I'm Crossing The Ditch - Again!

Last week was the end of Term 2 and my second to last week being a relief teacher before moving back to New Zealand. I have liked having a more flexible working schedule and a greater work life balance - not having to attend meetings has definitely been the highlight! Once I've gotten past the frustrations of no relief being written for me or literally only "kids are working on their assignment", it's been good meeting a lot of new students and learning bits and pieces from different curriculums. Having more time for myself and exploring more of Australia with my fiancé before moving has also been great! 

When I have had relief classes when I've felt void and the kids are working well (basically glorified babysitting), I've taken the time to smash out a heap of blogposts in hindsight from the last 18 months. I'm stoked I've managed to write 21 (now 22) blogposts over the last 10 weeks while relieving. I hated that my blogging went by the wayside last year when I went back to full time after being part time in 2021. There were likely other experiences that I could have blogged about and have forgotten, but I'm happy and proud with what I have posted and hope that I can get a good rhythm of blogging when I get back to NZ.

Teaching in Australia has been challenging. I've felt that the South Australian curriculum is behind the NZ curriculum (a bit of a step back in time). Of most frustration was how normalised and embedded into everyday language was teachers and students calling Health 'theory' and PE 'practical'. This reallllllllly ground my gears. Across all three schools I attempted to shift this language and the way the teachers and students viewed the subjects. It really related back to and reinforced the old school view of HPE. I really hope I never have to have this conversation again, because I honestly and disappointingly just started to give up the longer I've been here!

My next step is going to be a whole new learning journey. We are moving to the central North Island next month and I will be teaching at Horowhenua College. I'm looking forward to a smaller school and being immersed in a school with a lot of culture - watch this space!

Apparently I Have Learnt A Thing Or Two!

One of my ex students from Orewa is currently studying to become a HPE teacher. One of her papers required her to think about HPE as a subject, teaching HPE and behaviour management strategies. She created a survey to gather information and thoughts from practicing teachers to inform her assignment (and develop her teaching). This naturally made me reflect on my practice and made me realise how far I have actually come! 

Below are my answers to her questions. Although not an exhaustive list, I thought these may help others too (and I wrote my answers while travelling to go on holiday so it was very impromptu!). 

Strategies for creating lessons that are inclusive and socially just:
- Student Choice
- Don't base everything around ''physical ability"
- Don't split by sex EVER
- Include a variety of resources/games/terms from around the world
- Encourage challenge by choice
- Peer teaching

What methods do you use to reflect on teaching?
- Discussions with colleagues
- Blogging
- Student feedback
- Reflecting on my drive home

How do you ensure your teaching is culturally responsive?
- Include opportunities for students to share
- Create a classroom culture that encourages students to step out of their comfort zone
- Include language/customs/traditions from various cultures
- Challenge stereotypes and assumptions
- Have high expectations for all students

What are some of your key behaviour management strategies?
- Play music and if this stops I need the kids' attention
- "If you have a ball, hold it still"
- "Stand still, pause where you are" (When I want to give a short instruction or piece of info but not get them to come in close)
- Getting everyone into a circle when I want to give instructions or explain a concept or have a discussion (circles are also great so everyone can see each other)
- 3 strikes for forgetting gear and then students choose their consequence
- Tone of voice: I try to remain quiet and naturally the kids become quiet (or I literally say, I feel like I'm getting louder because you are getting louder)
- "The sooner we are in, the sooner we play!"

How do you create classroom environments that are safe and meet the needs of all students?
- Set clear and consistent expectations with regard to inclusion, respect, diversity and the importance of "failing"
- Encouraging students to struggle / find learning challenging (so they step out of their comfort zone)

Do you believe it's important to educate the "whole child'? If so, what strategies do you use to ensure their wellbeing and educational needs are met?
Yes!!! I feel by creating that environment aforementioned, students are more likely to be honest about how they are feeling, what is happening in their lives and when they need help/are struggling (personally and/or academically). Establishing that environment and relationships will directly impact on their day-to-day interactions. My students (hopefully) know that if they are having a bad day/week/month then to let me know and things will be adjusted to suit them and their needs (because I say this frequently!).

How do you understand your role as a teacher and implement this into practice? What pedagogies guide your methods - if any?
My role as a teacher is to facilitate learning. To guide students to discover, practice, challenge things in the world around them! Differentiation, guided discovery, scaffolding, flow between lessons, opportunities to review learning, scenario based tasks, student choice in tasks/activities, mixture of audio/video/hands on activities, open ended questions, reflective tasks/activities

Is there a "gap" in contemporary HPE? What is the subject missing?
Only thing that comes to mind is greater aquatics education. Basic swimming yes, but more so water safety and awareness of water risks (especially at secondary school).

