Challenges

 

Our adventures with Akoranga o Naenae to date have not been without their challenges.  We are a group of positive people, and we have a strong leadership base from which to draw support.  But with any new idea, hiccups are discovered along the way, and we are no exception to the rule.  I'm going to outline for you the challenges that Natasha, Kelly, and I see as the most significant so far.

Firstly, our most predominant challenge:  time.The initial set up of AoN took a massive amount of time.  Luckily, none of us are work-shy!  We worked together for quite a few days throughout the summer holidays, and felt like we'd only made a wee dent.  It was a genius suggestion made last year by one of our principals, Jo Buckley, that AoN not start until part way through Term One, with me and Kelly released on Fridays up to that point to continue planning and preparing. 
Considering that meant two teachers working a full day each for four Fridays, and we were still only just ready - you can see that we needed that time!  Natasha, Kelly, and I also met weekly in the first few weeks of Term One, and with increasing frequency in the lead up to our first day.  We just about needed our sleeping bags at school!

This setting up right from the beginning will not have to happen again, but nonetheless, it took its toll.

The amount of time we take to plan and prepare for each Friday session is large.  This is not because we have enforced a severe planning regimen or insisted on an unworkable structure; it is because we have wonderful, intelligent, in-depth discussions about our decisions.  We talk through the nitty gritty of our activities, resources, presentation styles, management techniques, feedback opportunities, clarity of purpose, etc etc etc. Although the time spent on this adds to our 'challenges' list, it is also highly valued by each of us.  It gives us amazing professional development opportunities - we learn so much from each other.  And, even more importantly, it ensures that what we do with our AoN kids is as fun, useful and as effective as possible.

For me and Natasha, this time commitment comes on top of running a class.  For Kelly, it comes on top of running a family and teaching part time.  Either way, it is an enormous ask.  From my perspective, I'm finding it a difficult juggling act.  I spend three days a week in my class, so I want to ensure that those three days are perfect.  I also need to work with the (wonderful) teachers who are working in my classroom on the other two days, to be sure that that time is used productively, as well.  The work I expect of myself to be the best teacher I can is at least a 60 hour a week job.  Adding AoN on top of that - it's a lot!  The way I have made that work is to keep the two things separate in my mind, and practically.  I know that on Fridays I only think about AoN.  In the weekends, I have a set time to work on school stuff, and a set time to work on AoN stuff.  The other saving grace I have is that the AoN workload is split between the three of us.  The support from Natasha and Kelly has kept me sane, and has ensured that all of us are ready each Friday, regardless of whatever else is going on.

Our next challenge is making Akoranga o Naenae relevant to our whanau, students, and teachers/principals at our network schools.  We are not, and do not want to be seen as a stand alone initiative.  We want to communicate with stakeholders, to share our progress, and to have our learning spread far and wide. We want to build on what others are doing in their classes and at home. Doing this without inundating principals, teachers, and whanau with emails and phone calls is a tricky balancing act but we know it is vital to make those links if true impact is to be made. 

This leads onto our third challenge:  communication.  We have email addresses for all teachers and principals, and see this as a sensible way to communicate with busy people. However, all it takes is one email to be missed, or to be actioned but not answered, and we are left wondering - do we need to email again?  Will that be annoying or useful? Should we find another way to communicate?  Bearing in mind we have 48 kids, so at least 48 whanau members, 20 teachers, and 6 principals - whatever we use to communicate has to be manageable.

Another challenge at AoN has been the students themselves.  We have found it a fine line to walk to establish relationships with children we see once a week.  We didn't want to know too much about the kids before we started, to avoid pre-conceived ideas.  Now that we have met most of them four times (whanau night + 3 weeks of AoN), we feel like we want to know about them as people, and as learners.  We need this information to make the best learning opportunities from their time with us, and to help us to relate to them in a genuine way when things are tricky.  We're still working on this one.  Monitoring of positive and not-so-positive behaviour, and recognising this with the kids is helping us to establish an effective way of working.

Lastly, we are challenged by the fact that some others don't yet share our belief that focusing on Active Learning will make a difference to the learning of our kids.  We whole-heartedly believe it.  The research we have to back us up shows that this is the case.  So, how do we pass on the message to those who don't yet believe? How do we show those who might be able to support us financially?  Perhaps they'll be 'the proof is in the pudding' kind of people?  If that's the case - bring on the end of Term Two!  We'll show 'em!  

No TLIF, now what?

