Planning

Anyone who's known me over the last couple of year has probably noticed my habit of spending at least a couple of days of each school holidays in professional development sessions. So, whilst I'm not actually in a classroom this year I still found myself booking in a couple of days' training in the recent holidays. (Because studying for a M.Ed full time isn't professional development? Yeah, I noticed that bit of flawed logic too.)

The first PD session of the holidays was entitled "More than Just Cyber Safety: Tackling the Social and Ethical Protocols of the ICT General Capability". Great day, and I will blog about it (update: you can read about it here). First, I want to talk about the other one, which was a Reflect Growth session focussed on planning, because I am a self-confessed planning nerd! I'm sure I've said it before but I'll say it again: I love planning!

We started the day building with Selena Woodward very ably helping us to build a shared understanding of the need for long (year), medium (unit) and short (lesson) term plans. We pulled apart a battery of questions we can - and probably should - be asking ourselves during our planning processes and tried to work out where in the process they fit. It was fascinating to hear different educators describe how they use the questions at different stages of planning.

Of course, it wasn't long before -  as things do in Australia whenever a group of educators converges - the discussion moved to how the Australian Curriculum (AC) has had an impact.   My opinion (and take this with a pinch of salt because whilst I trained with the former curriculum, I've only ever taught with the AC) is that without the need to think about content our attention can be where it needs to be: on pedagogy. (Which means I like the AC.)  The Twitter back channel was alive at this point talking about the need for planning to be responsive to our students' needs. Oh boy, was I excited to hear someone say that! I worry sometimes when I hear educators talk about their plans as though they are set in stone... What if the kiddos have different needs than the plans cover?

The rest of the day was divided into long, medium and short term planning discussions. (And a few mini learning activities designed to jog some thinking about new teaching strategies - thank you Selena!) Each discussion started with a speaker from a 'different walk of life' (me for medium term!) to encourage divergent thinking.

Our first speaker was Rebecca Wells who startled me into thinking about the role leadership can, and should, play in my long term planning. She suggested that a leadership team has a responsibility to support innovative planning and teaching with appropriate resources, and with connections to community. I LOVE this idea.  My mind went off on a little tangent here thinking about different ways of having ongoing meaningful community engagement in classroom. (Stay tuned because I feel a post about that bubbling away beneath the surface.)

My talk started... No... I'm not going to describe it all. You can watch the video if you are particularly keen, but suffice to say that I described planning in terms of maps and positioned medium term planning that way.  I didn't share anything that was likely to start off any educational revolutions but rather that medium term planning is where the magic happens (for me). It's where I get to build a structure into which I can ensure I meet all of the (sometimes conflicting) needs of my individual students, the curriculum and whoever is pulling on my at that point.

Markeeta Roe Phillips on Planning - Like a Map :) from Selena Woodward on Vimeo.

Our last, but by no means least, speaker was Lynda Rivett who shared a plethora of personal experience using TfEL tools in creative ways. It was a good prompt to me: I know that TfEL has a mountain of resources sitting there waiting to be used but I tend to stick to the ones I'm most familiar with and have on hand. I need to block out a few hours in my calendar and really delve into what's available.  Why reinvent the wheel when TfEL already has a whole tyre yard full of them waiting to be used?

I have so many powerful 'takeaways' from this day:

•  I'm reminded of the power in good planning:
• Power to effect strong learning; 
• Power for cross-curricular syntegration; 
• Power for collegiate sharing; 
• Power in achieving balance; 
• Power because I love the art/science of it!  
• I sound like a small child when I speak; I think I need to work on my vocal patterns.
• There is no right way to plan, but there are lots of dodgy ways. I'm comfortable with elements of my planning tools, but think I should use this time out of the classroom to hone and tighten them.

All of this discussion culminated in Selena throwing down Reflect Growth's next Metateacher Challenge which is, this term, a question: Which part of the planning process has the greatest impact on a student's growth?  I already have a fairly strong opinion but am keen to hear other views. Please share yours in the comments. 

