Connected Learning

Jarrod Lamshed

Jun
12

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Investigating with Pi

Category: 1. Know students & how they learn, 3. Plan and implement for effective teaching & learning, 4. Create and maintain supportive & safe learning environments, 6. Engage in professional learning Tags: , , , , 1 Comment


cc licensed ( BY SA ) flickr photo shared by Clive Darra

Today a group of students started investigating a Raspberry Pi (above). They were given no structure and no instructions apart from ‘see if you can work this out’. They weren’t even told what it was called. Within a short time, they had identified it and had worked out a vague idea of what it does. 30 mins in and they had worked out that they needed a screen, keyboard and mouse and were quickly able to source these (with a bit of negotiating) from the ‘surplus’ pile in the school library. Within an hour they had set it up, found a ‘how to’ video online and installed an operating system on the ‘Pi’. As we moved on to other learning this afternoon they boys were discussing who was going to set up an Edmodo space so they could share resources that they hope to find from home tonight. Another student in the group suggested setting up a Google Hangout for collaboration. Great discussions. Great learning.

Although they have barely begun, the learning in this task has been fantastic. The problem solving alone has been worthwhile. The group hit a snag this afternoon and without an ‘expert’ on hand the kids have had to discuss and plan ways to solve the problem without being ‘rescued’ by anyone.

‘Letting go of the reigns’ can be a hard thing for teachers to do. The idea of not being the expert is scary, but certainly opens up some great learning opportunities for students. Without a teacher expert to rely on the kids need to think deeper about problem solving, they need to be organised and they need to be creative in the way they learn. I look forward to seeing where the journey takes them.

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May
20

By

Kids Teaching Teachers

Category: 1. Know students & how they learn, 3. Plan and implement for effective teaching & learning, 4. Create and maintain supportive & safe learning environments, 5. Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning, 6. Engage in professional learning, 7. Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/ carers and the community Tags: , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

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Today I had an opportunity to do one of my favourite things as a teacher. I had a chance to present to a group of fellow educators with a team of students. Watching my students teach the teachers always gives me a huge buzz. It is fantastic to watch them speak so well about how they learn and about what works for them.

Today we presented to teachers at Wirreanda High School. My presenting team consisted of Matt and Ben, two students from my class, as well of two students who were in my class last year, Jaiden and Trent. Jaiden and Trent have clearly settled into high school well and it was great to see them given this opportunity to to be heard.

The boys talked openly and honestly to the teachers about the type of learning that they are (or were) doing at Primary School. They talked through their use of mobile technologies to support creative learning and their use of student blogs as Learning Portfolios. My former students asked their current teachers for opportunities to use their blogs and to open up the learning to include some of the opportunities that they had in the past. It was fantastic to watch.

It was great to see the responsiveness of staff at Wirreanda, with discussion happening after the session. Wirreanda, like our school, has taken big steps toward making positive change. At a recent open night, I saw the introduction of flexible learning spaces and spoke to teachers that were excited about the things happening at this school. It says a lot that students felt comfortable speaking their mind to a room full of their teachers. It’s easy to come away feeling like good things are happening here, so much so that my son will be attending Wirreanda when he begins high school in 2014.

I appreciated the opportunity for us to share our learning and look forward to strengthening the relationship between our schools in the future.

May
19

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Capturing the Moment

Category: 1. Know students & how they learn, 2. Know the content & how to teach it, 3. Plan and implement for effective teaching & learning, 4. Create and maintain supportive & safe learning environments, 5. Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning, 6. Engage in professional learning, 7. Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/ carers and the community Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , 6 Comments

This term, I’ve been feeling flat. A feeling of being over committed, and frustrated with time restraints has been a little overwhelming. A ‘not so inspiring’ professional development session last Monday certainly didn’t help. With this on top of all the usual frustrations of a teacher’s life I have not been at my enthusiastic best.  This is not to say that everything has been bad. I am working with a great team of teachers on some innovative and exciting stuff, it’s just been lost in the ‘muddle’ for the last few weeks.