We believe we are part of a wonderful profession in New Zealand. There are so many educators who have a passion for teaching, learning, their students and all the students of Aotearoa. This drives them to work hard, think a lot, and try innovative things, many with the deep support of their leaders, all to support and challenge their kids to be the best they can be now as well as be prepared for the future - academically, artistically, creatively, socially. 

Massive congratulations to the initiatives which made it through to the second round of the TLIF process. You guys have got some great ideas and I hope all teachers get to find out how they go. Many will be transferable ideas that others can benefit from. 

We are incredibly disappointed not to have been short-listed for the next round. We are also a bit confused to be honest (probably like many of the others not short listed). We thought we had ticked a lot of the boxes about what this funding was for: students at the heart, priority learners, future focused, underpinned by research and supported by researchers, and using the network data we have. The feedback from the panel was generic - nothing specific about our application.  This wasn't very helpful, even as the words "apply again" signed off the letter. We can't help, at moments, to feel cynical but are mostly trying to stay optimistic.

So now what?

Our network principals will get together with us in the holidays to make a plan about what to do next. Our current ideas include: 

• asking for a meeting with members of the TLIF panel to get specific feedback
• continue to progress with creating our network trust which may then help source funding to have another round(s) of AoN
• see if there are some grants we could apply for
• ?????

We are so appreciative our network schools have funded our first round (and their amazing support after not getting through to the next round). But them funding further rounds is not an option. It's early days but we do believe that AoN could support our kids to not only become more active learners, but that what we are doing at AoN will help their achievement in other areas. We would like/need time to find out! 

Wish us luck. And if there are any innovative ideas out there....

PS: we are wondering about the other ideas that didn't go through. What little golden nuggets are in there that could help others that we may never hear about? Could we find out somehow and share these among ourselves? 

Spotlighting what it means to be an active learner...

A really common question asked of us is how would we measure the success of the project when the focus is on facilitating students to become 'active learners'? 

This question was the basis for many discussions in the planning stages of AoN. We wanted to have clear indicators of success which would allow us to evaluate the effectiveness of the programme. In the early stages we established the following indicators: 

- What do the students know about being an active learner? i.e. I know that active learners…

- What do the students know about why being an active learner is important?

- Are they able to put this understanding into action and show they can be an active learner.

We decided that we needed to have a clear set of criteria for what was meant by being an 'active learner.' What were the traits of an active learner? We started with a brainstorm of our own understanding of the term drawing on personal research, our experiences within the classroom and our knowledge developed through LCN. The list was big and we needed to synthesize our ideas to come up with broader themes. We wanted a shorter list; a common language that we could use in our discussions, with the students, with families and with other educators. After much deliberation we narrowed the traits down to 6...

We agreed that active learners:

• Are resilient
• Question
• Reflect
• Connect
• Choose
• Know learning is purposeful

From here it was clear that we needed to break these traits down further; to establish a success criteria so that we were all on the same page when discussing the traits. Clarity in our own minds would allow us to help students make explicit connections between their learning and the traits. The success criteria is still a working document (as are most things) but we felt happy with our initial thoughts.

We then wanted to cue students in to each of these traits by spending a short amount of time spotlighting each trait. This was a case of 'planting the seed' as in the coming weeks we planned to spend a longer amount of time focusing on each of the traits. Here is a snippet of how we introduced each trait. If you want to know more of the details just ask!

Spotlighting the 6 traits of an active learner. Active learners...

Are resilient: clip on growth mindset exploring Carol Dweck's research, do a card shuffle to identify growth versus foxed mindset statements.

Question: @MicroscopePics wonderful images to prompt students to wonder. This 'wondering' continued when our scientist Leon Perrie helped us to explore Ferns.

Reflect: Reflection about reflection! Other useful reflective questions

Connect: Who can we connect to? What places help our learning? What tools can we use?

Choose: Choose what, who, when and where? What are great choices for learning?

Know learning is purposeful: Lion boy clip Talking to students about how our learning should be purposeful is one we feel will make the most sense when learners are pursuing their passion projects as it's the one which they will come to understand by their experience. We know that as teachers, we aim to make learning back in schools relevant and meaningful, we know from talking to students, they cannot always make the link between what they are learning and how that learning could be useful 'today'.

We feel that the 6 traits of an active learner have given us a common language to use with the students including through feedback during discussions, "you made a great choice for learning" and using the traits for reflection. Our collaborative discussions and deliberations helped us to develop a clear understanding of what we want to see our students doing and how we want to see them be. Sharing these with families and the students' home school will hopefully help to create some consistency in different contexts allowing students to connect their learning.

We continue to focus on 'connecting' in relation to our professional learning. How are we helping students connect their learning from AoN to other places of learning? We believe this will be pivotal to ensuring that the successes that come with being active in our learning are sustained.

