Thursday, 11 August 2016

Week 6 - MindLab

Tonight we discussed what makes a good leader? It is important to remember that leadership has a moral element.  You could be an effective leader but not necessarily a good leader.

Watched clip - "Ten Leadership Theories "- the more styles you know and apply into your own practice, the more rounded you are and the better you lead.
Theory is an analytical tool - you need to use more than one tool, applying aspects of many theories in your leadership style are more effective.  This generates your own unique style - the way in which you interpret theory in your own practice.

We completed an in class task on pedagogical leadership theory. https://docs.google.com/a/linwoodcollege.school.nz/document/d/1bIxEwKhDc4-0zNS5jWWdy8oWvTqg1-IK005iC6RRsq0/edit?usp=sharing Brian Hutching, Kerrie Stedman, Val Edwards and Jo Harris #MindLabCHCH
We looked at the links between theory, teaching style and attributes. They really are all intrinsically linked and we need aspects of all of them in our own teaching practice.


I enjoyed the discussion around Emotional Intelligence
Management - maintaining the status quo - focus on maintenance
Leadership- moving people from one place to another -focus on innovation and change

Looked at difference of ...
Sympathy - can be done without emotion, you feel sorry for them,
Empathy- ability to stand in someone else’s shoes, feeling with them, feels connection, perspective taking, it’s a vulnerable choice
Compassion - has an action component. Rarely can a response make something better - connection is what makes a difference/makes it better.

Our next in class task was to use PicLab to create three images that portray these emotional intelligences ... always a bit of a laugh doing these tasks.

This led me to think about children in my class who really lack these skills and how this affects there ability to learn
effectively.


I find that increasingly children present at school with a lack of empathy for others. How do we develop these skills in our students? A challenge many of us face and definitely something we need to discuss further.





Provocation - what is connected learning?
creating connections between students, student agency, connections to culture/communities.  It works a many levels.  Technology connects you to other sources of learning information/sources.  
Why Connected Learning?
Connecting learning to real world engagement.  Making learning accessible. There is a widening gap between the haves and have nots.  This is how kids are getting ahead outside of the school community with the advantage of technology in their home lives.  Technology allows for wider access to personal learning.  But sometimes young people don’t have social or emotional skills to access them.
In our groups, we discussed "How could the learning of our students be more social, participatory, interest-driven and relevant to the opportunities of our time?"
This linked in really well with our recent Digital Assignment.
We created this infographic to depict what we thought. We felt that relationships, engagement and challenge were important.





Connectivism
We watched George Siemens video about value of blogging.  

We connect knowledge and knowledge resides in networks.  We connect socially in a networked world and knowledge is then a network product. Networks function at many levels. Learning is not static - it is adaptive.

We had to reflect on our own personal learning environment and create a visual representation of it and our learning network.

My learning comes from a huge range of networks. I feel that at this moment in my life I am learning more than ever, about myself and my practice. That's a good thing. I feel too, that I am becoming a more reflective practitioner.

The power of collaboration is having a big impact on me, particularly in my classroom - now working in a collaborative teaching space. I am enjoying this journey.



MindLab Week 5

We revisited Scratch and coding today.  Coding is a step by step process, algorithms, step by step problems, and great to use in everyday life -

We need to use computational thinking in our everyday lives- eg to find out which bus is next, packing bag for school and morning routine. Our in class example of our group getting into height order involved the skills of computational thinking:
  • Sequence
  • Selection
  • Iteration - repeating same process over and over again
  • Something else
Guess my number game - how does it link to computational thinking? - the process, solving problems, selecting questions, understanding of numbers, dealing with errors, decomposition (breaking it down into chunks)

Scratch
We did an in class task of first getting the cat to draw a straight line.  Then we worked with a new partner and had to draw a square, a triangle and a circle.  There was a huge amount of computational thinking involved.  Problem solving, communication, turn taking, etc etc

Go into Explore section on Scratch website to see others that have been made.

Strangely enough, I am surprised how much I enjoy being put out of my comfort zone. Working with new people, all with a huge range of skills and knowledge, but everyone has something to share.

Kerrie and I have decided to start a coding club at school to both provide an avenue for students who are interested in coding and to also develop our own personal skills in this area. Kerrie has created an application for the Year 5 and 6's so I am looking forward to seeing the interest and getting started!







