genetic engineering. And then next thing you know, Voltaire and Spiderman with their idea of great responsibility turn up. Is it ethical to produce glow in the dark animals? Would be it be ethical to apply this technology in other places? Is it ethical to genetically engineer humans?

Again keeping in mind these ideas of teaching science with the goals of curiosity and responsibility, I would like to share with you a plan for our next term at school. English teacher and Deputy Principal Claire Amos and I will be teaching a module all about Ender's Game. While she will look at all thing English (I'm imagining language features, character development etc.), I will have a term to explore the science behind Ender's Game. Think gravitational fields, planets, stars and space travel. It doesn't end there though. Ender's Game as you may know, is centred around the idea of war games. And of course, our students today are very familiar with war games. So what if we could get a real scientist to come and monitor student's brains as they play war games to see if they are affected? Thanks to Claire and her new friend, Dmitry Selitskiy we just might... I will keep you updated.

With great power comes great responsibility, and I hope that all teachers take this to heart. We are able to install wonder, awe and engagement in many of our students. But we can also take it away. How are you hoping to install wonder, awe and curiosity in your students? But also, how are you educating them about the risks and dangers? Energy crisis, future food shortages, over population?

Pedagogy Princess

P is for Pedagogy Princess in the A to Z challenge...

To quote the A-team, "I love it when a plan comes together". Every now and then, you plan a lesson, where the stars (or perhaps the hormones?) align, and things just work out perfectly. The students are so engrossed that they forget about lunch. Your resources become relevant, useful and pitched at the right level. You can hear, see and feel the deep thinking and discussion all around you. You don't have to remind anyone to focus. A truly magical moment! But what is it that causes this magical moment in the teach-time-contiuum? Is it a temporary fluctuation in the continuum? Perhaps a worm hole that you slipped through to a parallel dimension?

PEDAGOGY: the method and practice of teaching, especially as an academic subject or theoretical concept. 

What is good pedagogy? I think good pedagogy is when a teacher can get all students to learn. We know that some students will learn in spite of the teacher, but I think good pedagogy is when a teacher can get every student to learn. Secondary teachers often teach more than a hundred students within a week. How can we possibly hope to engage every one of these students? Should we even be trying to? Actually, I think the last question is rhetorical, of course we should be trying to engage every student!

I am no expert, but I am creative. So here are a few of my creative pedagogical experiments that I have had some success with in regards to engaging a whole class at a time.

Image source

One of my favourite ways to help engage students is to tie a lesson onto a current event. Last year it was establishing whether an America's cup yacht would fit in our school atrium. This involved students needing to find the dimensions of the yachts and then measuring the atrium. The atrium of course was quite large, so part of the problem solving was how to measure the height when you can't reach all the way up to the ceiling. As well as learning how to measure, students were able to discuss their strategies, attempt different strategies, evaluate strategies, identify and evaluate variables, and get out of their seats.

Another current even that I used recently was the now infamous case of the two IVF couples whose embryos were mixed up. Even though this lesson was the last lesson on the last day of the term, students were completely hooked. The class was divided into two teams and a jury. Each team represented one of the couples, their lawyers and whoever else they might like to call to the witness stand. Students were arguing backwards and forwards about who should get the babies. And as can be expected, they then began to question who was a 'better' couple, who had a shady past. The students quickly began to realise just how hard a judgement like this can be. As a result, students became increasingly aware that there are always two sides to a story, ethically, morally and objectively.

For me, the key to the success of these lessons is that the answers to the problems can not be googled, not through google or by treating the teachers as google. Instead, my role shifts to simply playing the devil's advocate, testing student theories and thoughts as often and as thoroughly as I can. And by not knowing the answer, I avoid leading students to believe that there is always one answer to a real world problem, because lets face it, there rarely ever is.