Collaborative Expertise

This weekend I was reading the latest paper by John Hattie. I enjoyed reading it because it insists on collaborative expertise. I am a fan of collaborative practice. After all, teachers are teacher's greatest resources. Hattie has suggested eight ways to minimise variability in Teacher expertise within schools. As I was reading his paper, a lot of questions came to my mind like: Which assessments can measure impact? Are we wasting time doing assessments that actually do not provide greater insight into progress a student has made? How can we be more collaborative and stop labelling teachers and students? How can we set conditions for collaborative practice? Is student progress fixed to teacher or are there other variables that could be contributing to progress? Are we too obsessed by the word 'Achievement'? etc.
I have summarised what Hattie says in a presentation below.

Bringing Cultures into the Classroom

I am originally from India and have settled in New Zealand for the past 14 years. When I look back at my childhood I remember going to school and a whole saga of fond memories float in front of my eyes . We started our day with prayer and it was in my language, Hindi. I talked to my friends and it was in Hindi. During Morning Tea and lunch times the playground was full of chitter chatter and everyone spoke in hindi.  I sang songs in hindi and my mother taught me Hindi poems. My grandmother was monolingual and so she would read me stories and narrate myths and legends from our culture in my language. I enjoyed every bit of my childhood and cherish it even today. When I look back I am filled with gratitude for all the people who helped me and supported me in making my childhood a happy one.

When I became a mother and had little kids I made a conscious effort to teach my children their mother tongue as they were very young when they left India. I was not very successful with the younger one but my older daughter is bilingual. The younger one can speak in hindi but does not know to read and write the language. I am still in pursuit of teaching her and she knows that some Hindi lessons are in line for her during her vacations.

Today when I look at the students in my class, I find them a bit detached from their roots. The onus of making students aware about their cultures has shifted from home to school. I feel that they are missing a great deal about their cultures, about knowing who they are and where they belong? I want to see them sing songs in their language and talk freely to each other in their language, “Just the way I was brought up”. I encourage this a lot in my class and students who are fluent help others to communicate in their mother tongue.

I am very fortunate to have two team members in my team who are fluent in Te Reo and Tongan. Salena Kahika is very skilled at Te Reo and has taken to teaching Te Reo in our syndicate. Students enjoy learning Te Reo and maori songs of her and I feel very enthused and delighted to be able to provide an opportunity through our planned Te Reo Maori lessons that Salena loves to take for our students.
"Thank you Salena for Teaching Te Reo to our students"

Luti Tafea is a fluent in Tongan and when I go into her classroom to observe her I find her talking to her students in Tongan. Students respect this and take her commands instantly.

Luti makes a deliberate effort to bring languages into her day to day teaching. She is also in charge of the Tongan dance that she does every year for Performing Arts. Through her we have been able to bring the wider Tongan community closer to us and it was very evident when Tongan mothers got together to sew clothes for all Tongan participants for our Fiafia Night. I was amazed how they sewed, cooked, made head gears and other accessories in a couple of days. I could see how they loved to be acknowledged for their culture and how they thanked Luti for teaching their children about their culture.

“Thank you Luti for making our Pacifika parents feel welcomed.”

I think I am doing my bit, where as a Team Leader I am providing opportunities and opening avenues for my team members and most importantly our students to bring their culture into the classroom!

Student Reflections

We have been learning to reflect on our learning in Room 5. It needs a bit of teaching to show students how to be reflective. I know that reflective process does not come all by itself. I have myself learnt to be a reflective teacher over the years. My students were learning and solving problems in class but I needed to take their learning further, by making them think metacognitively about the strategies they were using to solve problems. I wanted them to know and discover and identify for themselves, ‘where to next’ in their learning. As I have said earlier, one has to get trained to become reflective so I started by asking some simple questions of my students, for example:

What were you learning and why?

•    What were the tricky bits and why?

•    What new did I learn today?

•    What helped the learning to happen?

•    Who needs more help and what needs to be re-taught?

I had to convince my students that all learning is difficult and it is all good to share your experience of learning with others. It is an opportunity to discuss how one solved the problem and to learn from others the strategies they have used to solve the same problem.

