A Team is a Team is a Team

Sport is a wonderful analogy for life.

In every team there's a player (or more than one) who has been around a while. 

They've been the young one keen to impress and talk about new ideas. They've been the one struggling, for any number of reasons, to stay in the team. They've been the captain, vice captain or shot-caller before. They've been the shouter, the snapper, the organiser or the encourager. They have learned from it and have either had the role pass them by or have handed it off to another player.

They've been the coaches confidant, and they've also been on the outside of the circle of trust. 
They're not the fastest or the best or most creative player anymore, but they know how the politics of the game work and how it affects individual team members. They keep a benign eye on the team, having a quiet word to encourage or offer advice if required. Never officially, usually timely and hardly noticed by anyone not involved. 

The trick is to realise you've become that team mate (no one actually tells you) and embrace your role.

For every one of those gaining kudos, there are others working just as hard, without the public recognition. Sometimes even without the recognition of those with their name in lights. That's just the way that it is. Being part a team is an unselfish exercise. It's amazing how much can be achieved when no one cares who gets the credit.

Without the props slugging away, wingers can't score tries.

It's the same in every work crew, corporate hub, staff room and changing room. Whatever your role. Remember we're all on the same team and we don't win unless we have each other's backs.

Sport is a wonderful analogy for life.

Variety is the Spice of Life

Reflecting upon my writing programme I noticed that the spark and the creativity had gone from the students in their work. For some of them, personal voice had become less prevalent. During conferencing, we are predominantly talking about learning goals and rubric targets, next steps. Descriptive language was being used and praised, but more in the tone of including some for 'my audience' rather than exploring words and being creative and imaginative. In short, writing isn't as fun as it used to be. 

A solution I'll introduce is to include a variety of literacy activities as part of a class writing tumble. The intention is to keep the writing aspect fresh and use oral and visual independent activities to develop an audience and foster creativity in the students.

A Bit of Wiggle Room Helps

Ever been spoken to in an angry manner by someone higher than yourself? When someone has sternly laid out how things are going to be and that you have no say in the matter, have you sat there thinking, "Why are they speaking like that? Why won't they listen to my perspective?"
Often when someone starts growling at us, as adults, we can become defensive and respond in similar fashion to how we perceived we are being spoken to.


With the pace of teaching and learning, and all eyes being on achieving next learning steps, meeting learning goals, reaching national standards. The treadmill can sometimes be cranked up to full speed. In these moments, it can be easy, at times, for teachers to subconsciously transfer our sense of pressure onto the students in terms of putting pressure on them to perform. The learning needs to be demonstrated in the work, in order, in a way that meets success criteria, before testing and moderating to prove that progress is happening.

A lesson I have re-learned is that these are kids. They have good days and bad days, just like us. They have things that they are subjected to that motivate or upset them, just like us. Sometimes they wake up in the morning and feel like today is just too hard, just like us. When they feel that the pressure is too much and they are struggling to think of everything they need to do, and cope in doing it all, they can snap. Just like us.
Often, in our students lives, they have little or no say on what happens to them, what they can do or when they do it. If they feel frustrated or confused, what are their options?


Expectations can be explained just as easily in a reasoned tone, even implicitly. By giving students the wiggle room to allow the message to be absorbed in a clam manner, we give our them the opportunity to allow themselves to make good choices without having to 'save face', and we give ourselves some room to escalate action if bad choices continue to be deliberately made.


Authority isn't always about being the boss. If you go straight to angry, you get angry back. By giving my student the wiggle room required to control their decision making. I am empowering them to be a more effective self manager and an independent learner.

Self Belief is Important.

Interactions with some of my students recently made me aware of the importance of consistently sharing the good that you see in them, and the belief that they can be achieve.

These students want to be good. They want to achieve. They can identify the areas they want to achieve and the steps to achieving their goals. There was one vital ingredient missing. The belief that they could achieve. Their lack of belief manifested itself as poor behaviour, copied work, incomplete tasks, avoidance, tasks that hadn't even been started. After trying every carrot and stick trick in the book, an impromptu (individual) talk with some of them accidentally unlocked the door to progress.

