Connected Learning

Jarrod Lamshed

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Feedback is the Breakfast of Champions

quote-Ken-Blanchard-feedback-is-the-breakfast-of-champions-66830“Feedback is the breakfast of champions”. This is an interesting quote. Breakfast of champions conjures up images of Rocky downing a raw egg… not something that is necessarily enjoyable, but it has an important purpose in his plan for self improvement. I think, for many people, feedback is a bit the same.

Feedback is an interesting thing. It’s something that we know is vital for improving students learning. Giving students regular, targeted feedback helps them to improve. No arguments… we accept this as fact. This isn’t something that is specific to schools either. As parents we regularly give ‘feedback’ (sometimes in the form of light ranting) to our kids and sometimes they take this on board and learn from it. When we have problems we don’t know how to deal with, we talk to our trusted people and take on what they say to help us make the right decision. Feedback is everywhere… a natural part of our lives.

So, why is it that the idea of professional feedback makes many of us uncomfortable? If regular targeted feedback helps students improve, surely it’s not a stretch that it will do the same for us.

We are lucky there in South Australia that we have a Department supported tool to help us manage feedback easily. The TfEL (Teaching for Effective Learning) Compass allows us to seek feedback from students, parents and colleagues. It’s a powerful tool that is easy to use. If your are in SA and haven’t tried it, it’s certainly worth exploring.

The idea of hearing what our students really think can be a scary thing! Nobody wants to hear that the lesson we spent hours planning and preparing was a flop. But, it’s important that we do hear it. We need to know WHY it was a flop. What hit the mark and what went terribly wrong? What can we learn from this experience that will help us do a better job next time? Even when something goes well, there will always be feedback that can help it be even better. This is the nature of our job. Nothing is ever finished.

In Australia we have a set of Standards for teachers (AITSL) that are now tied directly to our teacher registration requirements. I believe that this is a good thing. In the past we’ve often had the problem of not knowing what is expected of us. We have often felt like the benchmark keeps shifting. Now, the expectations are right there in black and white. We can’t meet these expectations without the help of feedback. Standard 3.6 says…

Conduct regular reviews of teaching and learning programs using multiple sources of evidence including: student assessment data, curriculum documents, teaching practices and feedback from parents/ carers, students and colleagues.

This is something we HAVE TO do. It’s not an option.

I think that 99% of us want to do our jobs the best that we can. More than that, we want the best for our students. Moving past the discomfort we feel and seeking honest, regular, targeted feedback is the best way to achieve this.

So, how do we make this happen? Even with a firm willingness to push forward we still have the struggles of ‘not enough time’ and finding regular, quick ways to get the feedback we need. How does this happen in your classroom? What tools and strategies to you use?

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Bridging Gender Gap in a Brave New World

In last weeks Messenger Newspaper, Amy Moran wrote an article discussing the idea that gender education is the key to reducing domestic and sexual abuse statistics. After a discussion about the article on Twitter, Amy asked if, colleague, Aimee Aparicio and I would be a part of a follow up story looking at the gender learning program we have started with our classes. It’s always an interesting experience to be involved in something like this but the article is a positive one, and we are glad to be a part of the discussion.

 

Messenger Community News

 

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System Overload

53ccc3e8f73817df89f77a3211a68253Yesterday we had a representative from our teacher’s union visit our school. It’s enterprise bargaining time again and she was visiting to let us know how the process was going. One of the issues the union is addressing in this round of discussions is the problem of excessive work load. This is a real problem. It’s nine o’clock on a Friday night and I’ve just finished working. Twice this week I’ve told my daughter I couldn’t listen to her read because I had work to do. I’ve been at work by 7:30 every morning and not out the door at the end of the day until after five. Most nights there is ‘homework’ for me that means I’m not helping my kids with their’s. I’d like to say this is unusual, but it’s a fairly normal week. I think this is true for many of us. I’m not sure how the union thinks that they can change this, but I wish them luck!

I’m not complaining (well maybe I am a little bit). This is the job I chose and I wouldn’t choose to do anything else. I don’t know that anything can be done about it. As a leader in a school, the work is there and it needs to be done. I think what we can do a better job of as leaders is making sure that we don’t overload our teachers.