“Metacognition is what people know or think about their own thought processes and is the individual monitoring of one’s own thoughts.” (Hacker & Dunlosky, 2003)

In the beginning students were very hesitant and became conscious as they talked about their thinking process. It was difficult for some of them to put it into words because of limited English. For such students I developed some sentence starters that they could use to share their strategies. Slowly, the more confident ones set examples for others and more and more students started to participate. As students started sharing their thinking process, it made me aware of the strategies that my students were using to solve problems. Students benefitted from listening to each other as they got ideas from each other. Reflection for students worked for my students to consolidate their learning, to recap on the ‘why’ of the learning, to give students opportunities to discuss strategies for learning, and possible ‘tricky’ bits and to establish a ‘where to from here’. I would not say that at this stage I have all my students participate in the reflective process. It is just the beginning…

adapted from: www.minedu.govt.nz

Student prompt cards for identifying where they are at with their learning.

1. I really need help.

2. I understand bits and pieces.

3. I get it and can work by myself.

4. I can do my work and can help someone else if needed.

Finding a Balance

As the Term starts it is all like being on a roller coaster. One thing after another... meeting deadlines, catching up, planning, learning new things about education, professional developments, progress reports, shifts and the list is endless. Making time for yourself is probably the hardest thing to do but I think it is important for lowering stress, increasing happiness and encouraging creativity. In this fast paced world it is absolutely crucial to devote a few minutes each day to do what they are doing.

I took  some time to really look at my life, my state of mind, and how I was feeling. To be honest I noticed the areas of my life that I was neglecting. I felt I was being pulled in one direction and was a bit uneasy about it. I realised that the elements that were external in my life were taking away a big chunk of my time. So I decided to put some time to something that I love the most. Arts! Taking an Art class once a week is just so satisfying! I have found something that makes me feel good. Just a few minutes a day has made a huge difference to the way I am approaching everyday challenges of life. I am more positive and feel much happier.

Toolkits

Last week I went for a Took kits professional Development and it was for Pic Monkey.  I was very excited because I always wanted to make things pretty on my site and had tried numerous things but was not very happy with it. Either they were too tedious or very confusing. The answer is

Pic Monkey. It is a very cool site to design back grounds for facebook or blogs. It can edit photos and make beautiful titles. It can make collages in seconds and has a short tutorial that is easy to follow. It also comes with a free one month trial.  Here is link to visit the site.

Pic Monkey

Creating Trusting Classroom Communities

This week we had PD on Maths where Sue Pine showed us the various pedagogical approaches that engage learners and lead to desirable outcomes.

One of the things that really struck me was to have a trusting classroom community where everyone had the right to share their opinion and to be heard with respect. Such a culture was very important because it encourages students to share their ideas, thoughts and reflections freely in the classroom. In such a climate, learning relationships develop and students learn from each other. They can take risks and ask questions to clarify their ideas. It is important that in developing such an environment, care needs to be taken to avoid dependency. Classroom relationships should allow all students to take intellectual risks.

I have been working on developing such classroom environment this week. It was a hard task to start with. I had to constantly remind students of their etiquette in class. I had to  encourage students to listen patiently and then provide valuable feedback to their peers. And most importantly I had to teach my students how to contribute and clarify their ideas and how they should respond. Sometimes I got ideas that were quite unexpected. I had to model how to evaluate ideas and how to voice thoughtful judgement. This became very tricky when I have students with limited language capabilities. But by having a positive attitude I can already see that my students are developing confidence to learn and make sense of mathematics. They are beginning to use the language of mathematics to respond and share the strategies they had used to work out their problems. But this is just the beginning! Lots more needs to be done and I cannot wait to see my students expressing their ideas freely. I want to see them confidently face not only mathematical challenges but all learning in class and share and assess the validity of their new ideas.

Can Meditation Really Slow Aging...

This weekend I came across an article that explained how meditation can help you live longer. It was very interesting to know that one of the scientist, a Nobel Prize Winner, Blackburn, claims to have evidences where women who were stressed have shorter talomeres. Talomeres are the repeating DNA motifs in individual. A person with shorter talomeres is more prone to the risk of heart diseases, diabetes and hypertension. This study was very useful because prior to this genes were seen as the important factor determining telomere length.  Blackburn wanted to study if environmental factors influence talomeres. She studied 50 women who were in stressful circumstances. The results were crystal clear. Feeling stressed doesn’t just damage our health but also ages us. When these women were shown ways to relax mainly through meditation, the results were amazing. All women showed increase in the length of talomeres just after 3 months.

We have got a society with scattered attention, particularly when people are highly stressed and do not have the resources to just be present where ever they are. Contemplative traditions like meditation promote presence of mind and longevity.

The read strengthened my belief in meditation. Medication acts like a band aid that can relieve you by hiding bruises. The solution to all mental and psychological pains is within us and the answer is Meditation.