Sam Mortimer's blog: 2014

Thursday 27 November 2014

Sam's ideas around tracking from Kamar conference

Sam’s suggestions around tracking

Question 1 has to be what is tracking? – we need a full definition

SAM I see tracking as subject teachers visibly showing the progression of students throughout the year (or actually 2 years 9 and 10) – what is the value added to the students learning/achievement? I suggest that this is through summative assessments that are given a curriculum level. It could be a formative assessment grade though. However, I think it has to be against a curriculum level if we are looking at academic achievement.

We could also track the students’ attitudes, engagement etc but I think this is slightly different

Question 2 has to be why are we doing it – how will it improve the achievement of our students?

It will improve the achievement of or students because we will know exactly how much progress a student makes across all of their subjects – for some it may only be a small sub level but we must see progression – it is not good enough just to give a student a summative assessment as a separate entity to the rest of their work. It all needs to be interconnected. I also believe very strongly that the teacher must give the student feedback on their curriculum level and most importantly feed forward. I suggest that the departments all report on the same number of assessments (the core subjects) – they could do more but this number (6?) is a minimum?

Probably best to have a timeframe – if not done the next summative assessment then it should be a formative level.

Could be 3 formative and 3 summative?

A. In kamar it is possible to do this. See pages 27- 30 of booklet from kamar conference – created in markbook. This is then live but can also be put together to create a report. Archive reports, zip and upload and seen on parent portal. Comment is directed at the student – it is their work, they should take responsibility. “progress standard”?

This part B is something extra I think would link well

B. Under markbook as part of student profile on kamar – this where teachers could also make comments – perhaps half way through standard – just a quick note to parents – not sure – it maybe doubling up with markbook comment after completed assessment?

Question 3 is Who monitors tracking?

I would think that form teachers monitor academic tracking with Deans having an overview, and the SLT having the overview. But, ultimately the Principal. We have to ensure that teachers do what they have to do. The form teachers should link to ideas around creating student profiles.

Seniors – this is something I think may work well with tracking and if we do it for Juniors would be good for seniors too

Lots the same

1. Setting up profiles/interviews – answering questions set by Dean

2. Meetings with form teachers and parents and students – either beginning of year or end of term1 and beginning of term 2

3. Meetings with form teacher and student in terms 2 and 3

4. Deans and Careers teachers plus anyone else to add to profile - overview

5. Writing feedback and feedforward after every assessment – live to parents and also part of report

6. Under markbook as part of student profile on kamar – this where teachers could also make comments – perhaps half way through standard – just a quick note to parents – not sure – it maybe doubling up with markbook comment after completed assessment?

- Other schools put total number of credits on before and then co-construct how many they think they can get

7. Alongside with comments on completed assessment, you can also make comments if it is an external, plus current mark or practice exam etc

Monday 17 November 2014

Vocational Pathways

Vocational pathways link

I have been getting my head around Vocational Pathways for a while and I do understand the premise. We have to as a Nation (and probably other Western Countries too) know how to educate ALL of our young people while they are at school not just the less than 20% of them who go to university in the Matamata Piako District, New Zealand; I have thought this for a long time.

Our pastoral team had a really good presentation from the Ministry of Education about how to use Vocational Pathways in relation to careers guidance - as all teachers are career teachers. I totally agree with this. The presenter was very thorough and I like the way it now links to Kamar and therefore much easier to use. The easier it is to use definitely increases the chance that people are going to use it! It also gives everyone a common language which is again a good thing.

I very much agree with the idea of the form teacher of the being the first port of call in a pastoral sense - as this is the set up at our school and Vocational Pathways does give a clear path to helping this process. Everyone needs at least one "warm and demanding" person in their life (thanks to Maurie Abraham - Principal at Hobsonville Point Secondary School) and this might be a form teacher or a mentor of a smaller group.

But as I said before everyone should be a careers teacher – we should all be always asking students what they are planning for the future and how we can help them reach their goals and dreams. It doesn't matter if they don’t know but just by discussing likes and dislikes can be an excellent start!

I also find that when I am dealing with students with behaviour issues I always try and link them into their future plans and how what happens now can affect these plans. When people have a goal it can make them focused and really help them “get through” the subjects they don’t like or even school in general. This is another one of the reasons Vocational Pathways, linked to Kamar, is a good idea. You can look at what pathways the students might be strong in and this can give them career ideas at a click of a button (thanks Kamar - very good!) and this might kick start ideas for students. You can also discuss the students’ career plans and then see if they are doing subjects that link to their individual education and career plan.

So far, so good! But I went away from out presentation last night and I have been thinking about it a lot. Yes it is great for all the reasons that I have stated above but I am not totally sold.