A big part of our discussions have been around Key Competencies so naturally we have started discussions around how the traits of an active learner sit with Key Competencies. Where do they overlap? Are there gaps? What are your thoughts? 

Planning @AoN

I was sitting at my kitchen table with a fellow educator a couple of weeks ago. She asked, "What does your planning look like? It probably doesn't start fitness then maths etc". 

She was right. It took us a good conversation to work out a flow that we thought could work and certainly a place to start. I particularly remember a question around break times. I felt we should let the kids eat when they were hungry and if they ate everything by 9.30, there was some learning in that. Clare and Tash felt they may need some support to manage timing of physical breaks and eating, and we needed to help bridge the place where they were coming from and a more self-regulated environment. And I agree that kids deciding they needed a physical break in the middle of a learning task wouldn't always be helpful (one of the break choices is a playground outside!) So as with many things, we agreed to come up with a plan that helped develop more active learners and assess at a later date. 

We knew that we wanted to develop the six traits of active learning that we had identified, but we also knew that we needed to develop each one in depth to ensure kids were really getting what each one was about. We knew we needed to have a good chunk of time for learners to work on their passion/hobby/project. We knew time for reflection was going to develop this trait which we have found is a more challenging one to go deep with, and our reflection tasks would be part of the assessment that showed whether what we are trying to do or working or not. 

So this is how our planning looks for now. Thanks to Tash for coming with the alliterations, we think they're cool and capture exactly what we are trying to do. 

We have a part of the day which we call 'Activate'. This is where we have specific tasks to develop an active learning trait (or as in these early weeks, perhaps a range of activities to cover and begin explore all the traits). 

Then we have some 'Action'. This is dedicated time where learners are applying their skills as an active learner to their personal project. In the first couple of weeks, we used that time to get experts in to share their passions, and hopefully give some ideas to those who may not be sure what are they want to go deeper in or learn more about. We have a learning process/inquiry style direction we will get each student to work through to capture what they are doing and why. This is still under construction. 

'Analyse' is reflection time. Mostly it will be on their blogs, but as Clare mentioned, we are still struggling to get these underway as students can't always remember how to spell their name, their school name, have a dot in the wrong place etc. Remembering where to put a dot, dash or capital letter in your email address, and understanding the symbols associated with the online world is a learning task in itself.  But active learners are resilient, and this definitely goes for the oldest learners in the room at these times! Part of what we want to capture during reflection time is how they use AoN learning beyond AoN, and what skills from other learning places do they use here, as well as how they are developing as active learners. 

'Afterwards' is how we are supporting students to make explicit links between their learning with us and everywhere else in their lives but without making too much extra work for anyone. 

The far right column are the roles of the teachers. Part is actively planing for the different co-teaching strategies that we are using. Another is behaviour support where students who need more support to make good choices for learning have some choices removed from them (such as who they work with) for that block. Each part of the day is a new chance to make great choices. 

The order and timing of the day is flexible based on what may be happening, like when visitors are coming in to share their passions. Being able to go with our flow and not worry about lunchtimes, cross grouping, assembly and all those other school - wide events has has been really nice. 

We have our planning projected up on the wall, as well as an advance organiser on the whiteboard. We share what's coming up the following week via email (where we also sum up the week that has been and remind them of their 'afterwards' job). 

So that's how are planning for now. Having recently read a very interesting blog post from Kath Murdoch, I think we will need to keep thinking about how we actively plan for and capture all that we are trying to achieve. But that is what it's all about. A constantly evolving programme with constantly evolving learners. 

And by the way. Tash and Clare were probably right about the more structured break times. We slot in times for eating and moving with kids choosing the order of their break (eat, move, toilet, time on a device, play etc). But gauging by the amount of kids with a sandwich hanging out of their mouths as we start the next learning block, a little support is still required! 

The First Day

For so long, the first day seemed an eternity away. However in these last few weeks there has been a flurry of docs, emails, meetings and peer checks! Some of the things we have been nutting out are:

• Attendance registers
• Whānau information session
• Learning Maps project related 'stuff'
• Relievers
• Reminders for the first day
• Transportation
• Devices
• And, of course, planning day #1

Along the way there have been many discussions and reflections about our purpose (is it reflected in our planning?), our kaupapa (what about if people want to visit?). Are we clear to our audience, be they whānau, students, principals, colleagues? How can we communicate clearly and succinctly but not overwhelm with emails? These will be constantly evolving processes and we will ask for feedback to streamline this from all participants.