On a side note: if you're on Twitter, I highly recommend you check out #reflectgrowth for an interesting stream of thoughts, ideas and sharing from educators interested in developing and improving their practice.  I'm a bit of a mad tweeter on days like this one, so have created a Storify of just some of the tweets from our session. 

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...

Standard 1 Know the students and how they learn
Standard 2 Know the content and how to teach it

Standard 3 Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning
Standard 6 Engage in professional learning
Standard 7 Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community

Reflect Growth

One of our most basic human needs is belonging. It's not the most basic - that would be wi-fi these days - but it's right up there. Belonging to someone or something bigger than ourselves is a constant driver for (most) people. It's why we check Facebook umpteen times a day, it's why we join book clubs and it's why we buy cats! Cats aside, or maybe not, it's really about a need for community.

This year I've found myself part of a new online community. I know that there are hordes of people out there (assuredly not reading this blog) who claim that social networks and online communities are Bad. Yes, capital B Bad.  You know what I think?  I think they were wrong about video killing the radio star and they're wrong about this too.



I even did a little research on the topic and found that I'm not alone. In fact:

"Despite the opinion of some, real community and sense of belonging can be found and nurtured online through participation, collaboration, storytelling and exchange of information." 

May 16, 2015, Do Re Media

This year, I've found myself part of a new and exciting online community of educators called Reflect Growth.  We are are an online community of educators working together to share professional practices and co-create a piece of software.  I'll get to the software in a moment, because it's a bit exciting, but for me the delight has been in finding a community of (mostly local) teachers who share my goal of active professional growth and reflection. Meeting these educators, in person and online, has been refreshing and inspiring.  It's met some of my need for belonging to a community.

And a community it is. We share, amongst other things like coffee and cake,  inspirations, frustrations and goals. We challenge each other's thinking and explore ideas. We've been taking apart the AITSL Professional Standards for Teachers to work out what they really mean, and have hypothesised whether the introduction of them is the precursor of Ofsted style inspections like in the UK. We've talked about the TfEL framework and how it links with our understanding of effective teaching and learning. Pedagogy, padagogy, Blooms, Gardner... You name it, and we've been there. Even if only briefly.

It's been a very busy little community. Much more so than any I've been in before, which begs the question of why?  I have an inkling.  A couple actually.

1. Strong and active foundational members
2. A driving purpose

The couple who launched the Reflect Growth community are originally from the UK, but moved to Australia - presumably for the weather - a few years back. Since arriving, Selena has taken the education world of South Australia by storm and is well known as a mover and shaker. When she speaks, people listen. Her voice demands to be heard (which is actually doubly true when you consider her operatic training) and she put the call out for teachers to get involved with driving their own professional development.  The other half of this (actually very quietly spoken) duo is Matt. Full of ideas and technological know how he is a man with a mission.  Together these two are a force to be reckoned with! They hold us together as a community and, it seems, genuinely care.

I'll come back to the software I mentioned earlier. Still in the early stages of development the app is being designed to support teachers in driving their own professional development. It will help identify areas for growth and collect evidence to support it. Today, I've been privileged to spend some time playing with the prototype. I can't speak highly enough of it!

Next up for the community looks to be teacher challenges that will see us share our practice in an open setting. A version of a virtual classroom visit, sort of, with the opportunity for/expectation of feedback from other community members. Eeek! New ideas and feedback!  Can you see why I enjoy this community so much?

Come join our community at www.reflectgrowth.com! The more the merrier.

(Incidentally, you can check it out on Facebook during your umpteen checks here. Or Twitter here.)

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...

Standard 6 Engage in professional learning

Standard 7 Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community

Effective Learning

Yesterday I spent the first official day of the school holidays at a TfEL professional development day about Effective Learning for All.  It was the first of three such sessions available and whilst I had already been to the first session a couple of years ago I am very pleased to have had this second opportunity: I've changed a lot since then, and so has the TfEL team.

Last time I left more confused about TfEL than when I arrived. I use TfEL in my planning now so it's somewhat less of a mystery to me BUT I left this session feeling at peace with my understanding.  I learnt some new ideas but nothing that contradicted or confused me. Phew!

