#edchat2 - Student Perspectives - Learning in and innovative learning environment

4 extremely confident student ambassadors explained their vision for the school: 

Connect Inspire and Soar: 10 minute 

- We have more choice and we control what and how we learn. 

- We tend to focus on one learning environment 

- Much more project and student focussed 

- A lot of kids and team teaching

- the kids are more self managing - more self directed over the course of the year 

- based on student needs 

- relationship between teachers is a whole different dynamic 

Modules 

- the human machine - PE and Science module(Yr9/10) 

- Jam and Maori - read music and speak 

- Da Vinci - science and Art - light and colour perspectives 

- Special effects - art and technology - weta workshop module 

- enjoyed Maths when we learnt it in a Science way 

- 'somewhere to be' - Maths and PE - planning a run, going on a run, geocaching on the run and mapping  co-ordinates 

- all use dashboard for tracking student learning 

Concentrating in open learning environment- how do you do it? 

- if it's too noisy I go to a breakout room 

- I put on my headphones 

- I move to a different room

Curriculum Tracker: 

Students keep track on a spreadsheet of what they need to cover 

Simple spreadsheet - we check where our gaps are 

Advisory activities -

For the start of the year

Nail challenge:  hard to believe this could be done! 

Lego challenge: 

Learning Advisory 

- very strong belief in that the teachers learn as well 

- students complete 'what am I learning' 

- SOLO rubric for all learning - lots of work being done with Pam Hook - the students could explain this quite clearly

An excellent presentation from the students. 

Quote: the teachers have to trust us a lot! 

No laptops at lunchtime! 

All social media blocked. 

Phones only allowed for school work. 

Quote 2: it may really look different - at the end of the day we're still learning! 

edchat16 - Workshop 1 - Computational Thinking - Rich Rowley and Stuart Kelly

Computational Thinking - what the hell is this? 

An interesting discussion on where coding is going! 

Basically solving problems, abstraction and change! 

Guess the number using yes/no questions! Solve by halving the range each time! 

Computational thinking and coding - repetition and scale = elegant coding. 

Coders are lazy! 

Computational thinking is important - because coding is disappearing - dying professional because of the way in which 

'Let's teach kids to code' Mitch Resnick 

https://www.ted.com/talks/mitch_resnick_let_s_teach_kids_to_code?language=en

When we code in pairs - pair programming exists in the real world.

Collaborative - constructionist pedagogy. 

Thinking is the outcome - through coding, not other way round! 

Extreme excitement when we did the Square! 

Where could you use this in English? 

- collaboration 

- follow instructions 

- follow a structure 

It's about thinking and perceptive - excellence @ NCEA 

#edchat 2016 Opening keynote - Rototuna Junior High School

'Pushing the boundaries of educational possibilities' 

Fraser Hill and Danielle Myburgh 

RJHS - getting the students ready for being 'emerging adolescents' 

660 - Yr7-10 - biggest opening role of a new school. 

The secondary school is being adjoining the middle school. 

Tribe: Find the perfect group for you - people who challenge and push you to go further. Be the first follower - who makes a lone nut a leader! (Derek Sivers).

Has automation affected your job? 

 Has  your job become more complex? 

We no longer know how to solve the problems that are presented to us? We can't predict the future.

What does a conference look like? It is the bridge between reality and possibilities. Diverse groups of teachers collaborate and create possibilities - for schools and beyond! 

Sustainability a key focus - recyclable everything - cups, no paper 

Met my tribe - Kereru - one is from the Game Lab - learning through gaming. Others from primary, intermediate and secondary areas. Led by Justine Hughes. 

What would be the one thing you'd like to change? 

Dr Yong Zhao - entrepreneurial and creative problem based thinking

I was fortunate to hear Dr Yong Zhao in the freezing hall of Christs College on the last day of the hols. 

So Dr Zhao was brought here by the 'Thought Leaders' - Who are thought leaders? I have no idea!!

Focus of the lecture - 21st century schools in age of globalisation 

Recent book to read - Who's afraid of the big bad dragon?

Yongzhao.uo@gmail.com

Zhao posed lots of questions:

What's makes a good education?

Are we delivering the right things?

Are we 'Counting what counts?'  

3 big issues in education: 

Interesting that he saw - Curriculum  - continually changing - lots of 'playing' 

What is the best possible curriculum to learn? 

Pedagogy and teachers - trying to prescribe how we teach - 

Assessment - large tests /Pisa  -,the trend to forced high stakes assessments

Patents want scores -bell who's doing a good job ? 

We want to improve education but according to Zhao we need transformation?

What we should be focussing on 'what matters' and this will be different from place to place - different contexts.

In one place you can be useless, in another you can be useful. 

3 problems in education

- disengaged kids 

- post school prospects - youth unemployment - a lot of the kids are 'stuck in the basement' - this generation has had more education than any than any other 'under employment' also an issue - 'the boomerang' generation - they've played the game but the game no longer works 

- equity - the achievement gap is a symptom of the equity gap 

Traditional educational paradigm - education to deliver prescribed outcomes to all  children. We deliver a package delivered the right way! 

Traditionally differences have had no value- but when applied tons specific contexts can it matters / means something. 

Dr Reiss - 16 basic motivations and objects of desire! 

Understanding that people have different motivators leads to reduced frustration! 

How do we decide what kids need to know? 

Historically this has been an homogenous process. 

