Where are you on the Spectrum of Teaching Styles?

I was excited to attend my first Australian Council for Health Physical Education and Recreation conference. I miss PENZ and my involvement in PENZ back home, so when I had the opportunity to attend an ACHPER PD I jumped at it! I was especially interested in this one, because it was based around Mosston's Spectrum of Teaching Styles, which is something I've always been interested in. His spectrum was referred to often during my degree and something I often think about when designing new units. The PD was about unpacking SueSee, Hewitt and Pill's book The Spectrum of Teaching Styles in Physical Education, in which they've redesigned Mosston's initial spectrum.

Shane Pill is someone I have followed on Twitter for a while and am fascinated by his thoughts. I knew the day was going to be interesting when he was the opening speaker and one of his first sentences was "you need to use a variety of teaching styles, there is no one way of teaching". The redesign of the spectrum to be more like a flower, like a cluster, demonstrates that all styles are equal and we should in fact be moving in and out of them as opposed to linearly (as initially designed and can be seen below). Isn't it incredible how visual presentations of something can genuinely impact how you interpret them? Unfortunately I cannot find any pictures of their design, without buying the book (which I have requested school to do!), but it is kind of visible in my picture below).

The teaching styles can be divided into reproduction (A-E) and production (F-K). As it sounds, this relates to the role the students play within those teaching styles. Generally speaking, when in the reproduction styles students are mostly replicating something they have learnt and the lesson is more 'teacher driven'. Production is more-so related to the application or creation of something to demonstrate learning - more 'student driven'. The clear theme throughout this PD day is that there needs to be frequent movement between these different styles, as they are all valuable. If we blend styles together, they are called canopies.

In particular though, there was a large focus on the three discovery styles. Guided discovery is when there may be a series of activities or tasks for students to discover something throughout the process of completing these tasks. Convergent discovery is when there may be a problem and you are guiding them to discover there is only one answer. Divergent discovery is when there may be multiple answers to a problem/situation.  We referred to these often throughout the day and there were practicals to demonstrate the differences, especially between convergent and divergent. For instance, participants were set up in a piggy in the middle structure, and the aim was to pass the ball between the players without the defender in the middle getting the ball. Their convergent discovery question was "what pass is the most appropriate to receive the ball?" To encourage students to think, they were only able to use the width of an area. This increased the pressure so the students needed to use lob passes to try and get it over and away from the defenders. After, they changed the boundaries to be able to pass lengthways and the question changed to "how many different ways can you receive the ball" (clearly showing the 1 answer to multiple answers differentiation between the learning styles). To further probe the students to think critically to be able to be self regulated learners, the questions asked need to be open ended to encourage the students to think, discover and analyse information/ideas on their own.

Throughout uni and my initial teaching years, I was often discouraged to teach in command style. As the name suggests, the activity and instructions are all based around the teacher. The students must follow the teacher's commands. Although I agree this approach is not appropriate for many activities (as we want the students to be at the centre of the thinking and learning), I believe there is a time and place for command style. Sometimes we just need to get information across and command style is the most effective and efficient way to do so (such as information regarding safety on equipment). Hewitt noted that we need to consider whether command is the most appropriate for that particular lesson/learning objective and how long we are in that teaching style. He said his fear with command style teaching, especially when teaching the technique of a skill, is although the students may increase confidence with how to perform the skill itself (technical mastery), they may be strangers to the game. This is where game sense approach comes in.

Game sense approach is an umbrella term, with several areas coming underneath it. Essentially, GSA is a pedagogy that focuses on developing players that cognitively and critically think about the game they are immersed in. As outlined in Pill's chapter Game Sense Coaching: Developing Thinking Players, there is significant research to support that a traditional method of coaching or teaching limits players' ability to be able to make effective decisions within a game. This is often as a result of behaviours/techniques learnt in a non-contextualised environment. However, when immersed in a Game Sense Approach, a player "is trained to use a wide focus of attention and becomes adapted to placing attention more broadly than on a primary task" (Pill, 2018, p.46) because of activities that are more representative of the complexity of an actual game. Relating back to the teaching styles, although command style has a time and place, it's important command style does not lead to players being strangers of the game. GSA is a practice style pedagogy with discovery and command episodes. The teaching should be inquiry based, educating through the game but with a purpose. See more here - Pill's Play with Purpose blogpost.