Education is about many things and your career is only one part of your life. Yes you might want to become a mechanic and should be strong in RED "manufacturing and technology" but is not just as important to develop your creative (industries) side too (YELLOW) or be part of the discussion in the "social and community services" (PURPLE) so you know how to be a NZ citizen in a global world?

I am not saying that Vocational Pathways isn't a good tool. I think it could be but we can't forget or get hung up on perhaps an "easy" way to look at education as it is a tick box idea about how we steer people into careers. According to this model our job as High School teachers will be complete - we have helped guide our students into a career - we will have reached the Government target of 85% of all students receiving NCEA Level 2 - JOB DONE!

However, learning is complex and therefore what we do as teachers is complex and can't just condensed to a set of tick boxes. This is what is so great about the NZ Curriculum and why at NCEA we have aligned our standards to link to it. Perhaps the next step at the Senior end of the school, as well as more focus at the Junior end is a greater focus on the NZ Key Competencies

We need to do this if we want to ensure that we create a society where people use the competencies to live, work, and contribute as active members of their communities. The issue is that Key competencies are not as straight forward as a tick box and therefore are not easily linked to Kamar - they are more complex to assess and difficult to track.

Therefore I believe that Vocational Pathways need to be just another tool in our teachers' tool kit along with things like elearning, literacy and numeracy strategies, Ka Hikitia, SOLO, being creative Creativity is the key to education etc etc that we use to engage our students so that they attend, learn and achieve in a wide variety of areas of life.

Let's not got so hung up on this as the be all and end all to our senior students' education - it is not. It is A tool not THE tool.

Saturday 15 November 2014

Leadership philosophy

I believe that to be an effective leader a person has to have high emotional intelligence and trust at heart of everything she does. She has to foster respect and support between students, staff and the local community through creating meaningful relationships. An effective leader has to empower people to believe in themselves and encourage them to do extra–ordinary things. While simultaneously having these traits an effective leader in school has to be pragmatic and aware of the tensions of mediating Government policies while being committed to principles of equity and social justice.

Education philosophy

I have a learner centred philosophy and I believe that all decisions we make should be based on improving the education of all students in school. Firstly, I think that it is fundamental that as a teacher I am aware of my own belief systems and how they affect my relationships with others, including cultural awareness. Secondly, I think that it is vital to create positive relationships with students by understanding that everyone is a unique individual who needs a secure, caring, and stimulating atmosphere. I do this by finding a connection and the use of humour, wherever possible. Thirdly, as a teacher, I see one of my roles as helping young people develop a deep love and respect for themselves, others and their environment. Students should be challenged to become critical thinkers who are willing to adapt to a changing world and we as teachers must take self-responsibility to ensure we keep abreast of changing pedagogies. Fourthly, I believe that students learn best in an atmosphere of ako where teacher and student learn from each other, again based on respect. Finally, I believe that as an educator I need to have productive partnerships with the students’ families, to work together to create the best possible outcome for each young person in this ever changing world.

Wednesday 24 September 2014

Real live AKO

I talk a lot about the concept of ako (on #edchatnz is one example) and how it is essential in education that authentic learning should be between students and teachers and that the transmission of knowledge and skills has to be a two way street. I think that I do this in my classes to some extent. However, even though I listen to students' ideas and take note, change or add to my "world view," use their ideas to teach the concepts to other students or get them to teach other students these concepts, I wanted to challenge myself further - I really wanted to give my students agency well as much as possible within NCEA.

Health education gives students quite a lot of scope and their teachers as well. I was challenged through reading a tweet about students teaching teachers and I thought to myself I have the perfect opportunity to do this - AS 91236 Take action to enhance an aspect of people’s well-being within the school or wider community (level 2, 5 credits). It was important for me to do this within my "normal" teaching as I have a lot of senior classes and want to try and make NCEA more viable for interesting, exciting and real learning. I believe strongly that we should fight the good fight within the system and that although students have to do NCEA we have to make it all about the learning.

Anyway, in this AS students have to do something to make peoples' well being improve. As a PB4L school (first proper year) I felt that one way to reach all students and all staff was to create lesson plans for the form times linked to our key words of respect, resilience and motivation. It was the students choice on what topic they wanted to do. However, through ako (them teaching me what is important for them) and the strong mindedness of some of my students (which I love although it makes my life harder!!) they had their own ideas!

The first group were adamant that they wanted to try and change the uniform so they didn't exactly teach the teachers but met with the BOT to discuss their ideas and the views of the students they had asked in their questionnaires.

The second person wanted to re-vamp our bullying form and that was great as so did I - so she did it in relation to the Ministry's new guidelines. She came and taught our pastoral team how to use the new form and we fed back ideas to her.