Planning and managing a strong learning environment takes a lot of time and energy. Our teachers work hard. Throw in committees, parent meetings, professional development, report writing, staff meetings, yard duty and it can start feeling like good classroom practice come second to the ‘stuff’.

As leaders, I think we need to try and give our teachers a break. I’m not saying we can take away all the ‘stuff’, but shaving 5 mins off the occasional staff meeting instead of running 5 mins over can make a big difference to people’s headsets. Being aware that pushing forward with our work as leaders can have an effect on teachers workloads in essential. It’s not an easy balance to find. We certainly aren’t the only profession that has a tough workload and I know there’s not an easy fix. The push of ‘getting through everything’ means that it’s hard to justify these mini breaks, but I believe that the pros outweigh the cons.

We are in a profession where we need to be more aware of each other. Releasing the pressure valve occasionally is good for everyone. When people feel less stressed they are more aware of each other and provide a good support network for work mates. This is important. Covering the yard duty of a colleague who’s had three extra meetings this week, might be the thing that helps prevent their whole week going to the pack. This is better for teachers, it’s better for leaders and most importantly it’s better for students and classroom learning.

It’s a hard act to pull off, but we’ll keep trying.

 

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Activating the Hidden Talent

The-greatest-leader-is-not-necessarily-the-one-who-does-the-greatest-things.-He-is-the-one-that-gets-the-people-to-do-the-greatest-thingsI’ve presented a lot of workshops over the years I’ve been teaching. It’s a great experience that forces me to critically reflect on my practice. When you stand in front of an audience you need be ready to back up what your saying and answer the curly questions that are thrown at you. You need to know your stuff.

This doesn’t mean that we need to be the all knowing expert on everything, but we need to have looked at our own practice through a critical lens and have a good understanding of why we do things the way we do.

Something that I need to better as a leader is to activate opportunities for other staff at my school to be able to do the same. There are many times that we run small professional development sessions within our school that other staff could be a part of. With a consistently long list of ‘things’ to do, it’s easy to use this excuse to just run these sessions myself. I guess this is the leadership version of the ‘default mode’ that we all fall back to when we get stressed or busy. Instead of taking this easy way out, I need to be making more time to activate those around me.

Our schools are full of hidden talent. I say hidden because a lot of the magic happens behind closed doors, and many teachers don’t automatically feel comfortable sharing the great practice that is happening in their classrooms. As a leader in the school, I need to be having conversations with these teachers and support them to share with others as often as I can. When I began teaching I had leaders that helped me find opportunities to share and develop this side of my learning. Without that, I wouldn’t have had the opportunities that have been so important in developing my teaching. This is something that I need to a better job at from now on.

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Social Media in Schools

Periscope-logoSocial media is well and truly a part of our lives. We tweet our way through TV shows, Instagram photos of our dinner, pin that craft idea and update our Facebook status to let everyone know what we’re up to or share endless photos of our kids (sorry). For our kids, the world of social media is even more crowded adding Snapchat, Kik, Omegle and Vine… the list goes on. It’s almost impossible to keep up with, with new services popping up regularly.

Given the huge number of services to wade through paired with the hype around children’s safety in these spaces, you can almost be forgiven for wanting to steer clear of social media in the classroom altogether… almost.

There is a lot already written supporting the use of social media in schools. From taking control of your school’s digital footprint, to drip feeding information to your school communities, the applications are wide and varied. For me though, the exciting stuff happens in the classroom.

In many of our classrooms at Woodend Primary School, our teachers are using Facebook to improve their communication with parents. Replacing regular class newsletters, Facebook groups have become an interactive way to bring parents into the classroom. We decided that rather than continue trying to get parents to go to a new space, we would go to them. Most of us are on Facebook and know that ignoring that red notification dot is not really an option! These groups have been well received and are now a natural extension of our school community.

Even better, several classes are regularly using social media to connect their learning with others classes around the world. Twitter being used alongside student blogs has let students start building authentic audiences for their learning.

