I will reflect on the evidence I have gathered (or not gathered) using Rolfe’s (2002) reflective model.

What?

At this point I have no evidence. I did a pre writing to see where the students thought they were sitting but honestly this term has been so overwhelming that I haven’t gotten much further. It is really unfortunate that this inquiry has not been what I had hoped for but it really consolidates that you need to know your communities and needs before you start the inquiry process. I will try to implement this inquiry, somewhat altered, next term and I hope it will be a much smoother process. I feel like this term was all about getting to know the students, and finding my way and I just didn’t have the time or resources to follow this inquiry through properly.

So what?

I have been giving my students the ‘kid speak’ eAsstle Matrices and I feel like this is helping them identify what they can do, and where they are going next, however a lot more time is needed to focus on this so that they have a clear idea of what they need to do to achieve higher, and I think some of this comes from me being more aware of the expectations in the curriculum for Level 4.

Now what?

My inquiry question was around using ePortfolios to create critical reflectors, I think all of the pre teaching for this needs to be done on paper. When we tried to set up our online blogs it took the longest time and wasn’t done properly. Something I have also learned so far this year, is that things take a lot longer than expected to. It took my year 8s two periods to create an account and write a small all about me paragraph. This is something I will need to take into consideration next term when I try and create online content. I think maybe going back to something basic like Seesaw will help with this, I think I have been too ambitious and that smaller steps will help the students to see success.

References:

Dye, V. (2011) ‘Reflection, Reflection, Reflection. I’m thinking all the time, why do I need a theory or model of reflection?’, in McGregor, D. and Cartwright, L. (ed.) Developing Reflective Practice: A guide for beginning teachers. Maidenhead: McGraw-Hill Education (pp. 217-234). 

Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., Jasper, M. (2001) Critical Reflection Model. Retrieved from: https://my.cumbria.ac.uk/media/MyCumbria/Documents/ReflectiveModelRolfe.pdf

I will aspire to write this reflection using Rolfe’s (2002) model of reflection, while at the same time remaining positive about my journey so far.

What?

I feel as though I have not achieved my inquiry, not even slightly. Which I know is fine, because ‘it gives me something to reflect on’ but I also feel like a bit of a let down. I want the kids to achieve, and I want them to be able to see what they need to do to achieve. I just feel that I need to do a lot of pre teaching around it and I haven’t been able to make the time with all of the other curriculum expectations that I can’t seem to keep up with.

So what?

Do I just give up then? At times, I feel like I am not cut out for this job. I feel that I am not doing enough, that i’m not building strong enough relationships, that i’m not giving the best experiences I can (bit deep for a Tuesday night!), and that has made it hard to focus on this inquiry. I also feel like my expectations of the school and my assumptions about the community that helped structure this inquiry are also completely different. I feel like i’m not doing enough.

Now what?

Now, I suck it up, and push through. I am really, really disappointed with the way this inquiry has turned out. I am even more disappointed that i’m holding out for 30%. I love my inquiry topic, and I really want it to be successful. So now, I take a breather over the break. Reassess my community and the needs of my stakeholders, and I start again next term, with an adapted plan for the students in my classroom.

References:

Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., Jasper, M. (2001) Critical Reflection Model. Retrieved from: https://my.cumbria.ac.uk/media/MyCumbria/Documents/ReflectiveModelRolfe.pdf

I will reflect on my Mindlab journey using Rolfe’s (2001) Model of Reflection as a scaffold.

What?

I really feel this journey has been a lot of what you can take from it and develop in your own practice. The leadership side of the first 16 weeks has been my most favourite part. It was informative and interesting, and really made me reflect on my practice. I think that was the first instance in where my practice began to change, when I started to critique who I was being as a follower and a leader it really made me a lot more conscious of the choices I was making, and how this was affecting others around me.