There were a lot of other interesting topics of discussion, and some other things I was left thinking about were;

- "The game is not the teacher... The game can have an educative purpose, but in order for that purpose to be realised, the teacher comes in to get the educative purpose that is desired" (Pill).

- "All teaching is deliberate - even the choice of not planning is a deliberate teaching choice... but teaching can only be purposeful if the teaching has been planned" (Pill). 

- One of the teachers posed a question to us at the beginning of a practical session for us to think about throughout. The teacher referred to this question frequently and it then became a point of discussion at the end of the lesson. This actually made me think of the statement of inquiry and the overarching question of the unit being asked. 

- Depending on the learning style employed, depends if and when we tell the students the learning objectives of the lesson.

Overall, it was a very informative day, which made me think specifically about my questioning and the importance of mixing the teaching styles to suit the learning objectives, activities and students in front of me.

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!

Ako: To Teach & To Learn

In addition to the roll out of an integrated curriculum this year, there has been an inclusion of two non-curriculum related classes; Ako and Mai time. Mai time was developed to give students an opportunity to create passion projects around something of their choice. This means the students can develop skills and learn about things that are of particular interest to them. Ako time was developed for 4 key reasons;

1. Increase awareness of topics and learning
2. Improve student self confidence and social confidence
3. Reflection on Mai time projects and progress
4. Increased understanding of student levels and progress (see more here)

Therefore, I can include any activities within my lessons which help to develop/work towards these four aims. I love Ako time!! I think it is fantastic there are opportunities for students to develop practical, social and theoretical skills which they may have had little time to develop prior to this year. One of which is the ability to reflect. Each Friday morning students reflect on the week that has been - what they completed in each of their classes, what they found difficult, what they enjoyed and what their next steps are. See below the template for the learning journal my students (are supposed to!) complete each week (I can't believe it's already Week 12/18!). 

Some of my personal highlights from Ako lessons include listening activities, an activity about values and being open-minded, and student created games.

I had noticed, and had feedback from some students, that this group struggles to listen. It was taking a long time to get their attention to give instructions, once it was nearly 7 minutes!! As a result, we had a couple of lessons focused around listening. We played Chinese whispers, completed the Life with the Wright family activity and played Draw It (a simple game where you give step by step instructions of what to draw, and between each instruction the students pass their paper to someone else). The students started to become  frustrated with each other when someone wasn't listening, and started to empathise for their teachers and peers when they were trying to speak! Their listening definitely improved after this.

To encourage students to think about other people's perspectives, and challenge their own values and opinions, we completed the classic Sinking Ship activity below. I had planned for this activity to last about 20 minutes, but there was so much positive debate and discussion it ended up being nearly an hour! With some guidance, by the end of the activity the students were much more respectful of each other's opinions (still a way to go, but small steps!), and gave each other time to say their thoughts.

Finally, the students got into small groups and created mini games to teach and play with one another. I gathered a random assortment of equipment and gave each of the groups tokens to use in an equipment auction. They then had only 30 minutes to create a game they could run for 15 minutes with two other groups in the class! I was pretty blown away by some of the creativity the kids had, with minimal resources and not a lot of time. General feedback was that they enjoyed this activity too, so definitely something that will be repeated in the future!


Only a few days before lockdown I asked the students to complete a feedback form for me to gauge their understanding of their topics and what they are enjoying/not enjoying about school and Ako. There were a few common themes as outlined in the visual alongside - things they like about Ako, things they dislike and suggestions they made. I look forward to implementing some of this feedback into future lessons when we are back at school. At the moment it's really not the same!