With this lacklustre state of mind I wandered off to my first CEGSA (Computers in Education Group of South Australia) committee meeting on Thursday night and went through the motions of beginning my newest commitment. I can’t say I was feeling enthusiastic at the thought of an after hours meeting, but I had committed so I went along and joined the conversation. After the committee meeting I had the opportunity to attend a ‘spotlight’ session with George Couros. It was the beginning of the rejuvenating process.

George’s session, titled ‘What to Look for in Today’s Classroom’ was energising. As the session progressed and the tweeting began, I began to feel the fog lift. I began to refocus on the exciting parts of the job and recommit to my ongoing list of goals. By the end of the session I had re-established some important connections with people but had also re-established a connection with my job.

Thursday’s session was followed by a full day ‘master class’ with George. At this event I attended as a support person. My role was to support participants as they worked with George to set up their own online professional portfolios linked with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers. Even though I was there as a troubleshooter, the learning for me was huge and once again I came out inspired with a new list of goals for my teaching and learning as well as that of my students.

 


Now,  I have seen George present on several occasions before (maybe not quite to the extent of a stalker), and each time there is a feeling of excitement in the room. Over both sessions this week, it was clear that this would be no different. I had many conversations with participants at both sessions who ‘got it’. Comments about the quality of the PD sessions were overwhelmingly positive. All of the people I spoke to felt that this was the best and most relevant training session that they had been to in a long time. As I did, people had come away with a drive to take action and make positive change in their classroom and school. 

This week, twitter has been alive with conversation about George’s sessions. Apart from the usual discussion from classroom teachers it has been great to see the discussion from our leaders in DECD head office. It is obvious from the conversation they also ‘get it’ as is evident in this post by Karen Butler of the Digital Learning team in DECD.

All too often, the positivity generated by good professional learning fizzles out because of a focus change in the school or from the department. The ongoing positive change that is being generated here needs to be harnessed. It’s time to capture the moment and give access to this learning to as many people in our schools and department as we can.  There is a movement beginning and with ongoing support and co-operation from supporting organisations like DECD and CEGSA, there is no reason that this learning can’t be ongoing and long lasting.

The learning that George is bringing to us creates connections. Connections that are essential to ongoing improvement and learning in our classrooms and our department. As a new member of the CEGSA committee I feel like I am now part of a group that can work to support this important learning and help to effect much needed change in our schools. Working together, with all parties involved, it’s time to ride the wave and create the movement and change that we need. It provides us a chance to open up learning in our schools and look at new ways to move forward and prepare our students for the skills they need now.

After a rejuvenating week, I’m looking forward to the challenge and to seeing what can be achieved. I hope that others are also inspired and are ready to join me in the conversation.

May
17

By

Focus and Prioritise

Category: 3. Plan and implement for effective teaching & learning, 6. Engage in professional learning Tags: , , , , 3 Comments

I find myself, once again, making an effort to ‘get back on track’ with my blogging. This frustrates me. As I’ve written about many times, I find blogging to be hugely beneficial to my teaching. It provides an outlet to reflect, contemplate, discuss, debrief and even rant on occasion. For long periods of time, I manage to write regular posts and seem to find a flow, but eventually other factors get in the way and I let it be a reason to put the breaks on.

It’s easy to use the excuse of being ‘bogged down’ by the commitments of life. I am busy. In reality though, all of this ‘stuff’ provides me with plenty to be writing about. I am lucky that I am busy doing things I love. My kids are interested in life and this provides us with huge learning opportunities as a family. At work, I am working with a team of people who are enthusiastic, dedicated and innovative as we move toward flexible learning spaces in our unit. Out of school, I have joined the CEGSA committee which will open up some great discussion and professional learning for me.