The current system reinforces mediocrity, shuns excellence and diversity.

We're not delivering a poor education, but the wrong education. 

Transformational revolution - very few of these take place. 

The 4th industrial revolution - smart machines. 

No job is safe! 

What opportunities does this create to celebrate individual differences? 

To solve the 3 main problems in education?

Biggest thing we consume - choice

New paradigm - reverse of homogenised - diversified - creating a jagged profile of success - no one is the same. 

Another text to scan - The end of average. Todd Ross. 

Big data is useless for individual students - based on the average. 

Education needs to be: 

-  student driven and personalised - not compared to others, individual students have talent. Student autonomy. Have we changed teaching from instruction to supporting learning. 

- product driven - know how to problem solve - start with identifying what problems are worth solving ( are you bettering other people's lives) - edcorps.org

- globalised campus -do our students have the capacity to reach the globe 

We can't keep tinkering with education on a small scale. 

NB would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall when he spoke with Ministry and opposition around National Standards and Communities of Learners - neither of which he was in support of! 

Re:generation NZATE16 : Keynote 4 Ben Brown

Writer, teacher, performance poet and sometime. 

Listening to Ben Brown I sort of question why he is not as well known as Witi Ihimaera or Patricia Grace. As powerful a wordsmith. 

He describes himself as 'A storyteller in the world of words'. 

Maori at home, Pakeha at school - the world of his mother. 

Great line - Behind every great writer is the ghost of an English teacher!!!

And another - Human conversation is not a frivolous activity. 

'My father always a book at the table right next to the knife! They were in the workshop and stacked in piles in the house. My mother read Readers Digest condensed -'much to my father's chagrin'. 

Created some great images - my mother's tongue had the quality of hard diamond that cut! Ben has wonderful descriptions of his mother - the heron that fishes, the eel that twists and turns ... She could talk to birds! 

Animals had a natural affinity to her, they knew how to find her kindness. 

Honky the rabbit - named from 'Love thy neighbour' - imagine that show today!!

The teacher 'Miss What ever her name' refused to allow the racist name in the pet show!  'As only a teacher in her room could' 

In Tom Sawyer he could see his own life reflected - scallywag, truant, miscreant ....

Another great line - 'The constant mining if the human story. The seam is rich' 

Final thoughts - Be the artist. Dream ridiculously. Don't live in the grind of someone else's machine.  Poets are hopeless romantics - they believe in everything. 

Be an artist. Be the maker of something real. 

Make it complete and give it a name or else it will not exist. 

'Mana' 

Final line:

Mana is the man who does without saying 

'He Kingi' 

'Taniwha' 

Re:generation NZATE16: Workshop 4 NZQA

What are markers looking for:

- no more than 3 pages - a concise response - Level 1; 5 pages - Level 2/3 

- open ended - 3 pages 

- quality more important than length 

Teachers need to promote and encourage this - kids write a lot of stuff - can be quite tedious - is it necessary - in English they should be able to write a concise essay 

Supporting evidence - does not mean 10 quotes - often they are saying too much 

Nothing in standards, or curriculum that specifies a word count.

Better to write two pages of good stuff! 

Should be able to complete all 3 standards in 3 hours. 

Are students disadvantaged if they do 3 - NZQA research shows not. 

We need 15-16 year olds to be able to respond to a question, in exam conditions. We do not expect a polished piece. 

Discussion over the key words in exam questions! Should be the key words from the standard - not synonyms. 

NZQA 

- looking for - stating an argument - build an argument 

- show an interest in the text 

- have a personal response 

- choose texts that the kids can relate to, can see the purpose of 

- original response often hard to see for some texts 

Questions 

- don't tell the kids what to write 

OMG - quote from workshop about the exemplars ' if my kids wrote this I wouldn't give them Excellence!!"'

Re:generation NZATE16: Keynote 3 Michele A'Court - Small Town Girl

According to Steve, Michele writes 'real'comedy!

We get caught up with the 'minutiae' of our lives! 

How come my house earns more than I do in a year??!! 

Fundamental philosophy is that life is chaos. We spend our lives writing narratives to explain that chaos. 

'I look at my life as a book' 

Teachers who mattered to me: 

40 or more kids in my primary class - you just got moved through the system - always young in the class. Escaped into books. The librarian who led me to the young adult section of the library - was s key influence. 

My Yr9 teacher who told that you could make a living from writing - this was revelation. 

Mr Marsh - who made the 5 of us who chose drama to do Chekhov. In his own time, his own money, his own enthusiasm....

Last year she wrote an open apology on 'social media' to the teachers she had harassed through school - such as Dr Iles who did Economics without the knowledge he needed! 

Memories of SC English - writing on 'not' set texts - my teachers taught me HOW to read, not hoe to regurgitate! 

Two teachers who believe in you; no teachers who crush your dreams and few teachers who are faking it! 

I live the life I dreamed I wanted! If you can't recommend the job you do to others, why are you doing it? Find the 

place where you feel the 'most you'. 

Still keep grounded in the 16 year old in Levin. 

Three things needed in life: 

Something to look forward to

Someone to love 

Something to fight for 

Talking about fear: performing creates anxiety. 

Do something one degree scarier than the thing you have to do, it makes the thing you have to do less scarier. 

We tend to remember the shitty things that people say, not the good things - we need to hold onto those! 

Key quotes : Alice Walker ' I have the right to be this self' 

Final words - the fight for feminism belong to all !!