Session Nine: Revision

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

Ubiquitous (tricky to say but very important) learning was our main focus today from Dorothy.

A positive to come out of the Covid lockdown for my Year 5/6 students is that there is a sudden realisation that learning can happen at home - as if it an amazing suggestion!

This is truely mind blowing for me as when I was involved in the introduction of the Maniakalani Outreach journey at South Hornby School 5 years ago this was one of the biggest pluses for our students. Back then we had a lot of students who continued with their learning outside the 9-3 time zone but it doesn't seem to be the case now (as I have just moved back to the Year 5/6 age group).

I wonder why that is? Is it because there are too many other things that our students are doing on their devices out of school hours that the suggestion that they could continue with their learning seems completely outrageous to them. It was only as we returned after Covid lockdown that their was a mindshift in the students as they realised that they could continue with their learning outside of school hours. I will continue to promote this as the year goes on.

The school day may be 9am-3pm but technology has made it possible for students to learn outside of the school day, and rewindable learning can help with this. The use of learning sites and screencastify clips can direct learning when students are at home.

The benefits are now able to be proven with data from the Summer Learning Journey. Students who participate in the Summer Learning Journey do not fall back in Reading and Writing as much as their peers.

These school holidays the Uru Manuka Cluster are trying a Winter Learning Journey. We want to use the shift and momentum from the Covid lockdown to keep the ubiquitous learning going over the break.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

I loved our DFI Demo Slam that we concluded our 9 week DFI journey with. Lots of new things to explore. It was great to do this on the last week of term so I can see what I can add to my programme when planning for the new term. I have already had a play with the Freddie Meter, although I may need to keep practising to improve my score!

I am interested to find out more about the Online Practicum, being an Associate Teacher in an online world.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  

One of the new tools I will use straight away with my learners is Auto Draw. I am really excited to see what they think of it, especially my students who are not very confident at drawing. Here is a screencastify to show how simple it is to use.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

I did not sit my Google exam today - I plan to sit it in the first week of the holidays when I am in the right head space and well rested after this mammoth term.

We were asked to reflect on these 3 questions relating to our Covid lockdown experience:

• What are you most proud of (in your own teaching)? I was really proud of how our whole staff, students and families coped with online learning. Some of the students we least expected absolutely excelled in an online learning environment. I loved how we were able to continue to use our schoolwide reward system during lockdown as well. We were fortunate that we had spent the weekend prior to the announcement to get ready just in case. Many of my colleagues in higher decile schools were not as ready as we were, and this is thanks mainly to being a Manaiakalani Outreach school.

• What do you regret? It may seem silly but my biggest regret was not taking home one of our flash teacher (office) chairs from our learning space. Within a week my back was killing me from sitting at the dinning room table. So I did a bit of a MacGyver and made a standing table with the ironing board and a plastic crate. That did the trick until my back got used to my new normal.

• What will you be taking forward into the new "era" of schooling? I am really promoting the ubiquitous learning and I have a few students who have continued post lockdown with their learning after school or in the weekend. Our blogging has sadly slowed down again too so I am making a conscious effort to include time for this in my planning. I also think it is really important that a lot of our Junior school teachers continue to use digital tools now that we are back in the school setting. They did such an amazing job during lockdown and underwent huge personal learning about digital tools and technology, and I want to encourage them to continue with this.