Monday 28 August 2017

Manaiakalani Hui 2017

Last week on Friday the annual Manaiakalani Hui took place at the Panmure Yacht club. A student representative from each of our Manaiakalani cluster of schools in Auckland presented examples of their learning. The students were well spoken and represented their schools very well. In particular I enjoyed the presentation about the issue of disability parking from Somerville School.



Next the SPARK MIT teachers spoke about their inquiries. I spoke about the use of the Paideia method of learning and Paideia Seminars to improve critical thinking skills for learners in the Year 5 & 6 Extension group. I felt well prepared for my presentation as I had good evidence (video footage etc) to back up my statements and results. So far, 10 out of 18 students have made a shift/improvement in their critical thinking skills. I used SOLO (Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes) as a framework for showing shift in thinking.

I also enjoyed listening to my fellow SPARK MIT group deliver their presentations. Teachers from Tamaki College shared how they could make a difference in student learning through blogging and by using visible learning and teaching sites.

Monday 14 August 2017

Inquiry Findings - Term 3 Week 4



For this group inquiry meeting we had to share what were were up to so far in terms of our inquiry and inquiry findings. I shared snippets of our first Paideia Seminar and my analysis of it using SOLO as a framework. I replayed footage of the seminar to analyse the different types of student responses. This was plotted onto a graph and the totals were added up against each child and their responses.

From there I could then create a bar graph to view the results visually. It was very interesting to see specifically who dominated the talk time and who did not participate much. The data enabled me to identify students who needed extra support.

The Year 5 & 6 Extension group will be exploring the idea of how the human race might adapt as a species in order to survive on other planets. Our Year 7 & 8 students presented two great workshops at this years GEGNZ Student Summit held at Ormiston Junior College.