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  • Reliability of National Standards Assessments Called into Question

    A recent report has cast doubts over the reliability of teachers’ National Standards assessments and rises in student achievement.

    It found that just 40 per cent of overall teacher judgments (OTJs) matched the ratings generated by the Progress and Consistency Tool (PaCT), a tool developed to improve the consistency of teacher judgments on National Standards assessments.

    The PaCT was launched in schools in last year with a mathematics pilot. The latest report of the National Standards: School Sample Monitoring & Evaluation Project 2010-2013 compared the judgments from the pilot with a selection of teacher judgments finding significant variance.

    In the past, I have expressed interest in PaCT as a way of standardising National Standards a bit more. But it would seem that even with the tool, getting a consistent standard among teachers, and students, is flawed.

    What I find interesting there is a move in education to individual education programmes, individual assessments, and student centred learning initiatives, yet as our main form of reporting and assessment we are putting them in boxes, and grouping them together, using a ‘one-size-fits-all’ grading system and tool.

    What are your thoughts on the PaCT tool? Have you been to any workshops? Have you seen it in action?

  • Teacher Wellbeing – Stop for Lunch

    Teacher Wellbeing – #03

    Stop for Lunch

    One thing that I try and keep is regular. Regular lunchtime, regular lunch.

    If I miss lunch, I become so busy throughout the rest of the day that I usually only realise I’ve missed lunch at about 4pm.

    So I really encourage people to not by martyrs, and take the breaks you’re entitled to. Stop and take time for a break.

     

  • Teacher Wellbeing – Fun in the Workplace

    Teacher Wellbeing – #01

    Fun in the Workplace

    The first of the series of Teacher Wellbeing videos released in July 2015 reminds us to get back to basics in the workplace and have a bit of fun.

    If it’s one thing my current school does well, it’s have a laugh. We’re definitely a special bunch who can give and take humour at all hours of the day. Whether it be a jovial lunchtime discussion about cooked vs. raw cheese, the retelling of a particular hot air balloon story, or particularly ‘blonde’ moments of different staff members, we have for many years learned not to take ourselves seriously.

    But I know that it is not like that in every staffroom. In fact, I’m pretty certain our particular staffroom, however jovial, however crass, is one in a million. We certainly get awkward looks from visitors, who quickly learn to let their guard down a little.

    So if you can, try just one thing from this video and see what happens. The number one rule in my class is ‘Have Fun’!

  • Bill Sole: NZ needs more apprentices | NZ Herald News

    Once again the universities are the big winners in the Budget. Unfortunately, despite international research increasingly pointing to the value of workplace training and apprenticeships, the 2015 Budget…

    Source: Bill Sole: NZ needs more apprentices – Education – NZ Herald News

    The idea of success in education is almost entirely based on academic results leading to university entrance, completion of a degree, and then onto a high paying job in an ivory tower south of Mordor.

    Okay, maybe that’s slightly Tolkien-ised.

    But success can be, and is, so much more than this.

    At the age of 26, my brother took over the business he was working for. Both of us were lucky enough to have parents who were able to send us through private schooling. So we had ‘the best’ of education. Both of us went onto further study – myself heading to art school and then Victoria University to become a teacher. But for my brother, the idea of sitting a) through lectures, and b) in an office, were less than appealing. Instead, he decided to get into something he was interested in. Cars was it.

    From there, he went through polytech, served an apprenticeship, and now is in his third year as a successful business owner. And he is under 30.

    Success.

    But no university qualification. No long hours of study or endless exams. And he’s not stupid, nor academically inept.

    The reason I bring this up is because the current education climate in this country is best summed up in this poem I wrote last term.

    Test, test, test.
    Assess, assess, assess.
    Achieve academically,
    and that is success.

