Notes for a new term

The end of the first semester has meant a bit of reflection about the successes and failures of the courses that have just finished, so that particularly the failures can make my this semester's courses better. In the spirit of so many blog posts and suchlike, I am going to do a top-5 list of things I can do better this time around.

1. Don't overcomplicate things. It is good to offer options to students and to give them freedom to choose or take their inquiries in the direction that appeals to them, however, in one of my modules I ended up assessing two different standards at two different levels, which meant four sets of marking and moderating. Not to mention the sheer logistics of differentiating my instructions to students! Madness. It is much better to do one thing really well, and have choice within that as necessary.

2. Keep the learning objectives in mind. No matter what you are teaching, you will have to report on it at some point. If you use your learning objectives to keep your teaching on track, it also will make the reporting both relevant and easier. (This doesn't mean 'teach to the test', that is something else again, because what a test is, is and should be completely different from learning objectives.) Learning objectives are what your students are supposed to be learning, so shouldn't that be what you (I) are teaching?

3. Mark as you go. I am a shocker for leaving everything till the big main assessment, and then having all of my classes with marking due in the same week. And marking is not my favourite part of this job.  Even though all of the work that students are doing throughout the course is relevant, and there are some good, assessable activities amongst them, which won't even take that long, I just somehow always seem to forget that, and end up at a point where if I were to mark everything that I originally intended, it would take me three weeks longer than I actually have. So, do lots of small bits of marking, and don't procrastinate, and even, plan small bits that you will mark within a larger class or activity and then, do just that bit. (I'm being aspirational here, I know, but it's a plan...)

4. It's okay to do teaching. A lot of what we do is inquiry based, and student choice and voice are really important. But to begin a new course or class, actually students do need some context, so that they can find out what they don't know, in order to find out 'the answer', or an answer. And sometimes, some information, via some sort of text, and then some questions about it, equals scaffolding! Seriously, this definition only just occurred to me right now. I am so pleased with myself. Because I like teaching, and making students think about stuff they never would have themselves, and I like to take their brains and make them hurt, just a bit, and this is because one of the things that is most important to me is doing the action of thinking. Students are not always going to know what questions to ask, but you can lead them towards those questions.

5. Do what you love. The best classes are the ones you are really involved in because it's what you are really passionate about or interested in. Students know that too. The teachers I remember are the ones who really loved their content, so that even if I hated it (Animal Farm and allegory in 7th form English, anyone?), I still responded to it. That's as true now the classes are called year whatever as it was when they were primers, standards and forms. So the stuff you geek out on as a person - and we all do - should be the stuff you teach, simple as that.

I have a plan now, and at nearly the end of week one, I am achieving it so far. We'll see how the rest of the term and semester go.

Just as an aside, isn't it funny how so many years of experience make you think there is nothing left to learn, but then you start to do things differently, and the learning starts all over? I much prefer the continually learning version, it's a lot more fun.

Something (else) completely new - the follow-up.

Last Tuesday, for the first time ever, I presented a professional learning workshop to a group of teachers. Not from my school, but from 3 other local high schools in a combined schools professional learning day, so to an unknown audience. As I described last week, beforehand, I was feeling quite daunted by the whole thing, because it is quite different presenting to your peers from a position of equality than it is teaching a class of students.

In the end, as everyone told me it would, it went really well. I tried not to include too much (and skipped the part where I had written in orange to skip if I was running short of time) and had a mix of theory/information and practical activities. I followed my plan, and the timings I included seemed to be pretty realistic ...

Until it got to the bit where I was demonstrating how we do things here. In the best possible way, the workshop got hijacked at that point, because there were so many interesting and interested questions. The last half hour completely disappeared. 

In the same way that a sidetrack in class can be the best teaching you do, because of the engagement and questioning involved, that last half hour was probably the most productive in making my 'students' think about their own practice and how it might be modified. They were really interested in the practicalities; having accepted that change needs to happen in their own contexts, they really wanted to know how. I feel that I was helpful, both in initiating some of the thinking, and with providing the beginnings of answers. I know that I gave them plenty to take back to their own schools.

I also got lots of requests for access to the information sources I shared and the ideas, so I put together a slideshow which included everything. In hindsight, I should have done it beforehand, and used that to run the workshop, but that is definitely part of the learning curve. Having done this once, I definitely want to do it again.

Here is the slideshow I put together:

I think the main thing that I was trying to convey, and the most important idea for me anyway, is that modern learning doesn't necessarily need beautiful high-tech surroundings to happen in. In many ways, having this available to new schools is a deterrent to schools and teachers who are in traditional surroundings, as they feel the practice is tied to the environment. Modern learning practice is simply another way of thinking about the role of education and teachers, in that the focus is on the learning of the students, not the teaching of the teachers. Looking at the NZ curriculum and understanding what it really wants us as practitioners to do, and then looking for ways to do that, can take anyone in any environment forward; all it needs is the will to make that cognitive change.

