2015 Inquiry

Mathematics PD with Bruce Moody

Mathematics PD

Report on Assessment Document Day at Otonga Aug 27^{th 2015}

Issues

1.       There is a need to rationalise the various documents being used throughout the school for assessment. Different levels are holding different documents as being primary. This gives a lack of cohesiveness and the potential for misunderstandings about student achievement as children progress through the school.

2.    Some of these documents were written prior to the National Standards. They have the Numeracy Project focus on Number, and even focus within that on Addition/Subtraction regardless of what is in the relevant Standard. Parts of NZC are simply not being taught, particularly to Level 3 students. As such, these documents need to be re-aligned to current assessment requirements. Some documents have mixtures of teaching practices and important learning outcomes. It is unclear who the intended audience is and what the primary purpose is.

3.    Documents shared with parents/caregivers have too much detail, lack a standard form across the school, and are only indirectly linked to the Standards.

4.    Evidence gathering of student work seems to be rather ad hoc, both in terms of what is collected and how it is collected.

5.    There is an issue regarding reporting to parents mid-way between Standards. An unwillingness to report students as ‘not reaching the standard’ at mid-year may lead to reporting that students are At Standard when some important aspects have not even been taught yet. On the other hand, some students may be perfectly on track, but unnecessary angst created if they are reported as not meeting the Standard, when the issue is one of not having covered all of the work yet.

Suggestions

1.     A seamless set of documents is produced. These documents will share the same philosophy, wording, and physical appearance. They will be based upon the National Standards (as a subset of the National Curriculum).These documents will be written for the purpose of identifying student progress. They will not replace other documents such as the Progressions provided by Bruce Moody or the other material available online regarding planning for learning.Keeping these separate will help clarify what it is that teachers get students to do – a wide of activities – with the learning outcomes that will result from this work. This process allows for a concise page with a small number of points to be written for each year level. This page can then be used by many parties to focus upon key learning progress, rather than these being lost amongst the detail of how that learning is likely to occur.

2.    In order to clearly identify student progress, differences between adjoining Standards can be identified. These items form the basis of each page. For example, while addition is taught to Year 4’s, the key differences in the Standard are that subtraction and multiplication are now required. So, teaching documents will describe the addition that Year 4’s will do, but the assessment page will highlight the need to gather evidence of subtraction and multiplication. While Number is the critical element of each Standard, it is not the only one. This is increasingly recognised in the Standards as students move into Levels 2 & 3. While every objective does not have to be met in order for a best-fit OTJ to be made, having other items listed will help teachers recognise that the entire curriculum needs teaching, and that pushing students on in Add/sub, without addressing Algebra and other strands, does not enhance the evidence needed to support the OTJ.

3.    Limiting the amount of material presented to parents allows for a concise description of a year’s work to be shared.  By not linking these differences to specific language subsets (e.g. naming of strategies), we produce statements in common language to share. (Initial drafts of these were started on Thursday).

4.     Many students are operating blogs that include their work in Maths; it seems that this could be a very useful facility to gather evidence. The work itself does not have to be labelled with descriptors. The teacher could direct students to place key items of their work onto their blogs and know that this can be accessed and discussed as needed to support an OTJ. With junior students, the use of annotated photographs was discussed, especially where students have recorded clearly visible work (e.g. writing on a ‘jelly-bean table’) or are engaged in a recognisable process (e.g. measuring a table with ice-block sticks). Short transcripts may be required for younger students. The key is that these will be on a few, selected events and so not a repetitive burden for teachers.

5.    My understanding is that the Standard applies at the end of the specified period; e.g. the End of Year 4 Standard. Thus, the mid-year report indicates progress in respect to the Standard currently applicable. This eliminates the current problems of either saying students have done work they haven’t or suggesting that they are under-performing when they are not.

6.    Bruce willing to help edit work produced to help meet these suggestions.

Bruce Moody

Camp Whakamaru 2015

Camp was great fun again. What an excellent venue Camp Whakamaru is - and what a great way to get our families and children enjoying, learning and working together in the outdoors. HUGE organisation but well worth it!!

Camp Whakamaru

The camp objectives are as follows:

To build confidence in decision making and individual initiative away from home and parents – developing self-management skills.

To provide outdoor physical experiences which cannot be provided at school eg raft building, kayaking, rope climbing, archery etc.

To develop health and safety strategies for outdoors.

To develop team building group work and skills in cooperating with a variety of people.

To develop problem solving strategies.

2014 Inquiry

Google Classrooms

ULearn - Breakout 1    - Google Classrooms -

Flexible timetable
Student centred learning
Developing the key competency of managing self
Google classroom is a new addition to google apps / parents have access and editable by students and teacher
Chn work independently
Calendar is shared
Sets up video in the
For mathe they use IXL like mathletics - a cheaper option than mathletics. . .lots of word problems also gives them a 'smarts score'  - the whole school does it.
 They also use e ako -  really good for word problems
Learning pathways come from e asttle - maths learning pathways she has a grid showing where they go. . . They look at their test figures where they went wrong and find the activity to go to. . .
Literacy shed for writing
Runs writing and reading workshops every day