Throughout the digital side of things I felt that the activities were, at time, ‘tokenistic’ and I didn’t see how I could use them in the classroom. However as time has gone on and I have continued learning about blended learning, and flipped learning, and more about bringing digital into the classroom I have found more and more ways that I can bring the once ‘tokenistic’ activities into different settings, I have found that digital tools are just that. Tools. And it is up to me to figure out how to best use these tools to enhance students learning in the classroom.

I was really excited to begin the inquiry phase, as I had not been involved in one before. However, it proved to be a lot harder than I thought. The Spiral of Inquiry is a fantastic guideline to run my inquiry, I just feel that I didn’t use it to its full potential. I feel like this has inquiry has not been a priority for me and I feel like that has really shown in the work that I have done towards it.

So what?

So, I feel like I haven’t made the most of the opportunities that have been given to me. I know being a second year teacher is not an excuse, but I feel like it has had a big impact on my learning journey. I am still trying to figure out the best behaviour strategies, and the curriculum, and at times I feel overwhelmed with the amount of planning, and assessment, and out of school activities that I am expected to attend. I want to be the best teacher I can be and I feel like I haven’t taken full advantage of this course.

Now what?

At the end of this week is the holidays. Which gives me two weeks (ish) of time to reflect on the past term, gather my thoughts, and plan for the upcoming term. I will use this time to gather information and resources needed to properly implement my inquiry and I know now to start with baby steps, when I have the basis of my inquiry down, then I will be able to implement some blended learning into the classroom. I will use the SAMR model to start to be able to implement new activities to enhance and redefine the learning that the students are doing. This time also gives me an opportunity to reflect on who I have been as a leader in the past term, in the classroom and in situations with my colleagues, and if necessary adapt to those situations in the best way possible.

References

​Rolfe, G., Freshwater, D., Jasper, M. (2001) Critical Reflection Model. Retrieved from: https://my.cumbria.ac.uk/media/MyCumbria/Documents/ReflectiveModelRolfe.pdf

Puendentura, R. (2013). SAMR Model. http://elearning.tki.org.nz/Professional-learning/Teacher-inquiry/SAMR-model

I will attempt to consider my extended audiences through the use of Jay and Johnsons (2002) reflective model.

Descriptive / Who are my extended audiences?

At the very heart of what I do is always the students, but I feel that sometimes I need outside perspective to help me to find solutions to better my practice. I do this by keeping in regular touch with my Mindlab colleagues, people who aren’t as invested in my particular students, so can help see things differently. I also am involved in a ‘Writing across the curriculum’ COLs groups who also offer various ideas about what I can be doing to improve my writing programme. Finally I am involved in quite a few social media pages for teachers, on Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook. I feel that it is important, especially as a new teacher, that I am getting different ideas from other new and experienced teachers, because “You don’t know what you don’t know”. I like seeing what other educators have done and try adapt their ideas for my own students.

Comparative / Theme 1: Personalising learning

Throughout these groups there are modified activities and lesson plans that try and account for the different needs of students, there is also a wide variety of topics and tasks.  Bolstad et al. (2012) discusses how teachers need to be allowing access to more and more resources, sometimes without even knowing what those are. Using these social media sites helps to foster discussions on what is working and what could be working better. I have been trying to implement ideas I have seen while at the same time trying to set structure and routines and assessments that have to be done, that may not be beneficial to a students learning. I am trying to get around this by giving students as much information as I can so that they can become critical thinkers and make informed decisions on what will help them as a learner. At the moment I am using the marking criteria given and running workshops to help students to address what they see as their needs to help them achieve. Giving students choice in the direction of their writing to ensure that they are engaged, creating opportunities for them to write without seeing it as ‘writing time’ moving from “one size fits all” to cater for the students at the high and low ends of the spectrum and allowing those in the middle to fill in gaps that they might have missed. I am trying to extend their learning, so that they are not being forced to learn a the same pace as their peers. I am struggling with having the resources to be able to do this – time is a big factor, and ensuring that you are meeting everyones needs, if it is a bigger issue some whole class teaching should be done around it. My wider audience would be those I go to for ideas, TKI “writing achievement in writing for boys” the literacy shed, NZ Primary Teachers Facebook Page, are all people who shape what I am teaching in the classroom, where I try and find ideas from to engage my students in writing.