Something (else) completely new.

Tomorrow I will be doing something completely new. It will be a steep learning curve for me, and I am feeling quite nervous right at the moment.

Last term, Claire floated the idea to us as a staff of being involved with a cross-school teacher only day, and that some of us might like to present a workshop. I am still not entirely sure how I put myself forward for this, it was one of those things that sounded like a good idea at the time...

So tomorrow I will be presenting a workshop on Modern Learning. I would like to quite clearly state that I am NOT an authority on this, but I think that is the point. The amount of learning that I have done in the last year and a half at HPSS, and that I am still doing, is huge. I came in as a complete novice with no background in anything except the traditional, but I was/am enthusiastic and excited by the idea of doing things differently. I guess I am now a not-quite-novice, but the feeling of being back in my first year teaching hasn't quite gone yet.

How I have learned to do things differently is basically what this workshop will be about, and how others can learn to do things differently too - kindof setting myself up as the test case or guinea-pig, and then showing others that it's not overwhelmingly difficult.

As you can see:

I have a plan. It is pretty detailed. All those tabs are parts of it. Everything is timed. And that's the second page, the first page has a section that says skip this section if running out of time. In orange. I am pretty confident I will.

For me, this is part of me being a teacher and a learner. This is part of my own Professional Learning. It is me being Adventurous and Resourceful.

What I think I will also need to do, somehow, is actually write the whole thing up and put that in here. We'll see how it goes first.

Walking the walk

Or: Doing what I tell my students to do.

On Friday Claire, one of our DPs and an awesome example of making blogging work for oneself, spoke to our community students about the purpose and scope of blogging. Not only did she inspire a lot of them, but she also inspired me - to the extent that I now have a list 12 items long** of things I really need to say. This is one of them...

After Claire's presentation, while Sally showed those students who didn't have a blog yet how to set one up, I went back to our hub with my students. Even after what Claire had said, there were a couple of them who still didn't get it, or were resistant to the idea of blogging about what they are learning. I was trying to encourage them, by explaining how writing about stuff is such a good way of thinking things through and coming to conclusions you might not otherwise get to, when I realised that I was talking the talk, but I hadn't actually done any of this myself, in my blog which was also already set up, for even longer than they had.  

So I resolved that for every blog I make them write, I will write one too. I will try and be an example of how useful blogging is, as a record of my thinking and my learning, and of how it doesn't have to be this earth-shattering momentous piece of writing every time, but can be just a note.

For me this serves as a reminder too, that I am a learner; that this forum is an excellent place to gather records of my learning*; and that I can't expect my students to do something that I am not prepared to do myself.  

All of which are very important things.

By the way, you might note that I have added my students' blogs to mine, so please read them too and comment:

*Seeing as I am in the process of renewing my practicing certificate, and the docs I did submit for this were pretty boring, this seems particularly apt.

**And dammit, while I was just now out running, I thought of two more, but one of them requires a playlist, so may be a while...

#hpsschool 

The lesson that bit the dust.

Yesterday, one of my classes was just rubbish.  The technology failed, the kids were distracted, and I felt frustrated that things didn't go to plan.

I am so glad that one of the school mantras is not to view failure as failure, but as a learning opportunity.  I think for me that means that if you try something and it doesn't work, that is okay, it is still better than not trying at all, as long as you make it mean something.

This is what I learned:

Don't over-complicate things.  Technology is an excellent tool, but it doesn't need to be the focus.  Sometimes doing things the way you have done them before is actually okay, if you know it works.

Don't over-simplify things.  Making things too easy for students means that they get bored, very, very quickly.  And then things descend into chaos, very, very quickly.

Don't keep going when it isn't working.  Have a backup plan and flexibility - and if possible, a co-teacher who can pull the situation out of the mire through sheer awesomeness!

Don't forget who your students are.  In two ways:  don't expect maturity from them all the time - mostly, yes, but not always, because they are 13; and remember that they are individuals, so whole class teaching is something that should only be pulled out on occasion.

So what I thought of as an easy lesson became very hard.  It is one of those experiences that at the time you just want to be over, but afterwards you can appreciate that some good things did come out of it, even if not the ones you anticipated.  As a consequence, I am planning to change a few things.  We'll see how they go...

On the riding of bicycles...

I was going to say, "the more things change, the more they stay the same", but that's not quite what I mean.  Things are both changing and staying the same, at the same time, but somehow, it is the melding of both that is really interesting.