What does contemporary HPE need in order to add value to the subject?
- Outdoor Education is a large part of our curriculum area, but is not even in the name!
- There also needs to be more education for all teachers around the importance of the subjects (to reduce misconceptions about them).
- Greater integration of the subjects, rather than generally being segregated.
- Health should be compulsory until the end of high school - as it's a subject about life and being a positive contributing citizen to society

What's important in HPE? What values/subject matter are most of value?
Everything is important!! But everything should be tailored to the students that are in front of you - their interests, their challenges, and what is topical/relevant in that community. 

What resources/knowledge (that you don't have at the moment) would aid in expanding your teaching/the subject area?
- Greater understanding of the other curriculum areas and how we can blend/integrate more
- More time with the students!
- Greater access to facilities (and more facilities)
- Greater funding for EOTC

HPE is often regulated in school subject hierarchies far beneath the likes of English/Mathematics etc. How do you suggest we work to remove the negative stigma around the subject?
- Make HPE compulsory for all year levels
- Needs to have equitable time on the timetable
- Could include a course during university for all students (across all sectors) educating around the importance of the curriculum area
- Create more inter-curriculum courses to show the learning can be applied across many areas
- DON'T MAKE KIDS RUN AS A 'WARMUP' OR PUNISHMENT
- Don't test kids on their physical ability (unless of course it is part of a specific course analysing performance improvement or similar)

If you are specifically looking for blogposts about behaviour management, I have written a few over the years! Overall though, being asked to complete this survey for Hannah was a great little reminder of the things that I do know and have learnt/adapted/added to my toolkit throughout my teaching journey. Sometimes when the days are tough or I feel like lessons haven't gone well, I forget how much I have achieved.

9OUED Units: What Did The Kids Think?

I asked my 9OUED class for some feedback about each of the units in the form of ratings as well as general feedback. Initially they were hesitant to share their thoughts. I think this was because they didn't want to offend me or hurt my feelings if they didn't enjoy something. However, after some prompts and reminders that this is a genuine opportunity to adapt the course for future students and I would actually be disappointed if they didn't share how they were feeling, they opened up a bit! We actually had some great discussion. 

We went through each of the 4 units and discussed 3 areas for each; their overall enjoyment throughout, their experience and thoughts of the excursion/camp for that unit and the skills and knowledge that they learnt (how much and how interesting). Students were asked to rate from 1-4 between the 4 units (1 being the highest). For example, I could have said that I enjoyed the ecology unit the least and the rock-climbing unit the most. As a result, I would have given rock climbing a 1, bushwalking a 2 or 3, group dynamics 2 or 3 and ecology a 4.

I have created the alongside graphs as visuals to show what the students said (unfortunately some units have less feedback than others because we had students join us partway through the semester and/or they didn't come on the excursion(s)). Some of the clear pieces of feedback from the quantitative data (alongside the in-class discussion) include:

- Bushwalking in general was clearly the most enjoyed unit of the 4 but less than half of the students actually enjoyed the overnight bushwalking camp experience. Chatting with them though, it wasn't necessarily that specific camp, just that they realised they don't like bushwalking. 

- They clearly learnt the most skills and or knowledge throughout the ecology unit. This didn't surprise me but was great they were able to recognise this! Despite learning the most though, the excursion to the beach was their least favourite of the four throughout the semester. The general consensus was that there was a lot of talking from the people facilitating the microplastics experience and not enough hands-on. I agreed with this and as a result there will be some changes next year (such as borrowing the equipment and the teacher running the session). 

- Generally the rock climbing unit was enjoyed and the experience of actually rock climbing was positive for many of the students. I observed lots of positive involvement in the learning around the safety considerations and preventative measures in the outdoors (both at school and at the rock climbing wall). I started to include some more specific scenarios to break down/discuss after attending the fatality prevention PD and the students were really engaged in these conversations.

I have enjoyed creating this 9OUED course this year and felt so lucky to be able to teach the first groups of kids. Using the kids' feedback and my own reflections, I have created a semester unit plan with all resources and activities for the teacher who will be taking over next year. I'm proud of this and know it is a great place to start for anyone who may take over the course (and can't wait to see how it develops over the next few years). This brings me to the end of my time teaching OUED for this year. I have learnt lots and have really been pushed out of my comfort zone. Here's hoping in the future I have more opportunities to teach OUED! (Will certainly need a lot more development though!)

2022 Goals - How'd I Go?

This year I have completed a 'Professional Development Plan' for the first time. Although there is a specific structure that is supplied by the Dept of Ed and specific questions my mentor has needed to ask, it's very similar to an NZ inquiry. My full PDP can be accessed here, which includes a little more detail around my planning, the criteria my goals link to and some of the discussion points I had with my mentor.

