You're my favourite class, too

John Donne's famous line 'no man is an island' has become a bit of cliche but that is because it is also a universal truth. Likewise, no teacher can function in isolation; to pervert Donne's metaphor, we operate within an interconnected metropolis. One of the things which continually impresses me about teachers is how we work together to improve practice by sharing of resources, ideas and feedback. My teaching practice would not have evolved as it has without this ongoing support. Not only does this support occur within the physical confines of a school, but is often also online, through communities such as Mindlab or subject associations. Wenger-tayner define a community of practice as: " Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly." Similarly Hoadley says a COP is"a community that shares practices", as well as "a process of k...

I'm the person who can't have games on my cellphone, otherwise I'll spend spare time mucking around on them rather than doing something productive, like, you know, reading. And I do love a game of Tomb Raider . Solving problems, shooting bad guys, exploring exotic locations where the weather radically changes when you come out the other side of a cave. But am I a gamer? Probably not, and certainly not if I compare myself to my teenage boys. That said, the Bartle test on what kind of gamer I am was a nice distraction, and I wasn't particularly surprised by the results: Achiever : 53% (win, challenge, compare) Explorer : 87%  (investigate, create, discover) Griefer : 20% (hack, cheat, heckle) Socializer : 40% (share, comment, help) (Although, realistically, the socialiser bit would probably be a lot lower because I'm not really into that aspect of gaming.) As an educator, how could I tap into the power of games in a few ways. There is always room to pl...

If there's one thing I'd love to make English, it's more hands-on. Imagine it, a classroom where students are busy and happy making things that enhance their understanding of reading and writing... Wait a minute... hands-on English? How? I've had students make resources for me before and create visual images as part of the curriculum, but how can I embrace the maker movement into a subject area often seen as abstract. The make movement puts students in the role of designers, constructing artifacts and applying technology in novel ways. It encompasses 'traditional' crafts like knitting, calligraphy and metal work, along with computer programming and hacking. It's about experimentation and risk taking. Social interaction is a key part of the process, including conversations and feedback from peers. In English, the obvious two ways we create are through writing and visual texts. There are certain rules that students are expected to follow with writing (you ...

One of my current roles within my school is as Principal's Nominee. The responsibilities of this role feel enormous at times, and feel amplified when teachers ask my advice and guidance on assessment issues. Suddenly, I'm seen as the voice of authority on these issues. As I find my way through this role I have been identifying small changes that I would like to see made in some of our processes (it's not that we're doing things wrong, but I can see ways we can do things better). One of my challenges will be in  managing change in a way that's flexible and achievable for staff. The Agile Manifesto , introduced at the Mindlab session a couple of weeks back, is easily adaptable to a school situation and with many possible variations. Here's one set: Individuals and interactions  over assessment Effective teaching  over data management  Student centred  over teacher directed Responding to students  over following a scheme It's about reflective manag...

My cultural perspective is undeniably Pakeha-dominated. My parents (and their parents, and their parents' parents) were working class of European descent. Although I am empathetic towards issues of cultural bias, I know that will always benefit from 'white privilege'. Likewise. my children, whose whakapapa traces back to Hoturoa, commander of the Tainui waka, will also know that privilege due to their blue eyes and pale skin which scream Pakeha. At least two of the Practising Teacher Criteria  explicitly refer to showing commitment to and working within a bicultural context. My school does make concerted efforts to incorporate Maori culture into our teaching practices, including the use of te reo, references to Maori world views and cultural practises. There is room to develop our multiculturalism, though. How does our school culture reflect the growing numbers of Filipino students or our Chinese fee-paying students? There is great value in diversity. Within...

Agency is one of those terms often bandied about in school and I admit that it is one that I struggle to define. Reflecting on the term, though, it seems to me that student agency is something that I encourage - albeit intermittently, perhaps - in my classroom. For me, agency is about student taking ownership of their learning. By developing their capacity to do things, giving them choices and control over their learning. There are different ways that I try to do this with my students, and I can certainly see even more ways to be effective in empowering it. I want my students to be more self-directed in their learning. In the past, when I've given students the opportunity to work collaboratively to construct knowledge of a text, for example, I have had concerns about the amount of work some students did, as well as the quality of their work output. I think that this concern has become an obstacle for me, too, because it makes me reluctant to transfer further control for their ...

As teachers, we dream of students engaged in their learning, exploring their passions in a myriad of ways. The reality is more often students doing work that is dictated by assessment needs. As part of our Mindlab session this evening, we were asked in small groups to discuss assessment practices. As three high school teachers, there are aspects of our assessment practice that we would like to change. One of the primary reasons is that we think that changes in assessment would benefit our students by increasing agency of their learning. Among the issues with assessment that we identified are: standard /assessment is driving the teaching and learning rather than teaching and learning driving assessment. NCEA and National Standards pressures 'exam' based assessment tasks assessments predominantly individually assessed where work could be submitted as group - how to manage this? over-testing within school reliance on written assessments Overall, we would prefer an i...