Audiences - who is it for??

PRACTICE 1: Reflective entry 1: Discuss how you are addressing the context of different audiences (local, national and/or international) and their perspectives for your inquiry.

Parker. P  (n.d) 

We are not just here to teach content.  I am forever trying to instill in my students, the need to understand that we are also teaching skills and how to develop meaningful relationships to ensure they are fully functioning members of society when they leave.  At secondary school, this is definitely the case.  Tony Wagner states "I see schools that are succeeding at making adequate yearly progress but failing our students. Increasingly, there is only one curriculum: test prep. "(p 24).
Through my inquiry I am looking at the 21 century skill of critical thinking which is one of the seven survival skills he talks about to be able to survive in the new working world.

The Our Code, Our Standards, best summaries who the audience, we need to focus on, is:

Education Council (2017, p8)

1. Learners/Akonga - what are they taking out of this?  How will it impact on them?  What does critical thinking actually mean to them and how do you teach it?  Year 10 students are notorious for being offtask and 'slacking around'.  This has been the case for a number of years, we have to look at addressing this so that they are equipped to head into NCEA and apply the content knowledge they do have to any scenaro they are given.
2. Educators/Kaiako - many of the educators in my school have been teaching for a long time.  They have their ways of teaching that work for them.  BUT do they work for learners of today?  Through the use of the new teaching standards and our own inquiry, we hope to change this perspective and develop a growth mindset; in both other educators and the learners.
3. Families/Whanau - There is a huge expectation on teachers to prepare learners for life after school.  Many of the whanau in our community have poor experiences of school which they pass on to their children.  This often is in conflict with being able to best prepare our students.  How do we overcome this?  Building relationships with our community, with a focus on the fact that it is culturally diverse plays an important role.  
4. Local community - a large proportion of our student body do not leave and go off to university.  Therefore we have to look at our community to see what skills and knowledge they value to enable us to best prepare our learners.  This includes "fostering learners to be active participants in community life and engaged in issues important to the wellbeing of society", (Education Council, 2017, p 12).

Teach  Learn Reflection (2013)

Reflections
I would like to think I am continuously reflecting on my teaching.  Always looking to see what is working and what needs further development.  An essential part of this is building the relationships with both the learner and their whanau.  We all need to work together for a common goal that is not just about credit harvesting for the potential immediate return, more about what the learner is going to get of the experience in a holistic manner. This is backed by a NZ Curriculum that has a focus more on key competencies and the skill of learning rather than the content itself.  Alongside this sits the new Teaching Standards which in of themselves are more holistic and allow the teacher to work alongside the students in the learning process.  Through the inquiry model of both the teacher and the learner, we should continue to make progress towards developing the 21st century skills - in the case of my inquiry - Critical Thinking.


References
Education Council. (2017). Our code, our standards. Retrieved from 

https://educationcouncil.org.nz/sites/default/files/Our%20Code%20Our%20Standards%20web%20booklet%20FINAL.pdf

Wagner, T. (2008). Even our “best” schools are failing to prepare students for 21st-century careers and citizenship. Educational leadership. retreived from

 https://www.sisd.net/cms/lib/tx01001452/centricity/domain/22/rigor_redefined.pdf

Images

Education Council. (2017) The code of professional Responsibility retreived from

 https://educationcouncil.org.nz/sites/default/files/Our%20Code%20Our%20Standards%20web%20booklet%20FINAL.pdf

Teach Learn Reflection (2013) retrieved from

https://www.deviantart.com/shinryu76/art/Reflection-of-Education-382701139

Parker, P. (nd) Quote Fancy, retrieved from 

https://quotefancy.com/quote/1510381/Parker-J-Palmer-Whoever-our-students-may-be-whatever-the-subject-we-teach-ultimately-we 

Research 1 musings.....

Well that has gone by fast and there are so many different factors that have come into my thinking around all of this work.  I haven't posted in a while as I tend to work when I can and around the assignments gathering the relevant information.  Lets start with what i took out of the Research 1 assignment:

This was the introduction I wrote:
More and more teachers are using technologies in their classroom. These days you would be hard pressed to not find a classroom using some form of digital technology.  But the question then becomes could digital technology replace the teacher? When speaking to staff members at our school, it becomes apparent that there is a lot of programmes, both free and purchasable that offer the teaching of academic knowledge to students.  Many teachers are setting work from these programmes, putting a computer in front of the students and leaving them to it. The students themselves have indicated that this is great and they learn a lot but we are questioning whether it is developing critical thinking and the other 21st century skills that education should be?  