Student Engagement & Motivation: A Few Tips!

Although there is significant research/evidence/readings about engagement and motivation individually, there is also an clear link between the two. I'm sure many would agree, that students are likely to be more motivated in the classroom to complete tasks, asks for help, aim for success, if they are engaged in their learning. This seems obvious, but unfortunately can be easier said than done to achieve. I am struggling to motivate some students, struggling to engage some students, and struggling to motivate AND engage others. As a result, I decided to complete some research on tips to increase student engagement and motivation. 

For your reference, these are the articles and videos I read/watched and have summarised;

• 5 Best Ways to Engage Your Learners (Augmented Learning)
• The Nature of Learning: Using Research to Inspire Practice (OECD)
• An introduction to engagement in educational settings (The Education Hub)
• 10 strategies that promote motivation (The Education Hub)
• Why you MUST engage students (Rob Plevin)
• HOW to engage your students (Rob Plevin)

Key Points Related to Engagement:

• Provide students with a sense of ownership
• Give opportunities for student choice
• Use activities that promote curiosity
• It's important to build connections between home and school (see how I'm trying to create positive connections here)
• Give explanations/insight into why the students are learning those things/completing those tasks, the bigger picture
• Learning needs to be adaptable to reflect differences in student needs
• Include tasks that encourage group work and collaboration

Key Points Related to Motivation:

• Teacher expectations need to be positive, high and realistic (see high expectations blogpost here)
• Quality of Knowledge > Quantity of Knowledge
• "Students' motivation is strongest when they believe they are socially accepted by teachers and peers and their school environment is fair, trustworthy and centred on concern for everyone's welfare." (The Education Hub) 
• Make links between the learning, and students' overall/ongoing goals
• Students need to feel confident that they can meet the level of challenge and have the skills needed for a task, in order to feel they can be successful
• Rather than comparing to others, encourage students to focus on personal improvement
• Provide ongoing, reinforcing, positive feedback
• Actually discuss what motivation is, why it is important and what strategies can be employed to increase motivation

A quote to finish, from Rob's YouTube video, that left me thinking...

"When things are too dull and too easy, the students get bored. And we know that when the work is too difficult, and too confusing, the students get frustrated. Both of these situations led to students switching off..."

The Shift Has Arrived - Chaos Ahead!

Throughout 2019, we were in groups of 6 to create an integrated unit for 2020. I briefly explained in this post what my PLG's initial ideas were. The last two CallBack Days have been dedicated to meeting who we will be co-teaching with, and getting comfortable with the units we will be teaching. It's crazy how far we have come - we are starting to teach the units next week!! 

Our school is having quite a shift this year, and it's super exciting. Not only are we integrating curriculum areas at Years 9 & 10, the timetable is also changing and we are introducing Mai Time and Ako teachers. Moving from 5 periods days and a 10 day cycle, to 4 blocks a day and a 5 day cycle means we actually see the students an extra half an hour per week (Juniors and Seniors), which is great! Mai Time and Ako blocks are included in the timetable for Juniors - given the same amount of time as curriculum units. Put simply, Mai is an opportunity for students to be physically active and also time to create their own passion projects/inquiries. Ako is a mentoring system designed to support students with self management, how they learn, and progress towards goals (kind of like School Mum!). Later in the term I'll blog more detail about Mai and Ako, as they grow a little more.

The unit my PLG developed comes under the umbrella value of respect, and is the sexuality unit for Health integrated with Digital Technology and English. There are 5 modules (Hāuora, Pubertal Changes, Communication, Relationships, Drugs & Alcohol) throughout the course. Students will have checklists for each of the modules full of resources and tasks to complete. Ultimately, by the end of Week 12, they will have created a 5 page website to demonstrate their understanding of the content/skills/tools within the checklists for all 3 curriculum areas. Throughout these 12 weeks, we (the 3 teachers) will be floating around 75 students to give them feedback and have learning conversations, and host mini tutorials - the onus is handed over to the kids entirely! 