Twitter has also helped our class along with Jess Ottewell’s class make connections with the Behind the News television series. Behind the News is a current affairs show aimed at a student audience. Each week our classes have been using twitter to ask questions about the week’s stories and to share our ideas and learning. Last week, we were contacted by the show to be a part of a new ‘Ask the Reporter’ session using the new app ‘Periscope’. We were one of only a handful of classrooms to be invited to participate in this trial event where we were able to send questions via Twitter and have them answered live by a reported from the show.

Apart from the obvious added value to the learning in our classrooms, this is a great example of how a new social media app has been harnessed for a learning purpose. A lot of reports surrounding ‘Periscope’ have been negative, highlighting the possible negative uses of the app. As educators, it’s important that we see past the knee jerk reaction surrounding social media and look deeper at how it can add to learning in our classrooms.

The video of this event is posted below.

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Time to Take Off the Mask

Last week I was lucky enough to attend the South Australian premiere of “The Mask You Live In”, a film by Jennifer Siebel Newsom. 

“The Mask You Live In” is a documentary that focusses on boys and young men as they struggle to find their identities among our society’s definition of masculinity. The film addresses some important questions and highlights some scary statistics from the USA, many of which I fear closely represent our own statistics in Australia and those in many other countries.

Many times, in previous posts, I’ve raised a lot of the same points. Nearly all of our violent crimes are committed by men, our boys are significantly more likely than girls to have learning issues, boys drop out of school at a much higher rate than girls, the highest number of suicides in our country is by young men… the list goes on. Unfortunately this documentary didn’t have a magic bag full of solutions.

What the film did do, was highlight the conversation. Jennifer Siebel Newsom has captured some extremely powerful stories to narrate this problem. This movie will go a long way to bringing the discussion out of the shadows and into the mainstream. 

It’s a discussion that needs to happen. Last night in Adelaide a service was held to remember those that have lost their lives to domestic violence. It is a horrendous realisation that we even need an event like this. But we do, with an average of 2 women a week killed by their current or former partner in Australia this year. Horrifying. It’s easy to see this as someone else’s problem, but realistically and statistically any of our sons can become these men.

“The Mask You Live In” goes a long way to clearing up how we got here. The cultural pressure we put on our boys to ‘man up’ is intense. It’s everywhere. In our sports teams, music, TV, movies… the message says “be tough”… “don’t be a sook”. Most men have at some time either said or have been told to “toughen up”. It has to stop.

This week has given us a strong example of how our society not only promotes an image of ‘toughness’ but also accepts violence against others. Most of our Facebook newsfeeds have been over run by promotions and news stories about the recent Mayweather vs Pacquiao boxing match. I’m not jumping into a debate over the merits of boxing as a sport, but with celebrities lining the front row at the bout, its hard for young boys (or even we men) to ignore the fact that this manly boxing thing draws out the cool people. My big problem here is that one of the contenders, Mayweather, is a convicted wife beater. A witness statement written by his young son has been making the rounds and it is gut wrenching to read. Even with this knowledge, someone (or many people) somewhere has given this guy a chance to earn a share of $300 million (yes million) by beating someone. Not only that, but we have gone out in droves to watch and participate in the hype. In my opinion, we were focussing on the wrong hype. Domestic violence accepted and rewarded. Not good enough.

I don’t know what the answer is (still), but I’m glad the conversation is happening.

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AITSL – Illustration of Practice

Last year, I was contacted by AITSL about our school participating in an Illustration of Practice project. It was certainly a worthwhile project for us to be involved in. Being involved with AITSL has improved my teaching without a doubt. The reflection process is an important one and the AITSL Standards for Teachers give me something to reflect against.

Since using the standards as a tool for my professional learning, I have been able to identify not only my strengths, but als the areas that I need to focus on more. In conjunction with this blog, I now have a mechanism for regular reflective learning that keeps me accountable to myself as well as a positive industry standard.

Below is one of three final videos produced by AITSL for their Illustrations of Practice collection. I look forward to sharing the other Hackham East Illustrations soon.