This is very close to home as it is definately what i see happening in classrooms around me. Teachers are becoming excited by the new resources they see online and are putting their students infront of them and leaving them to it. Another thing I see far too often is just scanning paper based resources and saving them as a digital copy with the impression they are now digital. However, they still can't be used in this way and often the quality of the copy is very poor. I struggle to see how that is going to improve the engagement of those students let alone develop more of the 21st century skills.

From the reading that we (LAW and MOR also) did for the research assignment we found 3 common themes that we highlighted. These were around:
Critical thinking and collaboration
Self efficacy in students and teachers &
Student teacher relationships and connections.

The overall message we took from these themes was as follows:

Through what we already know and the research carried out we know that the 21st century skills for learners are important.  Rather than focusing on all of them, we want to look at critical thinking and how the teaching of this can be better facilitated by us, as teachers.  The reading has shown that through collaboration we can look at achieving this, and that using the tools that the digital platform provides us with, we are able to enhance this further.

The continued development and innovation associated with integrating digital methods of teaching and learning provide many challenges for students and teachers. Research shows, as previously stated that one's self-efficacy can have a detrimental impact on the success of such approaches. There are clear links to building and enhancing self-efficacy through a collaborative approach to learning thus improving the effectiveness of digital initiatives in the classroom for teachers, Furthermore, the teachers ability and confidence whilst delivering such a method of learning can influence the effectiveness and future delivery. As identified by staff at our school, many teachers have low levels of confidence using technology, therefore influencing the level of success achieved in doing so.
It is also important for educators to find the right balance between connecting with students, and, connecting students with digital learning tools. In particular their ability to maintain and enhance teacher - student relationships through the use of technology. Supplementing a collaborative approach, connectivism in the classroom leads to the development of meaningful and thought provoking learning experiences. Thus allowing for conditions to support inquiry learning and the development of critical thinking skills.

Where to next.... that is the question and what the next assignment is on. How are we going to look into this further and answer the enquiry question of:

Does digital collaboration with peers and the teacher, allow for critical thinking in Year 10 students?

Week 13

DIGITAL

Games:

Flow experience and rule change.
Bigger the class the more the rules you can add.
No boredom

3rd World Farmer experiences:
Died
Feel the experience that others may do
Randomness without reason was frustrating/realistic
Playable, challenge, goal and feedback all required in a game

Common game elements
Socially game elements
Educationally game elements

According to Amory (2007), Educational computer games should:

• Be relevant, explorative, emotive and engaging
• Include complex challenges, puzzles or quests
• Be gender-inclusive and non-confrontational
• Provide appropriate role models
• Develop democracy and social capital through dialogue
• Support authentic learning activities
• Support the construction of tacit knowledge

MeWe - the new google +

Pair Task - 1

Identify at least 5 different (real world) problem spaces you would like to work on with your students - what part of of this could be a game?

- Climate Change

- Genetic Engineering

- 1080 use

- Kauri Dieback

- Cloning your pet

- Genetic Engineering

Game could be a debate, puzzle, add parts organism to improve it, or not ......

Socialiser - interact with others

Free Spirit - autonomous

Achievers - desire to be competent at everything they do

Players - want extrinsic rewards

Disrupter - kick out of pushing the boundaries

Leadership

Gameification in leadership - is gamefying non game elements.

Freedom to:

Fail

Experiment

Assume different identities

Effort

Ensure not isolated by technolgy and not instantly rewarded.  Valid challenges for the school where max value can be obtained.

Fun theory - using a chore or similar and making it fun

Use Game Theory for TasI

Socialiser - students are taking ownership of their own learning through collaborative group work.  They are peer teaching.

week 11

Crowd Sourcing - connecting with large groups of ppl via the internet to gather knowledge, time, expertise or resources
Connecting online to solve problems and produce things

1. Large labour force - find workers
2. Ask crowd for solution
3. Finding and organising knowledge
4. Ideas iopinion and feedback

Crowd Funding - creating capital from those who believe in your venture or cause

Entrepreneurism
Fits into education through enterprise E4E
Top Skills every entrepreneur needs:

• Creativity
• Adapatability
• Flexibility
• Thinking outside the box
• Resiliance
• Forward thinking/Vision
• Growth mindset
• Communication 
• Collaboration
• Reflective
• Focus

Pechakucha - presenation of 20 slides for 20 sec each (pechaflickr)

A good way to get students to think on their feet.  Have to have the understanding

Enterprise is in the NZC and across it not just one area.

Knowledge, Skills and Attributes from ATEED videos:

• Back yourself
• Gain confidence
• Forward thinking
• Building key relationships and diversity
• Pushes you to your limits
• Competitive and bring out best
• Cultural responsiveness
• Networking 
• Marketing and packaging
• Evolved new product
• Large groups and overcoming obstacles
• Communication
• Authentic learning
• Real money, real time, real product

Entrepreneur - individual

Enterprrise - group/collaborative

Lean Canvas - eg leanstack.com

Halfbaked.com - entrepreneurial Improv Theatre

A good process to work through.  Feedback and forcing to listen is important part.

