PPTA Mahi Tika course

I attended Mahi Tika 1 in Christchurch yesterday.
We looked at important parts of the collective agreement, meeting procedure and our protections and responsibilities under various acts.

Sounds really dry, but it really wasn't.

I came away with fresh ideas for our branch from other colleagues (Thanks, Buller branch!), a better understanding of the collective agreement (which I had thought I knew pretty well) and a better understanding of how to support New and Establishing Teachers as the NETs rep at our branch.

Next week I'm going to create a PPTA notice board by our staff photocopier. The hope is that staff will get the opportunity to see what the PPTA is all about in general and what is happening currently in our branch.

Westland Hub - Toki Toolkit meeting.

I attended the Westland hub, toolkit meeting this afternoon.
A great reiteration of rewindable learning, and a few ideas for how to simplify rewindable learning (this was pitched for teachers of year 3), by using Google Slides which are iPad friendly. Essentially embedding videos that have been recorded on Screencastify into slides.
Also had some great collegial conversations about using Hapara.

Rewindable learning and high needs students

This week I shared with Sue (my fabulous teacher aide) the concept of rewindable learning and how to work the Screencastify extension on her laptop.

She hooked into it so incredibly quickly and has been making rewindable learning moments all week for our class site with our Te Whare Atawhai students.

It has been really lovely being able to watch all of the wee teachable moments that crop up during demonstrations and conversions. I have been learning heaps from this about how to better support my special needs students.

The students have been fascinated with being able to watch themselves back on the screen.
While the novelty will fade, this will continue to be really powerful for their learning.
What may take a mainstream student 1 or 2 goes to master, may take a special needs student many many attempts. With rewindable learning they are able to watch it back as many times as they like.

Sue has also talked to me about how amazing she thinks this will be for her students. Not only will it be great for their mastery of skills and ideas, it also will provide amazing evidence for their SPEC portfolios.

Rewindable learning

Lucy and I have been thinking about how we can model this for teachers, in a way that makes life easier for us.
Screencastify has been a godsend (Thank you, Madeline, for showing us how to set this up to save directly to Google Drive!).
This is making life a lot easier in terms of the little things that could be confusing in written or verbal form.

This concept will be just as useful for teachers as students.

I have been using rewindable learning with my NetNZ Art History class too.
It has been really powerful for keeping students connected when they've been unable to attend class (and students have appreciated the effort). I have had feedback from other students about appreciating being able to go back and replay the discussion we've had as a class.

Lead Teacher day - Week 4

What a full on day of talking to other teachers in the Toki Pounamu trenches and learning.

What stuck with me was Madeline talking about not being a perfectionist with Learning sites. Too often we want to withhold pages until they look 'perfect' and 'ready' for public eyes.
When we do this we are disadvantaging our students and subtly re-inforcing that it is about the work looking a certain way rather than the ideas or interesting content.

Madeline tries to model this with her Toki Pounamu site and resources.
Learning sites should be a public record of ongoing learning - not a pristine archive.

I am trying to model this now in my own learning sites. Content will go on when the students need it rather than when it looks ready.

As an art teacher I need to let go of perfectionism!