Critical Thinking / Audience perspective

Being on a NZ wide facebook page for new secondary teachers, primary teachers, and catholic school teachers, offers a very wide range of perspectives. I find that lots of ideas align with my own, and some seem very in the past. It is also interesting to see the perspectives of my fellow Mindlab colleagues, and what they would do in situations I pose. I feel as though the best way to get through things is trial and error, and the trials and errors of others help me to find a fit for my classroom. In regards to my inquiry, I have seen many against taking the curriculum to a digital space and many for it, but I feel as though as long as I see the digital space as a tool, rather than the be all and end all then that will help my students to succeed. As somebody who has tried moving their planning onto an online forum, and still reverted back to paper, I feel that we should be giving students an option in how they want to be using technology, and I feel like I see a lot of discussion around that on online forums.

References

Bolstad, R., Gilbert, J., McDowall, S., Bull, A., Boyd, S., & Hipkins, R. (2012). Supporting future-oriented learning and teaching — a New Zealand perspective. Report prepared for the Ministry of Education. Retrieved from https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/schooling/109306

Finlay, L. (2008) Reflecting on reflective practice.PB4L

For this reflection I am going to use Rolfe’s Model of Reflection to support my thinking.

Rolfe’s Reflective Model (Otago Polytechnic, n.d.)

What?

When I started my Action Plan I had thought that my biggest issue was going to be how I was going to keep students personal thoughts and work safe from the public, while still allowing access to peers and whanau. My biggest dilemma that has come out of this action so far is that of students not being on the sites they are meant to be on. There are firewalls set up at the school – but the kids have shown me the various ‘proxys’ they use to get around them and access sites that they shouldn’t be, such as instagram, gaming sites and general distractions to their work. This has led to a lot of time walking around, making sure students are on task, rather than giving attention to those that genuinely need assistance. Seeing as we only have the COWs two periods a week, this has made it hard to get work done, I am aware of students not having access to internet/computers if they are with a certain parent for the week, or some not having access at all – this makes it difficult to send work home that has not been completed during school time.

So What?

As discussed in activity 3 – it is important to understand how students think and learn, if students are truly engaged in a topic or activity they won’t be on other sites or being silly with their friends. Alton-Lee (2003) maintains that learning should be a collaborative approach and that teachers have a vital role in shaping cultures within the classroom.  “Learning is supported when structures for caring, opportunities for collaborative learning and appreciation for diversity are established in classrooms.” Maybe starting with the computers has not been the best way to implement this plan. Perhaps taking it back to hands on, collaborative activities, would have benefitted the students, and helped them come to a collaborative understanding, before sending them off to work individually. Which in turn leaves them to feel like they don’t know what they are doing, or that something might be too hard, so they turn off and do something else instead.

In this link I have included Ehrich’s ethical decision making brainstorming plan on how I can overcome such ethical decisions.

Now What?

Now, I need to go back to the basics, and leave the computers alone for a bit. If I understand more about how the students learn, and what hinders their learning, I will be able to create engaging lessons that keep the students on task and facilitate them to learn something about the topic. I will do this alongside their Cyber Safety Health Unit before letting students back onto computers.

References

Alton-Lee, A. (2003). Quality teaching for diverse students in schooling: Best evidence synthesis. Wellington: Ministry of Education.

Ehrich, L. C., Kimber M., Millwater, J. & Cranston, N. (2011). Ethical dilemmas: a model to understand teacher practice, Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 17:2, 173-185, DOI: 10.1080/13540602.2011.539794

Otago Polytechnic. (n.d.). Reflective Writing. Retrieved from https://www.op.ac.nz/assets/LearningAdvice/Reflective-writing.pdf

I will be using Rolfe’s Model of Reflection (Otago Polytechnic, n.d.) to delve deeper into my understanding of Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Responsiveness in the classroom context.

What?

