Making Meetings PRODUCTIVE

http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/make-your-meetings-insanely-productive.html

7 Essential Principles of Innovative Learning ~ Mind Shift

From Mind shift and another great article - read the points on LEARNING. http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2013/02/7-essential-principles-of-innovative-learning/

Possession of facts is not learning, think of those outside agencies? From Mind Shift

http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2014/04/beyond-worksheets-a-true-expression-of-student-learning/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+kqed%2FnHAK+%28MindShift%29

Collaboration - UDL - from VLN

Collaborate to Enhance UDL Co-creating lessons, units of work or designing an assessment - How are you collaborating with others? “When great minds come together that share the common goal of enhancing student learning and achievement, great things happen.” This UDL inspired video shares some benefits of collaboration.

 http://www.udlresource.ca/?p=1659

Leaders with Telescopes or managers with microscopes, Kelvin Squire

http://natlib.govt.nz/records/20844542?search%5Bi%5D%5Bsubject%5D%5B%5D=Social+change&search%5Bi%5D%5Bsubject%5D%5B%5D=Education&search%5Bil%5D%5Bprimary_collection%5D=Index+New+Zealand&search%5Bpath%5D=items

Incentives don't work

http://osborne.kiwi.nz/2014/04/17/why-incentives-dont-actually-motivate-people-to-do-better-work/

John Hattie ~ Visible Learning. Pt 2: effective methods.

Teachers need to talk about Teacher Practise , bring the debate of teaching and learning and bring it to the fore.

Growth MIndset Students and Student Agency

http://www.hightechhigh.org/unboxed/issue10/mindsets_and_student_agency_contributors/ Worth a read , looks at Student Agency and Student growth mindset....... I'll think on this ..

Why personalise Learning now?

Why Personalize Learning NOW! from Barbara Bray

by Barbara Bray, Educational Consultant at My eCoach on Oct 15, 2013 2,005 views Presentation for Connected Educators Month that was a prompt for great discussions. Barbara Bray and Kathleen McClaskey provide rationale for personalizing learning. Go to www.personalizelearning.com ...

I Don't Give Homework Anymore - changing thinking to motivate and engage students, teachers and parents.

I Don't Give Homework Anymore - changing thinking to motivate and engage students, teachers and parents. from Justine Hughes / Education Consultant / Virtual Technologies International Ltd

Justine Hughes / Education Consultant / Virtual Technologies International Ltd on Apr 13,

Student Agency

Thinking about the role of Students in their Learning and reporting to parents.

Ten Trends 2014: Agency from EDtalks on Vimeo.

Personalised vs individualised vs differentiation

Personalized Learning Chart Version 3 from Barbara Bray

http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/06/awesome-chart-on-difference-between.html

Grit or choose your goals wisely and persevere

http://www.alfiekohn.org/miscellaneous/grit.htm

read this article , slightly contradicts Angela  Duckworths  'Grit' , tals about grit can be used for good and bad and that we can persevere on the wrong tasks. Point that we need to be able to choose the right goals and persevere. Prrsonally I think we need to blend these two ideas. Also what is needed to enable children to choose the right goals......

'The benefits of knowing when not to persist extend not only to the outcomes of a decision but to the effects on the individual who made it. '

'To know when to pull the plug requires the capacity to adopt a long-term perspective.  Continuing to do what you've been doing often represents the path of least resistance, so it can take guts to cut your losses.  That’s as important a message to teach one’s children as the usefulness of perseverance.'

Awards

http://bit.ly/1lseYvh

Today we'll yesterday it was brought to my attention I give out more Learning Attitude and Cross Competency awards than others. Actually I think well done. 

Two each per , isn 't that thinking a bit like a fixed mindset person, or that decision. 

It was explained we all do 2 to ensure it doesn't take too long at assemblies. yet when there are 50 music awards or something we give them all put. Should we just choose 2 for this, now I know that is totally different but.... 

My point is are we just giving two awards because that is what we do because TITWWADTAH ( That is the way always we do things around here) or should we be really giving awards to those that show outstanding use of the Learning Attitudes and Cross Competency Skills. Should we be only writing them for outstanding or for when students use their personal best.

Is there any challenge or real value in what we do? Are we making a difference .... Would it make more of a difference if there was not a two , but when chn make a new best an award is given? 

Are we just complying .......

Should we be asking why we do this , what is the purpose. Are we meeting the intended outcome.

Perhaps something little but again fixed mindset syndrome maybe...

Assemblies and the why is another topic altogether.

Your thoughts ...

Learning For The Future

http://blog.core-ed.org/

This article is written by Marianne Mills.

Interesting , isn't it, how do we choose the activities we will involve our students in. Is it because we have always done it?  Is it because we think it is good for them? Or is it because it is really something they will need for the future.

Who makes decisions for what happens in schools and do we really consider the why first? Or do we start with the what and the how and never get to the why? What is the educative purpose of schools. 

Is it to grow students intellectual capacity? I really like this article, read it and share your thoughts. It makes me think about school events , new school events , old traditions and fixed mindset people. 

I can relate to some of this

From MIndshift

New thinking, well not new, continuous

From Tony Gurr - all things learning

Does the traditional reading, writing and mathematics model fit into this future oriented way of teaching. I don't think so. We need to explore new ways of doing things.

I am going to design a grid of activities for the week. This grid will give general choices to my students that involve must dos and choices where they have time to work individually or collaboratively to learn. Some of the choices will allow students to focus on identified needs. I will scaffold students in this area. For example basic facts , students will know and explore different ways to learn these. ( I do need some handy hints for helping visual special learners / dyslexic learn basic facts. I feel strongly students need in class time to do this. Homework is not appropriate in this case.

Each day I will still call groups of students for explicit lessons in maths and reading. Small lessons with an explicit lesson in writing will be shared with the whole class. ( I need to make more vocabulary lists). I really want my students to identify what they need to learn and to be able to book into lessons , not sure how to get there yet.

What I see when 8 do this
 Engaged students
Students are in charge, have choice and are responsible
Allowance of different times on tasks for students with different needs and interests
Collaboration
Other students can take the teachers role
Computers are in use
No more compliant kids grabbing all the attention
No great lengths of sitting with Teacher dominated discussion
Flexibility in who works with the teacher

A more natural learning environment where all learners have to act like learners. I do not set them up, using the timer on google helps students monitor time. Tracking on their planning sheet is a scaffold as we move into this. My job is to actually keep my students accountable for their learning. I need to stick to my teaching, it's easy to get caught up in those who are off task, those who come straight to the teacher.

Accountability, I need to start hard!! I've identified those I need to constantly check up and never not do this. ( This is hard, duty, other tasks, days out of the room, how can I set up systems of accountability where students do this and not just me checking up??) Get other students to do this? Check lists for some ( not all).

I will start Monday.

I want to have some flexibility for my students. The must dos cannot be too heavy so all can finish. Those who need more time in a negotiated activity need to have this made available. We need to make time to reflect on our achievements and next steps. Also how did we go as a learner.

There will be some gaps where students can choose the tasks.

I'm looking forward to it.