    If this is what success is deemed by, then very few will be determined to be successful. Let us not forget that the likes of the late Steve Jobs, co-founder of Apple – the world’s most valuable company (May 2015) Screen Shot 2015-07-11 at 12.58.00 pm– was a college (NZ calls them ‘universities’) drop out – ie. he left before completing any tertiary qualification. Another rather successful college drop out is one Mark Zuckerberg, who is creator and CEO of a website called Facebook.com. You might have seen it? Zuckerberg has a reported personal wealth of some $38.6 billion (US) at the age of 31. He was a billionaire by the age of 23 – 5 years out of high school. He put himself on a $1 salary in 2013. Screen Shot 2015-07-11 at 1.03.50 pm

    Both of these cases are extremes. Once in a lifetime examples. But examples none the less. Both of these men are undoubtedly what we would deem as successful, in terms of their influence in the world, as well as their personal wealth and the wealth of the companies they ran/run. But according to our current educational climate, they would both be considered failures.

    For me, education is important. But doing what you love to do in life is more important. Getting to the point in education where you can go on and do what you want to do in life is what I would determine to be ‘academic success’. Apprenticeships should not only be supported, but encouraged as a viable means of continuing with educational success, rather than the stigma of what you do if you’re ‘no good at school’, so to speak.

     

  • BYOD – Bring Your Own Distraction

    BYOD – standing for Bring Your Own Device, has been around for a while now; ever since schools opened up their networks and went wireless, students and teachers alike have been able to access the wealth of information that is available on the internet today.

    But as a speaker at Interface Xpo 2014 put it, BYOD is more aptly put as ‘Bring Your Own Distraction’.

    I chuckled, as I’m sure many of you have as well. Then I realised the truth in it.

    When I say ‘Then’; it did take a while. It took two terms of teaching in a 1-to-1 Chromebook classroom of Year 3-4 students to realise that for many the device in front of them was not a learning tool; it was a distraction.
    Instead of harbouring the potential wealth of knowledge available to them, the students were more enamored with watching youtube videos by the bucket load, changing their background picture, and making their Chromebook talk to them. The question “Are we going to use the Chromebooks today?” became almost as common as “Can I go to the bathroom?”. Searches changed from ANZAC Hero’s, to Superhero’s, to Iron Man, Marvel, and at one point which was bound to happen, ‘sexy girls’. Oh for the love of Pete!

    Unless absolute specific tasks are set, the devices become a source of fun and free time, and trouble.

    Let’s face it: these devices are a distraction. And it isn’t an age thing.

    I don’t know how many staff meetings I have ‘missed’ because I was on my laptop organising my calendar or checking emails. I don’t know one single time I have been given a wifi-password at a conference to listen to the speaker and follow their online notes without a Facebook tab opened in the background. All of these distractions are at the core of technology. Because it can do so much, and meet so many ‘needs’, we have become accustomed to accessing and integrating all of these different sources at once. Even as I sit here writing this, I have two other tabs open, my phone next to me with Facebook and Twitter updates coming through, and Stephen Fry Gadget Man playing on the TV in the background. And this has become my norm.

    Distractions.

     

    Upskill the Distractions

    I was then disheartened by the following report about tech in schools.

    In it, we hear from the Education Council about upskilling teachers to keep up with the technology. “A recent government survey showed only 14 percent of teachers felt they were up to speed on using digital devices for learning. The Education Council wants to see more opportunities for teachers to up-skill.”

    There are some initial issues with this. Firstly, many classrooms, schools, etc. do not have the resources for “tech” classrooms. I know for the class I am in with 1-to-1 Chromebooks, that large amounts of money have been put into making it a reality. The reason I got the task, is because I am tech savvy, much more so than any other teacher in the school. Without blowing a trumpet of any kind, I would put myself in that top 14% of teachers in terms of technology know-how or capability.

    So why does this article dishearten, rather than invigorate? Surely I should be at the forefront, championing the likes of Taupaki School?

    I find myself somewhat over it. Maybe I’ve just given up on the use of technology in the classroom. Maybe it’s just too big, too fast to keep up with. Maybe it is just because the age of students I am teaching, in that technology for practical use is a few years away for them. Maybe because most of my technology learning has been self taught, and most of our students are self taught with technology as well. Maybe I’m just coming at this from my primary school teacher point of view. I don’t know. At this stage in their life, technology is for entertainment purposes. Maybe for secondary teachers, the upskilling to use technology throughout their classes would be more beneficial, and might be what the article is really getting at. But for me, if these students are going to be using and learning the technology anyway, why should schools put financial pressure on themselves, why should teachers upskill to try and be cool for the kids by ‘speaking their language’. Are going too far to bend over backwards for students, rather than the other way around?