This led perfectly into the next part of the session....
Leadership - Growth Mindset - Carol Dweck. The brain is malleable: that it is like a muscle that can get stronger and work better as you learn and stretch yourself.  Over time, you can get smarter (Dweck, 2012).
I was lucky to be able to hear Carol speak a year ago with or school.  This was a bit of a lightbulb moment for me and has led me to make many changes with the language I use in my classroom.  HIgh expectaions are essential.  Challenge is a good thing!  The power of 'YET' is massive! 

The words that we use with our students are important and powerful.  It was good to be reminded of this

We watched the "backwards brain bicycle" video - love this! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFzDaBzBlL0



Digital Assignment One!!

Our first assignment was for the Digital part of our course. We had to identify a teaching and learning problem in our classroom eg; boys don’t want to read. This assignment was just a plan - we weren't to implement it.

We chose to present a group assignment. Initially Kerrie and I were going to work alone, but we ended up collaborating with Gretchen and Linda form Ilam School. So much learning came out of this for me and the collaboration with another school was a rich experience.

We were concerned with the issue of engagement. We all felt that our students were engaged in their learning but we were concerned with how truly deep and meaningful that engagement really is.

We had to create a 10-12 minute video - I had to get over the fact I hate being videoed pretty quickly.

The way we all collaborated to create the finish product helped to ease the load but the conversations that we had while doing the assignment were the highlight for me.  Two schools in Christchurch, 4 different teachers, but we all shared the same concerns and were able to discuss strategies, look at current research and reflect on our practice as a group.  

We ran into a few technical issues and I discovered you can't easily turn a PowerPoint into a movie using a MAC!  However... with the help from Michael from the MindLab we were luckily able to share to a PC and successfully save our movie with all transitions and sounds intact. 

Again... lots of learning for me.  And a massive relief to be able to submit the first assignment!  

Onto the next one.... 

MindLab Week 4

We were introduced to the world of coding and Scratch!  https://scratch.mit.edu/

This was my first real encounter with coding - something I have wanted to find out about for a while now but also a little unsure of.  Lots of new learning for me here.  

What I was most interested in were the skills that were involved with the use of this program.  We linked the skills we used with educational theory.

Constructionism
We learn best from making physical things and through making virtual things.  The same theory applies for both. We need to identify powerful making activities that will best impact on student learning.

Constructivism
Behaviourism - we have input from teaching or instruction - we don’t know what goes on inside the child’s mind - but we can evaluate effectiveness from their behaviour
Cognitivism - humans are a central processing unit.
Constructivism took both these theories and says that we actually construct our knowledge - they are largely mental structures.  


What is the difference between a theory and a style?
A theory is an analytical tool.  It is explanatory and it is predictable.
It is about changes in observable behaviour
Styles are the way in which we interpret theory in our practice.  It is a trademark of ourselves, specific to you.  

When you look at different theories, you will find elements of truth in all of them for your practice.

Week 3 of MindLab

I was away for this week of the program.  I was worried about what I would miss out on as the previous sessions had been fairly intensive and I had a lot of new learning.  

Luckily I am collaborating with Kerrie, my colleague from school.  This collaboration has been one of the biggest benefits for me so far in my journey. We are able to link our new learning with what is going on for us in our school. Our conversations have been deeper and more meaningful since we began.  This has encouraged me to be more personally reflective about my own practice which I see as huge plus.

They looked at both the SAMR and TPACK models which we unpacked further for our Digital 1 assignment.  

They also looked at Aurasma.  I need to spend more time getting to know this app and look at its uses for me and my teaching. 

MindLab Week 2

This week we looked at the skills people will need to be effective in the 21 century.  ITL (Innovative Teaching and Learning) Research and Microsoft came up with 6 skills they think are the most important:

  • Collaboration
  • Knowledge construction
  • Self-regulation/self-direction
  • Real-world problem solving/innovation
  • ICT for learning
  • Skilled communication

We compared theses 21CS with the Key Competencies .
We are asking students to demonstrate the KC’s, how many of us as leaders are modelling them ourselves?  We need to be thinking strategically and looking forward to the future as 21C learners.  
We need to be thinking collaboratively.  Like organising cross school planning, eLearning, facilitated PD from outside sources.  We need to look at how we form links and connect with other local schools.  
Managing self is a huge one both for our students and ourselves as we attempt to manage all this new learning for ourselves.  
As leaders, we really need to think about how we model the KC’s.