HPSS part 3: Waitangi day

I should have planned this out a bit more carefully, because now I've all but caught up to now. I'll have to start posting insights to teaching and learning or something rather than treating this like a glorified diary. I'm sure I'll think of something.

Today is Waitangi Day, the glorious anniversary of the signing of the founding document of our country. As long as you ignore the earlier Declaration of Independence, which by and large we are happy to do. I think the sky tower is lit up in celebratory black and white, but it's hard to tell.

Black and white and... pink? Do we even have national colours?

Yesterday we had a celebration of Waitangi Day under the theme of 'partnership'. I thought the day was great fun, and from all appearances it was a marvellous success. I'm quite sunburnt, but such is the price for enjoying the outside.

As a New Zealander, I am very proud of our partnership with the Maori people. We colonial oppressors haven't done right by them in the past, not by a long shot, but considering the treatment other native populations faced at the hands of the Spanish in Central and South America, the Belgians in the Congo, and the British literally everywhere else, we have done pretty well. As teachers, we have a special obligation to focus on improving the learning of Maori students. In physics, this is a big challenge. Though a lot of good work has been done on facilitating improved achievement of Maori students in science, I have never seen those principles put into action, and I feel that this is an area in which I personally have a lot of room to grow.

One of the ways in which we can make learning more accessible to Maori students is by using culturally appropriate contexts. This presents a concern in Science, which prides itself (if I may anthropomorphize an entire learning area) on being content focussed. Recently, I have come to see the content not as such, but instead as context for the real learning. The hope for students who have studied physics is not that they remember how to calculate the orbital distance of a satellite or the resonant frequency of a series RCL circuit, but that they can look at a situation analytically, break down a problem into components, and communicate scientifically with clarity. Is there a way we can teach those skills in physics in a more appropriate context? I don't know - I need to think about it some more and my time is nearly up. 

I'll continue on the subject tomorrow I think. Hopefully I will have something more interesting to say.

HPSS part 2: Hub time

Wow, what a day. Had a lovely time during our Waitangi Whanau day, celebrating Waitangi and how cool it is to be a New Zealander. Whilst many childlings were unimpressed at the significance, I think many were very engaged by the day. I'm exhausted, but I have told myself that my reward for this post tonight is gin and a watching of Emperor's New Groove. Although I would live to write more about it now, I said I would write about my experiences with my hub, and that is what I shall do.

Though I had been briefed during the induction on what I would be doing with my hub as a learning coach, to be honest I was more focussed on what I would be doing during the small learning modules and SPIN classes. I'm glad that I have these two weeks of intensive hub-focussed time to get to know the students in my hub, because they feel like the most important kids. They feel like my favourites, and I think that's the way it's meant to be. That's not to say that they have no issues - I suspect already that I will be keeping a close eye on some, waiting for something to go wrong, whilst for others I will be constantly pushing, just gently, reminding them of what they need to be doing. I am going to make sure these kids do their best, dammit, and get the most out of school life. It feels quite cool to be this fired up.

So: specifics. The first day with our hubs we were assigned a challenge: to shoot and edit a film about one of our Hobsonville Habits. We were out at the playground (and what a neat playground it is, too - fits nicely with the imaginative architecture around the area) and things were going to pot. I felt my inadequacies keenly. Here I was, finally responsible on my own for a bunch of kids, and I wasn't pulling them together, enthusing them in the activity, getting any good work out of them. I tried my best, I think, loathe to suggest ideas but quick to suggest ways to get ideas, loathe to take the lead (trying to prod one of the year 10's to step up - eventually a year 9 did!) but not willing to let them do nothing. After trying to prod some action out of them, I think I did the right thing and took a back seat, letting them figure their own ideas out, and shoot their own video.

It made for some terrible footage, but that's not the point.

Later, once we got back to the school, they really started to pull together. Kids who had stayed quiet seat earlier were coming up with ideas and putting them into action. Kids who had mucked around were keen to try things to add to the video. We had music, we had footage, and we did what we can.

My biggest regret is that I took the movie home to finish off, to edit and polish. I had fun doing it, and I learned a lot about iMovie and what makes some truly terrible footage (maybe I am my father's son after all). My regret is that one of the kids didn't have that experience that I had. No one in the hub was proficient with editing software, you see. I wasn't either, but I could figure it out. I'm still not sure what I would do if I hadn't taken the film to finish off, though. Only one person could edit, since splicing together clips from several different people into a coherent whole is difficult enough. It still doesn't seem fair to ask that one of them figure it out and finish of the film in one evening. Maybe if I had a week.

So the film ended up being more my vision than theirs, and that's not something I am proud of starting out at this school. It's certainly something worth reflecting on - I need to make sure that I have student voice in the vision and drive of my classes, otherwise it ends up being more about me than about them. I'm pretty sure that my ideas for the upcoming modules and SPIN classes will provide that choice and flexibility, but I need to make sure that I ask for advice and help when I am unsure.