Whānau information session

We were very nervous and excited to be holding an information session for students and whānau of AoN. We had made a poster for each child which had their face and a statement from their teachers about why they are awesome learners. We got goose-pimples from some of the beautiful things teachers said about their children. These were displayed on the doors as people came in to our learning space.

It was awesome! Parents and children loved looking for themselves and others they knew. It was great to see parents from different schools re-connect. We were very excited to have our principals and colleagues attend, too.

We prepared a presentation to guide us through some information and then left the floor open for questions. Thankfully none were too hairy! People looked around the venue and we heard people starting to talk about what their hobbies and passions might be. Next time we would see them all would be our first day.

Day One!

The thought of working in an environment with two other teachers would have unnerved me a year ago. I would have wondered how it would be possible - lots of teachers like control and to a degree I fit into this category! This fear of loss of control led me to think of all the pitfalls of working in one space with others. Over the last six months my perception of this has slowly changed. This all started with going to U-Learn when I saw people co-presenting and listened to other teachers discuss working in a collaborative learning environment. I gradually started to rethink my viewpoint and focus more on what is possible.

Today was our first day actually teaching together. Leading up to the start of AoN we have obviously worked closely together, discussing, planning, thinking, rethinking BUT today was the first day in action! I felt supported. I felt calm - the feeling that you are in a team and everyone is working together towards the same aim was reassuring. I felt inspired, watching how Kelly and Clare worked alongside students and seeing their enthusiasm. The benefits of teaching in this collaborative way really stood out for me today. I wondered what were the ingredients that led to this? Whilst my experience was positive, I have heard of challenges that can come with working in a collaborative environment. So what led to us being able to work so effectively together? 

• We had a common vision - in the initial planning stages of AoN we talked in length about what we wanted the students to get out of AoN. We knew we wanted the focus to be on developing active learners and we had rigorous discussions around what it meant to be an active learner. We were all on the same page!
• There was a genuine feeling in the group that we were all there to learn from each other and a big part of this project was that we see ourselves as learners too. Not once did I feel judged, afraid to ask questions or worried about how I would be perceived. I believe this trust and openness is essential when working in a collaborative environment.
• We have fun together - a few weeks ago we had our whanau evening. We were all feeling a little on edge hoping that families would be in support and that what we had to say would be well received. When I arrived at the venue Kelly and Clare had bought us all a fancy dress item to wear when we were setting up! (see pic!) Having fun is an important part of work and Kelly and Clare are really great at making sure this happens.
• The respect for each other is highly apparent. We all see value in what each of us do and how each of us think. 
• We know that we don’t always have to think the same thing; we don’t always have to agree and when we do disagree often these conversations are the most interesting to explore! 
• Our collaborative reflections combined with our desire to learn and grow means that 'learning talk' is clearly visible in our conversations. This is exciting! (Teacher talk to improve teaching practices: Annan, Kuin Lai & Robinson) 

The above are just a few of the ingredients which I believe will foster an effective collaborative learning environment. I'm sure there are others. 

I am really excited to see how the way in which we work together over the next 13 weeks develops. I am interested in discovering what is possible in an environment where there is not just one teacher but three! Even three teachers can't hold the knowledge or expertise needed by 48 students! What happens when we start to introduce other people? Experts from the community? Whānau? Teachers from within the cluster? With the mind power of all these people surely the potential learning for our students is more far reaching? 

Why would you? By Natasha

As soon as I heard about Akoranga o Naenae I was 
interested to find out more! The thinking that sat behind

the idea resonated with my reflections on my practice, professional material I was reading at the time, and my recent Professional Development opportunities. The idea of working collaboratively alongside other teachers was something that scared me and excited me at the same time. My desire for control and organisation made me feel slightly apprehensive and my belief in the importance of learning from each other, challenging boundaries, and provoking rigorous professional discussion enticed me. 

My experience at U-Learn 2014 challenged me to think hard about beliefs that underpinned my teaching. Listening to Quinn Norton and readings on the Maker Movement had encouraged me to think about the learning spaces within own my classroom, about the social construct of a school with single cell classrooms and bells that dictate when it is time to start and stop. For some students schooling as we know it is not having the ultimate impact we desire, that is, to spark a passion for learning that surpasses boundaries of the school walls and is long lasting. For some students their first experiences of learning are not interesting or motivating. For some students after a very short time at school they have developed a belief that they are 'not good at x, y, z.' Why is that? 

