Taking Action

What is Going on For Our Learners? How do we know?

• Taking action 
  What can we do differently to make enough of a difference? "Genuine inquiry needs space to take risks, make mistakes, and try again – and again". Changing things can also feel risky for some learners who then resist change, and in turn bring concerned parents. We need to build understanding for all, right from the outset.

My new inquiry big question is: What is learner agency and how could I develop this at my school?

My leadership responsibilities (from Leading from the Middle - MOE - pg12) are:

• Improve outcomes for all students - with a particular focus on priority learners
• Create the conditions for effective teaching, learning and curriculum delivery
• Explore and promote the use of ICT and e-learning to open up new ways of connecting, sharing and learning
• Develop schools as learning communities
• Build networks within and beyond their schools to enhance learning and achievement
• Develop others as leaders

(September/October)
My leadership inquiry has changed direction since I first began. On reflection I realised my big question was far too big and I would not have been able to successfully implement all of what I wanted to achieve. After a lot of discussions with colleagues and readings, I narrowed my inquiry towards 'Learner Agency'. This fitted in well with what Janine and I were working on within our school (developing our Why), and also with what I believed would make a positive impact on the teaching and learning that occurs in my classroom.

My new inquiry big question is: What is learner agency and how could I develop this at my school?
So to help focus this I decided to split my inquiry into 3 parts:

1. LEADERSHIP: Leading change across the entire East Taieri staff (alongside Janine)
2. TEAM TEACHING: Team teaching to develop Innovative Learning Practice
3. PERSONALISED LEARNING: Developing learner agency through personalised learning with my children

1. Leadership - Enacting Change and Changing the 

Programme

Developing a shared vision, learner agency and our 

school's why across the East Taieri staff

June 2015 

What have we done so far?

Last year we visited Myross Bush as Janine had come back from an 'educamp' buzzing about a school that was focusing on a personalised approach to learning as well as team/collaborative teaching in older style classrooms, such as we have.

The management team visited the school and were impressed with what we saw, and so we decided that this was the right path for us. During the year we took more teachers there to see to try and share our experiences with them. This year some of us decided to give a few aspects of what we saw happening down there a trial and begin team teaching and also using Google Docs with our students.

Janine and I are leading this change as it is part of our leadership inquiries for NAPP 2015. Janine and I have spoken extensively on this topic and have shared a lot of ideas and thoughts around our inquiries. Janine's blog - http://jayc33.edublogs.org/leadership-inquiry-2/. Upon reflection and analysis during the scanning ad developing a hunch phases of my inquiry I have come to realise that although we have spoken about collaborative teaching, learner agency, personalised learning and modern learning environments we haven't got all the teachers on the same path as us, and also their understanding of these new concepts isn't there yet.

So Janine and I have decided that more work needs to be done with the whole staff to help them understand what it is we are doing, and also why this change is so important.
Therefore we are going to start with the 'Why?' - What is our purpose? We believe that these conversations needs to be had, and that we need to test and challenge the current thoughts among our staff.

The following is our plan of attack for our first staff meeting with a true focus on the why: It has been taken from Janine's blog as we both collaborated on this.

Last term we watched the Simon Sineck clip about the why and asked the teachers to break down what we are doing no into the why, how and what. These were put on posit notes and stuck to a large copy of our golden circle. 

When we reflected on the posits we can see that the staff didn’t understand the difference between the How?  and the What?  We also decided that the term ‘Learner Agency’ best encompassed the ideas on the postits.  We have transferred the postits onto a new visual chart with Learner Agency at the centre.  We then developed a plan for staff meetings in the hope of inspiring and generating more conversation amongst the staff.  These discussions will then be recorded on our visual poster.

1. Watch Ken Robinson Video

Ken Robinson – bring on the learning revolution

• Take notes and discuss

Key message that Janine and I got out of the video:

• Education was designed to be Industrial – linear, manufacturing process, batching people
• Human flourishing not linear process more organic –  like a farmer
• Cannot predict outcome of human dev but like farmer can provide conditions to help flourish
• Revolution -customising to our situation/personalising to who we are teaching
• Technologies along with skill of teachers provide opp to revolutionise teaching
• Involve/use skills in community
• Create personalised curriculum
• Everyday chn spread their dreams beneath our feet and we should tread softly

What environment are we going to create for our children to flourish?

