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.

Self Reporting Grades Part ii)

Empowering Student's Learning

One of the most exciting presentations from the Visible Learning Summit from term one this year was the presentation by the Selwyn College leadership team.  

Selwise

Please take some time to have a look at the following video of Selwyn College.  It is a summary of their journey over the last six year (new Principal in 2008) with some dramatic improvements in their outcomes.  One of the things that was presented at the conference was the benefits of explicitly presenting the language of learning - as you watch take note of the ways visually that Selwyn College has deliberately presented this.  

They have formulated a shared level of learning 'advertising' that is the standard across the school.  Students are re-enforced this values and methods in all their class.  Selwyn College is deliberately teaching meta-cognitive strategies to students with the goal of making them better learners.  

Selwyn College was a finalist in the annual Prime Minister's Education Excellence Awards in: Excellence in Leading - Atakura Award in 2014.  Their NCEA results progressed from pass rates below 50% of students to consistently in the 90%.   

One of the major changes that Selwyn College went through was to try to empower their students to chart their own way through their learning.  The way that they did this was to supply the students a detailed (in student language) descriptor of what each level of the learning was.  That is they'd take the NZ Curriculum's Achievement Objectives (click here) and drill down to what that would mean in the classroom - with exemplar illustrations.  That way the student is empowered to know exactly where they are in their learning and what the next steps in their learning would/should be.  

This was identified by ERO here at Waihi College when they highlighted a next step in our journey being "Quality Assurance... monitoring student's progress with agreed parameters."

The idea here being that the student would be able to understand what it is that they know (where they are in the curriculum) and that they'd be able to see the next steps in their learning to move themselves forward.  This relates very well to John Hatties most influential (biggest effect size) factor in student achievement - 'Self Reported Grades' (click here for evidence).  

Here is John Hattie briefly presenting a summary of his meta study (about five mins)...

This leads us to consider the norms of practice here at Waihi College.  How is it that we're focussing our collective efforts to making learning more visible?   What habits and systems do we share as teachers here at school that empower our students to progress in their learning?  

This post relates to RTC #6  "Conceptualise, plan and implement an appropriate learning programme." And RTC #8. "Demonstrate in practice their knowledge and understanding of how ākonga learn- i) enable ākonga to make connections between their prior experiences and learning and their current learning activities & iii) encourage ākonga to take responsibility for their own learning and behaviour."

Self Reporting Grades Part i)

Students Self Reporting Grades

On Friday last week Vicky, Jo, Leon and I were lucky enough to make the trip up to Auckland to hear John Hattie speak at the Visible Learning Plus summit.  John Hattie has forged a strong reputation as one of the world premiere educationalists and is in high demand around the globe.   

I have reviewed one of his books Visible Learning for Teachers : Maximising Impact on Learning.  Here is a link to my review (click here).  Here is a link to the Visible Learning website (click here).

Previously most pd has been focussed around the things that teachers can do to best maximise the learning in the classroom.  Such as providing formative assessments, reciprocal teaching and feedback.

One of the key messages from the summit was that teachers should also look at the effective means available to students themselves.  Interestingly these are quantifiable more beneficial to learning than what the teachers can influence (aka getting the students flying themselves is better than teachers driving).

Here is the same diagram but looking at the strategies that the student is in control of...





At the conference there was much made of the 'self-reported grades'.  At an effect size of 1.44 this equates to over three times as much progress as just aging.  Or 50% more effective than formative evaluation.  

How is it that we can get our Waihi College students to be better at self-reported grading?  Is it enough to just get the students to judge themselves as "N", "A", "M" or "E"?

Primarily it is about having the students moved more towards become auto-didactic.  Being able to be their own teachers.  

Historically the system has been that teachers have been the gatekeepers of knowledge and would typically drip feed that knowledge out in the classroom.  Students would sit assessments at times where the teacher had confidence that the students have 'received' enough learning.  Sometimes teachers would have little appreciation of whether the learning had actually taken place.  

Hattie was interested in having the learning become 'Visible' - that is the students can explicitly see their progression through the content.  Question - what would that look like here at Waihi College?


This post relates to RTC #6  "Conceptualise, plan and implement an appropriate learning programme." And RTC #8. "Demonstrate in practice their knowledge and understanding of how ākonga learn- i) enable ākonga to make connections between their prior experiences and learning and their current learning activities & iii) encourage ākonga to take responsibility for their own learning and behaviour."

Professional Learning Community

High Trust Conversation Starters

 

The importance of having a network around you as a professional teacher cannot be understated.  All teachers need to be able to find others who are willing to invest their time, energy and wisdom into their colleagues.  This point was highlighted by Hargreaves and Fullan in Professional Capital...

"Individuals get confidence, learning, and feedback from having the right kind of people and the right kind of interactions and relationships around them." (2012, p. 4) 

John Hattie in his book Visible Learning For Teachers: Maximising Impact on Learning says...