We spent most of the morning 'unpacking' the TfEL framework into the four domains, then elements and finally essences.  The presenting team modelled the use of a range of strategies found in the TfEL Companion and on the website. It was great to see the team practise what they preach. (Not that they preach!  Honestly! They're more like a cheer squad, but you know what I mean!) And it was inspiring to hear stories of how different schools have really taken on board various elements of the framework.

Of course, I might be a little biased in saying that. You might remember that last year I wrote about my school being involved in a  TfEL pilot project about student voice? (You can read that post here.) The project also built our school's use of growth mindset language and the learning pit. One of my students and I were invited to give a short presentation about how all of these things have changed our experiences of school.  We were encouraged to speak personally so we stood with two microphones and had a conversation about how it all works in our classroom. (I was impressed, but not surprised, by the composure of my student. She's a bit of a rockstar in terms of her mindset - always willing to give things a go if it means learning something new.)

The big take home message for me? I'm not sure there was one. I have a long list of resources I want to explore and a few ideas around the difference between personalised and individual learning that  I need to develop. One of the discussions we had early in the day was about defining effective learning for all, and this topic came up.  I'm wrestling with it because whilst there was a bit of consensus that they are analogous: I don't agree. You might be able to see our group's definition in the photo. (If not, it says "meaningful and personalised engagement with ideas and knowledge that leads to applied understanding".)  I'm not in love with this definition either but it represented our group's understanding meaningfully at the time.

Don't you love our group's visual representation of the morning's learning?  I'm going to brag and share that it was chosen by the presenting team to share at the end of the day to wrap up all of our learning.  Nice to know that we were hearing the message they were trying to give us.


I live tweeted on the day using #tfeltalk, of course. I was almost alone in doing so which saddened me because I have discovered that my best learning happens in the back channel of such sessions.  You can check out my (first ever) storify of the day below.

Student Voice

My school is part of a pilot project aligned with the South Australian Teaching for Effective Learning  (TfEL) Framework. We're looking at ways we can (do and should) use student voice and engagement to design learning programmes, and ultimately education systems, that intellectually stretch students and create powerful expert learners.

One part of the project involves seeking direct feedback from the kids about their learning. How do they feel about the learning activities they're doing? How do they learn best? What would they like to change about the way we 'do' learning in our class? Doesn't sound overly challenging or out of the norm except that we have to do it explicitly everyday and keep a record of it.  Other than an end of week written reflection (that is in students' diaries and goes home to show parents) most of these conversations are usually quite spontaneous and informal in my classroom. Whilst I act on what I learn from the conversations I don't keep particular records of them. Well, I didn't. I do now of course!

One way that I've found to keep a good record of the kids' feedback is through Socrative.  Socrative is a 'student response system' that is available on whatever device you want to use, either through the website or apps. I set a 'quiz', open it to the kids, they submit their responses, and Socrative emails me a report of their responses. I set questions like "I am still wondering about..." and "I learnt best when I..." and "The lesson would have been better if...". I have also started to include a silly multiple choice question that relates to something we're doing the next day. The kids LOVE it.  It's quick, simple and instant.  I put the teacher screen up on the board while they're doing it; it shows how many kids have logged into the 'quiz' and how many have submitted. It can also show the names of kids and a live coverage of how many questions they've finished.  

The report is a simple table that lists all the answers. (If you've set multiple choice questions (and listed a correct answer) the table marks those questions for you.) In terms of the way I'm using it: I have a daily record of this feedback. I'm able to scan all the answers to a question to spot trends and anomalies. I can quickly see what needs to happen more or less. Patterns emerge easily.

This isn't the only way I collect feedback and data but wow! It's certainly one way I'm particularly enjoying.

How do you collect this sort of feedback? How do you respond?

This relates to the following Australian Professional Standards for Teachers...
Standard 1 Know students and how they learn.
Standard 3 Plan for and implement effective teaching and learning.
Standard 4 Create and maintain supportive and safe learning environments.
Standard 6 Engage in professional learning.
Standard 7 Engage professionally with colleagues, parents/carers and the community.