2015 - More & Less

Since I have had a lot of down time these holidays (no massive tripping around being adventurous). So I have been doing a lot of reflecting and thinking. Kind of goal setting in my head - I've been meaning to find some way to record my thinking. I did consider doing a vision board - after my Mum posted something on my Facebook page. But my lazy holiday self didn't want to go to school to find all my magazines, and other craft supplies!

After reading : http://chched.blogspot.co.nz/2015/01/happy-new-year-bring-on-2015.html 

I realised my blog is a perfect place to record my thinking. I need to use my blog more! 

Bridget wrote about the things she wanted to do more and less of in the Classroom - I think this is an excellent concept - which I am going to steal for the purpose of focusing my thinking. I have already written a long list of things I know I want to do - and have even managed to find a few less! 

My goals for 2015 are:

For the love of Writing

2014 was a year of trying to convince my lovelies that there was a reason to write. With 30 kids having 30 different ideas about what writing is about, and why we need to write it felt like an uphill battle.

I don't consider myself a writer - heck I hated writing at school - so I know where they were coming from with their complaints about why we had to do speeches, why we had to write explanations and why we had to write persuasively. When we finally got to term 4 and narrative writing they were worn out.

I attended Lane Clark workshop (http://www.laneclark.ca/) in the September holidays - and felt she was speaking my language. She talked about inquiry not just being about students independently, self managing mucking about. It struck a chord - I had many self managing students - a guess a few were probably mucking about. She said give them the knowledge, give them a reason and a purpose to learn! Lane also spoke about cognitive overload - and how when we let our students inquire they often get overwhelmed and click on multiple pages, click, click, click...and have no way of knowing what information is the right information for them.

You know when you go on PD and the whole time you're thinking I can't use that - this isn't just in time learning for me - we're doing stats next term and they are talking about algebra. Lane's first example on the course, was writing narratives specifically picture books to send to students in Africa who lived without books. This matched our term themes perfectly - Narrative for writing, and social studies links, especially with our new cyber safety program and Keeping ourselves Safe - all the morals in fairy tales really linked in for me.

Thus started the journey of  30 year 7 students to becoming published authors. 

I followed her advice:

I used Task Cards to give the students clear outlines of what I wanted them to investigate - with a maximum of 4 tasks to complete. I gave them Thinking Charts that clearly outlined the information needed. Then we read picture books, we read fairy tales, we watched Hoodwinked - a fairytale mashup (they asked me if it was ok they were watching movies in week 1 of the term!)

We compared, contrasted, completed think charts and really pulled them to pieces - what did they all have in common, what was the first line on the story, what was the last line... What did the characters act like, was the a commonality? Our school magically had Rapunzel production visit in week 2 of the term - and it  too was a mashup fairy tale. Perfect! We used our IT suite sessions to look into the history of fairy tales, and the purpose or morals behind them.

Suddenly they understood the structure and purpose for writing narrative.

They asked questions all the way along - and there was no small questions, thick, thin - they all got recorded and answered.  This was a big deal for me - I hadn't realised the importance of answering ALL questions. 

Some of the questions they asked:

What is the most expensive picture book?

When was the first fairy tale published?

What fairy tale is the best? Most popular for 12year olds?

What is the most common first line, last line in a fairy tale? ( Once upon a time.....and they all lived happily ever after)

Who should we write for? Answers - Kids our age - 12 year olds!

What do 12 year olds like to read? Answers - Adventure, mystery, blood, guts, Zombies, things that aren't the way they should be, funny things

What is the difference between Fantasy and FairyTale

Who needs to laugh? Answers - sick or sad kids

That led to a conversation about writing books and illustrating it ourselves. We had looked at picture books in the first term, and had continued reading one a week - so they thought themselves experts. Room 9 decided as a whole (democratic votes all the way!) that they wanted to complete individual books with their audience being sick 12year olds - at StarShip Hospital - their idea was that when you're sick, you can't read a whole novel, so short stories or picture books would be ideal - but they felt that there aren't many aimed at their age group. They had a purpose and an audience.

I decided to do a bit of the leg work, as it was Week 3 Term 4 - and we were off to camp in Week 9. This didn't leave much time for kids doing all the work. I googled - Self Publishing - then Self Publishing NZ and found a small publishing house in Nelson. They answered the phone - and listened to my story. Dave offered us a great deal - which meant students would have to do all the leg work including choosing the font, doing the set out and cover design. I am beyond grateful for all the help they gave my class! 

This lead to a whole lot more questions - 

What type of fonts are there? (We learnt what Sans Serif means)

What is the easiest to read? 

How do books get set out? How big is the margin?

and many many more....

We use Google Apps for Education, and Harapa teacher dashboard. This task would have been a bit of a longer processes without Google Docs. I was able to drop into students work -  make comments, share video tips on how to correctly use speech marks and other tricky punctuation. I had students working at level 2 with little correct punctuation prior to this experience, who were now using speech marks and ellipsis correctly (and knowing the dot dot dot was called an ellipsis!) 