After the film festival yesterday, I got my hub to do a short reflection on the film. I asked them the share with me what they were most proud of and what they would do differently next time. Their responses were great, albeit brief. I was most proud of the way that my hub kids became more confident through the day to suggest and test their ideas. Next time, I would get the kids to lead the activity, assigning roles to the quiet ones if need be, so that everyone has a focus and they are in control. I hope I can always find a way to do that.

Notes concerning open enquiry from the Physics Teacher's Day 2014

Physics teacher day
These are rough notes taken during the presentations and workshops. Hopefully I will be able to clean them up later

Keynote presentation - Dr Manju Sharma
Part 1 - Veritasium
Specialized pedagogy - physics is special

Veritasium video - explicit addressing of misconceptions important otherwise students think they are being told what they already 'know'

Ian's contribution - concept cartoons good for misconceptions

Videos also good for POE model

Inquiry


Part 2 - Simon Crook

In 2009 in Australia, half students got laptops and half did not. Check results of both groups

After multiple regression, effect size (Hattie) of 0.38 is large

Physics teacher a using more simulations, spreadsheets and 'science software'

Part 3

Handy model for evaluating the 'level of inquiry' based on some criteria

Fenella Colyer's presentation



Workshop with Manju Sharma

Urgency to move towards inquiry - making the certain tentative (?)


Example of inquiry

Notes from the disappointing 2.5/3.5 workshop during the Physics Teacher's Day

2.5/3.5 project based assessment

Problems:
Authenticity
Marking time

Why do we do the test approach?
Very little available for resources - how do we know that the research task is to the requirements of the standard?
Marking language is difficult and tedious.
Favorable feedback from moderators.
Possible to do research with a test at the end of it.
ESOL students find research very difficult.

Does a test give the best possible opportunity to be fairly assessed?
 -test marks on par with national stats
 -easy to mark merit vs excellence
 -NZIP moderated, ready to go

How can we go about a research assessment?
 -marking schedule directly from TKI
 -use google docs to provide feedback during research, make sure students are doing the right things, instant private and personalized feedback, improves authenticity

From the mouth of Dave Thrasher
 -2.5 in yr 11, 3.5 in yr 12 (level 1 physics class)
 -still defaulting to the test

How do we find time to do 2.5/3.5?
 -take out 2.1/3.1
 -drop waves
 -after school tutorials

Consensus seems to be test is better

HPSS part 1: The induction

This will be my first proper post, which I am finally attempting under the auspices of the '28 day challenge'. What follows is 28 minute's worth of unedited writing. Take it at face value I suppose.

This is not the reason I decided I would begin blogging. It was, however, my intention to document my experience as a beginning teacher at HPSS, thereby tracking my growth and giving me something nice to look back on when I need some encouragement further down the line. Of course, the prospect of using these posts as evidence for my PTC's is no hurt either.

Still don't know how to tag things properly, but one thing at a time.

To begin, I think, a quick retrospective on the first few days at my new school. It has now been just a week since I started, but so much has happened in that time that I am worried that already important things have slipped from my memory. Damn. Oh well.

Walking through the doors of my new school last Tuesday, I ran straight into the thick of a conversation already in progress. Ensnared in the midst of a social interaction in which my nearly entirely uncaffinated self was ill-equipped to participate (I believe I managed to maintain an outward façade of attention), I was relieved when there was discovered coffee in the staff room. An ignoble beginning, and maybe not the best attitude, but there it is.

The next few days were a barrage of information. All important things, of course - restorative practise, being a learning coach, how modules work, assessment, big projects, blended learning. As is always the case when presented with a great deal of information in a short time, the experience was exhausting. I feel like I kept on top of the information, and time will tell if I have truly absorbed it all, but so far there have been no calamities. It's a shame my desk is made of glass, but it's a good thing I am not superstitious. The experience did mean that my brain shut down rather suddenly every night once I arrived home, but the sleep was all the more blissful for the effort.

I really do believe in what we are doing at HPSS. Everything which was mentioned during the induction makes sense. Why the school does what it does makes sense. I think there is a perception, certainly amongst those to whom I have failed to sufficiently explain the system, that what we do is far to experimental. A nice idea, but it will inevitably fail. You and I know that such an assertion is untrue; to me, it feels right. It feels reasonable. It feels inevitable.

I think that's where the buzz that I get from the school comes from. That feeling of excitement that transmutes the everyday. Obviously it is still early days, but already I feel like I am getting to plan exactly the sorts of things that I want to do. Now, it's not about me. But just for the first few days, I am happy to self-indulge: I am part of the future, and I love it.

28 minutes are up. Next time, my experiences with my hub. Hopefully if I have a plan for next time it will force me to continue with this.