Assignment 2 - combined.  must submit to both sides of the portal.  however, separate marks for each.

implement and lead digital xyz theses were the successes and the pitfalls.  next time....

Crowdfunding vs Crowdsourcing

Crowdfunding - to get money

9 tips for schools

Provini (2014) provides the following ideas for how you might raise money for schools with crowdfunding:

1. Use crowdfunding for specific projects or needs, rather than general fundraising
2. Identify a safe, flexible and transparent platform
3. Start with reasonable goals
4. Break large projects into smaller steps
5. Prepare workgroup members to do intensive marketing
6. Marketing messages matter!
7. Target different levels of donors (alumni, community members, parents, local business owners, etc.)
8. Consider offering rewards and incentives for larger contributors
9. Offer students leadership opportunities and take advantage of teachable moments

Pledgeme a one pager canvas tool to use.

You need to grab your pledges and get their buy in

Explain idea, short, hook, etc.

Crowdsourcing

Citizen Science

Engaging in citizen science allows people to experience, first-hand, the scientific process and engage scientific thinking at the same time as increasing their knowledge of the specific research topic. Citizen scientists are members of the general public that volunteer their time to work and collaborate with professional scientists to collect data and solve problems on real scientific research questions. (Masters et al., 2016).

Zooniverse - 

Purpose - everyone contributes

Ed value - different perspective, inclusive

Useful/interesting - real world examples

Week 9

Digital

"Looking for Peter"
Think bigger and outside the square
A group helped to bounce ideas off and it made it easier.
Learned needed verbal communication, different skills, different perspectives, we don't always need a leader, common goal the thing that leads you.  What is the outcome is impt in terms of if you leader.

Leanrer in the digital age are able to connect and collaborate with others outside of their group.

Connect - collaborate - generate
PLN - Personal Learning Network  Who you interact with
Personal - you choose
Network - connected to others which brings in more
Learning - you are able to further understand and learn

PLE - Personal Learning Environment - How ou interact with them - the tool sets you connect through eg facebook, moodle, staffroom etc

WHy have one - part of becoming an insructional leader, stretch your thinking, offer encouraging words, share resources etc.

PLN/PLE Infographics - Pictochart, Canver
Have a play.....

Dr George Seimens - Connectiveism
Different relationship through blogging
Biggest difference - awareness and interaction
Knowledge is a network product
3 levels - biological, conceptual, external social spaces

Do we need this learning theory?

• Interesting ideas 
• Differing ideas
• Half life - knowledge used to stand for a long period of time, now it can, and does change frequently.  It happends much faster now
• Exponential growth 
• MOOCs.  Connect with others, not necessarily for the contect but the capacity for learning

Why fill in a form?


MOOCs - Stephen Downs
Connection more impt than content
Social and neural networks operate on similar concept
Move away from centralised system
Learning management system is personnalised
Read with others rather than going away and doing it on your own

Percpetions of the readers means different meanings can be taken

Interaction with others - personalised interaction needs to be negoiated.  Not prsonalised content but personalised interaction.

People have own autonomy.  Building capacity of people online.

Shift to co-operative rather than collaborative in the future.
Communicate while remaining independent and autonomous.
Independancy rather than interdependantcy

Number and nature of connections - relate to adpoption of innovations
Blurring the line bwtween leadership and followership
Evidence is open to bias.

Leadership
If you have a vision you are more likely to succeed.
- you reduce the error rate
- on the same pathway

HATTIE asks if the word learning is in visions

Vessel to fill or fire to light!!  Learning.....

Collaborative Leadership - DeWitt

• Instructional leadership (0.42) - a focus on learning
• Collective teacher efficacy (1.57) - collaborative leaders foster collaborative expertise
• Assessment-capable learning (1.44) - collaborative leaders meet students where they are and bring them to a new level
• Professional Development (0.51) - foster and inspire professional learning and use their venues/meetings to do it
• Feedback (0.75) - collaborative leaders foster growth in stakeholders and themselves - feedback helps them get there
• Family engagement (0.49) - giving a voice in the process

Anything above 4 has an effect
4 types of leaders:
Growth Cycle

Leads to idea of change.  Move to Kotter

Management makes a system work, leadership builds systems or transforms old ones

8 steps - Kotter
1996 - linear process, if you miss a step it won't work

1. Create a sense of urgency (identify crises and opportunities)
2. Build a guiding coalition
3. Form a strategic vision and initiatives
4. Enlist a volunteer army
5. Enable action by removing barriers
6. Generate short term wins
7. Sustain acceleration
8. Institute change

1-3  creating a climate for change (getting the conditions right)

4-6 Enable and engage

7-8 Implement and sustain change

move to being more agile and iterative

Adaptive and constantly going into things in a cyclic way

The change in thinking...