I have created the below visual which gives some of the key ideas/topics that I have been focused on throughout the year. Included are some of the possible ways to learn more about these areas of development (which I wrote at the beginning of the year). Although these goals aren't written as SMART goals, they were fleshed out more in my PDP meetings with my mentor (HOD HPE).

Reflecting on the some of the specific knowledge and skills I have wanted to develop throughout this year, these are some of the things I have achieved this year:

- Gave student choice in the activities/tasks/assignments they complete (including topics and modes of presentations)

- Provided exemplars and explained what grades they are and why (generally got students to do this themselves first and then broke the criteria and grading down with them)

- Gave suggested structures with sentence starters (student choice whether they used or not!)

- Used colour coding between the task, the criteria and what students created

- Created pre written questions to prompt in class discussion

- Created several tasks and assignments directly related to the ACARA objectives/criteria (and of course assessed against them)

- 1:1 verbal feedback meetings with Y12s as well as written feedback opportunities on their drafts (i.e. checkpoints)

- Completed a Coping With Stress program alongside my Y12s

- Gathered and reflected on student feedback

- Had multiple meetings and discussions with colleagues about SACE marking and moderation

- Attended a Mental Health First Aid course, a Remote First Aid Course and a Preventing Fatalities Workshop

- Learnt a significant more about risk management and planned my own trips and camps

Moving forward, areas I would like to further develop/build on include:

- Greater confidence and understanding about facilitating OUED debriefs

- Use of different tools and strategies to gather and analyse feedback (I did not use Ziplet as it seemed very confusing I didn't think would give me anything additional Google Forms would)

- More specific differentiated tasks for students with learning challenges or who have been identified as students needing modified or adjusted tasks (and learn more about neurodiversity in general)

- Attend PD and complete more reading around literacy and how to increase literacy in HPE/OUED

- Actively engage students with risk management planning and have more specific scenarios to help prepare students more before they go into the outdoors

Marking and Moderation - Should Come Hand in Hand

Having a Senior class is a lot of fun, but also a lot of work. If a teacher has never taught an NCEA or SACE class, they often cannot comprehend the hours that go into giving feedback and marking assignments. To give detailed feedback and have 1:1 meetings with the kids on top of general teaching and learning takes a lot of time, energy and effort. Thankfully I actually enjoy this part of my role (I just wish it didn't send me to bed late or force me to get up at stupid o'clock sometimes). 

One of the pieces of feedback that I received last semester (and continue to receive) is that I "mark too harshly". This is something I take really seriously, because I genuinely try my best to mark directly against the marking criteria, to leave justified feedback to support my grades and I compare my grades and justifications against exemplars. The final stage, which I always find valuable, is the moderation process. Throughout the year Cass (the other Y12 teacher) and I have met several times to moderate each other's classes. We would send 3-4 assignments from our classes to each other, mark them independently and then have a chat together with what grade we gave and why. I like the rich discussion that we have and how this can encourage us to read/view things from another perspective, or to see the variety of examples or pieces of evidence that can be used in support of different criteria.

Because final SACE grades are due to be submitted in a couple of weeks, Cass and I were released from our afternoon classes to spend a few hours together this afternoon. It was interesting that we agreed on a majority of grades but there was one specific criterion which we viewed vastly differently. What I thought evidence for this criterion may look like differed quite a bit from Cass. This meant that our expectations differed and so did our grades. Surprisingly though, it wasn't like Cass gave A's and for the same I gave C's - they varied a lot. We asked for feedback from another Health teacher in another school, to eliminate the possibility of bias of the students and they were also blind to which grades Cass and I gave. She came back basically with a mixture of thoughts of what Cass and I had discussed! So, we could reevaluate and slightly alter our feedback and justifications, and change grades if needed. This really highlighted the importance of moderating - something that needs to happen more often, in my opinion.

I have created the alongside with some of the many positive reasons for moderating. While creating the infographic, I referred to this resource, which has a lot more information about why we should moderate and what should be moderated. 

Student Feedback: Straight From The Source

Because Marryatville courses are currently only one semester long (aside from Y12s), this means that we are about to have a change in timetable with a bunch of new classes. I know that I will be keeping my 12Health and getting a new 9OUED, otherwise I'm not sure! Nevertheless, I thought that this was a good opportunity to get some feedback on the courses and my teaching in general, to help shape next semester. Unfortunately, time has raced away from me so I didn't get as much feedback or as detailed responses as I would have liked, but anything is better than nothing, right?! I am a little gutted though, that there wasn't much for me to analyse.