Since I have only been teaching for a year, I am quite fresh out of University. I thought that I was a culturally responsive teacher. I thought that I was going to incorporate all backgrounds and cultures into my planning and really make students feel like they belong – and I do try, I try bring their language into everyday use in the classroom, I let them share their experiences and connections that make them who they are. But I feel like there is so much more that I could be doing to allow them to feel like they are valued for who they are and where they come from. This will come with time, with learning who they are and with the whanaungatanga in the classroom, but it will also take explicit digging from me.

I understand culturally responsive practice to be made up of many components, all that need to be facilitated by the teacher to create a rich and engaging classroom where students feel as though they belong. Tataiako (2011) relays five important points of creating an inclusive and diverse classroom culture for Māori.  The first point being ako, that the teacher needs to take responsibility for their own learning and that of their students.  Wananga is having robust dialogue for the benefit of Māori learner’s achievement. Manaakitanga is the sharing of the values and beliefs upheld by the Māori culture, whanaungatanga actively engages in respectful working relationships and tangata whenua affirms Māori learners as Māori.  By showing students and whānau that I value and practice these concepts I am showing that I have knowledge of tikanga Māori and that I can work effectively in the bicultural contexts of Aotearoa.

So What?

I feel like the way my action plan is going at the moment, it is headed for failure. I think it is really important to have insight and knowledge around your community before the process has even started (as modelled in the spiral inquiry). It is a critical part in implementing a successful inquiry. However I changed schools, so my plan was centred around my year 2 class – not a year 8 class, at a different school, with different challenges, and different needs. As I mentioned above, I don’t feel that I know my communities yet, I am still learning about what they like to do in their spare time let alone how they learn as learners, and how they feel valued as learners. As as teacher, it is important to encourage diverse students to be themselves and to create a classroom that reflects the students as individuals. This is solidified in the Statistics NZ (2010) report that states, “Student achievement is affected by the degree to which a student’s culture is respected by the school, and by the degree of similarity between the culture of the community and the values of the school.”

Now What?

Even though it is not in my action plan, I feel like the next few weeks I need to focus on finding out what it means to be culturally responsive, to make them feel like they can be successful as Maori, or Pasifika, or as Colombian in two of the cases in my class. I want their ideas and beliefs to be valued in the classroom, and I think that is critical before I start to critique them on a system that has been against them from the start.

Reflective teachers are always adapting their programme to cater to the students, Te Kohitanga discusses the importance of differentiated learning and ways that I can manipulate my learning environment to ensure that learning styles and levels of competency are met. I will start by using this as a base to guide me into finding out more about my students cultures and beliefs.

References:

New Zealand Ministry of Education. (2011). Tataiako. Wellington: Learning Media.

Otago Polytechnic. (n.d.). Reflective Writing. Retrieved from https://www.op.ac.nz/assets/LearningAdvice/Reflective-writing.pdf

Statistics New Zealand and Ministry of Pacific Island Affairs (2010). Education and Pacific Peoples in New Zealand. Wellington: Author.

It is ironic that my inquiry is asking students to critically reflect on their own work to see what they can improve, and to be a ‘critical friend’ to others when this is the part I myself find the hardest to do. Yes, as a teacher I feel like I am reflecting and changing all the time to suit the needs of my students, but writing it down and critically analysing it is not a skill that comes naturally to me. However Larrivee (2000) discusses that the idea of keeping a reflective journal is so that you are setting aside uninterrupted time to deepen your understandings and reflections, and therefore act on altering your practice for the better. I am trying to do this – and I think I will achieve this better if I schedule in time to each week to sit down specifically for this task.

I thought that using Rolfe’s Model of Reflection (Otago Polytechnic, n.d.) fits in nicely, because it is what I have intended for students to use as their model of reflection in regards to their writing. It is a simple, yet effective way to get a snapshot of what is happening with their learning and reflection.

What?