It can also be found on the official AITSL website at http://www.teacherstandards.aitsl.edu.au/Illustrations/Details/IOP00251

Visit the AITSL site and join the discussion.


 

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Moving On

Each year at this time we go through the experience of saying farewell to our year 7 students. This is not something that I enjoy! In our classroom relationships are important, and this works both ways. I know that they are ready for their next challenge and I know that they are all ready to be successful in their high schools. As always, I will miss working with those student and their families and thank them for another supportive and rewarding year.

A tradition at our year 7 graduation is for a student to talk about their teacher. This year I was absolutely privileged to be on the receiving end of the following speeches written and delivered by Raphael and Trent. I am very grateful for their words and would like to share these below. I have included a transcript and recording of both speeches.

I love my job.

Raph’s Speech

Mr Lamshed was more than just an incredible teacher
He was a best friend, loyal to the end
He was a big brother who taught us how to care for each other

Whenever you’re feeling down…
Feel like no one is around
He was the best friend you could open your feelings to..
cry to and just express your feelings in any other way

Because you know he was able to comfort you
Better than your teddy bear and little night lamp when you were 5 years old

Every single day whenever your feeling lost…
you don’t know what to do
you’re stuck on a very important decision and you don’t have a clue
or you’ve just made a vital mistake, he was the big brother to pull you through

He would never force us into doing anything
but he would give us options
and tell us things that only a big brother was able to tell you.

Sometimes when I was talking to Mr Lamshed
I thought I was talking to King Solomon.
King Solomon is to be crowned the wisest man that ever lived…
I believe

As with every big brother, Mr Lamshed would sit us down
and have a conversation with us
about what kind of man we need to be
He taught us everything about respect, manners and responsibility

That made a big impact on the type of man that most of us boys would like to be.

I strongly believe that Mr Lamshed is a dream teacher for every young man
and I am very grateful for spending two years in his class and so should every single student that has ever been in his class.

Thank you.

Trent’s Speech

Mr. Lamshed.

I first met him back in year one when I got put into Ms Hibbert’s class. The class back then was huge and half of the class got split up into his. Not many of the people that got split up from Ms Hibbert’s class were happy about moving from one teacher to a new one. Even though I had only seen him for about an hour that day, I knew I wanted to be in his class. It wasn’t because most of my other friends would be in there it was because of him.

Even back then I could sense he would be the nicest person I have ever known.

That year I wasn’t put in his class. As the years went on he had formed a 3/4 single sex class, but I was one year too young to go into his class, but I desperately wanted to be in there. In 2010 I got put into a 4/5 single sex class with Mr K. I knew when I would finish year 5 and the year 7’s would graduate, I would finally be put into Mr. Lamshed’s class.

In year 6, I really got to know Mr. Lamshed and he really got to know me. He taught me and the other students how to be ourselves and grow up to be respectful men. Without Mr Lamshed I don’t think I would have had the courage to run for Red House Captain, SAPSASA cricket for Onkaparinga, Clippers for Cancer, perform Kapa Haka in front of 2,000 people and choir in front of 2,000 people, have a part in the New Media Awards and be part of the leadership team.

He has combined the class in such a way that no other teacher could do, such as valuing each and every classmate as a unique individual. He respects other people’s opinion and their right to express their points of view. He motivates us to try and accomplish a range of tasks, from it being to our projects to a bigger goal such as trying to become a better you. He has instilled a sense of belonging in a special way. He has made learning great fun and he has a fantastic sense of humor. He has been approachable in every way. We have been able to confide in him about absolutely anything.

In the space of two years I have had great excursions including the camp, lunches at Charlie’s Diner, sleepovers and more. He has spent many hours outside of the classroom helping us and a range of other students from other schools preparing for Choir, and Kapa Haka for us.

His passion for technology has been infectious. All of us boys have had a head start by learning various methods including blogging and KWN media awards. Thanks to him we have all had exclusive one on one use with the iPads which has been really awesome.

I have been so fortunate to have had him as my teacher for the last 2 years in an all boys class. I sincerely will miss you (and the Justin Bieber singing). 

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