Pastoral team

The second group did want to create lesson plans which was great but they wanted to do sexual identity and treating people who are different to us respectfully, which I think was also great but we are a very traditional style school and these PB4L lessons are delivered by the form teachers. Before teaching the teachers the students wrote the lesson plan, created pre and post questionnaire and resources. As it was such a sensisitve subject The students also talked to the Guidance Counselor. They did great - explaining the lessons, talking about why it was important to do, answering questions etc. I did have to after the session field a few comments from teachers especially about the video as it was graphic but it went well and so did the lessons. It made students and teachers think - the most important thing

Love is all you need

Sexual identity lesson plans

The third group (well one girl) also wanted to complete lesson plans but was keen to look at drink driving and talking about how to resist getting into a car with a drunk driver. This links to resilience. She went through her lesson plan, discussed what she wanted them to do and why she chose that path and answered questions.

Resisting getting into a car with someone who has been drinking alcohol

So, what have we learnt?

ME
1. I have learnt (well reinforced the idea) that although giving your students opportunities to lead and choose their own pathways is great, rewarding and how it should be, it is also hard work. It was a stressful week for me - especially as a tough topic. However, one of the most important topics there is

2. It is brilliant for students to come into the staffroom or meetings and be the expert - it is all about their peers so they should have a greater understanding then we do

STUDENT VOICE - a sample of students

1. What did you feel about talking to the teachers/BOT?

ROBERT It was scary but once i got to know the board they are great people to talk and share ideas with.

KATIE It felt like we had control of the problem we were discussing and we felt like that teachers were finally listening to what us students what to say.
BRIE It was okay but our turnout wasn't that great
ELISE I felt pretty comfortable with talking to the BOT in our meeting and the teachers who’s classes we were surveying were very helpful in allowing us to take time out of their work schedule to do so
CORTNEY they were good

2. Do you think they listened to you and followed your ideas?

ROBERT Yes they did greatly and explain why they cant do our ideas and explained why and give as a new idea to work on.

KATIE They listened to us and gave us ideas about what we were doing.

BRIE NO
ELISE The BOT listened to our presentation and ideas and they were very helpful in understanding where we were coming from, offering us compromises when they could not give us what we wanted. The only I had with speaking to them was that they continuously interrupted us when we were doing our presentation even though at the start we asked them to save all questions until we had finished our presentation.
CORTNEY YES

3. What advice would you give other students doing this?

ROBERT Prepare well and be confident towards the people you discus with. Work as a team and have a back up plan.

KATIE Don't be afraid to speak your mind and tell everyone what you think about what you are doing your topic on. And tell them how you actually feel.
ELISE Choose people to work with who you know will get work done and not muck around leaving you to do it all because it would make your meeting with the BOT much easier for all of you and it would be easier for you all to pass your internals.
CORTNEY be confident, its not that scary
BRIE pick a subject that is more likely to happen

4. Did you learn anything from this activity?

ROBERT to be confident towards your group you speaking to and have a back up plan increase it doesn't work. be realistic.

KATIE To not be scared about talking to different people about your problems and to speak up for what you want people to know and think about.

BRIE take more responsibility in doing m wok

ELISE I learnt that you can actually make a significant change within a school if you are a student with a school project.
CORTNEY - no

5. Anything to add?

ROBERT nope :)
KATIE Understand what other people are saying and to get there point on the topic listen to what ours options are.
CORTNEY no

TEACHER VOICE

· Plus – great for them and us

· Minus – none

· Interesting – fosters communication, models the idea that we are all learners, encourages students to take responsibility for their own learning

Seemed to be a little awkward ---for both!?

· Need to get/canvas the students' perspective?

· Maybe a more "neutral" area should be considered?

· Good but it scares the crap out of the students!

· I really enjoyed the students coming into the staff room teaching us. It would have taken them so much courage and confidence to get up and do that! I couldn't even imagine doing that at my school when I was a student! I think it made it more relevant because they had put it all together themselves.
Overall- awesome!!!

fine with me

Monday 25 August 2014

#edchatnz conference

#edchatnz conference at Hobsonville Point Secondary School

8-9^th August 2014

What is #edchatnz and why as a teacher should I know more?

I discovered #edchatnz (don’t forget the hashtag #) earlier this year when I finally decided to give twitter a proper go. I had had an account for a couple of years but never found my calling – I was already using Facebook personally and loved to try new technology but couldn’t see the point of twitter. However, a couple of young teachers at school had been singing its praises for a while and they seemed to have lots of innovative exciting ideas around pedagogy, so I thought that I would try again!

My attempts to connect with the twitter world would have failed again but I found the #edchatnz community which meets specifically on twitter every second fortnight from 8.30 to 9.30 pm. It is a time to be challenged about a number of issues in education with the central question always– how can we do the best for our students? This is led by the remarkable @MissDtheTeacher otherwise known as Danielle Myburgh who is the host and founder. Although Danielle had been tweeting on international education sites she had found that there was no way to connect to NZ teachers on twitter so she decided to start her own hashtag and #edchatnz was born in 2012.