However, to keep the surveys simple for the kids I asked then to rank each topic from 1 to 5 related to their engagement and enjoyment, and then justify their response. Unsurprisingly, there were lots of different opinions because students clearly have different interests. What did surprise me though (positively) was a greater interest (generally) in the Health units. Historically, many students see Health as a 'theory lesson' and a lesson they would prefer to be 'doing PE'. I am very honest that I believe this directly stems from the language that teachers use and how they refer to the subjects. I have always been frustrated when the words theory and practical are used, as these insinuate to students that learning only occurs when in the classroom. This language has been used in both schools I've taught in Adelaide and I loathe it! So, to get some more positive feedback about engagement and learning in Health topics, was a great surprise! 

Please see below some of the key themes that were present throughout the feedback I gained from students (Year 7-Year 12). I have briefly reflected on most of these themes and what they may mean moving forward. Here's to the next semester!

Self Care > Stress

This year I am excited to have a Senior class again. I really enjoy teaching Seniors for a variety of reasons. Majority of the time they have chosen to be in that class and I like being able to have 'real' conversations with the students. I have a Year 12 SACE Health class - which is the equivalent of a Year 13 NCEA class. My biggest challenge for this class is learning about SACE and the Health course on the go, especially because Health as a SACE course is new in general, not just to Marryatville.

The first unit of the year is based around stress and stress management. Over the last few weeks the students have been involved in an Australian online learning platform called This Way Up. This website has been developed by a myriad of medical professionals, with the aim to help support people and their mental health. There are several programs people from anywhere and of any age can access for support, resources, strategies and tools for several areas of mental health. The creators of the website intentionally designed This Way Up to be accessible, to help reduce the barriers some people may face for self help.

My class have been individually completing the 4 lesson Coping with Stress program. I completed the program before the students, so that I could determine what the in-class activities and tasks were going to be. The program is scenario based and throughout there are several strategies taught and 'implemented' to help the character to identify, prevent and reduce stress. 

To encourage students to apply their knowledge of the tools and strategies they learnt from the program, I gave students tasks to do after each of the 4 lessons, as can be accessed here. These lessons are screenshots of One Note pages students received. One Note gives me real time information about what the student is working on (like Google Docs), which I have really missed! This has helped me to give more feedback to students and to track their progress. These tasks gave students the time to reflect individually on their stress levels, created opportunities for peer conversation and provided a foundation for class discussions, so were a great addition to the Coping with Stress Program. (Sidenote: I am finding it really challenging to ignite full class discussions with this group of students, but they are great chatting within their tables... watch this space!).

There are several great learnings from the program, but I did find there could have been some adaptations to make it more accessible and engaging. For example, the program could be available in multiple languages, there could be a variety of audio and video added and/or there could be interactive tasks throughout (it was mostly a story to click through). I did like that the students were able to access and complete the program at their own pace, which directly impacted on how much they 'got out' of the program. Students commented that the program itself 'wasn't very memorable' and that it was 'too long', but overall the stress unit (combination of the program and the additional tasks) was 'beneficial towards helping [them] to reduce [their] personal stress factors'. If you would like to learn a little more about stress and stress management in general, I blogged about this a few years ago.

I would recommend any teacher to complete this program to determine whether it may be beneficial for your students to also complete. If not, you will still learn/reflect/create/ponder some key thoughts/ideas/tools that you may be able to embed within your teaching. Irrespective of teaching though, these programs have been created with a great intent and will be helpful for anyone who would like further support for their mental health.

Remember, if you need help, don't hesitate to ask for it.

Australia: 1300 22 4636 (Beyond Blue)

New Zealand: 1737 (Need to Talk)

Closing One Chapter, To Open The Next

Well, I've had a hiatus from teaching and blogging, but I'm excited to get the ball rolling again. I've moved over to Adelaide in South Australia, and next week I start part time teaching here. I'm looking forward to learning a new curriculum, and being back in the classroom! The New Zealand teaching journey is likely to continue in the future, but for now I need to get used to people pronouncing h as 'haych', and learn the rules of Australian footy! 

Closing the first 5 years, 2 schools and country of my career encouraged me to check out which posts had the most views. Although this blog is a place for me to store my reflections and an artefact for my teaching evidence, it's also for me to share, connect and learn with others. Therefore, I do like to follow the statistics behind how many people view my posts and where they view them from. According to my view count, these are my top 10 most read blogposts to date. I'm intrigued to see what the top posts from my Australian chapter will be!

1) Engaging Students From Afar!

2) We Like to Move it, Move it!

3) A Seesaw, A Wheelbarrow and An Arm

4) Co-Teaching Celebrations

5) Lockdown Learnings

6) A Day In The Life Of A Learner

7) Assessment - More Than A Test!

8) Student Opportunities To Respond

9) Keeping Up With The Teacher Load

10) Restoring Relationships Through Restorative Conversation

Wow, I Really Have Learnt A Lot!

I currently have a Pre Service Teacher under my wing, and she asked me some questions to ignite her thinking. They actually encouraged a lot of reflection of my own practice, and really demonstrated over the last (nearly) 5 years how much I have actually grown as a teacher, especially reading through my blog posts I have written. 