Week 13 we have calendared a 'catch-up' week. As we are assessing against the achievement objectives (see 2019 trail here) frequently throughout the modules, by this point we should have a good understanding how the students are progressing. This week is to encourage students to increase their levels for their achievement objectives (for any or all of the curriculum areas), and to determine the final 5 weeks. 

If students are sitting at a Level 2 - Level 3 of the curriculum, they will be required to review their website pages to increase depth and demonstrate greater understanding. If they are a Level 4 across the board, the students will be given an extensive list of inquiry ideas they can choose to investigate (which will supplement learning in a curriculum area of their choice). Our most academic students who are already a Level 5, will design their own inquiry project. The project will need to be related in some way to one of the 5 module topics previously explored, and the students are required to explain which 2 achievement objectives their project will demonstrate.

I would be lying if I said I am feeling 100% confident. I'm honestly feeling a little apprehensive. What if the kids don't do anything with all of this freedom? What if I clash with my co-teachers? What if there are students who fall through the cracks? What if they aren't getting depth in their learning? Am am void now?? BUT I am also incredibly excited to be involved in this shift, I think it's an amazing opportunity for the students AND the teachers. We will be learning new skills and content from the other curriculum areas, and also further developing skills including collaboration, empathy and problem solving. Bring on the organised chaos!

2020: Some Sort of Structure

As blogged earlier in the year, in 2020 our school is moving into an integrated timetable for Years 9 and 10. Over the last couple of months we have been working in our groups to start to develop some ideas/concepts/unit designs. The 16 groups/units have different topics and an overarching value of the curriculum as the focus. Our value is respect and the overall topic of our unit will be sexuality education, integrating with English, Media and Digital Technology.

I am really excited by the changes because I believe it is great for the students but also great for us as staff. We are starting to learn a lot more about the achievement objectives from our curriculum, but also from other strands/subjects of the curriculum. I love to learn, so gaining new knowledge is a major benefit for me. 

I do feel though, it is a lot harder than expected. There is a lot of thought, research, discussion and work to put into creating these integrated units. Working alongside 5 other teachers, all with different agendas, different personalities and different experiences makes for rich, insightful and creative discussions, but also makes it difficult to come to a conclusion on where we are heading. Fortunately, we have a responsive group, and school is providing time for us to develop these units. 

Last term, our group were relieved for 3 periods to have a decent chunk of time to get our brains ticking about our unit. The below picture demonstrates where we finished after this 3 hour period. Essentially, there are 4 subtopics (Hāuora, Pubertal Changes, Communication and Safe Relationships) which will be modules for students to complete over the first 4-5 weeks, and once these are complete the students will create a project (TBC).

We decided to have modules because we believed there were some specific skills and content knowledge we wanted students to have the understanding of and ability to demonstrate before pursuing their own projects. Each module will have a series of rewindable learning resources and tasks for students to access and complete at their own pace, with a mixture of skills/knowledge from the 3 curriculum strands. Once they are comfortable with the skills/knowledge from one module, we envisage some sort of formative assessment such as a video creation, interview with the teacher or mini presentation to demonstrate their understanding. From there, the student can move onto the next module until they have completed all four. This structure will enable students to learn at their own pace and give choice in what resources/tasks they would like to complete within their set module (2 key parts of Ako Orewa).

A large change to accompany these integrated projects from what we currently do, is assessing students based off levels of the curriculum. So rather than give a child a grade of NA, A, M or E, their grades will directly reflect the level of the curriculum they are working at, related to specific achievement objectives next year (Levels 2-6). Currently in Year 9 PE we are trialling this way of assessing - I plan to blog about this in a few weeks. 