Not only do all of these commitments provide great writing fodder, but it also works the other way around. To manage these commitments effectively, I need to be reflecting. Reflection allows me to find perspective, clear my thoughts and as ask for the thoughts of my learning network as I navigate my way.

For me blogging is important, and I need to prioritise it. As a commitment to action, my Friday planning time is now my Friday reflection time. As I am doing right now, I will find a quiet corner and write. It is a process I enjoy and it makes me a better teacher.

Apr
12

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AITSL – Illustration of Practice

Category: 1. Know students & how they learn, 3. Plan and implement for effective teaching & learning, 4. Create and maintain supportive & safe learning environments, 5. Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning, 6. Engage in professional learning, 7. Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/ carers and the community, Developing self and others, High quality learning, teaching & schooling, Knowledge & understanding, Leading improvement, innovation & change, Leading teaching & learning, Leading the management of the school, Personal qualities, social & interpersonal skills, Successful learners, confident creative individuals & active informed citizens, Uncategorized, Vision & values Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

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.


 

Mar
10

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52 Recommendations for Boys in Schools (Recommendation 1)

Category: 1. Know students & how they learn, 2. Know the content & how to teach it, 3. Plan and implement for effective teaching & learning, 4. Create and maintain supportive & safe learning environments, 6. Engage in professional learning, 7. Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/ carers and the community Tags: , , , , , , , , , , 4 Comments

Over the last seven years I have worked to establish and develop a single gender program at our school. Starting with some initial small trials, the success of the program has seen us expand so that we now have a single sex class option, for both boys and girls, for students from year 2 through to year 7. Being involved in this process has been a highlight of my teaching. I totally and wholly believe in this program and feel lucky to be involved in something that has made a big difference in the way our school runs. The lasting relationships I’ve been able to develop with students and their families over this time have been brilliant. 

Our single gender classes are designed around the work of Michael Gurian, a gender education expert from the USA and also the work of Ian Lillico, an Australian expert in boys education. Among his extensive work, Ian Lillico has developed 52 recommendations for boys in schools. These recommendations were at the heart of our boys classes when we first began.

This year, one of the goals I have set myself is to revisit these recommendations and critically look to see how well we are showing these in our classroom and learning programs. To do this, my plan is to create at least one blog post each week focussing on how we implement (or don’t implement) each recommendation. Each post will focus on one recommendation and look at what we are doing, what we need to improve on and, if appropriate, a commitment to action.

Let’s see how we go!

Recommendation 1:

Both at home and at school women must be in positions of power – they must not be seen as the nurturers and men as the power brokers. Both men and women must play a rearing role in their sons’ lives. The father (or male teacher) must not be seen as the disciplinarian as this tends to further emphasize the gender stereotype.

This recommendation is one that we could certainly do better in our classroom. This is particularly evident to me after participating in the Miss Representation PD last week. Although we have lots of good things happening in our classroom, we need to tighten up our act in this regard.

At Hackham East we have strong female teachers and leaders everywhere. Our boys class spends a lot of time with our female music teacher who is also responsible for our Kapa Haka program and she is certainly a strong and well respected role model. There are many others though, that we could access better.

Our new deputy principal has a passion for reading and has some great ideas about class libraries and the way book clubs run. These passions fit in with one of our key class focuses this year. This is a perfect opportunity for me to expose the boys to another female educator in a position of power. Our new school counselor is also a strong female leader that we could access better for our class. Being the teacher in charge of our schools student voice program means that there are some links we can make with how our classroom runs.

Next week, my commitment to action is to work at strengthening how we achieve this recommendation in our classroom.  My goal in using this process is to turn a never ending  ‘to do’ list into something that will see regular professional reflection and  improvement in our classroom.

