Ohinemuri Schools' Festival of Education

Mind Frames of Change

Yesterday the Learning Leaders and I were lucky enough to head over to the inaugural Education Festival held at Paeroa College.  Our intent was to go and see the keynote address by Lynda Shanks from Cognition Education in Auckland.  Cognition are the educational providers for John Hattie's Visible Learning Plus.

Here is a summary of the key messages I took away from Lynda's presentation...

There are three main messages of change presented; 1.  What are visible learners?  2.  What are the mind frames of the teachers (are we change agents in education)?  3.  What system reform is required in schools?

The notion of building up a shared language of learning was key.  The question - when your students are asked "what was learning like today?" would they say "fun" or "busy" or would they be able to describe their learning?  This question was supplemented with video of students verbalising their experiences in the classroom.  

How is it that we collectively as Waihi College staff are going about embedding the language of learning within our students?  Do we have a 'way' of learning that is uniform, do our students know it, and is it best practice?

Lynda went through Stephen Covey (recommended author or the The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People) basic change model.  How is it that we as educators know that we've actually made an impact on the learning of our students?

• See - School Culture, personal beliefs, and traditions.  
• Do - School structure/policies/rules/programmes.
• Behave - the results and effects (e.g. achievement results).

Lynda then moved into the purpose of the workshops on the day.  She encouraged all of us to see ourselves as the change agents for our schools.  To begin this through a series of self reflective questioning.  

1. How am I doing with my students?
2. Where am I going to next in my practice?
3. How am I going to get there?
4. What can I control as a teacher?
5. Do we challenge all of our students in our classes?
6. Do we plan lessons from different points of view (the most able or those struggling)?
7. Do we fall into the habit of labeling students? 

Overall the presentation was great.  Lynda is clearly a communicator who is grounded in the experiences of the the classroom.  

This post relates to  RTC#8. "Demonstrate in practice their knowledge and understanding of how ākonga learn." and RTC#7. "Promote a collaborative, inclusive and supportive learning environment.