One student told me that he thought I was his best teacher, ever. (Despite me being 'on his case' about achieving his learning goals) I know a lot of students say that to their teachers every year so I didn't suddenly feel like 'Super-teacher'. I just politely thanked him and asked him why. His answer surprised me. "Because sometimes school is hard and you make me feel like I can do this stuff." After all of the planning and preparation, which is a vital part of being and effective teacher, it was the peripheral encouragement and positive feedback that fueled his self belief that success was possible. 

When talking with another, he broke down when I told him that he was capable and that I believed he could meet his learning goals, and even extend them. "No. I'm stupid." he sobbed as he thumped the desk. The problem was crystal clear and the solution was simple. We have now adopted a mantra of pointing out the positives and referring to successes already achieved to reinforce student self-belief that they can succeed. The results are pleasing in both academic progress, and in classroom behaviour.

I realise that simply telling a student that you believe in them and constantly repeating that is not a magic bullet that fixes all behaviour and learning problems. It's not always the solution. Those words on their own are hollow, empty rhetoric. But a heavy dose of affirming language has been a vital ingredient in getting some students to make progress. So for now, we'll keep dishing more of it up.

Writing Tools: Thinking Outside the Box (a bit)

One of my own learning goals in terms 2 and 3 is to use online tools to assist in developing students writing. The first one we have applied in our learning programme is Go-animate. Students can log in and create thirty-second animated video clips of their writing using scripts and animated characters from the website.
In the three weeks that we have been using this tool, I've noticed a change in the students' writing. Because they have to keep their ideas to a 30-second script, they are using key information only. There are added benefits in improving editing skills as well. By listening to their script being read back to them multiple times by their characters, the students are beginning to listen to see if their ideas are expressed clearly. They are looking to re-craft their work to meet the time limit and also to maintain the key points of information they want to share.

An unexpected spinoff has been in reading, where my students are applying the same learning to summarise succinctly.
Next term, I will be investigating the use of other online tools to scaffold into the classroom programme.

Below is an example of one of our students go-animate video.


How does a volcano erupt by Kahlicia677xmgv on GoAnimate

Moving Towards Digital Thinking.

• How often are you including opportunities for students to create to learn?
• Where and how could you include increased opportunities to create to learn?
• Focusing your inquiry - identify possible teaching and learning opportunities aimed at achieving the outcomes you have prioritised for your inquiry.

Reflecting on recent Manaiakalani Professional Development, I was challenged to look at my own learning needs in relation to meeting my students learning needs. It sounds fantastic to use technichal jargon and have grandiose expectations for my students, but if I don't have the knowledge to, not necessarily 'teach' the technological aspects of their next steps in creating to learn, but at least have the knowledge about the tools work, then I am simply 'swinging and hoping' to progress my students along the path of becoming self managing, 21st century learners.

By analysing the learning activities I provide for my students, I realised their learning reflected my own stage of development, pictured below.

I would currently place myself as straddling between the Augmentation and Modification stages of this chart.

Following professional discussion with colleagues, I am of the opinion that learning activities occupy not just one stage on the ladder, but a range of stages. This is encouraging the students to think, react, analyse and create within the scope of the learning activities provided. It provides a safety net for students who are developing confidence by providing a base they are familiar with and progressing from that point.

This reading follow up activity is an example.

The discussion was liberating for me. I accepted that many of my students are able to grasp the nuances of digital learning tools faster than me. I understand that a large part of my role is to find the tools, understand the basics of how they work and how we can apply them to create-to-learn, introduce them to the students, then extend our learning in a collaborative learning environment. As this video about my teacher goal explains.

This has been the most beneficial Manaiakalani Professional Development session for me. The opportunity to discuss, experiment and create was creatly appreciated and will have positive impact on my classroom teaching!