    But it concerns me when a teacher in the video says the kids don’t want to go outside at lunchtime. Does this not create further ammunition for the ‘childhood obesity epidemic’ scaremongers? This is a whole other debate which I won’t get into here.

    It concerns me that we know how quickly technology moves, and we have no idea where it will take us, or the skills that students will need in the future. But no doubt they’ll cope. Why does teaching need to be at the forefront of all things technology? For decades, teachers and classrooms have been decades behind the rest of the world. While offices were getting filled up with beautifully fast, glamourous Macbook Pro’s, schools were left back in the 90’s with iMacs clogging up desk space. A scientific calculator was about as BYOD as it would come. Why is there a sudden need to ‘keep up’ with the kids, rather than focussing on teaching (and them learning) the ‘basics’; such as spelling; such as handwriting; such as mixing paint colours, adding and subtracting in our heads, catching and throwing, or even how to make friends, keep friends, show resilience, or learn respect? Do we need an app to teach students to read? Will methods that have been tried and true for decades and decades, and taught us to read, work just as well for students? Or have students become too addicted to ‘entertainment’ that if it’s not a fun game, then I don’t want to do it.

    It concerns me when “This tsunami of digital kids just keeps coming through our system.” is referred to like a natural disaster. We are essentially creating this ourselves. We enable our students by providing these opportunities under the guise of engagement, when really, we’re creating dependency for screens, an addiction to devices. Do they need it? Or is it a distraction from real learning. Yes, I can show you evidence that technology in and of itself motivates and engages students. The very comment earlier about kids not wanting to go out demonstrates this. But at what cost? And is motivation and engagement enough if there is no learning, or not the right learning associated with it. I guess this comes back to having learning specific tasks.

    I always had a bit of a joke when someone would ask about whether we should go ‘BYOD’. I would respond with once students can bring their own lunch, then you can start to worry about them bringing their own device.

    I would appreciate some input on this issue. As you can probably tell, I’m still trying to formulate my standpoint on this one. On the one hand, I love technology and want to share that passion with my students. On the other hand, I have seen technology distract from real learning, and seen schools getting away from the basics of learning. Please feel free to comment your thoughts below and I will look into including more thoughts into this article.

     

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  • The Choice Classroom

    Choice. Urban slang; originally spoken in New Zealand, is used as a pun at the way New Zealanders speak. Used as description of something you think is good. Synonyms: radical, wicked, awesome, brilliant, best-thing-ever.

    It describes a classroom that I want to be a part of. But more than the above description, choice also means the enabling of being able to choose between two or more options. This is my classroom.

    What choice means in the classroom

    Choice is valuing students as individuals.

    Choice is students working independently at their own level, at their own pace.

    Choice is students working on what they want to work on.

    Choice is motivating. Choice is engaging. Choice is inspiring.

    Students who can choose their activity, the way they present their work, the time or place that they do their work, and even their consequence or behaviour management, become much more learning oriented purely because they have control over it. Powerlessness is the leading cause of burn-out, and not having control is key to this feeling of powerlessness. In regards to being able to choose their learning, what they do when, and how they present it, means that students have an investment to the learning ahead of them and are automatically motivated because the choice has been theirs. Even with choosing consequences or behaviour management, students become more self-disciplined as they have been able to have an active part of the process.

    A very interesting article looks into the issues surrounding choice in the classroom. ‘Choices for Children: Why and how to let students decide‘ says “At least one recent study has found that children given more “opportunity to participate in decisions about schoolwork” score higher on standardized tests; other research shows that they are more likely than those deprived of autonomy to continue working even on relatively uninteresting tasks. There is no question about it: even if our only criterion is academic performance, choice works.”

    How choice works in the classroom

    Firstly, this is an almost inexhaustible list of ways you can use choice in your classroom. This certainly isn’t anything major, but there are some examples that follow that I use in my classroom. They work, and I can vouch for them with my given experience.

    The first hurdle is doing it. You have to make a conscious decision, or choice, to include it in your classroom.

