Open for Learning

https://twitter.com/Mrsmeganpete/status/791565250742984704

It's one of those topics that seems to be on everyone's radar right now: appraisal.

Not just because of teacher registration and the Practising Teacher Criteria.
Not just because it is one of ERO's foci.
But because we are all aware that teacher professional knowledge and pedagogy needs to keep improving and we want to do it the best way possible for all the parties involved.

Like other schools, we are trialing, reviewing and refining how it's done at "ours".

I missed a very good Twitter chat last Thursday, that thanks to Storify, I could capture to enjoy today (see below).  The educators who shared did so with honesty and generosity; there is a wealth of ideas and resources to read and mull over.

Not least, Chief Executive of Evaluation associates, Anna Sullivan's blog post, How To Make the Most of Teacher Appraisal (also printed in the current issue of the NZ Education Gazette.)

The key points I gleaned from the discussion between some very thoughtful educators are good ideas to measure your system against:

• It can't be tokenism
• It must be robust
• It should be vision and values based
• It needs to be warm and demanding at the same time
• There needs to be a climate of trust
• There must be open to learning conversations
• There must be clarity at the onset
• There need to be courageous conversations
• The basis should be student learning, not achievement
• Learning includes something more holistic than achievement; being a good citizen or growing in the Key Competencies
• Critical friends and peer appraisal feature rather than a hierarchical system

And what about senior leaders? What are they appraised against and who appraises them?

For a number of years I've kept this blog, tagging my posts against the Registered, now Practising Teacher Criteria.  

I've just filled in a document I created, based on the PTCs, the criteria for APs and DPs in the Collective Agreement and our own annual plan.  I used a simple Google doc as I didn't want to put all my time into creating the tool.  It also fitted Anna's criteria of being owned by me, using media I was comfortable with (online) and not within the school domain. 

What do you do? I'd love to continue the conversation...

Reflective Practice: So here we are...

Week 32 - Applied Practice in Context: Reflective Practice - Putting it all together

So here we are, at the end of the Mind Lab certificate course in applied technologies and collaborative learning and I’m a wee bit sad.

I think about how I shut myself into a bedroom for a weekend to complete the very first assignment for Digital and Collaborative Learning in Practice and the disappointment when my mark was not indicative of the work I felt I’d put into the submission.  Part of the problem was not having a routine to study, one that I now feel I’ve managed and mastered.

There was surprise that we had to write essays and frustration on two accounts: the word limit and the lack of feed forward.  While I agree that being succinct is a necessary skill (let’s face it, we all ended up skimming and settling on the summary in our literature review research, right?) I’ve been reflecting on an assessment system that has to fit in with the requirements of a traditional tertiary qualification system.

There was total brain preoccupation with the topic of my literature review for weeks, maybe months. And the pile of books that stayed on the dining room table like a semi-permanent monument to the pain of having it hang over me.  

But, there was the satisfaction of actually getting into those tomes and finding out about an area of pedagogy that had worried me for ages: how can we make students self regulating learners as they need to be if we are going to engage them in a new iteration of school? How will we ensure they are making the best of their interests and skills to cope in the world of wicked problems they are going to move into?

I loved the collaborative learning in our workshops and that we weren’t given the solutions.  “He who does the work does the learning,” kept popping into my head (a quote attributed to Doyle, but I think, much older). Yes, clever.  No one rescued us.  

I love the online community; I’ve embraced online discussion for a number of years.  As I said in a comment on Stephanie Thompson’s blog,

- comment, June 24, 2016.

This Applied Practice in Context paper has been my favourite. I’ve relished the bites of different topics I’ve digested each week: reading the class notes at the start, reading the set and other references, and finally writing when I’m sure I can do it in one sitting,  because my thoughts have been chewed over for long enough.

This blog has been the vessel of my reflection for a while.  I label each post against the Practising Teacher Criteria.  I can match my learning over this course to most of these criteria, but I will reflect here on two:

Criteria 9: Respond effectively to the diverse and cultural experiences and the varied strengths, interests, and needs of individuals and groups of ākonga.  This has been my drive since I first became aware of the term modern learning environments, which have morphed into innovative learning environments.  How has learning practice innovated? Do we need to scaffold self regulated learning? Can we and should we if we are still in a tradition single cell classroom? Is this the answer to engagement and student achievement? Will greater awareness of individual learning needs ensure that schools are culturally responsive?  I plan to follow through with my inquiry plan on this topic and it preoccupies my thoughts about our own school’s pedagogy.

Criteria 5: Show leadership that contributes to effective teaching and learning.  We have two main professional development foci at my school in literacy and numeracy.  Interestingly it’s difficult getting some teachers to embrace reflective practice. Dawson (2012) reminds me that reflective practice and self regulated learning is the same thing.  Here’s a quandary: the senior leadership team have recognised through our data that writing and mathematics have a large number of under achievers.  So have the teachers.  We need to look at and change what we do.  We recognise that teaching as inquiry is the most effective method of changing our practice, and for teachers to own the change.  But the big issue is workload.  We need to look at how we support our teachers to ensure they can complete rigorous, evidence based change.  The Professional Learning and Development Advisory Group’s 2014 report acknowledges this lack of time as one of the issues (p.11).  

We tried an “in school” approach: groups of teachers released and allowed to determine their own discussion topic for this time; we predetermined that that was how it should be run. Feedback was that it was worthwhile, but also that some did not think they had time to be out of the classroom.