Mar
8

By

Miss Representation

Category: 3. Plan and implement for effective teaching & learning, 4. Create and maintain supportive & safe learning environments, 6. Engage in professional learning, 7. Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/ carers and the community Tags: , , , , , 4 Comments

This week several staff from Hackham East attended a session of Miss Representaion run by Louiza Hebhardt. The film explores how the media’s misrepresentations of women have led to the underrepresentation of women in positions of power and influence. It explores the images of women that we are exposed to everyday and how this effects both our girls and boys.

After the film we heard from Melinda Tankard Reist from collectiveshout.com . Collective shout is an organisation that campaigns against the sexualisation of girls. One of the many battles this organisations fights is to remove items, such as sexualised clothing from our stores. It is amazing (and disturbing) to see how much of this material is out there for our kids to soak up.

AS A PARENT I walked away from this session feeling fearful for my children. As the father of an 8 year old girl, I am already aware that it is difficult to buy her clothes that I feel are appropriate. I find myself wondering how I will help her to develop positive self body image and expose her to images of positive women that can serve as her mentors and role models as she finds her passions and areas of interest in life. How do I combat the massive amount of negative, horrifying, inappropriate images telling her how she ‘should be’.

As the father of a 12 year old boy I have very similar fears. In a world of sexist, horrible music, TV, video games and movies portraying men as powerful and women as weak, how do I teach him that women have the same right and expectation of power, success and equality as he does? I really don’t know the answer.

AS A TEACHER OF A BOYS CLASS I walked away realising that I have a responsibility to educate my boys to be better men. We need to provide our boys with role modeling of appropriate interactions with women. We need to talk to boys about what is and isn’t appropriate and have open, honest discussions drawing their attention to the way women are portrayed in the media. In our classroom we do this regularly already. We call the boys on an inappropriate comments they may make and spend the time to pull these apart and look at WHY these type of comments are harmful. I hope this continues as they move on to high school at a time where they really need support to navigate their way through adolescence.

AS A MAN I walked away feeling a little guilty for my gender’s part in this.

AS A HUMAN BEING I walked away concerned about our society as a whole. I walked away wondering when big business might develop some corporate responsibility? When do the powers that be step up and make a call that padded bras for four year olds are not how they are going to do business. I walked away wondering when this will become a ‘big deal’ for the public at large and I walked away wondering why I hadn’t taken notice before now.

 

Miss Representation 8 min. Trailer 8/23/11 from Miss Representation on Vimeo.

Mar
2

By

Not Quite Flipped

Category: 1. Know students & how they learn, 3. Plan and implement for effective teaching & learning, 4. Create and maintain supportive & safe learning environments, 6. Engage in professional learning Tags: , , , , , , Leave a Comment

The ‘flipped’ classroom has become a huge topic in a reasonably short amount of time. There has been some great discusion and there have been some good points made on both sides of the discusion. Personally, I’m not convinced that there is one right way to do this. In fact, I think if we get caught up trying to follow the rules of ‘flipping’ the classroom we can do more damage than good.

For the last year or so, we have been experimenting with our own version of a flexible classroom. I say ‘we’ because the changes that have been made are based on discussions with students. Our students have fed back to us about what works for them at school, and what doesn’t. This has been a big learning experience for me and at times a very confronting one.

We have avoided calling our classroom ‘flipped’ because I don’t believe we conform to that mould. We have set up flexible learning spaces to allow student to work both collaboratively and individually as they need. We have worked hard to give the students a large amount of control over their learning and the teacher has absolutely stopped being the focus of the room.

The part of the flipped model I disagree with is the emphasis on students watching ‘lectures’ or ‘classes’ at home. I believe we still need to offer students a chance to access this base information at school. For many of our students, accessing technology is not possible and neither is accessing appropriate support for their learning. If we value the information we are sharing, we need to make time for it in our day. Students should be provided with opportunities to access learning at home in different ways.

By taking the best bits of a lot of different ideas, I hope we are on track to creating a flexible learning environment that works. It’s an ever evolving process with the goal of worrying less about how we teach and more about how kids learn.