The questions asked were;

- When you teach your HPE lessons how do you get your students to demonstrate student agency (choice and ownership) of their own learning?

- How do you encourage students to problem solve and critically think?

- How do you acknowledge students' prior knowledge and experiences?

- What interesting learning activities/experiences do you provide when designing a unit plan?

- How do you embody/apply the principles of inclusion and/or biculturalism in your teaching practice?

- How do you include digital technology in your teaching practice?

I would encourage everyone to take the time to answer these questions irrespective how long you have been teaching. They really got me thinking, and shows me the knowledge I have developed over the last 5 years, and helps my student teacher!

The Process of Making Changes

Throughout my working life (teaching and non-teaching), I've worked for, with and under many different people with different leadership styles. I have started to recognise what I really value in a leader, and what isn't as effective for me and my development. I'm now at the point in my career where I am wanting to up-skill to be able to become a leader of others, so The Education Hub's webinar 'Shifting the focus from change to improvement' caught my eye (Distinguished Professor Viviane Robinson). The session was focused around making changes and why/how these changes are being made.

There were several questions that left me thinking, as outlined in my sketchnote. One question in particular was related to listening to staff and students before making any changes, or suggesting new initiatives. The biggest thing that I took away from this webinar was how important that is. To really stop and listen to why someone (or why a group of people) are doing something the way they are currently. They are going to have understandings, evidence, observations to justify their reasoning, which you may have not considered, even if you are their leader. From this conversation your change/initiative/proposal may adapt, using the knowledge and feedback you now have. Don't just make this decision on your own, listen to the why, listen to your colleagues, include them in your decision-making process.

The second takeaway for me, was what are the different puzzle pieces that contribute to the problem or issue you are suggesting to adapt/alter. From conversations with staff and/or students, you may find there are several factors at play for the low achievement for example, not just how the unit of learning that is delivered. For instance, there may be low achievement because the teacher needs support with behaviour management, or the class sizes may be too big for 1:1 support, or they don't have the content knowledge to deepen learning for higher grades. All of these puzzle pieces will contribute in some way, some more than others. So if the major puzzle piece is the need for professional development around behaviour management strategies, but they are offered a course on deepening content learning, this won't support success toward increasing student achievement for that particular staff member. Reiterating the importance of including your colleagues in the process of adaptations/additions/changes etc.

Finally, Viviane discussed in detail her theory engagement model, as pictured alongside, which is explored in her book Reduce Change to Increase Improvement. Put simply, the first step before making any changes is for parties to agree on the proposed problem. From there, evidence to suggest why this is a problem needs to revealed. This step obviously includes discussions with staff as aforementioned, but can also include open and honest conversations with students, lesson observations and assessment data. Evaluating the evidence gathered, considering the overarching problem and discussing the alternatives is step three. To conclude the cycle, the new ideas/resources/suggestions are to be trialled and implemented. The cycle of course continues to repeat itself, to determine what the long term changes are for staff and ultimately students (positive and negative).

Overall, I recommend watching this webinar for any new leader, or anyone like me who is aspiring to be a leader. It really leaves you thinking about the importance of consultation before diving into any changes!

Lockdown Learnings

After the first three weeks of online teaching and learning, I asked my Senior students for feedback about the challenges they were facing, but also the things they were enjoying. After reading through their comments, I kept these in the back of my mind when planning lessons, communicating with the students and setting tasks for them to complete. 

Three weeks later, at the end of lockdown, I asked the students if they'd comment again. I was interested to see if there was much of a change. Many of the messages, as highlighted below, remained much the same. However, there was a positive change in attitude towards learning online/from home from many of the students, when compared to the first Google Form. I thought it was particularly interesting to note how honest they were, not only with me but with themselves!

See here for the students' comments in April, and then see here for their end of lockdown comments. 

The most common positives across the three classes were:

• Flexibility: Many enjoyed being able to work at their own pace, and complete tasks when they felt comfortable. If they completed that subject, they liked they were able to work on something else they needed to do, or they could look ahead at other tasks for that class to do.
• Feeling part of a class: Rather than the teacher just asking if they had questions, or just explaining the task and leaving, the kids enjoyed opportunities to connect with each other, time to do things that weren't related to work like quizzes and chats, and also doing some tasks online with others in a similar way they would in class such as group discussions.
• Increased independence: Although there were clearly some students who struggled to manage their time, several commented that they enjoyed the opportunity to further develop their independence and self management skills.