So, once the student has completed their 4 modules, the teachers (there will be 3 teachers with 75 students) will then discuss and determine whether the student is meeting the expected level of the curriculum, based off of what they have completed throughout the modules. If they are meeting/above the standard, they are then able to design their own projects. If the student is below the standard, the student will revisit modules where they are a lower level in their skill development or demonstrations for one week. After this week, they then may design their own project, or be supported in a more teacher directed project with options to choose from. We hope that this timeline will support students sitting at all levels of the curriculum to be successful, and especially not allow some students to fall through the cracks or some not to be challenged.

Kayleigh, one of our awesome group members, used the sticky note timeline, to then create the below digital version of this draft unit outline (which we will keep adding to/adapting).

Moving forward, we have a Teacher Only Day next Friday to continue to develop our ideas. Until this week we thought our unit was going to be for 9 weeks, however this has now changed to 18 weeks. Clearly this means a lot more brainstorming, planning and creating to be done, but also means a lot deeper learning within the unit than before for our students. Thus, the TOD will be a great opportunity to regroup and delve back into where we ended up after our 3 hours together! Watch this space...

Do I Have The Tools For Learning?

Fortnightly our PLGs meet. To further understand Ako Orewa and how to implement into my practice, I chose to be involved in the PLG which is breaking down the 'tools for learning'. We have discussed how these tools are discussion starters to have with students, and the aim is to increase learner agency. My plan is to get my head around the tools, begin to think about how I can use the tools in my lessons and then hit the ground running next year, possibly next year's inquiry.

I feel these tools are great stepping stones to decrease the teacher being in control and increase student ability to self manage their learning. In the future I would love to give students the ability to design their own courses and how they will assess their learning! I think a major affordance of using these tools within the classroom will mean that the students have greater 1:1 time with the teacher, and there will be much less time spent on managing behaviour

Last week we focused on the orange tool. Our task was to design a swimming pool in small groups, but before doing so, we broke down the time required to complete the task and the resources we needed. Leanne and Bev (the facilitators of our PLG) then walked around the room and asked the groups key questions related to the tool such as "How are you going for time?" and "What resources do you think you could have used if you had more time?" As the student in the situation, I became more aware of how much I needed to do, and when I needed to do it by. I was held accountable for my task as others relied on me and the teacher asked lots of questions during the design process. We debriefed the activity by then thinking about what to do next and reflecting on how we used our time - which then started to link into the blue tool! 

I walked away from this session with greater understanding of how to include this tool within my classroom, and I am looking forward to experimenting with the others too. Below are the Slides Leanne created and talked us through last week, about how she has implemented the tools in her own practice so far.

Dougherty's Diplomatic Debaters

Although it has been a long time coming, I finally have my Class On Air page complete! As I blogged about earlier, we were given the task to film a lesson and post the footage alongside our resources and reflections online.

This lesson was filmed about a month ago, but I have been super busy with the Jumpstart programme, so have only just completed the editing. I really enjoyed watching my class, especially as I had lots of different angles, because I was able to see things from different perspectives and notice things I did not during the lesson. We had set up a tripod and two laptops, as well as using our iPhones and my GoPro. This was also a double period, so I had hours and hours of footage to watch through afterward!

Even if others don't enjoy, or find this lesson helpful for them, I found the process great because I could observe myself. I have been able to reflect on a considerable amount throughout this process. Manaiakalani Class on Air is definitely something I may be interested to complete after finishing MDTA... Watch this space!

A Day at The Movies

As posted earlier today was the annual Manaiakalani Film Festival! This provides the opportunity for all students and teachers in the Manaiakalani Film Festival to exhibit their movies on the big screens at Hoyts. 

We, the MDTA, spent the day as helping hands for the running of the day, mostly ushering students into their seats and ensuring all are ready to go on time, as there was no waiting - the show must go on!

The hype and buzz from the kids was amazing, and incredibly infectious! The students were so happy, excited, positive and proud of themselves and their peers, which was so lovely to see. I need to encourage more created from  TC!

I enjoyed having the opportunity to be involved with this day, not only to see the students, but also have a glimpse into what the other schools had created. I have already reflected on the day, and what I need to improve for next year. See the short films created here (about 100!), and my film here.