Each student had to share their work with three other classmates for 'Audience check'  - did their intended audience like what they had written - and laugh at the right places? They then self edited and sent to me for feedback. I have never had ALL of the students in my class want feedback generally there is always someone who fails to share their work - and I have to go on a mission to find their work and give them feedback. Once we decided their stories would be published - in a real life book - they went nuts! I had students emailing me after school, on weekends, and coming in at 8.30am to type up their work they had written over night. They would reply to my comments asking for 1:1 time with me, or for clarification. 

The students set themselves a deadline, and with a lot of hard work and encouragement of each other they achieved what I had thought was impossible. Completed pieces of writing ready for the final proof copy deadline set by the publishers. All illustrations were completed by students by hand. They were then scanned and added to the book document  - There was a class vote for the cover art work. 

The back cover has a blurb written by a small group of students, the inside cover has a collage of all the authors photos. 

The Proof Copy! 

Our proof copy arrived five school days before we went to camp - at the end of week 7. The students all had a chance to read their work and decide if there was any changes that needed to be made. By no means is this book perfect. I know there are parts that need editing - but decided this was their book and they needed to take ownership. 

This set of another wave of excitement - as a small group of girls decided we needed to have a book launch and signing. The girls gave themselves a set of jobs to complete for this next tight deadline. Planning and organising an event in 5 days. They designed an invitation, dealt with the guest list and RSVP's, they spoke to the school Librarian about hosting the event after school hours in the library. They even wrote a press release - contacted the local book store and newspapers. 

Books all ready for the book launch 50 copies - PRESOLD! 

The party! 40 guests, and kai to celebrate! 

For those who would like a sneak peek - http://goo.gl/8kmSOO

If you would like to order a copy of "Twisted Tales for 12year olds" please contact rmoran@bohally.school.nz 

Digital natives, digital creators ...illiterate writers?

The Knew Illiteracy - North&South October 2014 

"If teachers themselves aren't confident to teach writing skills, you're going to have problems." 

(Jonathan Anderson -director of Kip McGrath) 

This worries me, as someone who over thinks things, I spent a lot of time agonising over my spelling ability before I started teachers college. Do I need to be able to write and spell to be a teacher? Do I need to understand all parts of speech, the correct use of the apostrophe and what an Oxford comma is? 

Jo Morris president of New Zealand association for Teachers of English states essays she wrote in the 1970's and that received excellence then are not up to current levels of deep thinking we expect from students now.  I agree, due to conceptual education we have moved on from writing recounts of our holidays and are now expecting students to inquire into the world around them and report, narrative or explain that world. 

Should we let kids go with their content and ideas or should we drill them with punctuation, grammar and spelling? There is also the debate of should we teach handwriting?

This article argues both sides of the debate. Students in 2014 are creative thinkers but lack the skills to write in correct sentences. Society is craving creativity yet we consistantly judge students on the surface features of their writing. Spelling, hand writing and grammar are all things that can be fixed by a word processor. By the time students get to us in year 7 what changes can we make to their atrocious unreadable handwriting? Students often say when asked what their goal is in writing they say they want to improve their handwriting. 

There is research to prove more text is being written and read than ever before, however most if it is concise and web-based. We should encourage students to read more traditional texts, such as novels, but also share and model concise digital web-based texts that are well written. 

Next term I plan on teaching my class cyber-safety and look at how we communicate now and in the past. I want them to view and analyse blogs, tweets and status updates and determine what makes them 'good' just like we would with exemplar pieces of writing. I will attempt to ensure our own are grammatically correct.

Term 3 Reflection

My reflection this term was taken from

http://kidsedchatnz.blogspot.co.nz/ 

My class completed it as well. 

1. What have you learnt about in term 3? Has it been easy or difficult to learn? Why?
   I have learnt many things this term. It has been a roller coaster. I have struggled at times to keep things straight in my head. I have learnt that the hardest part of my job isn't the planning, or organisation or the kids - it is the working with adults, and leading. 
2. What is something (eg a sport, hobbies, cultural etc) that you have learnt outside of school? Why do you do take part in these activities? I have learnt a lot about science. I am studying and currently doing really well. I have had 3 A's this term even though I have been busy with school science fair, and managing my work load. 
3. What words would you use to describe term 3 for you and your class? Busy, learning, happy. It is a good place to be in room 9. Generally we are happy, and get on. There has been a few issues with girls - but that has settled down again. 
4. What praise has your teacher given you this term? I am horrible at giving myself praise. I beat myself up when things aren't going the way I want them to. I have been told by other teachers that I am doing a good job. 
5. What has been one challenge that you have faced in term 3? How have you beaten this challenge? There have been many challenges this term. Science fair was a big one. It was about dealing with the unknown, and managing that. Dealing with staff - and having to be a leader and confront people about things not being done correctly. Also talking to people about 
6. Did you have any goals for term 3? How did you achieve them? My goals are usually very large, and I tend to over plan for the term. I didn't acheive everything I wanted to. However my students did work towards some really aceheivable authentic tasks for inquiry. I love how they really embraced the feedback I gave them after science fair and took off on their own journey, questioning themselves, and making sure they asked questions of others. 
7. What advice do your teachers, friends and families give you about learning? What does it mean?  Learning never stops, this has been something I have always known. I am a curious person, and google is really my friend. I read non-stop, and so does my family. I am very grateful to them for the love of learning, and the love of books, reading and knowledge. 
8. What goals or aims do you have for term 4 and how do you plan to achieve them? Term 4 I want to plan a unit without trying to worry about what I need to fit in school curriculum wise. I am worried about this - I know time is short again but I think I can have some authentic positive learning experiences for my students. I am also really looking forward to Adventure week - white water rafting is going to be REALLY cool. 
9. What do you think you will be doing in 10 years and what will you be learning? In 10years I hope still to be a classroom teacher. Possibly a team leader - but I love the time I spend with my class. I would potentially want to teach at a small rural school sometime - but I still love the idea of an intermediate and how it challenges students at a time in their lives they are challenging the norms in their lives. Potentially I could be studying towards my masters - although I think I will be doing my own Dora Explorer  as per normal. 
10. What does it mean to be a life long learner and why is this important? I strongly believe that learning never stops. Technology changes around us so fast that it is impossible for anyone to stop learning - if you want to participate in society you need to be willing to learn new ways of doing things. I for one will not ever stop learning, exploring and going on adventures. 