The most common negatives were:

• Too much work: There was significant feedback from the students explaining they were feeling overwhelmed across the board with how much work they were needing to complete. Some felt they were being asked to complete more than when we were at school!
• Lack of motivation: This was evident throughout the 6+ weeks. Due to the comfort of their own home, distractions, lack of self management and/or feeling overwhelmed (and who knows what other reasons!), there were lots of students who struggled to motivate themselves to complete their learning. This lack of motivation is what concerns me the most - have we now got an even bigger divide between the students who are ahead and the students who are falling behind?
• Less 1:1 time with the teacher: I found this hard too. Much less opportunity for face to face feedback, and less 'teachable moments'. It seems many struggled not being able to ask questions as often, or able to seek immediate feedback. I don't know how they expected us to reply to their emails instantly though! (Certainly an admin nightmare, that I didn't enjoy!)

I previously posted about the things I was enjoying about online teaching and learning. They mostly related to student creativity and having those 1:1 chats with the kids. I plan to continue to provide opportunities for them to be creative where possible, and of course being online has made me rethink/be creative about the ways I can teach too! I would also like to try and continue some of the positives from lockdown (from my own experience, in addition to student feedback);

• In class flexibility: I certainly enjoyed having a less regimented timetable, and it's clear the students did too. I will be giving opportunities for my Senior classes to develop their self management, and choosing how they utilise their time. If they want to work on another subject, then they can... here's hoping that doesn't backfire! This also relates to Ako Orewa, and the importance of students prioritising tasks/ deciding what is important to complete at that time and working at their own pace.
• Knowing ahead of time what's happening: I always gave a vague plan of what was happening in the few lessons to come before home learning, but didn't always upload the actual activities or tasks they were going to complete. I am going to try give students time to check out what they are doing before class, so they are more aware of where we are heading.
• Some time not related to work: A few students commented on the enjoyment they found from watching movies that reinforced or showed what they were learning about, or having quizzes and games with other students, or just general chat. I think sometimes with the pressure of NCEA, the pressure of time, the pressure for students to do well, we sometimes forget that they are kids. That they want to connect, share, reflect, analyse and sometimes they need a break. Just like we do.

Like many, I have felt nervous being back at school the last 10 days. Like online learning, it's going to take a bit of adjustment to get back into a routine, but we will get there! 

Teachers, A Tip: You Can Always Be Better!

This week during our department meeting, we had a rapid PD on 'reflective practice'. This article delves more deeply into what reflective teaching actually is, which I recommend reading whether you are a student teacher, or you've been in the profession for years! Spalding describes reflective teaching as "a more systematic process of collecting, recording and analysing a teacher's thoughts and observations, as well as those of their students, and then going on to making changes". According to Dylan William, reflective practice is important because every teacher can improve. 

I feel confident I am already quite reflective, but I enjoyed and appreciated having the time in this meeting to briefly dissect and discuss our integrated curriculum so far. I plan on writing a more detailed reflection on Topic 2, the integrated course I was part of creating and am now teaching, in a couple of weeks.

The task we were given, visible below, was to identify possible gaps in students' learning, what helps and stops student learning and finally strategies moving forward to support these students. The overall consensus of our discussion was that the integrated curriculum is positive, but naturally there is some fine tweaking to be addressed, such as the need to increase student self confidence, reduce students feeling overwhelmed and the balance of student centred learning and teacher-directed learning. I have identified and briefly described three strategies I am going to try implement into my integrated topic, in hope to address some of the tweaking aforementioned!

Authentic Learning > Exam Results

Preparing students for exams is really difficult. I have a lot of empathy for teachers who need to prep their students for multiple exam papers, and have multiple exam filled classes - I only have one class and one paper!

When I taught the Level 2 Health course for the first time in 2018, I needed to teach and prepare students to be tested on two topics - we didn't know which one they were going to get. The exam requires students to identify and explain the possible influences of and consequences from an adolescent health issue, and to then suggest health-enhancing strategies to reduce the issue. 

In 2018 the topics were body image or managing conflict in relationships. Although there are some obvious overlaps in the topics, they are quite different. As a result, in the short period of time we had to learn the content, the structure and revise the exam, I felt I was teaching to the assessment. An assessment that I didn't even know what it was going to ask! This sad reality meant that I didn't feel there was much authentic learning for this cohort of students, as I was so focused on wanting them to feel the most prepared they could for their exam. Although of course success in exams is important, authentic learning is considerably more important in my opinion... so I hated accepting how assessment driven these couple of months pre exam were. 

I was delighted when the assessment specifications changed for 2019, to only have one topic (stress from social media). The students still needed to understand and practice the structure of the exam and how to annotate the scenario and resources - but now we had considerable more time to prepare, double! Having much more time meant there was ample opportunity for lessons and activities, but not specifically exam related. We watched plenty of clips, read articles, completed experiments, took quizzes, had debates; all things that highlighted how stress from social media is an issue but didn't always connect back to the exam itself. From the conversations I had with the students, and the observations I made, I feel there were genuine learning experiences for the students in this 2019 class. That they actually took away some tools, skills and information they could come back to in the future when interacting on social media.