What will our context look like?

2. Talk about our why – Learner agency (How we came up with this term)

• Child centred
• Motivated learners
• Passion
• Resilience – Grit
• All round citizens
• Learner ownership
• Watch Derek Wenmoth
• Education Revolution – Claire Boonstra
• Y Chart – Learner Agency
• Children sharing their take on learner agency and 21st century learning

Feedback, Debrief and Reflection after this staff meeting: 10-12 June 2015

We were quite nervous before this staff meeting as we didn't know how all of the staff would engage in what we were sharing, or understand our message. Unfortunately 2 members of staff (who would have benefited greatly for this session were absent), which we found to be quite frustrating. We started by explaining what our outline for the session was, and I talked about why we have started to think about the why. I wanted to stress to them that this isn't simple a project that Janine and I are doing for NAPP. There is a lot of reasoning and importance behind this, and they need to begin to open their minds to this change. I talked about how the 21st Century is changing and what we are doing now will not do service for these children in their future. Change will be unpleasant, but we believe in this change and we wanted to show them why. During the Ken Robinson clip we were watching the others for their expressions and feedback (as Janine said they were like poker players, and we found it very difficult to read their faces to get a feel for what they were thinking). After the clip there was some excellent discussions from some of the staff. We shared ideas, and everyone seemed very enthusiastic about the clip. The messages were quite positive and the analogy of the farmer and an organic model for education were something for the teachers to start holding in their minds. 
We were quite worries about their reaction to the fact that we had reduced all of the Why ideas and thinking from the last meeting to one term: Learner Agency. But when we showed the Derek Wenmoth clip I think they could see the reasoning. There was some good discussion about this term of learner agency, and people could see that everything they had written down was encompassed by this term. We ran out of time to do the Y Chart - so we will save that for next time. 
We did discuss the How and the What to get them to start thinking about them in our school context. They liked how we defined the How as being the teaching and pedagogy, and the What as being what we would see happening in the classroom - the concrete.
Overall I was very happy with this start. We have factored in at least 3 to 4 more staff meetings next term to keep this discussion alive, and to create the conditions for change to flourish!

Article about leadership that will help my thinking before the next staff meeting: 
12 June 2015

3 Questions to Crucial Leadership

I read this interesting article, and it made me think about change in our school, and what our role as leaders is in creating the conditions for change. I don't want to be the leader who forced people to change as this isn't the best way to move the masses. I think in my experience though, that sometimes people do need to be prompted to change, or at least realise there is a need for change. If people are not willing to change then are they thinking about the children and are they there for the right reasons?
I really liked the first sentence: Frustration is an easy emotion when you either see opportunities for change in our work, but don’t see others moving to the point that you have envisioned.
It is very easy to become frustrated with the members of your team if they are not willing to change. How do you help people to change, especially if they don't want to change?
This next part made me think: If we want to create conditions where others see the importance of and are willing to embrace change, is does not start with giving answers, but asking questions, listening, and understanding.  Change is not something you do to others, but something we experience ourselves.
We need to be asking the questions that elicit change thinking. We can't just expect it to happen (as there is a range of those who are change willing, and change reluctant). If we ask the questions, and listen to the answers given I think we get a better understanding of the blocks that may be occurring in enacting the change. But it is important the we listen to the answers, even if they are not the answers we want to hear or expected to hear. Also this is when self reflection is important. Do we truly want to change or understand the change ourselves?
This paragraph is vital in the understanding of leadership: With that being said, if we get to the point in leadership that we are frustrated that others won’t change, we are missing the point of why we are in leadership in the first place.  Simply telling someone to change will not work, but helping to create experiences where people make emotional connections where they see their own change is imperative is crucial.  Showing someone that something is “better”, does not mean they will embrace it.  People are often more comfortable with a known “average”, than an unknown “good”.  Helping others get to a place where they are willing to risk trying something new is crucial, and modelling that we are willing to take risks ourselves is crucial.
It is just like Ken Robinson's TedTalk clip above. As leaders we must create the conditions for change to flourish in our school. Like farmers, are we providing the right conditions for change to flourish: support, time for discussions, incentives, a shared vision for what our school could become, the voices of the students, the needs of the community, and all the while being mindful of 21st century learner? If we provide these conditions then over time our change should start to flourish because it has been invested into by all stakeholders. But, what about those ones who do not flourish, or who do not want to change or grow? Do we do as a farmer would do, and pluck them out and discard them? Or do we need to find the conditions that will help that particular person to flourish?