Entitlement - Y1-10 entitled as a student to learn about DGT, optional Y11-13

Week 8 post

Design thinking mindset

These 7 Mindsets explore and uncover the philosophy behind IDEO's (2017) Design Kit’s approach to creative problem solving (there are a number of videos on this site to explain each of these):

• Embrace ambiguity - Whose ambiguity - everyones.
• Optimism
• Iterate, iterate, iterate
• Learn from Failure
• Make it
• Creative Confidence
• Empathy

Design thinking TML Kite Model - using IDEO's appraoch

Empathise - main ob

Define

Ideate

Prototype

Test 

Reflect

"Main objective is to make the person cry" - get to the root of the issue

Empathysing
Ask questions to find out
Dig deeper by 5 the whys, by the time you get to thelast one you tend to have all the info

Defining
Observations about the needs

Ideating
What are some solutions

Prototype
Make a solution

Testing
Test the prototype

Reflect
What does the customer think

Some intersting prototypes.  Many based around TIME!!



Leadership
Stakeholders:
students, families, community members, practitioners, policy-makers, society at large

Y13 students to obtain 4 credits immediately
Families as they want to know their sons are going to be successful this year
Follows on to Board of Trustees as school goal is for each student to have credits in each subject by the end of T1.

Diffusion of innovations - the adoption curve



Market to each group differently
Innovators - small.  First to learn and adopt.  Risk takers and adventureors.  Introduce to everyone else as they share their exerience.

Early
Smaller - highly thought of.  Indorsement plays role in transcending the gap
How to work with:

• Offer strong face-to-face support for a limited number of early adopters to trial the new idea.
• Study the trials carefully to discover how to make the idea more convenient, low cost and marketable.
• Reward their egos e.g. with media coverage.
• Promote them as fashion leaders (beginning with the cultish end of the media market).
• Recruit and train some as peer educators.
• Maintain relationships with regular feedback.

Majority - 2/3
Early - observe others and only adopt if proven.  Simple, easy fix.  Minimla disruption and commitment.
Late Resistant to change but responsive to peer pressure.  Tested and proven well before using

Laggards
Highly resistant to change and hard to reach.  Wait until innovtation is mainstream before adopting at all.  Can become an innovator with trying a different way.


Within the different stakeholder groups we can have these levels of innovation.

Leader doesn't become so until there is a follower
Best way to create a movement, have the courage to be a follower.


7 Pillars of Digital Leadership

1. Communication
2. Public relations
3. Branding
4. Student engagement / learning
5. Professional growth / development
6. Re-envisioning learning spaces and environments
7. Opportunity

Week 7

Twitter -

VR/AR

Google Expeditions - virtual reality teaching tool
Login

Before during and after exercise.  On google website
Some good examples that can be used.  Already setup and ready to use - human evo and evolution in there


Students creating VR apps. - T Crow Pakuranga College

3D Tour Creator - vr.google.com/tourcreator

Quivervision.com - images come to life.  Download the sheets from the worksheet

Kupu - Te Reo Maori App.

Tour creator is hard to upload the right zie pics.

Leadership
Twitter:
Leading a discussion:

• Set guidelines
• Make connections
• Challenge students to think critically
• Encourage participation
• Praise discussion posts
• Guide conversations back to the question at hand
• Use real world experiences
• Hesitate before interjecting

We will ask you to try to apply these suggestions during our Twitter discussion sessions.

Wicked Problems
Incimplete, contradictory and changing requirements
Outside of eduction could be eg Poverty.4





Our wicked problem....

Distrubed leadership

Distributed leadership acknowledges that the work of leading and managing schools involves multiple individuals – not just those with formally designated leadership and management positions but also individuals without such roles. It is primarily concerned with the practice of leadership rather than specific leadership roles or responsibilities. It equates with shared, collective and extended leadership practice that builds the capacity for change and improvement.

Distributed leadership means mobilising leadership in order to generate more opportunities for change and to build the capacity for improvement. It is ‘leadership by expertise’ rather than leadership by role or years of experience. Genuine distributed leadership requires high levels of trust, transparency and mutual respect.

Distributed leadership is about collective influence and is a contributor to school success and improved performance. It is not an accidental by-product of high performing organisations. Individuals are accountable and responsible for their leadership actions; collaborative teamwork is the modus operandi and inter-dependent working is a cultural norm. (Hargreaves, Boyle & Harris, 2014).