Ian Taylor: Keynote speaker

I listened to an excellent speaker on Friday. Ideas that made me think...

- If someone asked him to do something he thought I can't see why not

- Innovative while we do the work using a No. 8 wire approach

- We are on an unbroken line to the world

- Creating environment that remove boundaries

- Attitudes - power of thinking

- It's not in our culture to write

How can we use these ideas to create excitement and innovation schools and classrooms?

Currently, we are providing learners with opportunities to lead events that they wish to organise (Spelling Bee, Pet Day, School Lunches). Now we need to continue to drive learners to innovate to make our community a better place. Ensuring that all the learners have the opportunity to be a part of this is also important.

Karen Boyes Webinar

I have just listened to a webinar about Mindset and Motivation. Here are the things that I took away from this.
 
If you help a butterfly out of its cocoon it will die.

I think the challenge how do we move learners from their comfort zone into their learning zone?  

Karen suggests the following ideas :
= Explicitly teaching the learning pit
= Using the learning depositions to teach the strategies to get out of the pit.
= Reframing mistakes as learning experiences and sharing the different types of mistakes
 
= Having a safe place to take risk

=Encourage responsible risk taking by talking with learners about the avoidance strategies they use when learning get tough and having clear goals with learners
= Celebrating the process as well as the outcome of learning and look for growth of learner explicitly.

Ideas that I am going to try:

- When learners are sharing their ideas, I am going to only thank them only for their idea and continue to ask for ideas until all learners have offered ideas.
- Be explicit about the strategies (learning dispositions) you can use to break through the wall in the pit of learning
-
Reinforce the above statement using walking or biking your bike as a reference,

What is learning?

As part of our review into our charter, we are going to inquire about what children, teachers and whanau think learning is over the next 2 weeks.

Firstly draw a picture about how learning happens for children.  Thinking about:

• Participants           e.g. who helps me learn?

• Interactions            e.g. how do they help me learn?

• Data flow            e.g. how do I know what I need to learn, why?            

• Learning tools      e.g. what supports me to learn? Why?

• Sites of learning   e.g. where do I learn best? Why?

Here is Room 5's thinking about Growth mindset

Fixed	Growth
Gives up Not Yoda Thinks that they’re too good for learning anything new Disconnecting Neurons Doesn’t try Doesn’t go in the pit of learning Sees mistakes as failing Says: “I can’t” “I don’t know what to do” “I’m not good at it” “It’s too hard”	Making new Connections Doesn’t Give Up Finding out new things New learning Won’t give up Will learn Challenging yourself Finding out new things Feels open to learning Enjoys a challenge Mistakes are part of learning Determination Yoda Keeps trying new ways until they get it Gets into the pit of learning Says “I can do it” “I love a challenge”

Creating Growth Mindset

As I am in Room 5 today, I am going to share with learners about developing neural pathways.  Also, I am going to share how learners can grow their brains.

Creating shared understanding

Yesterday, I went into Room 4 to develop a shared understanding about bullying.  As I had a bit more time,  I showed Room 4 how your brain develops neural pathways.  One learner exclaimed with excited, that's what happening in my brain right now as I am learning about my brain.

Also, we looked at the power of the brain to help us or hinder us in our learning.  Yoda helped us with this.

Findings from Year 5-6 Wellbeing@School

When I analysed the data from Year 5 and 6, learners ideas were very different from our Year 7 and 8.    Almost all learners feel they belonged and mostly their ideas around school wide climate, teaching and learning, community partnership were positive.   The areas that we need to consider pro-social student culture and strategies to continue to develop.  Also, this is an area that  Year 7 and 8 need to develop further.

What's my thinking now?

 After looking at the results of this, I feel that, I need to scan deeper into this issue.  

• My thinking is... what do staff think as a group and as individuals?   As a staff this week, we are going to complete self-review on wellbeing@school both as a group and individually.  
•  Also, I have questions, is this just a Yr 7 and 8 problem or does it go throughout the whole school.  So I have created a survey for Yr 5-6 to complete online.  

Results from Yr 7 and 8 Survey - This is what the data says.

Positives are that many Yr 7 and 8 learners believe:

• Teachers think they can all achieve
• The school teaches behaviours that are ok and not ok
• Whanau feel welcome at school, and teachers and parents respect each other.
• Violent behaviours don't happen very often at school.

The areas that the school needs to be concerned with are that some Yr 7 and 8 believe:

• They don't have a say in what happens at school
• They believe they don't belong at school
• That teachers treat them unfairly
• That learning isn't interesting for them
• They don't safe feel getting to and from school
• That students don't treat others or teachers with respect
• That students let others be hassled and they don't ask others (other students or adults) for help
• That students are bullied at our school

Next Steps

I think that children are focusing on reading as decoding. The mechanics of reading - learning to read rather than reading to learn.  This is the fundamental change that I believe happens in Year 3 or 4 depending on children's reading ability.  

Also, I'm interested in the emotional links to learning. I want to continue to scan further by Year 7 and 8 learners to complete a wellbeing@school survey.  To gain an insight to whether learners have a growth mindset.

Summary of Student Voice

From the surveys, here is what the children are saying.
I find  reading hard when there are:

• Trick words;
• Word I can't sound out;
• Noises or distractions;
• New words I don't know;
• Old books.

Also, when I need to:

• summarise stories;
• think about the picture;
• use a range of strategies.

I need to learn to:

• Know more words;
• Use different strategies to read words;
• Read hard words;
• Explain things in my own words;
• Focus on my work;
• Sound out;
• Read fluently;
• Point to the words;
• Answer hard questions .

To help me read I:

• Sound out or chunk words;
• reread, skip words and /or read on;
• Think what would make sense;
• Ask for help.

Recording learners' voices

Today, I am working with learners to identify their challenges in reading.  Firstly,  the learners are going to draw a picture about how learning happens for them.  Thinking about:

• Participants           e.g. who helps me learn?
• Interactions            e.g. how do they help me learn?
• Data flow            e.g. how do I know what I need to learn, why?            
• Learning tools      e.g. what supports me to learn? Why?
• Sites of learning   e.g. where do I learn best? Why?

Secondly, I am going to talk the learners how their pictures and ask them questions using a google form.