As the students in my film are on study leave for their exams, I did not expect them to come to the cinema and present their film. So, I asked two girls from my SOS class, and they did an amazing job! Check out their intro below. I was pleasantly surprised when the boys from my film showed up to watch though!

Looking forward to next year, especially as it is the 10 year celebration.

Posting Our Votes

Carrying on from last week's creation of advertisements for our political parties, today we watched our ads and then voted in our own elections! I was so impressed with the ads the students created, they could actually run for government! Check out a couple below!

Students were given a a voting slip, to show what it is like to vote in the NZ elections - one vote for the party and one vote for the leader. I crossed out the party that each child was in, so they did not vote for their own party, so the voting was fairer. 

As we were only halfway through our double period after watching the films, I introduced the next part of our unit - branches of the NZ government. If you are interested to learn more, check out the virtual tours on the NZ parliament website.

Vote For Us!

Currently in SOS we are learning about the government and politics. I personally haven't ever had interest in politics because I find a lot of it so dull! So, this has required a lot of learning myself and thinking about how to teach everything creatively so the students are interested and engaged in the content/lessons.

This morning was a lot of fun! The students have spent the past couple of days creating their own political parties and developing their own ideas about what they would want to achieve if they were in the government. The kids came up with some amazing ideas such as free lunch for all kids in NZ, four days at school per week, building shelters for homeless and free university. The students had the job this morning to film their own advertisements to sell why their party should be in the government.

I am really looking forward to next week, because we are going to share their ads with the class, and then hold our own elections! The students will be able to vote for the party they believe should be in the government! In addition to the ad, the students are creating logos and slogans for their party too.

Wrapping Up The Integration

For the past month, the Junior school have been learning through an integrated unit about the Olympics, which I previously discussed with reference to my Year 10 PE class. I also blogged about the sketchnotes the Year 9's were completing in SOS about the Olympic values. This week has been about bring the integrated unit to a close.

The students task, was to use all of their knowledge and skills they developed throughout the unit across all subjects to create a website. For some parameters around the site, students had headings to shape their ideas; society, anthem, kai, and an athlete from the country their group was recognised as, and also a description and evaluation of their game they created in PE.

Today the students presented the website they created and explored some of the key knowledge they had learnt throughout the creation of the site. I was interested to see how students collaborated with one another, and utilised their skills/knowledge across subjects, rather than keeping math in math for example. Unfortunately I was sick while the students created their sites, but I was thankful to see some of their presentations.

For future integrated units, I think the teachers need to begin to brainstorm, plan and create lessons much earlier. Possibly there could be overall aims of the unit - what we actually want the students to get out of it (not the final product they produce, but the major objectives), I think this integrated unit was possibly left a little too open, which many of us struggled with. We also need to be clear on whether we are teaching our own subjects, or whether we have daily objectives we all work towards, to create some collaboration and cohesion across subjects. 

Nevertheless, the students generally enjoyed being in the same room for the month, with teachers moving to them, and I learnt a lot along the way for sure. I like the possibly of another integrated unit next term, look forward to seeing how we manage this one!

Handing Over the Whistle

Aim to get the ball into the container, cannot be over 3-point line

Currently the Juniors are completing an integrated unit based around The Rio Olympics. In PE, their task/challenge/goal is to create a game in small groups, which is then played in class. For the past week we have been playing the games in my Year 10 classes, and I am quite impressed with what they have created.

The students are responsible for setting up the equipment, teaching the game (including rules, boundaries, penalties), putting the groups into team and refereeing. Once the game has momentum and the class are engaged, our role as the teacher is to ask the group who is leading the lesson to ask questions to elicit thinking. For instance - why do you think the group are having difficulty scoring points? or How do you think you could make the game more difficult? After reflection and discussion, the group then modifies their game to increase engagement, interest and/or enjoyment.

Capture the flag style with Swiss balls and rippa tags!