Google classroom has recently been put on google apps
Easy way to share, hand in assignments, writing tasks,
Works well with google sites and flexible timetable
Students can post things to each other - she posts the writing task for the week, novel study. . . .
If using google apps and google drive, it works seamlessly
Girls use easttle to test and set their next learning steps - it generates a report then a report for the teacher. . .
The students use it to guide their learning  blue box on easttle  is what they work on. . .
It tells the student what they need to work on. . . .types what she needs to work on in Ixl
She has a whole class overview - she plans her workshops based on these needs
Teacher teaches and runs workshops all day
Doesn't tell chn they have to come to workshops but they choose - it's part of their learning. . .most kids take on that responsibility
Chn can also create workshops if the skill is a strength
Teacher will video workshops if lots of kids are out of the classroom eg orchestra time
Writing focus per week - usually covers a few games, independent writing workshops all have a focus - write to persuade. . .peer assessed must have 2 comments before teacher conferences chn and/with their work
Allow for peer and collaborative writing to happen often!
Tchr will take an independent writing workshop based on the independent writing tasks. .
Setting independent writing for the week gives more time for collaborative writing
Blogs are used instead of e portfolios - chn choose what they put on
Only rule is they must submit two pieces per week. Tchr doesn't dictate.
There's a link to all chns blogs on the google classroom site - chn are encouraged to comment
Apple TV this year - allows you to mirror iPads to your screen , chn use them for peer and group collaboration, it's portable, great if using iPads a lot.

Best apps according to the chn list. . .
Notability is great app / toontastic adobe voice, motion maths apps, doodle buddy, educreations, khan academy, google apps - we video, powToon, soho Show, Prezi

Tchr puts work up on Sunday for the following week and a lot of chn plan their work for the week on Sundays
She never teaches the whole class, chn all work individually
Chn take the generic task and apply it to their goals they set their own success criteria
She took workshops on giving constructive feedback, writing success criteria,
When she reports on writing it needs two peer assessments

If there's a new app she teaches 5 students how to use it . . . And then they teach others. .
All their learning is in their drives
They all have access to the class drive
have a shared class folder.
They all have doodle buddy on ipad for maths and iPads each
Fio text, eako Ixl khan academy, for maths
Uses easttle levels set by the school to report on Nat stds
Year 3 up should work this way . . . Then they would be ready for this. . .

1 to 1 devices now the situation. . .before that they had to book
Apps/software used:
Literacy: Notability, comic life, puppet pals, I Brainstorm, Inspiration, kindle, iBooks, book creator, toontastic, Adobe voice.

They put webinars on the school website to teach parents how to use apps, access the drives. . .comment . . . (WHAT A GREAT IDEA FOR PARENTS)
If kids don't get their work done by the end of the week, they go back to the teacher structured timetable - they hate it so will work at home and get the work done.
Google drive, blogger, iMovie, flip video, animation desk, Pic Collage, Prezi, Hopscotch,

Http://site. Google.com/a/hasp.school.nz/room-20-2013/blogs
Sarahha@hcsp.school.nz
022 1751715

The BYOD Journey - Kate Friedwald(Olof) Waiariki School Chch

ULearn - Breakout 2

The BYOD Journey - Kate Friedwald(Olof) Waiariki School Chch

Why BYOD?

Devices aren't enough, it's got to be about the learning.
This is the collaborative age - chn create and therefore need the devices.
Learning time = 20% at school, 80% at home.
You can really individualise learning with BYOD
Learning can continue at home and outside the classroom, ability to do more collaborative learning and flipped learning.
Considerations:
Use GOOGLE, better than on site server
Online security?
Physical security at school of devices
How set up is our learning environment? Can't just bring a device. . .is the school already using google and thinking about the learning
Reluctant teachers are paired up with a teacher who's keen in paired situations
They restricted BYOD in their school to ipads only because of Tchr and school familiarity - wouldn't go under iPad mini size. Will still recommend iPads because of the features but it is a multi- platform world.

Digital learning environment space - managed with hapara. See Dr Puentedura's website.
SAMR  model. Get into higher order learning not 'your group's on iPads' nonsense.
Apps are chosen for creativity not play ability.
Quick maths app - needs to be purchased
Book creator -app to buy
Routines need to be set up at the beginning of the year - no devices on the floor.
2 hands, walking,  they must come to school charged
Students are responsible for :When they agree to BYOD they have to bring it every day cos the teacher has planned for it, they have to purchase and update their apps.
Charging, (we can't charge 32 devices at school, 1or2 maybe) location, appropriate use, digital footprint, apps, breakages.
Sch resp for:
Network, filtering, security,
BYOD is a 3 way partnership
Challenges:
Equality, digital citizenship- parents also have a responsibility here.
All chn have their own personal logon to the sch wifi - great because then kids know that they're being monitored.
Loss of manual skills - kids still use pen and paper. She gets chn to do writing tasks on paper and on device to see if a difference exists.
Screen time - actually it's a learning tool, remind parents that at school they still do art, PE, SCIENCE.
On school website it's good to have a link for parents, the whys and wherefore,  Noel Leeming gave the school community a years interest free on purchasing devices.
What did they do?
Information evening
Ask parents to fill out an expression of interest
Class selection
BYOD agreement - APP code redemption
GAFE and Hapara set up tutorial on the website would work too.
Device set up done one on one.

Day to day:
1 group has a must do doc. Can do. . .
Must do's - these activities. . .
Learn it, practice it, prove it, . . .use explain everything to prove it. . Send it to the Tchr as proof.
How do we know they are doing it. . .

Must do / Can do . . . For good groups of kids
 Has a structured timetable for those who need it.
Mon morning - a must do is check their email. . .

Http://app.event.core-ed.org/

Google sites for the class page

Gifted and Talented strategy games module

What a lovely Module this has been to take.

Both groups were totally immersed throughout. The games were excellent - strategic and requiring real problem solving - also there is a diverse range of games to appeal to each and every interest.

The children worked collaboratively, were challenged and had to persevere to win - then win and lose graciously. Great skills for these kids!

There were also prizes at stake for - winning, working well as a team member, perseverance and support of someone else.

Learning in a fun environment - a module we really need to do yearly!