Here are a few questions that I think are imperative to creating the conditions for change to not only happen, but to flourish:

1. How do I continuously model that I am willing to grow to those that I serve?

Asking people to take risks does not happen without leaders that openly model taking risks.  Leaders continuously learn and grow, but if it is hidden in a space where those we serve cannot see, then their reluctance to change is warranted by the lack of change happening from the “top” of the hierarchy.  Many feel, “Why would I change, when those above me are not willing to do the same?”

2. Do people have an emotional connection to why change is imperative, not just what change looks like?

Leadership is about heart and mind; both elements need to be focused upon.  If we are not able to connect on a deeper level or feel why change is imperative, others will not be compelled to try something new, especially without the guarantee of immediate success.

3. As leaders, have we removed barriers that help us to unleash talent, not control others?

People always want better, but they often not only deal with their own reluctance, but sometimes page after page of policies and procedures, or structures (both physical and organizational) that are barriers to change.

This last piece of the article asked some quite thoughtful questions about moral purpose around leadership and change. Some things to think about...

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3.  Talk about the How

How are we going to get the children to be agentic?

What is the pedagogy behind what we are doing to reach the why?

What does the How – look/sound/feel like for us in our school context?

4. Talk about the What

What does this look like for us?

What are the tangible things we can see in our school that link to the How and the What?

What are we doing for the children?

Reflection of where to next before the next staff meeting: End Term 2 2015

Janine and I got together to think about where we wanted to lead the staff in Term 3 as we have  the chance to focus on the Why over a series of staff meetings. We discussed that we want to revisit Learner Agency and do the Y-Chart that we planned. We want the teachers to also break what is happening at school into the How and the What (using the Golden Circle).

Feedback, Debrief and Reflection after the second staff meeting: Term3-Week1 27 July  2015

To revisit the thinking from last term we watched the Derek Wenmoth clip about Learner Agency and recorded our ideas on a Y-Chart. Janine collated these ideas and it was positive to see the consistency of ideas between MOST members of the staff. Using the Y-Chart we asked the teachers to think about the How and the What. We all found it difficult to define what the How and the What because some elements overlap each other. The staff attempted this activity, but after some discussion we decided that we would park this for next time. Some teachers got quite passionate and others really struggled understanding the concept.

Reflection of where to next before the next staff meeting: 28 July 2015

We need to break down the task of developing our Golden Circle. To do this we will revisit the Y-Chart and focus on the How (what we do in practice in our classroom), and then focus on the WHAT (what we would see the children doing and demonstrating in the classroom).

Feedback, Debrief and Reflection after the third staff meeting: Term3-Week2 29 July  2015

A successful staff meeting session. We started with a review of the Y-Chart - some people had looked at it in their own time. Then Janine talked to the staff about the HOW and remembering that it is teacher practice/pedagogy. Next she asked the teachers to get into small groups and think of practices that they do in their classes and to discuss these with their peers. Janine and I worked together and we found that some practices were easy to fit into the HOW, but others were a lot more difficult. For example Values and Key Competencies - are they something we ‘teach’ (practice) or are they are outcome (what we would see)? When the staff shared back their thoughts there was a lot of excellent discussion by ALL about what is felt to be a HOW and people were then starting to make the connection to the WHAT. Garth reminded all that the WHAT needs to come back to Learner Agency. Janine asked the teachers to think if there were any HOW’s that could be taken out or added in. Again this generated a lot of interesting discussion. The main thoughts were that we need to do more integration of our teaching and learning as time is always an issue.