I am enjoying being back in spaces and and times where I can interact with students and really teach them stuff.  It is just like riding a bike, in that I am finding it very natural to be in the role of guide and catalyst, and at times it seems that the intervening 9 years have little or no meaning in terms of my skills and abilities being unpracticed.  When I need them, there they are.  

And I remember all the reasons why I enjoyed teaching then, because they are the same reasons I am enjoying myself now.  (And while there were many reasons why I didn't want to return, they now seem to be far less relevant...)  I see students who are engaged with their education, both the what and the how; I can teach stuff which has meaning for me, which makes what we are doing far more interesting for both my students and myself; and I can see those lightbulbs going on, hear them say "that was really interesting", and know that each little step brings confidence.  I love being a catalyst for enthusiasm.

This all sounds extremely pink and idealistically fluffy, which is not at all what I intended.

Because / And yet, the reason I am able to be the kind of teacher I always want to be is that the context is so different.  

I am learning the value of students understanding their own learning.  They know what they are doing and why they are doing it.  Now I have to learn to tap into it within my teaching.

I am learning about co-teaching.  The why of it is just so awesome and yet entirely sensible at the same time - practical, real-world application, anyone? - that it makes sense to me inherently.  The how of it is where I am definitely still in baby-steps; so far I can manage the turn-taking type strategy, where we are both on the same big thematic page, but we each have our own text boxes ... the other models are still on the way. 

In some ways, I think it is easier for me to do this learning than it might be for other more established teachers.  There are a couple of reasons for this.  Mainly, as the school is establishing itself, it is a big adventure for everyone, not just for me, and we all have that feeling of new and different.  Once the school has a full complement of students, and teachers have been teaching in this environment for a longer period of time, the adventure atmosphere will inevitably wear off, simply because there will be experience to fall back on.  This will also make it harder for teachers new to the school to assimilate, I feel.  At the moment, I am on a huge learning curve, but so is everyone else, and so I don't feel as out of place as if I were the only one.  

Also, because I have been out of the game for so long, I fully expect to be doing a lot of learning.  Someone who is simply making a career progression will not necessarily have that same mindset, as they will of course feel confident in their abilities and knowledge, and so to head back to not-quite-but-nearly the beginning will be a lot more demanding. Because I presume it will be challenging, at least I have a mindset to meet that challenge.

I'm not entirely sure this was where I originally intended on going with this.  But I do know that it is because the context has changed, that I am able to place landmarks using the things I know already.  To go back to the cycling analogy, I still have all the skills of riding a bike, only now I am taking it off-road and along mtb trails rather than sticking to conventional roads.  

Hopefully I won't crash as often within the metaphor as I do when I literally go out to the forest...

I have so much to learn!

A new job always means new skills, new ways of doing things, new ways of thinking even.  My new job means all of those things to a degree that I half expected, but couldn't understand the reality of until I began.

My return to teaching after nearly nine years of maternity leave and study was always going to be a challenge.  I was happy during that time not to be in the classroom, because I had become the teacher that I had always said should no longer be there.  The one who wasn't passionate and interested in their students or material any more.  I was a student again, of motherhood, Italian, and Renaissance History.  And I loved it.

This year I am no longer a student.  That is, not formally.  I am a teacher again, but as much as I will be imparting knowledge and skills to teenagers, I will also be learning to be a teacher all over again.  

Things that I will be learning:

• A new curriculum.  They snuck that in there while I was away and suddenly the 'new curriculum' that was current all those years ago has disappeared and this new document exists.  I must read it.
• A new way of teaching.  Co-teaching.  With teachers from different subjects to my own.  Actually this bit is really exciting and the planning that I have been doing with my co-teachers is lending me that inspiration that was lacking for so long.
• A new system.  Well, lots of them really.  Everything is device-based and I need to get my head around both the way of doing things and the tools of the online environment to enable me to do them.
• A new pedagogy.  Haha, pedagogy at all.  I am not a terribly theoretical person, and have been lucky enough to have the skills to get in there and just teach without worrying about the reasons why.  But now I am surrounded by a new type of teaching and learning, as well as some incredible colleagues who are both inspirational and knowledgeable, and I feel I should actually know a bit more about why I do things how I do them.
• A new set of acronyms.  And jargon.  I thought the military husband pulled them out just to make me feel ignorant, but now I have more than him.  I just need to know what they actually mean.
• And, to blog.  This is my first ever, and so far it seems to be working for me...

And do you know what?  That inspiration and excitement is coming alive again.  I am also learning to be the teacher that I should and can be, inside myself.  That, I think, is one of the most important lessons of all.

What lessons will life be teaching you in the next while?

Any comments or questions?

Learn lots,

Trace.