Danielle told me that she loves twitter because when she uses it she is not limited by her immediate surroundings and has 24/7 support – she is a true global citizen. It might surprise you to know that Danielle has only taught for three years but this is the great thing about true leadership, especially at the grass route level, anyone can do it and she does it in style. She also has the support of her school leaders, including her Principal Mauri Abraham who believes that everyone is a leader, who give her the freedom and support to fly – a message to all school leaders out there.

#edchatNZ conference

The conference was born out of a discussion between Danielle and some of her fellow tweeps (a person’s followers on twitter) a number who had been interacting for two years or so but most had never met! It took the steering committee (from Auckland, Wellington, Hamilton and Christchurch) just 20 weeks to organise the whole conference using Google Hangout and Google aps for education meeting for 30 minutes before #edhchatnz kicked off on a Thursday night. They had decided from the beginning to make it affordable – you could go for $20! All of the presenters, through the steering group’s connections, gave their time freely.

350 people gathered at Hobsinville Point for the opening Keynote. One of the key themes of the conference for me was the idea of the lone nut, check it out on youtube Leadership Most of us don’t work in new build schools with handpicked teams who build and live the school vision but we can still initiate change in our schools – not change for change sake but to improve the learning of our students. We might be the lone nut for a while until we can hopefully encourage someone else to support us or just as importantly we might be the first follower who sees someone in our school trying to be innovative and then stands by them as support.

The conference was about, as Karen Melhuish Spencer from CORE said in her closing remarks, “growing purpose ready learners.” Technology itself is not innovation in schools it is a tool to help create a transformative curriculum. Yes, technology was abundant at the Hobsonville Primary and Secondary schools and we saw students use it (both had a normal school day on the Friday) but there were two common themes in the conference for me. Firstly, social justice through making a real difference and by keeping it authentic and secondly, ways to enable students to critically think and make connections in their learning. I was lucky to see a number of HPSS teachers discussing how they do these things through Project Based Learning, cross curricula themes and SOLO taxonomy to name a few. I also loved Pam Hook, our NZ guru, talking about SOLO and inspiring us all to give students the tools and a common language to improve their critical thinking skills and understanding.

Seeing the political debate between Labour, the Green Party and National, chaired by Claire Amos, was very stimulating. Danielle told me that she loved hearing teachers coming out of the debate saying that it had increased their interest in politics as she believes that we must have a bigger influence in politics if we want a bigger change. However, my own highlight was listening to Kelston Boys High School talking about their Year 12 Health class’ anti bullying programme – it encompassed all of the themes of the conference – what a fantastic group of young people. Follow them on Defeat the Label Facebook page

Final thoughts

It was great, although I must admit slightly strange, to meet other twitter folk for the first time who I follow and who follow me. I think it will make tweeting even better as I can put a real person to the handle. I was especially impressed by teachers who took a day of unpaid leave, paid their own travel accommodation and conference fee because they believed so strongly in #edchatnz and what it stood for. I thank these teachers who care about our young people in NZ so much.

I would also like to thank Danielle and her steering committee for the conference and the Thursday night discussions. I can only say how much I appreciate the intellectual stimulation, innovative initiatives (I have initiated at my school Techie Breakie and students teaching teachers from ideas on twitter), the support when I try to implement ideas and the total positivity. It is great! Thanks to the PPTA ICT committee for paying for me to go – very much appreciated.

If you feel like the only lone nut in your school and/or you’re just looking for a challenge and ideas on how to improve the learning of your students I would encourage all teachers to try twitter and more specifically #edchatnz and its subsidiaries for English, Science and education books and maybe more by the time this article is printed! It doesn't have to be an extra and you don’t have to do anything at first, just watch the Thursday night debate for example. As Danielle astutely said we have to start encouraging and connecting to each other in our own schools and with all schools in NZ if we want to make real change. Give it a go!

Samantha Mortimer

Te Aroha College

@sammortimer70

Wednesday 13 August 2014

Techie Breakie

Okay, another twitter thing but honestly I find lots of great ideas on there. This one was "techie breakie"
First we had our breakie - bagels, cream cheese, orange juice and coffee

Then we had our techie part - using office 365 to ask what staff wanted to do in the future around e learning

Here are our results:

1. Please have a look at the following ideas and rate your learning needs in these areas...

None

Low

High

(%)

Word

(%)

Excel

(%)

Powerpoint

(%)

Outlook

(%)

O365

(%)

Onedrive

(%)

Google Aps

(%)

Twitter

(%)

Kamar

(%)

Mobile Devices

(%)

Programming

(%)

Making Quizes/surveys

Total: 24

2. Any other learning areas you would like to have covered in Techie Breakie?

Pedagogies