A key idea I was mulling over was rethinking the role of teachers and learners. When students truly direct their own learning we get engagement. When we get engagement we get students who think deeply about their learning; students who make connections with each other, with prior learning, and to possible future learning. With this in mind I started to wonder: do my students truly direct their own learning? Honestly… some of the time, yes. But they do so within the constraints of a timetable, learning objectives and learning tasks set by me. So, who is in charge really? What might it look like if they had more of the control? 

It was this thinking that led me to apply to be part of Akoranga o Naenae. Now that the first round is about to begin I have some wonderings...

• What might teaching, planning, assessment look like if the Key Competencies were used as a starting point, rather than a by-product or an add on to other learning intentions? What if the Key Competencies were the main road instead of a side street? The Key Competencies go across all learning areas but what does this look like in practice?

• If the skills involved in being an active learner are explicitly taught and valued will this transfer in all contexts, i.e. from AoN to home and school. Are there instances where this is or is not the case and what are the key factors at place in these instances? 

• What are the benefits and challenges of working in a collaborative environment?

At U-Learn Quinn Norton spoke about the Red Queen 
Philosophy – that we areat a point in education where you have to run as fast as you can to stay where you are. It certainly feels like that but isn’t that exciting in a way? If we are not learners ourselves then how are we modeling the love for learning we want to inspire in our students? If we aren’t prepared to take a risk ourselves then how can we expect our students to? 

Why would you??? Kelly

Each time Clare and I would get together to organise the next thing (or pull our hair out), we would spend at part of the meeting shaking our heads in disbelief and say, "Can't believe it has got THIS far!". From verbalising an idea about "imagine if..." at a cluster meeting to talking the merits of VDSL and splitting routers, each day we find it's not a dream (nightmare sometimes) and oh! my! goodness! the kids arrive in one and a half weeks!

But why would you? 

I watched a clip a couple of years ago, What if kids designed their own school? and was so excited as it made clear the concept of student led learning. I had been trying to build this into my classroom programmes as much as I knew how to and as diversely as I could, this clip took it deeper in my thinking. But not only that, it included so much of what was percolating around future focused education and the principles involved, community engagement, and the kids looked like they really enjoyed it. So I remember asking my principal, Denise Sainsbury, "what would this look like in a primary school classroom?" And it took a couple of years and a few iterations, but it looks sort of like what we are trying to do with AoN. Two years on, much of it seems more 'normal' but it was a great place to springboard some thinking. A visit to Stonefields School in Auckland last year reinforced that it can happen successfully in a primary classroom for more than an hour a week.  So for the kids, loving school (even more) and having a focused boost on developing the traits of an active learning whilst learning about what you love is why you would do it. But what's in it for the teachers?

The talk of 'teaching is isolating' etc is not new. On the whole, we all know you're in your class sometimes as the only adult (which has been good at times- like having my headset on and singing and dancing tunes from 'The Electric Company' to assist spelling). But one of the things I am excited about is working with other excellent teachers and growing my ways of doing things, getting even more feedback on my practice, and exploring the roles that we all play as we team teach. At Ulearn14, I heard the phrase 'co-teaching continuum' and since have been doing a bit of reading around the potential of having more than one teacher in a room. I could never get a programme going that had students opting into masterclasses as they identified their learning needs and I look forward to exploring how this may work in a co-teaching environment.

After reading Fullan's A Rich Seam, I was thinking about his comments around how there are less assessment tools to 'measure' deep learning. Developing some tools around capturing growth as an active learner is exciting, challenging and essential as we have to ascertain whether what we are doing is having any impact on our learners, and what that impact is. We are involved in a Student Mapping Project which does this which will certainly help our thinking and practices in this area. 

And as a teacher, I am excited about trying to practice more of the principles of Future Focused Education without thinking about bells, eating times, curriculum coverage, literacy 'blocks' and all the other things we do to help make the most of our time with our students' day to day learning. 

So as the first round is about to begin, these are some wonderings. I look forward to revisiting them as time goes on to see if I can answer any of them!
? Is 14 weeks enough time, one day per week, to build on/extend capability in learners to use their active learning skills more independently? 
? Will learners and home teachers be able to identify any impact focused thinking about being an active learner has on reading, writing, and maths data?
? Will there be any alternative venues (if we choose to change venues) in Lower Hutt that have broadband capability for 60 people that isn't a school and available for a term and a half lease? This has been a major hurdle. 
? What does curriculum coverage look like in a future focused setting? Is there any 'must have' knowledge? Does any school have a curriculum and planning that doesn't include any AOs but only values/KCs? Were the learners disadvantaged? 

It's exciting and frightening. And completely exciting! And there is a lot less sleep in the middle of the night. Thank goodness we are a team! And thanks to Natasha, have laughing yoga as a stress release!