Why I use twitter

Twitter used to be a place here I could see what my favourite celebrity was wearing, and thinking. It was a place to be a voyeur. Always watching, forever silent. I'm not entirely sure where I turned towards Twitter as an educational tool. I do remember why I started using it at school for my class. I had a "lovely" year 8 class, that had no passion for writing. They didn't see the point, they had no audience other than me, and writing had no purpose. They admitted only likeing writing if it was a text message, or a Facebook post. I wanted to give them an audience, and a social media platform that was relveant and real to them. I needed to give them an authentic reason to write. I couldn't use Facebook - it was blocked very rightly by our schools filter system. So @room9_BIS was launched. It was a way to share, and give them an audience. I thought they would be much more excited about using Twitter at school than they were. We tweeted a few things. Then radio silence fell. It was a bit of a fail for me. I felt that I had chosen something exciting for them, and their reaction was lack luster. I wrote it off after having to run it all myself. 

Looking back I wasn't ready to let it go, and give my students free range with social media. I decided to wait for the start of the school year, so I could start day 1 and make it rountine, expected and the norm. 2014 started with a bright faced, excited bunch of Y7 students. One of the first things we did was tweet how we were feeling. Once again I took control. I had to set expectations and be sure they were safe online before taking off the training wheels.

Whilst exploring our twitter feed as part of "@room9_BIS Twitter 101" we came across @mathspirates and the Maths like a Pirate challenges. Again we started tweeting, this time using the pirate challenge as our purpose for tweeting. They gave us a reason and an audience. This time I let go. I logged our classroom iPads onto our class twitter account and let them go after a brief chat about how we should act on Twitter. I was expecting one of them to slip up, make a mistake...but nothing. We have been using twitter in the classroom for most of the year and students have our class account signed in on their personal devices and there have been no issues. 

We communicate weekly with classes, educators and experts around New Zealand and the world. I would say daily, but sometimes we get busy. Inquiry presentations are easy to share - one click and then students are linked with a scientist or author. They ask questions, share exciting events or just write concise book reviews.

Personally I have a digital learning network I can ask questions of, or find resources of note. I personally and professionally using Twitter after the GAFE Sumit in Auckland earlier this year. I eventually want to become a Google Certified Teacher - advice given at the summit was you need to share and collaborate as part of a community, why not start already via Twitter. Thus ending my vouyerisum and started my fledgling status as a tweeter. Nothing like a little incentive to get people moving. 

Rita Pierson: Every kid needs a champion | TED Radio Hour on NPR

I relate to this video. I think it is extremely important to have relationships with our students. I am not there to make friends with my students, however I am there to make them feel comfortable, safe and happy at school.



I teach because I want students to learn, and to be happy with their learning. I think my job is to:



Help students not afraid to take risks.

Never give up on them

Help them be the best that they can possibly be

Challenge students thinking, and help them to step outside of their comfort zone.

Dyslexia - the strengths

Instead of focusing on the negative the struggles and standards they are failing - I am always trying to persuade students in my class that they have strengths they need to use to their advantage.

As a teacher I see many students struggling, not all have labels that explain their difficulties, or have files of strategies that help them. My main goal and philosophy as a teacher is that school should be a place that students want to be. In order to achieve this I ask students regularly about what they want to learn, and how they best learn. Most students know what they want to know more about, and what they love to do. I just need to make these things fit the curriculum in our tight and busy timetable. 

Dyslexic students are usually creative thinkers. They often solve problems in ways that other students haven't even thought of. 

Things that my students have been excessively good at include drawing, using devices to take photos and annotate, comic books, hands on tasks, and project based learning. Inquiry is often an area that allows our students who struggle to fly. They have questions, and find their own way to answer them. 

I know some of my statements are generalisations, and are based on my own experiences as a learner with difficulties and my brothers experiences at school as a dyslexic student.