This was the first session with the staff of this school. The session introduced the two tools that will be used during the process, then we looked at changes and trends in society and our understanding about learning. From this we discussed questions about the changing role of school and used this as a springboard to start reviewing the school vision. the aim is to come to a commonly held vision in terms of what is important for the school to address as we look towards empowing the pupils for their future. There was some very interesting discussion as we started thinking about our beliefs about learning and the role of the school in today’s society. It was a great evening and I really enjoyed the participation and discussion. What a privelege to be involved in these exciting and deep professional discussions!
I worked with Hikurangi school over these two days as part of their ongoing process. So far we have revised the school vision and this is now a powerful aspect of the school that drives daily practice. The vision has been captured into a graphic that features obviously as you enter the school and in every classroom. Teachers now use the vision as a guideline for classroom acivities. We have also implemented inquiry learning using the SAUCE model. Friday was spent on reviewing progress to date, determining next steps, and carrying out initial planning for the next Inquiry unit. Part of Saturday was spent on discussing the practical issues of implementing Inquiry. One of the most powerful activities we went throuh on Saturday was to re-examine our learning beliefs, and determine from each belief what we value, what attitudes should be demonstrated as a result of those beliefs, and the related skills and behaviours. Up till now we have had real problems trying to determine our ‘values’, we had found that it has been very difficult to define what a ‘value’ is. This time we had a change of approach and started to define what we ‘value’ based on the specific belief. This made things much easier and we found that we could easily agree on a range of concepts, attitudes, behaviours and skills that we ‘value’.the other aspect was we found that when we stopped trying to talk about our ‘values’ and focus instead on what we value, we were now incorporating some very important aspects that we would otherwise not have listed otherwise. A simple example comes from our examination of our beliefs about the place and role of thinking in Learning. When we listed what we ‘value’ based on our defined beliefs we found that we value ‘questions’. Previously we would never have listed ‘questions’ as a value, but we do ‘value’ questions highly when we look at the outcomes of our beliefs on practice. As an aside, it is interesting to note that a major dictionary (Webster’s new 20th Century dictionary, Unabridged, 2nd edition, 1971) does not define ‘value’ as a noun. As soon as we changed tack and stopped trying to define our ‘values’ and started to treat the word as a verb and began defining what we ‘value’ the whole process became much easier and much more powerful as we move forward with implementing beliefs into daily classroom practice.
I ran an afternoon/evening session for the Wanganui East ICT cluster on questioning. We had a good session where we covered a lot of material with the intent of giving the schools involved enough of an overview so they could make a start on going deeper with pupils in the area of questioning skills.
The morning was spent with the leadership team at looking at the issues surrounding implementation of the Draft NZ curriculum and establishing a set of initial steps to take.
The afternoon and evening was spent withPorritt School. The session which finished after 7pm (now there is dedication to professional development!) included a section on some background theory to Inquiry Learning, a discussion of the issues faced by schools in school wide implementation, and an introduction to the SAUCE model. This was my first chance to work with the staff at Porritt school and I was impressed with the in-depth way they are looking at a range of the issues, models and skills of inquiry as they prepare to implement Inquiry Learning.
The day was spent working with Flaxmere School, starting with a breakfast meeting and then working with teachers from each syndicate across the school. The goal was to address specific issues, problems and questions arising from the classroom experiences as teachers implement Inquiry Learning using the SAUCE model across the school. A wide range of practical issues were addressed. The day culminated in a staff meeting where we looked at issues of planning, preparation and the next steps in terms of further Inquiry units. It was good to have such open and positive discussions and to see the school as a whole ready to continue the process of implementing and embedding Inquiry Learning.
I had a great day working with the staff at Blockhouse Bay Primary and some teachers from my old high school ( Lynfield College).
The day was split into two sections. In the morning we looked at learner questioning, questioning skills and the QuESTioning Rubric. During the afternoon session we looked at teacher questioning, and practised a range of teacher questioning and related strategies that would increase student thinking.
I really enjoyed the discussion and enthusiasm of the day.
I had a great evening working with a group of teachers from the Dannevirke area. The focus of the evening was to take a fresh look at thinking skills and determine the challenges for schools as they move seriously towards implementing a learning and teaching approach aimed at improving students’ thinking. During the evening we discussed seven main questions:
- What is thinking?
- Why should we have an increased focus on thinking?
- What is an effective thinker?
- What attitudes does an effective thinker have?
- What skills does an effective thinker need?
- What are the basic, foundational or core skills of thinking?
- What is the reasoning process?
And from these came a set of suggestions that included:
• Defining what it means at your school to be an effective thinker
• Identifying a set of core or foundational thinking skills that will be the focus of your school’s programme
• Identify the tools that will support and facilitate those skills
• Make improving student vocabulary a major focus
• Deliberately target questioning skills
• Utilise the reasoning process as a central structure
• Target improved teacher questioning