Self regulated learning and teacher development are my ongoing goals.  I’ve completed one paper towards my Masters in Educational Leadership and now this Post Graduate Certificate in Applied Learning.  I want to keep studying and my next decision is which pathway will I follow.  I am a self regulated learner and love that digital technologies and collaborative learning have enabled that to happen.

References

Davis, M. (2003). Barriers to reflective practice: the changing nature of higher education. Active Learning in Higher Education, 4(3), 243-255. doi: 10.1177/14697874030043004

Dawson, P. (2012) Reflective practice. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r1aYWbLj0U8

Doyle, T. (2008). Helping students learn in a learner centered environment: A guide to  teaching in higher education. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Hobbs, V. (2007). Faking it or hating it: can reflective practice be forced? Reflective Practice, 8(3), 405-417. doi: 10.1080/14623940701425063

Ministry of Education (nd). Practising teacher criteria and e-learning . Retrieved from http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/Registered-Teacher-Criteria-and-e-learning

Ministry of Education. (August,2014). Report of the professional Learning and development advisory group. Retrieved from http://www.education.govt.nz/assets/Documents/Ministry/Initiatives/PLDAdvisoryGroupReport.pdf

Osterman, K. & Kottkamp, R.(1993). Reflective Practice for Educators.California.Cornwin Press, Inc. Retrieved on 7th May, 2015 from http://www.itslifejimbutnotasweknowit.org.uk/files/RefPract/Osterman_Kottkamp_extract.pdf

My community of practice

I've been absent from my blog since February, instead posting in Google + in the Mind Lab Ed community, as part of a postgraduate qualification.  From tonight I'm returning to my blog with a series of posts aligned to the paper:“Applied Practice in Context.” 

Creative Commons Image

Etienne Wenger first coined the concept of “communities of practice”, which are defined as “groups of people who share a concern or a passion or about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interaction on an ongoing basis” 

(Wenger, McDermott et al; Snyder, 2002, p.4 cited in Mind Lab class notes, Applied Practice in Context: Week 25).

I'm Annemarie and for thirty three years I've been Mrs Hyde, by marriage and by professional choice in the schools where I have been employed.  Since 2004, I've chosen to be “mrshyde” or “@mrs_hyde” online, because that’s what my students know me by - as do the online community I affiliate to.

My professional community of practice is the community of teachers, but as Wenger says, we also belong to sub-communities, and I can think of a few: the learning community of my school, the local association of assistant and deputy principals, Connected Rotorua, the Twitterati of the #edchatnz community and since November, the cohort of educators who are working together in Mind Lab on the post graduate certificate course.

Schools are interesting places.  In fact, I've paused to ponder whether they fit Wenger’s definition. Yes, we meet on an ongoing basis, and yes we are getting better at interacting to improve pedagogy rather than just talking about who organised the buses for the field trip or whether the everyone is meeting their duty obligations.  And yes, I think we are moving towards having that shared concern or passion for the learning of our students.  But we can all think of individuals in our staff rooms who aren't in that conversation.  We discuss fixed and growth mindsets because we experience this duality in our associates all the time.

I have to say, it feels good to hear teachers talking about maths ideas that make a difference, or teachers meeting to help each other out on the first day of the holidays, or sharing Google doc ideas any time of day or night. (It wasn't always like that where I am.)

It’s that word passion that pings out of Wenger’s definition. And the interacting on an ongoing basis.  For me the community of practice that I primarily identify with are the folk I fondly call the Twitterati.  I've written a post about them before. Not located in a particular place or time zone, these are the educators who swim in the Twitter stream. What they have in common, besides an online presence, is a deep concern and passion about education, which they discuss together on an ongoing basis, in formally organised chats or casually and ubiquitously as issues arise. It surprises me how much in common we have. For the most part they are the early adopters, the enthusiasts and sadly, the lone nuts. Or were. I've seen change as schools embrace cloud learning an innovative learning practice. Ideas seen as crazy and too hard suddenly make sense.

Fascinated by the possibilities of new technologies and how they could change my learning, I jumped into the stream at a conference in 2010, attracted by the back channel discussion about the ideas in the keynote.  I never looked back. I've met and associate with a large number of these edutweeps  nationally and internationally, because the learning and collegiality continues to meet my needs.  I think I've learned more from these people and their retweets than in any other forum.  I am a very active participant in the discussions, enjoying the debate and making long lasting connections.

Leadership fascinates me.  As a deputy principal I experience the dichotomy of leading and managing people everyday, and I constantly reflect on how to lead more effectively.  I share the concerns and ideas with other leaders in the local association and with those leaders I associate with in online forums, like #ldrchatnz tonight.  Leadership is about sharing a vision, and in this profession, it should be about improving the lot for learners.  Wenger talks about the necessity for communities of practice to engage, and to be able to imagine the place they want to be, in this case at a point where students - and teachers - are self regulated learners. I believe that the point of leadership is to facilitate this shared vision and create a desire to align practice so that the shared goal of student motivation and personal achievement is reached. I think too, that actually we all want to belong and feel part of a group with a common goal.

Wenger talks about organisations needing to design themselves as social learning systems.  It’s about building that mutuality of vision and the sense of belonging. No more lone nuts? Hmm, but maybe we need them...

Finlay, L. (2009) Reflecting on reflective practice. PBPL. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/files/opencetl/file/ecms/web-content/Finlay-%282008%29-Reflecting-on-reflective-practice-PBPL-paper-52.pdf

Wenger, E.(2000).Communities of practice and social learning systems.Organization,7(2), 225-246