2021

😎Starting the year with an awesome team and students at Kaingaroa School

Teaching as Inquiry and Leading as Inquiry

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1H12lmw2QTHDHmXmoQyJIOtHjeSGlZBRwSXDUiVMdN_c/edit

We have a commitment to a meaningful inquiry with our team

 How can we strengthen our culturally responsive practices so that we build a stronger sense of cultural identity?

Great ideas this week as we grow in our professional practice.

DFI - Computational Thinking

Computational Thinking

Empowering students to be active creators and participants in a digital world to create and also problem-solve underpins the work for DFI today.
As always the underlying authentic purpose is essential in order to ensure the design is relevant so students can make appropriate choices.
The new technology curriculum includes computational thinking which is the thought processes involved in solving problems.
Computational thinking involves:

• smaller manageable parts
• describing the problem
• identifying important details
• break into smaller logical steps
• use the steps to create a process (algorithm)
• evaluate

These are very transferable skills and can be used in many curriculum areas.

Taking time to create and use the options was helpful to use coding. I value the sandpit time to use scratch, Khan Academy, Hour of Code, Scratch - 10 block Challenge, Lightbot, Kodable, Comput it to explore and upskill in coding. Thanks team.

DFI Sites - Visible Learning

On-line Learning for Leaders of Learning Today.
Working with Woolf Fisher team supports students and teachers. This year we are looking at observing and drilling down to gain a line of sight, on sites for reading. 
We shared the framework tool with staff and will use this again as the tool captures the common themes and messages we have worked on over the past two and a half years gaining visibility and clarity of learning. Multiple texts and capturing overarching themes is made more possible through sites as teachers source a variety of material. 
Take away key messages around sites are to view and observe the visual appeal through the layout and space and the user experience which requires simplicity, clarity, and limited information on a page. For learners limiting to a maximum of 3 clicks in order to find information is crucial. At Kaingaroa School we include photos for our community as many of our staff have local connections.

Valuable time was enjoyed this afternoon to work on goals related to individual sites. As we changed our school website site to cater to whanau during Lockdown and ease of finding what they needed to support learners this was perfect timing, aligned to level 1 today. I was able to add footers, tabs, and content as well as an online learning page with links to the Te Hiku Cluster and Manaiakalani pedagogy.

Kaingaroa Site

DFI 5 Sites

Student Agency through Visible Learning
Today's professional learning focused on the importance of visible learning. The visibility and clarity of the learning, demystify the learning process, and enable many opportunities for accessing learning with a choice as well as rewindable opportunities. Today, although not new learning it was valuable to articulate, rethink, and focus on the importance of visible learning for all students. The power lies in the visibility for whanau and the absolute agency for learners who are able to navigate sites on their own.

Teachers who make sites available are able to teach small groups knowing that agency can be strong as learners chose to scaffold, prepare for, and extend their learning. Visible, rewindable learning can be accessed anywhere and students and teachers who are absent know that authentic learning is still possible.

Jamboard was a new planning tool that has value when thinking through what needs to be included when teaching the big themes or ideas within concepts and selecting multi-modal options before creating the site.
The Woolf Fisher research team has talked about high leverage practices such as collaboration, authentic texts and critical thinking. Today we looked at the elements within the T Shaped Literacy Practices. We have focused on critical thinking but the specific planning under the following headings makes planning more deliberate when selecting tools and texts for differentiation within sites for reading:

• Scaffolding
• Challenge
• Complimentary
• Student Choice

New learning was also to think about ensuring the systems are in place within our setting for blogger and dealing with comments and archiving appropriately for all including if a teacher leaves. The teaching and learning are completely visible and the other school matters we have discussed as private. 

There are many resources to access which compliment the learning today to support. Thanks team.

Trial Site

DFI 4 Dealing with Data

Day 4 Today we discussed the share - tohatoha part of our learning. This resonates with me as the most important factor in designing learning and creating is knowing who the audience is. When you know who you are presenting to, one can make informed decisions and craft accordingly.
With blogs we know the audience is beyond our own setting therefore we need to add the information which will help a reader or viewer. These are valuable teaching points for students to understand and use to shape and craft their work.
The session also covered using data and forms to create work. The data around blogging was discussed as a starting part of a new year through statistics for learners. I will definitely use this as a way of teachers knowing and understanding what has previously happened for learners. I will also explore the blogging patterns especially over the lockdown period which has increased.  We will explore what is the extent and impact of this practice for learners?
As learners do not have access to the settings function teachers will need to support by providing the data for blogging history. As with all data, there is a story to be told. Deciding on what is important to learn, therefore what is important to find out,  what is the impact, and for whom overtime underpin what is needed in sheets to understand collective next steps.
A great session to brush up on google sheets (much easier in google). Thanks team.

DFI Draft Digital Pepeha

Today's learning looked at the "Create" part of the learn, create, share. While we all have our own beliefs around the importance of being creative this is a key part of how students learn and make sense of their world and beyond. In my view, the creation needs to demand thinking and encourages original ideas drawing on students' prior knowledge, new knowledge, problem-solving and much more. The three key ideas of learn, create, share may happen in any order therefore students may create in order to start new learning as long as students are clear on a purpose so learning is meaningful.  Workstream ideas today explored the use of google draw and google slides along with YouTube playlists for smart work in the drive.
An important aspect of DFI for all is the understanding of the tools and pedagogy which have been selected in order maximise students' access and keeping students safe. Blogger was designed to teach students to the online platform with the security of dashboard and administration while students focus on being cyber smart. As a principal our duty of care for our learners is important and the rationale behind this decision is crucial for teachers, students and whanau.

Online DFI

Another great session online today. Thanks, team for the work you put in before and during these sessions.
While we have been working from home many of our educators have talked about the ways they have appreciated time. Creating ways to streamline workflow and work efficiently means we are creating time.
Also during Lockdown, I have been thinking about what is important to learn? We need to be really mindful that what we spend time on as teachers and leaders are important and meaningful for our learners. The RATE acronym to recognise, amplify, turbocharge, and look at effectiveness examines the way digital devices can amplify the learning in new ways of transforming learning for our students.
These are important concepts now and as we move back to our familiar learning environments keeping the essence of learner agency we have seen over the past weeks.