Mar
2

By

Natural Maths – Ann Baker

Category: 1. Know students & how they learn, 2. Know the content & how to teach it, 3. Plan and implement for effective teaching & learning, 5. Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning, 6. Engage in professional learning Tags: , , , , , , , , Leave a Comment

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write but those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn.”  Alvin Toffler

I like this quote. The idea of unlearning and relearning is important. If we aren’t prepared to do this we are doing ourselves and our students a huge disservice. If we continue to do things purely because it’s ‘the way we’ve always done it’, we are missing out on learning opportunities for ourselves and taking away the same opportunities for our students.

This week, I was faced with some new learning that challenged everything I knew about teaching and learning maths. The session, run by Ann Baker, unpacked her ‘secret code’ and showed me a whole new way of thinking that just made sense. Using the strategies she showed, allows students (and perhaps we teachers) to see HOW and WHY numbers work. It clearly shows the relationships between numbers while challenging the deeply ingrained processes that we all grew up with. It’s not to say that the ‘old’ processes are completely wrong, but they are not the only way, and they don’t show us the all important HOW and WHY.

As teachers, we know that professional development can be a bit ‘hit and miss’. I walked away from Friday’s session feeling completely challenged, wondering how I had gotten this far without knowing this stuff. I walked away wondering how we get this information to teachers before they hit the classroom. I walked away wondering where to start in helping my students to ‘unlearn’ and ‘relearn’. I also walked away with a new set of tools, feeling ready to start making changes.

As a teacher, it a horrible feeling to come to a realisation that your ‘best practice’ isn’t really good enough, but surely it’s worse to not realise it and continue to think that you have nothing to learn?

Ann and Johnny Baker – Natural Maths

Nov
9

By

AITSL Teacher Standards

Category: 1. Know students & how they learn, 2. Know the content & how to teach it, 3. Plan and implement for effective teaching & learning, 4. Create and maintain supportive & safe learning environments, 5. Assess, provide feedback and report on student learning, 6. Engage in professional learning, 7. Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/ carers and the community Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , 2 Comments

This week, myself and three other staff at Hackham East have been involved in filming an “Illustration of Practice” for the Australian Institute of Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL). Based around our boys education program the filming took place over two days, aiming to create a 20 minute documentary looking at classroom management.

In theory, the idea of having a film crew follow you around is terrifying. In reality, it’s even more terrifying! Once the fear subsides however, the process becomes extremely valuable.

This filming opportunity came at the same time I decided to turn my blog into a Profesional Learning Portfolio. Both of these processes involved me needing to unpack the AITSL Teacher Standards. For those who are unfamiliar with the standards, the following is from the AITSL website:

The National Professional Standards for Teachers comprise Seven Standards which outline what teachers should know and be able to do. The Standards are interconnected, interdependent and overlapping.

The Standards are grouped into three domains of teaching: Professional Knowledge, Professional Practice and Professional Engagement. In practice, teaching draws on aspects of all three domains.

Within each Standard, focus areas provide further illustration of teaching knowledge, practice and professional engagement. These are then separated into Descriptors at four professional career stages: Graduate, Proficient, Highly Accomplished and Lead.


Exploring the standards has helped me to reflect more clearly on my teaching practice. It has shown me the areas that I reflect on naturally and highlighted those that I take for granted. It has challenged me to think critically about how I do my job and in doing so has improved my teaching.

In our job we can never be ‘good enough’. As teachers we need to be continually improving. I believe that the Teacher Standards are a powerful tool to help us do this. To use this tool effectively, however, we need to open ourselves up to critical self reflection and to the honest feedback of others. For me, this has been a challenging but rewarding process.

While AITSL were filming at Hackham East, I was also asked to film a “Teacher Feature” about our class use of social media. They also took photos of our classroom to share on the AITSL Facebook page.  The photos can be found here, and the ‘Teacher Feature” is posted below.


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