"Teachers who do not acknowledge the importance of peer feedback can be the most handicapped in their effects on students.” p.147


The following questions are designed to create honest and open conversations between professionals.  They are simple questions that are not supposed to have “correct” answers – rather they are designed to spark deepen our understanding of each other’s practice. 
The purpose here is not to 'prove' anything to anyone.  Rather the purpose here is to 'improve'.  The people who you are working with have all decided that their lives to the education of young people.  

I have designed the following questions in an attempt start honest and open conversations between teachers.  They are simple questions that are not supposed to have “correct” answers – rather they are designed to spark deepen our understanding of each other’s practice. 

A good tip to keep the conversation moving is for there to be change of focus at regular intervals.  One person presenting honest discussion about their experiences/habits – the others listening (soak it in) and moving into constructive advice/questioning/empathy.  Five minutes and then try another conversation starter led by a different person. 

Remember – high trust + open to learning = respect. 
[These are not in any particular order – you may not get through them all].
  1.       Identify any administrative issue you feel is a challenge/confusing/wasteful.
  2.       Describe the things have changed about the classes you teach year.
  3.       Describe the extent of challenge you are having in regards to demand on your time.
  4.       Give a summary of your last period class yesterday. 
  5.       Tell about what is it about a student you find particularly challenging or hard to reach. 
  6.       Describe what areas of you teaching you’ve feel you’ve been neglecting recently.
  7.       Tell us about a lesson that you’ve had recently that didn’t go well. 
  8.       If you could be given some extra non-contact time how would you spend that time?

The end result of this activity is that collectively as a group you will have a greater understanding of each other.  That you will be conscious of the intentions, frustrations, positives and negative we all face here at school. 

I have saved this document in S:\Administration\Appraisal\High Trust Conversation Starters.docx

This post relates to RTC # 1. establish and maintain effective professional relationships focused on the learning and well-being of ākonga - engage in ethical, respectful, positive and collaborative professional relationships with teaching colleagues, support staff and other professionals
and RTC #8. demonstrate in practice their knowledge and understanding of how ākonga learn.

Know Thy Impact

Visible Learning For Teachers by John Hattie

Review by Justin

John Hattie is a person that I admire.  He would be the most globally recognised kiwi born educational theorist around.  Many teachers that have come through Auckland University will most likely know of Hattie. 

The most powerful thing about Hattie's book is that it is not a single educational idea that John has come up with and researched.  Rather Hattie decided to take as much educational research as he could find (over 800 separate research projects over 15 years involving over 240 million students) and do some meta analysis. 

Hattie formulated at means of quantifying the 'effect' of different factors of education.  That is he's examined the positive (and negative) influences various teaching decisions have had on learning.  For example he quantified  that good feedback is four times as effective in improving learning as finding secluded place for study. 

Hattie begins by pointing out that in his time dealing with hundreds of schools and thousands of teachers that most of us are doing 'good' things.  But he wanted to be able to see the effect of what we do and work out what are the 'best' things we could be doing.  

I found that this book was very good for thinking about what I'm doing in the classroom as a teacher.  It made me rethink my practice, and deeply consider the impact I'm having on learning.  What's more I seriously began to think about expanding my practice and trying new things to become a better teacher. 

The downside of this book is that Hattie is ultimately an academic.  The reading and theory can get fairly heavy (and this is the easier 'how to' version for teachers).  I found that some of the chapters merged into one.  The last 80 pages are all appendices of sorts. 

I would recommend that all teachers read the intro and conclusion as Hattie really lays down the challenge of improving learning at the feet of teachers.   He presents a persuasive argument and sets about trying to expand our horizons in education. 

Ultimately this is great book for those staff wanting answers to the question - How can I maximise learning in my classroom?

This was one of the youtube clips that led me to this book by Hattie...

 

Student Voice

We need to be focussed on improving our impact on the learning of our students. 

John Hattie puts it...

"Attention needs to move from how to teach to how to learn - and only after teachers understand how each student learns can they then move on to make decisions about how to each." Visiable Learning for Teachers p.103.

One of the most valuable methods of gather data on our practice is to gather student voice.  The following questionnaire was developed by Kevin and the PE staff (I've tweaked slightly to be more generic for any subject). 

I would recommend that four times this year (this is set up this way on your OneNote appraisal folder) you gather student voice.  That could be four independent classes once.  Or one class four times or couple of classes twice - no hard and fast rule. 

Student voice can be unnerving as we as teachers are putting ourselves "out there".  Some students will be stupid and write stupid things (those can be expected and dismissed).  But in practice most students are constructive and reflective - these provide rich reflective resources. 

Here is a copy of the questionnaire it is also available on shared drive saved in S:\Administration\Appraisal\Student Evaluation of Learning.docx