Surprisingly though, the exam results are much the same between the two cohorts. I was hoping with greater depth of understanding about the topic, there would be a greater increase in Merits and Excellences, but they are similar. Thankfully I feel they took away a lot more learning!! This year I may need to have higher expectations of how many practice exams students write for instance, and be more actively involved in their study time. Last year the students requested a few periods to self manage their own study, but I feel most didn't utilise this time (even when given 2-4 options of things to do during this time!). So more regimented study time may be needed.

Something to note that is interesting, is the profiles of expected performance for this exam in 2019. Even though I feel a little disheartened the grades are much the same between my classes, my 2019 class actually sat higher than the predicted results, particularly for Achieved and Merits. Despite being a tiny fragment of a large body of students, this a little comforting to see - and may mean some of them were actually scaled down.  

Finally, these graphs do not take into consideration the students who did not show up for their exam. Empty papers and seeing 'absent' on their academic records, was a little heartbreaking after the time and effort poured into the students. I have no clue how to reduce this issue. I can't control if they show up or not and there is no consequence/penalty/followup if they don't. Thankfully though, the number of no shows from my class reduced from 4 in 2018 to 2 in 2019. Fingers crossed this number is 0 at the end of 2020 - We have an extra hour for each class per fortnight with our change in timetable this year, so hopefully even more time will help with this goal!

Highlights & Challenges: A Visual

Throughout the year I have volunteered again for Auckland PENZ, helping with the Graduate Mentoring Programme supporting beginning teachers and undergraduate students (see last years post here). At one of our sessions, Sarah Loomb from Alfriston College showed us this reflection tool - draw 9 things that have stood out for you so far this year including highlights and challenges. I thought this was a great idea for an end of term 3 reflection, and a great visual. I ran a session with the first and second year teachers at Orewa, with the focus around the practising teacher criteria and registration, then used this to discuss what criteria it may give evidence and reflection for. So what do they mean to me?

Snow Camp

I was lucky enough to attend one of the Level 3 Outdoor Ed trips to Mt Ruapehu in August. I learnt more about risk management, including preventative measures and responses when things do happen. On our first day up the mountain, there was an avalanche that made the news and we went into lock down with kids as a precaution. This is a once in a lifetime experience, and one that I will never forget. The biggest thing I took away from this trip was the importance of everyone being prepared for the outdoors and to stay calm!

Associate Teacher

As previously blogged about, I was an associate teacher earlier in the year. This was both a (positive) challenge and a highlight, because I learnt a lot about myself but found it hard to leave him to do his thing! Trying to teach someone how to teach, but also ensuring the students were still learning/achieving what I wanted them to achieve was difficult, but great for my own development. 

Integrated Unit

I am getting very very excited for the 2020 integrated curriculum. I think it’s going to be incredible for the kids, but I’m also starting to feel a little anxious about how everything is going to pan out! Creating a unit with 5 other people has been hard. Very hard. We all want what is best for the kids, and our subjects, but sometimes these wants don’t align. The group I’m part of though, have all been quite flexible and accepting of these differences and tried to make it work. We are quite lucky we are somewhat compatible with one another! 

The one thing I don’t like about this process though, is that we aren’t guaranteed to teach the unit we’ve developed next year. There will be 75 students with three subject specialist teachers - but these teachers could be anyone from the department! So it may not be the other person or I in our integrated group, which will be disappointing after investing so much time and effort into creating the unit.

Teaching with Adam 

This year Adam and I share a Level 3 PE class. We don’t co-teach like I did in first year, we have half of the periods on the timetable each. I was really nervous to see how this would work for a variety of reasons; Adam and I teach quite differently, he is much more experienced than me, Level 3 students may be hard to motivate and the time we would need to plan together. Don’t get me wrong, it’s been hard, but not for most of these reasons (the kids have certainly been hard to motivate!). I believe we’ve worked well together, trying to find a balance between what we both want in the lessons as well as what we want the students to learn/achieve. Our communication between each other has thankfully been our strength. 

What I’ve actually struggled with is the content; what I need to teach to ensure all the kids have the possibility to achieve an Excellence. Adam is knowledgeable and experienced, so he knows the course in and out, but I don’t. Throughout the year I’ve tried to ask lots of questions, and read lots of information, but I never felt like I fully grasped the big picture of what the kids were learning, what the purpose was. As a result I feel guilty that I didn’t give all students the chance to achieve an E, purely because I didn’t fully know how to support them to get there. If I was to teach this course again, with the baseline understanding I have now I feel I could minimise the risk of this happening again.