Reflection of where to next before the next staff meeting: 28 July 2015

We need to now link the WHAT to the HOW and ensure it links back to learner agency. To do this we will collate the ideas from the previous meeting. The teachers will work small groups and select a HOW and think of and discuss possible WHATs that relate to that HOW. We will do a jigsaw graphic organiser for this. Once completed we will discuss any thoughts or changes or disagreements.

On reflection - Janine and I have decided that we need to look to the future and decide what we want the end picture to look like and then work backwards from this. At this stage we are thinking it is Personalised Learning as this links into learner agency, the Why and modern teaching practice. As we have both worked through our Inquiries, it has narrowed/focused on to this also. Through personalised learning the children should develop learner agency. A possible resource Janine and I will investigate is Universal Design for Learning - http://inclusive.tki.org.nz/guides/universal-design-for-learning/.

Staff Meeting - 2/9/15

1. Watch Anne Kennelly video on spaces etc

http://edtalks.org/video/anne-kenneally-student-designed-learning-spaces

http://edtalks.org/video/creating-learning-spaces

2. Write a definition for Learner Agency
3. Break into groups and talk about the how - develop whats

Our thoughts - generated by the staff:

• Ability to make informed choices about their learning within a structured environment
• Setting own goals - reflecting
• Managing their own learning
• Peer feedback
• Time for reflection of own and others learning
• Giving children permission to critique/share/present their own learning and others
• Teachers letting go
• Providing opportunities for children to show their learning in a variety of ways
• Build on strengths
• Teachers to provide a framework structure of goals and expectations etc
• Balance
• Awareness of individual needs
• Opportunities for building social skills - discussion, negotiating, presenting, sharing
• Ownership of own learning
• skill of learning are secure
• routines secure
• environment - pride, safe
• Willing to take risks
• flexible
• Structured choice - learning, presentation, learning space, learning activities, groupings
• Agency is about teacher teaching and student learning
• learners are empowered by taking responsibility for their learning
• Self monitoring behaviours and respecting all learners
• Learning with choice
• Safe, positive environment that enables learning

Our initial definition that Janine and I drafted for the staff to consider:

At East Taieri School Learner agency is about teacher teaching and student learning.  It is about the teacher creating a positive and structured environment which enables students to develop the skills and attitudes to become active learners.  By providing students choice and through reflection, goal setting and self/peer assessment they will be empowered to take ownership of their learning.  

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2. Team Teaching

June 2015

This year I have started teaching collaboratively with my colleague Sarah O'Neill who also teaches in a Year 3/4 class that is next door to me. We are fortunate in that we have a door that opens between our classes, and also I have a new learning hub 'break out' space that opens off my classroom. So we are able to move between the 3 spaces (I will elaborate this later). We have also worked together to begin a personalised learning approach for 2 curriculum areas (Reading and Maths), and I have been working with Google Docs to enable and foster digital collaboration within and between our classes. 

Sarah and I had been very keen to begin team teaching after our visit to Myross Bush school last year. We could see the merits and benefits of this approach for our own teaching practices and also the learning and achievement for our students. Sarah and I talked a lot about this over the 2015/2016 holidays. As I said above we have a space that lends itself to a team teaching approach, but it also gives us the flexibility to have our own space/class when required. We felt that the benefits of a team teaching approach would be:

• 
  

We wanted to work quite slowly at team teaching, and decided that our first way to begin was by team teaching reading. We felt that reading was a good place to start as the children are in reading groups based around instructional reading texts, and so it would be easy to mix up the two classes. The main challenge we had to consider and overcome was on what type of reading programme would work for us. So we adapted the Daily5 programme to suit and called it Fab4. I have explained this in more detail in the Personlised Learning Section below.

3. Personalised Learning

NZC-update-21.pdf
Teaching learning to learn
Fostering skills
Teachers need to teach and scaffold so that their learners can:

• set challenging yet appropriate goals 
• identify useful, important, and relevant success criteria
• plan appropriate learning steps
• give and receive feedback
• interpret and use assessment information and feedback
• evaluate their progress.

Teachers need to provide regular opportunities for their students to use these strategies. Learning to learn should be taught in the context of real learning.

Providing a supportive environment
Classroom communities need to nurture trusting relationships so that learners feel safe sharing their learning outcomes and needs with others. Classroom layout can also facilitate reciprocal interaction and enable learners to access required resources, including their assessment records.