    Then begin introducing choice in the following ways:

    Presentation

    Presentation is one of the easiest ways to allow students to have choice in the classroom. Instead of saying “Make a poster” for the latest bit of topical research, say “Make a poster, or a power point presentation”. Students will make the choice based on their strengths, though many will choose the slideshow option because of the allure of technology. Additional choices could include a class speech, a short video, a diorama, a 3D model, a hanging mobile, a book, a pamphlet, or a webpage.

    Tic-Tac-Toe

    No, not naughts and crosses. Tic-Tac-Toe are nine related activities that require the use of different skills or intelligences. Students choose three activities in a row in order to complete the task. I used these to good effect as a reading follow up task, where students would choose activities as a follow up to the text that they read with me. A good Tic-Tac-Toe will have three different activities in each three-in-a-row possibility. One might include an aspect of drawing, one an aspect of writing, and a third might include a worksheet.

     

    Daily 5

    The game changer for me when it came to choice was initiating Daily 5 in my classroom. Daily 5 allows students to choose the activity they work on, selecting from the five options of read to self, read to someone, listen to reading, work on writing, and word work. These each have rules and guidelines decided on by the class, and so rather than students being put in a group, read a set book, do a follow-up worksheet as a daily rotation, students have these five literacy activities that they get to choose from. Essentially, rather than have a group rotation of activities, students choose from the activities based on what they want to do at the time. Rather than students doing a worksheet they don’t want to do, they might choose to do some word work where they practise their spelling words. Or rather than being forced to read with the teacher, they might choose to read to someone instead. What this means is individualised learning, where the teacher can conference with students during the time, and students are motivated because they are choosing their learning.

    Inquiry Learning

    One of the big pushes in education over the last 3 years has been the idea of ‘Inquiry’, where students learn what they want to learn about. Inquiry essentially replaces what used to be called ‘Topic’. Topic was teacher decided, with learning activities and experiences made up and put into the unit plan to scaffold students to a set destination. Using Inquiry changes all that to the students. While curriculum areas still need to be covered, a ‘big idea’ is come up with by the teacher, syndicate, or school, sometimes with student input, and then the rest is left up to the students, especially in regards to what they want to find out about the big idea, and how they want to go about finding it out, and what they’re going to do with their new found knowledge. Completely student focussed. Completely student motivated.

     

    So that’s how you start. The options are limitless. The choices endless.

    What a choice classroom!

     

  • Listen to Reading

    One thing I have always been an advocate for is reading to the students. Most days I will set aside 10-15 minutes for this, if not more. With this ‘Listening Post’ so to speak, however, students have texts read to them aloud whenever they want.

    Listening Post with my class has been the introduction of headphones and Ministry provided MP3’s on our web server for students to access. With this, I have gathered the selection of Ready to Read texts along with them, and have created boxes in my classes for these books to sit in.

    Students choose the book, then look up the MP3 on the web server, and push play. Easy as that.

    Listening to reading is supported by various readings around different literacy sites. ‘The power of reading and listening‘ by Warren Ediger says “Scientific research tells that most of our fluency – our ability to use a language – comes from what we read and hear.” In addition to this, ‘Learning through listening‘ states “Supported reading is reading with the support of recorded materials. Individuals read along with the novels or textbooks while they listen to the verbatim recording of the same material. When students are engaged in supported reading, they no longer have to labor over every word. Instead, they can read at a comfortable pace that allows them to acquire the information contained in the text.”, which I think sums up my feelings on the assistance that being able to listen to the text brings for these students.

    What I have noticed is that all students engage with this more than they would with just a book on its own. It works regardless of ability, and struggling readers are not only reading with their eyes, but hearing the words decoded for them and the language is being learned on multiple levels.

  • A picture is worth a thousand words

    Today an article crossed my desk which was ultimately concerning. I didn’t like it. Partly it was written because of that feeling. But moreover, it seems to add credibility to the research completed by Dr. Protheroe which seemed to suggest that pictures in books hindered the ability for students to learn to read, rather than enhanced. When this research was announced, I immediately made a post (Picture Books and Literacy Learning) to express my opinion on it. I encourage you to visit it and have a read.