This reflective process is important for students to be able to put a critical eye on their creations, and also enables them to see how simple modifications can change a game considerably. We hope through this reflection and evaluation, as well as the holistic process of creating and teaching lessons, encourages students to think about how it feels to be in the teachers shoes, but also that more brains than one can create some amazing things if you are open to feedback and feedforward from others.

I look forward to the remainder of the games, yet to be played!

Gaming Has Merits

Many of my friends have talked about the want for gaming to be included in education, or e-sports as some call it. I have never really been sure of what the merits of gaming for education and learning may be, as I do not identify as a 'gamer' myself (however this is difficult to define as there are multiple hats under the overall umbrella of gaming). I have however, always been open to the opportunities and potential affordances gaming may have, hence I went to a session led by Carl Condliffe focused on gamification during the conference last week.

The session didn't give me a considerable amount of 'take-aways' in terms of lessons or activities for my own teaching and planning, but certainly gave me a foundation of interest and knowledge about the learning and thinking involved with gaming. I left the conference feeling more confident about some of the aspects behind games, which may be able to be manipulated to be included in the classroom, such as leaderboards for attendance, creating narratives about students and levels to achieve both short term and long term.

Developing a world simultaneously 

Before this year, one of my part time jobs was as a nanny, and I still catch up with the kids I looked after from time to time. I looked after them today, having a chill morning doing our own thing and then a movie afternoon. One of the boys immediately starting playing Minecraft on his Xbox (7yo), entering worlds already created and venturing around, and I left him be. However half an hour later his brother (10yo) arrived home and I decided to see what would happen if he decided to join him - I was so impressed with the next half an hour as it unfolded.

Use of his iPad to research how to do new things, while still playing

The eldest came and sat down, and the youngest asked if he would like to play with him, which he did. They then split the screen so there could be two players, and they built and developed new worlds together, I was blown away. The discussion and collaboration involved throughout the demolition, planning and construction of their world was so impressive. They worked together well, supported one another and provided feedback to one another (positive and constructive. The boys were having fun and learning, a lot. There was mathematics involved, architecture, reading text and maps to find things and one another, research about the game, inquiry into how to improve/challenge themselves, and content development as they were told the uses and benefits of various material types such as iron. Everything the boys did throughout the game, is everything we hope our students develop in our classrooms, yet here they were in the school holidays gaming, by choice, doing just that!

Although I have not doubted the potential learning possibilities of gaming, or e-sports, this morning I saw many in action, in a mere half hour snippet of one game. I am interested to persevere this interest further, because I know many of my students are keen gamers. Unfortunately I don't think I will realistically have time to complete some more research and reading of gamification or a browse of Carl's site this term, but I would love to in the near future in hope to include some gamification in my classes next year.

In The Learners Shoes

Today I was privileged to spend the day out on Professional Development at a workshop led by The University of Auckland and Team Solutions. The workshop, "Building Blocks of Effective Practice", was based around student centred learning, targeting students Health, PE and Home Economics. Our overall aim was to develop an understanding and appreciation of various tools and models used in education to increase student centred learning and decrease teacher directed learning.

The day was separated into 5 rotations, to gain an understanding of a model at surface level before moving on. To enable us to  understand what we learnt at a deep level, we were provided with copious resources to progress our learning, and share with our colleagues. The first rotation (what is student centred learning and why is it important?) we all completed, as well as the last rotation (post-it box method).

Rotations 2, 3 and 4 were electives, we were able to choose what stations we wanted to work at and learn about. I chose to focus on challenging assumptions and critical thinking, learning for learning not for assessment and student voice. I found the day insightful, engaging and useful, and will definitely recommend the workshop to others for next year.

I regularly put my name down for Professional Development opportunities, because I think it is important to be up to date with current practices, as well as continue to learn. Although I only finished my degree last year, education continues to develop and evolve, thus I value any PD thrown my way. I am most looking forward to PENZ in July, a 3 day national conference. 

Read more about PENZ here!