Fostering learner identities
Children begin developing their identities as learners from a very young age. Their early experiences help to form learning dispositions.
Teachers can help students to identify their personal learning preferences and challenges so that they can take greater control of their own learning and achieve their goals.




http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Teaching/Snapshots-of-Learning/Learner-agency

Questions used to guide students as they drew were:

• How do I like to learn?
• What do I like to learn?
• Where do I like learning?
• Where do I find information to learn?
• Name two people who champion me as a learner?
• What are the tools that help my learning (technology, online etc)
• What are the interactions that support my learning?

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http://www.teachthought.com/learning/learning-to-learn-7-dimensions-of-effective-learning/

7 Dimensions Of Learning To Learn

More than anything else, the concept of self-directed, entrepreneurial learning and transfer stand out. Learning how to learn is very different than learning content. In the 21st century, access to content and resources is no longer in short supply, but rather access to learning pathways, and authentic reasons to learn, which is where meaning making, critical curiosity, and resilience come in.

Making that shift in your own mind is important for these dimensions to be relevant in your classroom. The shift is from learning content to learning how to learn.

The takeaways for teachers probably start with the role of the student in the learning process: voice, choice, personalization, self-direction, project-based learning, and other low-hanging fruit of current trends in learning.

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http://www.massey.ac.nz/massey/about-massey/news/article.cfm?mnarticle_uuid=AE9024B2-F343-6DFE-E403-291553BD4A28

“Instead of the teacher telling the students what they are going to do, we’re flipping it. We want to develop students who understand why they are learning, what it means to them, and how to manage their own learning.”

But Dr Hartnett emphasises the shift is not a pendulum swing to replace a teacher’s authority with anarchy. The aim is ensure all students are engaged with learning and achieving to their best ability, with a specific concern for underachievers, she says.

“Students are getting more confident at identifying the next steps in their learning,” she says.

Students attend workshops to help them with direction in their work. “Learning is now more personalised,” Ms Stephenson adds. “As a team, we are very excited about being involved with the Innovation Fund and developing our ability to enable student agency.”

Dr Hartnett says a key aspect of the schools’ success has been in taking time to educate parents about the new approach. Feedback from parents whose children are part of year 5 and 6 classes has revealed children are more inclined to keep learning at home because they have greater choice and are more interested in what they are doing.

Dr Hartnett says the “move away from homogeneity” in the classroom can be challenging for teachers, and more complex for them to manage. They are required to develop a stronger awareness of the individual student’s learning and support needs – and assess this accordingly.

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As we wanted the children to have agency and choice over what they did we decided that the Daily5 programme would be ideal for this. I had been running daily 5 in my room for the past 2 years and was very impressed with how well it functioned and how beneficial it was for the children. Sarah had never run this system, so there was going to be quite a lot of new learning for her. The benefits we could see with the Daily5 were:

• Student choice of which activity to do and when
• Structured choices that help improve reading and writing
• Collaboration
• Building of stamina
• Students taking responsibility for managing themselves
• Practice
• A wide variety of activities
• A quiet and respectful environment where learning is at the centre

Sarah and I adapted the programme to the time frame we had available and changed the name to Fab4 as we had 4 activities for the children.

My vision for my classroom: 

What I would see and hear:

• Children engaging with each other through out the day - collaborating, discussing, sharing ideas/thoughts/opinions
• Children working on their own if they choose to
• Children using the spaces around them for learning
• Children in control of their spaces and developing and refining spaces that make a difference for them
• Children engaged in tasks that grow their learning
• Lessons that helped all learners learn at their own pace and follow their own directions
• Lessons that ensured all children achieved
• Teacher's monitoring the children, helping them and facilitating their learning
• Teacher's engaging in collaborative work with each other around planning, learning conversations
• Teacher's enjoying what they are doing, and bringing their strengths to the classroom
• Teacher's and children developing an understanding of learning styles and working together to help all learners to learn
• Digital devices being used by learners to make their learning better - not simply to replace old ways of doing things
• Children bringing their own devices to school to be used
• Parents coming into the classroom to engage in and help with learning 
• Learning happening at home - using Google Docs to continue learning outside of school
• Children talking and engaging
• Children and teacher's talking about their learning
• Teacher's talking to each other about their learning
• Quiet spaces and talking spaces
• Deep and rich conversations that build relationships and foster learning
• Children succeeding!