    The article in question is Uncomfortable, Unthinkable Research Findings by Jessica Craig, and is written in response to an article in Education Review. Craig is one of the education consultants at Accent Learning, one of the former Ministry appointed professional development providers in the Wellington area before they cut funding.

    What is most concerning is that Accent is still widely regarded as a solid education learning provider for teachers. And yet Craig, along with others (I suspect), has failed to miss the flaw in the research carried out. Her main question seems to be “why isn’t more being made of this research!?”. Basically, why aren’t we telling new beginning teachers to take twink to the Ready to Read books in every school!?  (Once again;cause for concern – Accent Learning operates out of Victoria University’s Karori Campus; which is, surprise surprise, where they train teachers!)

    Now I’m no researcher, but I have done my time in many a math and statistics class through high school, and I know how important sample size is.

    The sample size for this research is – wait for it… 48.

    Yes. 48. Not even 50.

    To give you an idea of what 48 equates to. It is two average sized classrooms of 7-9 year olds.

    Two classrooms. Probably from one school.

    If we based every bit of research on that, we’d probably find all sorts of anomalies we’d then prioritise and force upon the entire nation! Consider the fact that these 48 students have probably had the same teachers as each other from the age of five. They probably have similar home lives, and might be completely different from a school down the road, let alone at the other end of the country. The fact is, there is not enough evidence within two classrooms of students to even remotely suggest anything; especially a claim that pictures in books hinder students reading progress.

    Further more, the research is based on only four texts. Two with pictures, two without. Probably only one fiction and one non-fiction for pictures and without pictures. Once again, hardly a comprehensive range of texts to base one’s research on. Who is to say that those texts were appropriate, relevant, needed pictures, had appropriate pictures, or that the questions were understood or allowed for child interpretation?

    In addition to this; I refer to a point I made in my previous article about this topic. I’d hesitate to say; but I’d say it’d be pretty accurate; that of the people that can read (of which you are one!), that you learned to read using books with pictures. So they can’t be that bad, as you, and generations before and after you have also learned to read using pictures. I would also suggest that those people that can’t read, that pictures in the books has little to do with the reason why they can’t read.

    Unlike Jessica Craig, I can completely understand why there has been no debate over this research. Its because the majority of us have worked out it’s a waste of time, resourcing, and energy. Quite frankly; it’s bogus. Until there is substantial evidence to the contrary, I shall remain in favour of the wonderful illustrations that grace the pages of picture books and sparks the imagination and inspiration of the younger generations as they explore the world of words and stories.

     

  • Copyright for New Zealand Teachers

    So this week I was introduced to a concept that I was completely unaware of as a teacher.

    And by concept, I mean law.

    As a creative, I have different fingers in different creative exploits including art, photography, web design, and music. Needless to say I thought I was rather familiar with the rules around copyright. Especially in it’s purpose to protect the creator of the work in question. I’m very familiar with the understanding that anything created for a company or corporate, being paid for by the company or corporate, then the company or corporate hold the copyright for that work, unless otherwise agreed upon. However as a teacher, I feel it’s slightly different, especially since so much “personal” time is invested in creating resources, planning lessons, or creating avenues of learning.

    However, I was completely unaware that under the 1994 New Zealand Copyright Act, schools fall into the same sort of category as a company or corporate; meaning that the copyright to works that teachers create is owned by the Board of Trustees. This means that, when teachers share, collaborate, and take resources they’ve made from one job to another without the Board’s express permission, they’re breaking the law.

    This is slightly concerning. I know of many teachers who have moved around to different teaching positions. It happens all the time. I know of at least 7 teachers who have moved in and/or out of at my current school during my 6 years there. It is also concerning given the nature of teaching, and teacher willingness to share, collaborate, and work together to have a greater impact on the world around them, by influencing and helping other colleagues, whether they be at the same school, the school down the road, or the school at the other end of the country.

    In different conversations around this, I received an email from Carolyn Stewart, who has been a principal for many years, and is now involved with Network 4 Learning. In it she explains the law very clearly and concisely in a way that if most laws were written like, the majority of us would have some chance of actually understanding them!