It is week 4 of Term 1 and I feel like I am so behind, every week there have been disturbances (Waitangi Day, School Mass, Athletics Day, RT3T training) and I only have the COWs 2 periods a week. I really want to implement this plan properly but I feel like the 6 week time frame is unreasonable, especially with starting at a new school and trying to build relationships and structure with my students. I also have found that it is taking students a lot more time than I thought to use the COWs. By the time they have logged on, found their password, and identified what is they are meant to be doing we have already lost 15 minutes of our 45 minute slot.

Seeing as my inquiry is about using ePortfolios to enhance reflection and identification of next steps in writing, I have found that the past couple of periods have been focused on looking at the ‘e-asstle’ writing rubrics (in ‘kid speak’) and having the students mark exemplars. This has moved on to them writing a piece and marking themselves against the rubric. However, I am finding it hard to get mileage out of some of the kids, which means that when it comes to marking themselves against the rubric, it isn’t giving them an accurate reflection of what they could be doing.

So what?

The idea of the inquiry was to use e-Portfolios to showcase work, and to showcase the journey of the work. Where students could comment on others feedback, being a ‘critical friend’ and where students could reflect on what they could do to improve. I’m just not finding time to do this, and the platform that I have picked (EduBlogs) doesn’t seem to be the right fit for this kind of work, I am thinking I might need to change the platform to something like Dojo (makes it harder to edit though) because it can also be done off of their phones and then we won’t be relying on the COWs for the digital part.

Now what?

Now I need to get some writing mileage up, introduce students to Rolfe’s reflective cycle and find a better platform for students to upload their work to. If students feel engaged and motivated then the e-Portfolios should not be too much work. It’s getting them to the stage where they know what they are doing, and they know what is expected from them.

In the future I would not attempt to start the Action Plan in week 1. It is unrealistic and it puts more pressure on the kids – and myself, to learn something additional when they are already trying to focus on all the new structures and guidelines in the class. It also takes a while to learn how to become a critical friend and explicit teaching is required before that can happen.

References:

Larrivee, B. (2000).Transforming teaching practice: becoming the critically reflective teacher. Reflective Practice, 1(3), 293-307.

Otago Polytechnic. (n.d.). Reflective Writing. Retrieved from https://www.op.ac.nz/assets/LearningAdvice/Reflective-writing.pdf

I started off the year standing in front of 22 exciting little faces, usually I would be standing in front of 7 year olds but a new year came with a new job, and new faces. I am now teaching a class of 12 year olds. It’s definitely been a change, them getting to know me, me getting to know them, and it’s taken some time. The contact periods I have this week will mostly go towards getting to know these students, and all of the start of the year activities thrown in as well (House BBQs, Sports day, etc).

My action plan relied on the fact the school was a BYOD school and that students would have access to a device whenever the need occurred. This has not become the case. The students are allocated the COWs twice a week in forty five minute slots, and with the difference in all the technologies, I cannot rely on the use of cellphones. I have come to a block. How am I supposed to have students’ using a blog as a way to communicate and reflect on their learning if they don’t have access to a device?

I started with getting the students to write a small recount of what they did during the holidays. The purpose of this was not the content of their story, it was to see if they could identify what they had done well, and if they could identify their next learning steps. It surprised me that children thought that “making my work neater” was something that would improve the standard of their writing. No students could identify how they could improve what they had already had wrote. It also greatly surprised me that students had not much idea how to edit their own work, and that surface features were a bit non existent. Although this isn’t the focus, I am hopeful this will improve as students move through the process of identifying their needs.

Trying to find a platform that would allow students to reflect but continuously add to has been a struggle – either there was no ability to comment, or share their work outside of school (parents) or edit a post to ensure reflection. I have settled on edublog which seems to allow all these features but it is a trial basis.

I have also found it hard to find a consistent set of criteria that students can measure their progress against – it is unlike the literacy learning progressions for younger children, which I have become used to. I have found an eAsstle sheet in ‘kid speak’ that I hope will allow them to see where their learning is heading.

Once we have identified these things then I will introduce self reflection. I am feeling a bit hurried doing this, and I want to make sure that it is done right, however I know there will be a lot of trial and error involved.