11PE Class

I have drawn angel emojis because that is how I refer to my Year 11s - my absolute angels. I have been really lucky to have a class that enjoys learning, are actively involved and supportive of one another. I look forward to teaching this class because they are a dream. Many still struggle with learning difficulties and we still have P.E. is not P.A. chats from time to time - but the culture of the class is incredible! To paint a picture - during the last period of term the kids were all working peacefully on their assessment and there was only one passing comment about wanting to have a practical. This felt like a massive win!!

Working with new people 

I’ve touched on this briefly above, referring to snow camp, the integrated unit, and sharing a class. Additionally I’ve been in charge of a course (below), and taught courses alongside some different people and some the same from last year. Without going into too much detail, I’ve found some professional relationships really hard this year. It can be challenging to have some conversations with other teachers, when they are more experienced than you, have been around longer than you and/or have positions that you don’t have. I have quite a loud personality; I’m opinionated and happy to stand up for what I think. This can be problematic. I’m having to learn when to bite my tongue and how to change my tone of voice to ensure my intentions are clear, are positive and are not treading on anyone’s toes. Because every challenging conversation I have, needs to be approached differently.

Strike Day

A momentous occasion that’ll be part of NZ history. I felt proud to be a teacher walking down Queen Street, but also immensely sad how the negotiations played out. This was an emotional roller coaster for me, having to constantly remind myself how I teach for the kids not money, but how overworked and undervalued I feel. The process certainly reminded me why I love teaching, but I also noticed I felt deflated and reduced the amount of time I invested in schoolwork at home.

Teacher In Charge of 12Health

Being in charge of a course has meant I’ve learnt more about moderation procedures, planning senior units, facilitating meetings and adapting the course from student feedback. I plan to write an entire blogpost about this later in the year!

Certificates 

I’ve previously blogged about what the Miss D is proud certificates are here, and student feedback here. This has been a considerable highlight of my year. I get warm fuzzies when I send the certificates home, and look forward to it! I decided to send them on Friday mornings, which has been a great way to end each week - particularly when I’ve had a stressful or horrible week. 

Overall this visual has been a great way to reflect on many things throughout the year, and recommend others to do the same! One term to go...

We Like to Move It, Move It!

As we are adapting our Junior courses into an integrated curriculum next year, we also need to consider how we are going to adapt our methods of assessment. Rather than giving students grades that are inconsistent across departments and within departments based off of Achieved, Merit or Excellence (which can be subjective even with a marking criteria), another major shift next year will be assessing students based off of levels of the New Zealand Curriculum. This is going to be a challenge for us, and for the students, especially when we are going to need to design the rubrics for these levels for each of our integrated units!

As practice for this method of assessment, this term we utilised the NZC levels to assess our Year 9 Movement Education unit. The purpose of this unit is to encourage students to step out of their comfort zones and to learn some new skills for dance, gymnastics and parkour. This new method of assessment the students are unfamiliar with, hence we started by co-constructing what these levels actually looked like in action, see pictures below. 

Once we had discussed these levels and the purpose of the unit, I asked my students to select one emoji to represent them throughout the term. We regularly had mini discussions about what level the students thought they had been demonstrating throughout the lessons and why. In addition, students moved their emoji to the self assessed level. See alongside the progressions from the beginning of the unit to the end of the unit - it's interesting to see how many students fluctuated, but also great to see so many students sitting at or above the expected level of a Year 9 student! 

This method of assessment definitely required some more prep, and a more conscious effort to embed within the teaching and learning, but I think was a great way to have more consistency of grading and also students had more understanding of the why and how. I enjoyed discussing with students why they were moving (or not) their emoji, because most of them were able to give detailed responses related to their demonstrations, with examples. 

Some stand out comments from some of my students about the overall unit include the following;

"I think it is a very good thing to do it has definitely helped my confidence and it was heaps of fun once I got into it."

"I learnt a lot of new skills and things I couldn't do and I learnt that if you commit to something you can most likely do it."

"The dancing impacted me because it pushed me out of my own comfort zone to try something new and kind of scary. I don't enjoying doing dances in front of other people but it wasn't that bad once I was doing it with my friends."

"My main challenges were in the parkour where I was not getting too involved in the whole thing only one part of it but I thought I should give it a go so I could get up a level and try to enjoy it more and doing that helped a lot."

Moving forward into our next unit which will also use this method of assessment, I would like to have more discussions with students throughout the lessons, rather than just at the end when they are moving their emojis. I found this time I was only able to talk to each student once or twice throughout the unit, and obviously the more often, the greater students can demonstrate their understanding. I think that this is important, as next year we will have 75 students to assess against the NZC levels, rather than about 25. Additionally, I have previously learnt that gamification is a tool which many students positively react to - so I think I need to refer to moving up levels more often as a challenge for students to reach (as the last student voice has suggested).