Digital Collaboration - Using Google Docs

June 2015

At the start of Term 2 I had set up Google Accounts for all of our Year 3 to 6 children. We had decided to use HAPARA (which is a Google App management software program) as we had had very positive feedback from many other schools about it. 

Once this had been done, we also purchased a number of new devices for some of our classrooms. As funds are very limited we decided that we would focus the main spending in 2 areas - Rooms 1&2 and Rooms 7&8. The reasoning behind this was that these were the 2 spaces where collaborative teaching was beginning to take place.

June 2015

My Google Doc reflective journey so far. In the video I discuss our initial thoughts behind why we wanted to use Google Docs, and some of the places we visited to decide of Google Docs was right for our schools context. Deciding to go with Google Docs was the easy part. We had been using it in the staff for a little while, and the ease of its use and also the cost (being free), and also being easily accessible for parents and children made it the best choice for us. The hardest challenge we have faced has been securing the funds to purchase the devices. This has been an area that I have had to really push in terms of leadership. There are those in our school that know IT is important, but not that we should be spending that much money on devices. I have had to really sell the importance of upgrading our old laptops etc to purchase new ones. I have also had to juggle the demands of some teachers who want more devices in their rooms, but with a limited budget this year I have had to be very selective in where I put the devices. I had an interesting conversation in the first NAPP PLG day with Sarah from Otatara school. She said that they have 'Hungry Classrooms' and 'Hungry Teachers', and that is where they place their resources. These are classrooms and teachers who will use the devices and not have them sit there waiting to be used. It has made our deployment a lot easier and I was able to use this concept to explain to the Board of Trustees my decisions around devices. I am happy with where the devices have gone and the classes are using them well. 

My concern is that we got all of the Year 3-6 children their own Google accounts. Only 2 of the 4 senior classes have enough devices to effectively use Google Docs. So the other 2 classes at this stage are missing out. Of those 2 classes, 1 class would use the technology well, but the other wouldn't. So I would have to look into this and how I as a leader would help to create a environment where all would benefit from the use of Google Docs.

Google Docs in My Classroom - Room 7 with Year 3-4 children 

Term 2 - 2015

I decided to interview some of my children to ask them questions about their use of Google Docs, what they like about it, how they use it, likes/dislikes and how I as their teacher and leader have helped them in developing their understanding of Google Docs.
It was interesting listening to their comments around the use of Google Docs. We have only really been using it for writing for about 3 weeks. It had taken about 5 weeks of setup for the children to be comfortable entering their log in details and accessing their google drives and find the right folders. Also initially the children just wanted to play and create and I think that this time was very valuable for them. One of the most exciting aspects of Google Docs is the ability to collaborate with other students on pieces of work. The children that have begun experimenting with this have really enjoyed it and found it very beneficial.

Google Doc Licences

June 2015

An issue I have found with using devices and Google Docs for writing has been that there are those children whose writing is getting better, and then there are those children whose writing is getting worse. I have spoken to other teachers who have come across the same issues with using Google Docs and devices for writing. They found that the children's writing on general didn't improve. So to work around this I have come up with a Google Docs Licence system. We have produced about 4 pieces of writing using Google Docs over the past 3 or 4 weeks. There have been a few children who have confidently used Google Docs to create excellent pieces of writing. They have accessed their drives quickly, they have generated good quality writing, and are using the features like highlighting and collaborating to enhance their work. They are the quick learners and early 'uptakers'. They have earned their Google Licence. With this they can pick if they would like to use a device to write with, or to write in their books. This isn't for every piece of writing, but it is for most. They have loved this option of choice and are really responding well to it. For the other children they are still able to use Google Docs for writing when we do special pieces with Google Docs, but in general writing they are still learning to write in their books. There are some children who are very close to earning their licence and they know who they are. They also know what they need to do to achieve it. I have found that those children who struggle with writing (the physical aspect of writing) also struggle with typing.

The first group of children to earn their Google Doc licences.