PaCT tool staff meeting PD with Sue

 We explored how to make teacher judgements today using the PaCT tool. Reviewing what we have already covered reminded us that we need to remember to look at what we are taking away from each lesson.

Take aways:

1. It is important to view the illustrations provided to get a really good idea of what the big ideas really mean for each set/ signpost.

2. If you think a student(s) is displaying evidence at one signpost then read the descriptions above and below to double check the level of sophistication fits.

3. The illustrations are also really great ideas for teaching a big idea.

4. You don’t need to review each student for each set. You would group students to think about where they are to decide your deliberate acts of teaching for the next steps, one aspect at a time.

5. We will rotate our specific focus each term on reading this year as we familiarise ourselves with these learning progressions. It would be impossible to be thinking about all the aspects for R, W and M constantly!

6. As always we would use OTJ from a number of evidence sources to decide where students are.

7. The focus should be less about where students are in terms of giving them a ‘level’ and more about “What do I need to teach, and them to learn next”. 

We took a sample of students work and then looked at each aspect and used the blurb and the illustrations to help us place a student on a sign post. 

A good discussion happened at the end of the hui regarding E-asttle v's PACT tool for end of year assessments. Below are some of the things we took away from this lesson. 

We have noticed ...

...with practice I will get faster at this and more confident with making judgements

…need to change year levels of some students, classes have been set up with names to use now, look at notifications

… writing LPF is good to use. Want to use instead of asstle this year as doubling up. Maybe can for yr1-2??

...… would be really valuable to go to experts on staff to moderate with my tricky judgements

… PaCT tool - taken lots away. Talking with others about what our kids are doing at different levels, useful to collaborate

… Feel confident with it and I want to finish putting them in

… just get it in! You know more than you think you do with your first sense.  Calm the farm a bit - you can’t teach it all

… after so long thinking about it, procrastinating and not doing it. Getting stuff in has been beneficial. SO many opportunities to double check and triple check, so it’s robust and thorough. 

Sensory workshop notes

Sensory workshop 21/10/20

Anxiety is a natural response to stress.  It’s a feeling of fear or apprehension

about what's to come.  

Distress means the state of being in great trouble. 

Distress implies an external and usually temporary cause of great physical

or mental strain and stress.

Self regulation can be defined as a person's ability to adjust their level of

alertness and show emotions to achieve goals using an adaptive manner.

 Important to remember: A child’s behaviour is not always what it seems.  

CONSIDER          What we don’t see… what’s underneath? 

Key classroom practices for dealing with traumatised children:

• Understand the child

• Manage your own reaction

• I see you need help with….

• Structure and consistency

• Time in not time out

• Consequences not punishments

• Connect

• Acknowledge good decisions and choices

• Support parents and carers

(Guided observations to record what you notice -

then look at ways of reducing them).

FIND STRESSORS   =    REDUCE THEM

FIND UNMET NEEDS     =    MEET THEM

FIND SKILL DEFICITS      =     TEACH THEM

Student survey for online learning

 Forgot to post this but it was really interesting feedback from my class.  

After we got back from lockdown I asked my class to complete this survey and 17/24 students did.  

Here was the most informative responses:

Syndicate meeting reflections

 After discussions and analysing my target students I came up with these actions:

Syndicate reflection

Today we had a great senior syndicate meeting, we now have an agenda to keep us on track and focused.
Topics we covered are:
Teacher wellbeing;

Planning documents for topic/inquiry.  We decided to all use the doc. Rob shared and then alter this and add it to the master files planning file.

Target students and how we report on these, we streamlined how our format would look and made sure it was covering what we need.  This then flowed onto our reporting format and how we have gone with our different report/consultation with whanau this year - big discussion around making sure these reports are cohesive and we then looked at term 4 report format and tweaked this. 

Student behaviour also came up and we revisited the document with behaviours and levels/consequences that we had made as a staff a few years previous.
We decided that this needs to be a whole staff conversation and that we would look at this next week at staff meeting.

Lastly we said we need to do a blog post on our teachers inquiry EVERY syndicate meeting as we all find this is being neglected.

DFI - Computational Thinking - Day 8

Today Dorothy started off with some background around how to empower students.

It makes sense not using the term agency.

This is the slide she shared Empowered slide

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?
I guess this slide above sums up what I have learnt today, its helping my students make connections, making sure they can use my class site effectively and be able to learn at home - overcoming the biggest barrier of distance in the current climate.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?
Just keep on trying and using those programs or apps that I am not comfortable using, and to continue using the ones I am as this will embed the new skills I have found.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?
Coding - I think one student is already ahead of me by miles here, I told Kerry this morning about him and the things he is doing on Blender.  Amazing...

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

DFI - Devices

Today I learnt about using hapara more effectively from Dorothy.  This was great because I have been meaning to learn more about this since teaching back in the senior school.

We also had to do the digital dig again which was good to go through, we had started it with Donna but Rob's class (who were starting up with their brand new chrome books) only got through 2 slides.  So this was great to revisit.  I need to continue doing this... I actually had this timetabled into my weekly plan - so students were to do 20 minutes of cybersmart on Thursday. 

Then with Gerhard he introduced us to ipads and how the junior school would use them.  The video (kawa of care) was awesome and it would be cool to make our own one for the school.
Expalin everything tutorial was great. These are the things we had to learn to do:

In the afternoon we did looked at screencasify, I have been having a bit of a play with this and did two last week for my students.  I made one with a funny video that I was sent about toilet paper and dominos, the kids loved this and used it for writing inspiration.  The second one didn't work as well and the sound went off the video (not the screen recording - just the video) so I need to keep having a go with this. 

We also looked at our blogs, It was a bit fast for me when Kerry was talking and so I need to go back and try to add a page and change my blog layout. 

Time to reflect and share with colleagues

• What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?
• What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?
  Keep up with the cybersmart tips especially on a chromebook so I know what it is like for my students.
• What did I learn that could be used with my learners? Make sure the kids are keeping up to date with
• cybersmart ideas and mahi.
• What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?