    She says:

    “The copyright for any teaching and learning resources, that is clearly linked to the daily employment of the resource creator, whether in school time or not belongs to the Board of Trustees who are their employer…  A teacher should only share resources outside their school boundary with the permission of their Board of Trustees – this includes taking resources when they move from school to school. Practically this is quite difficult to manage as we all know that deep within NZ teachers’ DNA is the propensity to share with others to improve learning for all NZ children.”

    Many schools and teachers do not realise this. I was one of them.

    TKI outlines it very clearly for teachers – but obviously we are incredibly busy and don’t like to use our time trawling through every webpage on TKI. In the page about Teachers and contractors copyright, it says

    As I did a little more investigating, it raised more and more questions.

    • How does this work for the Registered Teacher Criteria, that requires teachers to gather evidence of meeting the requirements of an effective teacher? Am I able to take this portfolio of my work with me and use it in another teacher role?
    • How does this work with templates or reports we have developed and shared with other schools, and vice versa?
    I do find it all very interesting and I believe many teachers will need to know this, especially when they come to the job or leave the job. Essentially the BOT could ask for all materials, resources, templates, planning from a teacher when they leave.
    I’m not saying they would.
    But I am saying they could, by law.
    I guess as a teacher, I don’t want to leave my current school and have to start from complete scratch again because I developed my own planning templates, lessons, resources, printables and others under my current school’s banner.
    As I see it, the school pays for my time as a teacher; not necessarily for the things I make for myself to help me teach.
    Beyond this, we already know the lines between being paid as a teacher and personal time are blurred beyond anything Robin Thicke can come up with. So where does the Board of Trustees ownership begin and end? Is a lesson I create at home automatically property of the school? What about something else, say, an artwork? Obviously we would say it has to be teaching related.
    Okay – so what about this article? Or any of the countless other articles I’ve written about teaching? Are they owned by the school, even though I’ve written them all in my own time? There seems to be more questions than answers!
    This is different to things resources like equipment that the school buys. The topic of resources leads to another interesting conundrum.
    If I purchase equipment, resources, or even software personally, I’m allowed to take those with me. They belong to me.
    If the school purchases equipment and resources etc., obviously they stay with the school.
    If I created a resource (because I’ve seen something and reckon I could do a better job making it instead of buying it) surely that’s me saving my own and/or the schools money. Because let’s face it, if the case is any resources I need I can’t take with me, then I’m going to be charging the school for. Why would I bother making it myself? If it’s staying at the school because of copyright, then I may as well purchase an existing (albeit inferior) one.

    The Solution?

    To me there is a very obvious solution to this conundrum the copyright law have left teachers in. Rather than having to ask permission of each and every Board of Trustees I work with in my career as a teacher, my suggestion would be for each school Board of Trustees to make permission to take ‘Teacher made’ resources a policy of the school. This would be a relatively simple statement waiving the right to withhold teachers taking their own resources, materials, planning, units, with them. As copyright holders, they can make the rules of who is allowed to use the copyrighted material or not. By making it open and allowing teachers to do so would be a very welcome policy in most schools, I would suggest.

    What others are saying

    So, the usual process when something like this comes up, is I hit Google and do a bit of a search to see what others are saying about this issue I previously knew nothing about.

    Most interestingly, only a year ago, this article slipped through the news. In it, Matt McGreggor of Creative Commons in New Zealand says

    “There’s a real absurdity in most schools at the moment where teachers don’t hold the copyright to their resources,” he said. “What that means is that teachers who share all the time are breaching the copyright of their board of trustees.

    “Every school in New Zealand should fix that problem by passing a Creative Commons policy.”

    So even those who work in the copyright industry say that the rule is stupid, but there is a very simple solution, similar – if not better – to the one I suggested earlier.

    Covering all the aspects of this is a webpage created by Creative Commons that outlines all that I discovered in the course of this article. It outlines the issues, as well as advocates on behalf of teachers for all boards to make a policy change so that Teachers are able to legally share their resources or take them with them as they move to another school. They have even created a template, making it easy for boards to implement a new policy.

    With it, they have made a couple of videos as well.

    I know for me, I will have to add another item to the next Board of Trustees meeting agenda.

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