Reading Observation Hui conversation

Hui - Dr Rebecca Jenson 

Talk about change to making the change.

We know that we are going to be judging the teaching, we know this implicitly. The teachers we view also know that they are being judged, even if we say we aren't. It is implicit. 

A way of thinking is about taking the snapshot and having those professional conversations.

Snapshot - 'taking a photograph' of what is happening and then comparing it to what it looked like before. (Summative) This is what has always been done by Woolf Fisher but now moving towards us doing this.

When you see something you code it as ... i.e. when you moderate writing it gets coded as ...

Formative Leadership functions to have professional conversations to make a change. 

In terms of the snapshot, we are looking for what we have seen and what we haven't seen. 

Is it a vase or a cup? = when we see an item with flowers but has a handle, we need to know if we are deciding if it is a vase or a cup.

Diverse Texts:

Windows & Mirrors - our students need both when learning.

Teach Learners to Think and Question:

It is the ako part - working with the learners to shape this.

Discussion around the question: What do we see is the strength in our classrooms around these 5 things?

• When teachers are working with learners are they creating learners who think and answer, not think and question. 
• The variance between teachers/schools is huge, so it is hard to answer the question "what do we do well already"
• What barriers do cultures create around the idea of questions?
• Do we teach the skills to disagree with each other?
• Saying to students  - How does talk help you learn? Write down the rules for your classroom around talk. These two questions/thinking can create a picture of the realities of talking in the classroom
• One member reflected on the energy put into the create tasks as opposed to the teaching of the task. Perhaps this isn't the best for students. 

The observation tool is built around the 5 areas above. 

One way to think about it in terms of observations: We are looking at how much pollen is in the hive, so if one bee only brings back a small amount it doesn't matter. 

Why? Our reading data  - principals have looked at the data are wanting to focus on improving reading 

Identify trends to improve student outcomes 

Wide range of snapshots across the country 

Identify the good oil 

School leaders PLG - ask them to summarise the why? Why are we doing these observations?

Manaiakalani TOD Workshop 1 & 2

Workshop 1

Surfing Semantic Waves 
Dr Jannie van Hawes

Semantic - meaning-making

We want to take students from text simple to text complex.

Newsela Max - you can change the level of complexity of the texts to fit with your students.

We want to surf our students down and then up again in the complexity of text. 

When we put together the 'learning' we need to start with the nugget of the learning, the key to what we want the students to walk away with and then moving onto what we need to do to create support in order to help them get to the complex. 

The workshop did leave me with some questions around how taking texts, rewriting it for the learners supports the high leverage practise of authentic texts? I also wonder if we as educators set glass ceilings for our students because we 'know' where they are at? Finally, I wondered about how, with many of these things being focussed on ESOL, this concept sits after our morning session looking at valuing the first languages of our learners?

Many questions to ponder and discuss with others that attended this session. 

Workshop 2

Engage the high school reader with Multimodal Resources

Maria Krausse and Kerry Boyde-Preece from MET

Presentation Link

When using Multi-Modal are looking at two types of engagement - behavioural (the hook) and cognitive (T-shaped/text sets).

Many different places you can find content. 

There are some practical suggestions for high school teachers to make it more engaging.

I really liked the idea of using a snapshot from a student's blog and then linking to the actual blog. 

The presentation was really practical and allowed for teachers to see many examples of how they could take multi-modal and fit it within a high school context. 

Manaiakalani Teacher Only Day - Key Note - Dr Rae Si'ilata and Kayla Hansell

 Link to Presentation

Rae and Kayla began by sharing their pepeha, helping to establish where they have come from, who stands behind them and who helped to shape where they are today. 

Rae shared how she started a school in Samoa but that she would do it again by coming at learning from the place of language ... using bilingualism to shape learning. Language revitalisation is the key to connecting to our learners and their whānau. This is directly linked to culture and language and revitalisation.

Pikipiki hama kae vaevae manava - Join the outriggers to share life

Privilege the native speaker in the room!

High Leverage Practises are underpinning why were are focussing on Reading. 

In second language spaces, we do not separate the reading, writing, listening and speaking. We integrate.

Listening reading viewing - input channels

Speaking writing presenting - output channels

6 modes of communication we need to be integrating. 

What are Māori medium doing that isn't happening in English medium - they are achieving much better in Māori than in English medium. 

ESOL = English for Speakers of Other Languages - they are NOT ESOL children - we need to add English not replace other languages with English.

The government gives some system-level support for 5 languages but not all Pacifika languages. We need to give support for ALL Pacifika languages. Due to the colonisation of Pacifika places, New Zealand has the constitutional responsibility to care for these places. 

Bilingual = On top it looks like one tree but underneath the ground, it is many roots combined. Input one language - make meaning in main language - output in 

School English isn't the only English 

"Each learning area has its own language or languages."

An anecdotal story of a Science Teacher who was a Mandarin speaker, who allowed her mandarin speaking students to unpack the learning in mandarin and then output in English and their English understanding went through the roof. 

We want our tamariki to be critical of power.

We all carry our own worlds around in our heads ... we make predictions based on our own context.

Fill in the blanks:

What do you read here? Was it close to what is below?

Kayla Hansell shared some practical things to consider as we plan for our classrooms.

Blog post

Slide 68 and 69 from the slide presentation have specific links to examples of reo being used to encourage engagement and amplification through a non-english worldview. 

Facilitator Day - Hui (Day 3)

An overview of our Facilitator Day

Pat Sneedon

Pat, the Chair of the Manaiakalani Trust, came along and shared today. He discussed what a treasure we are, how our rolls allow us to move our kaupapa forward. We are here to give support our low deciles schools to move our learners forward. To bring equity to the education sector. 

Pat was compelling and rousing, bringing reality and vision to the room. As a colleague said, it is always great to hear from Pat.

Makaore 

If Māori and Pacifica aren't achieving then it isn't them, it is us!

Demographics = 40 kura are Rumaki/Immersion and 33 Ruareo/Bi-lingual within the wider Manaiakalani Programme Outreach

Level 1 = 80% or more in Reo

Level 2/3/4 = Bi-lingual

Lesson in Ngā tūkapi - Pronouns

Makaore took us through some work on using pronouns. It was a great session, with Mak using some 'friends' to help explain. With support from Vicki and Amie I was able to understand how to use them. It does feel a little confusing and I think it will take more than one session to get my head around it. 

I created a drawing based on Makaore's explanation and our activity. Thankfully it was a 'get up and move' activity which helped to understand what it was all about. 

DFI - Vicki Archer

Tuhi Mai Tuhi Atu and Cybersmart Curriculum

 Cybersmart overview