Mindlab Musings

(Osterman and Kottkamp, 2015, p.70) P roblem Identification Schon’s (1983) idea that professional knowledge is grounded in professional experience (cited in Osterman and Kottkamp, 2015) has never been truer for me during this mindlab course. I started the course last year with a desire to become more confident using technology in a meaningful way. This was driven largely by the new Technology curriculum and the impact it would have on me as an educator. Using Osterman and Kottkamp’s 2015) model above the problem that started this was I was not absolutely sure that the use of technology in my classroom was meaningful to the students. Observation and Analysis Watching how I engaged in the mindlab process was interesting to me. There were some sessions that I thoroughly enjoyed and motivated me, such as the lesson on robotics - in particular, the Edisons. This was something that resonated with me as I could see a meaningful way that I could implement these in my year 3 class and...

What is the actual impact after the ‘Take Action’ phase? The first potential impact that we had anticipated was that we would see an increase in student agency which would be shown as increased enjoyment, motivation, purpose and belief in themselves as learners who are able to take control of their own learning. As you can see from the last blog entry where we analysed the data we had collected, the dispositions of the students in the target group had certainly changed from limited agence to increased agency. The second anticipated impact was that through sharing results with our colleagues this would drive an initiative across other areas of the school. While we have been implementing this inquiry, I have in fact been sharing my journey with my colleagues in my syndicate at least. We have some traction, others have joined in with the actions and we have regularly been discussing what is happening. Other members of the team have used the dispositions rubric as a measure for...

The Data I Have Collected So Far: Babione (2014) talks of ‘the overwhelming overwhelming task of making sense of our data collection” (p1) and as far as I can tell he is not wrong! As teachers, we carry a lot of ‘data’ around in our heads, and the same is true for this inquiry. Much of the data is qualitative, that is, based on observations that I have made throughout the implementation of the inquiry. While designing our action plan, we identified the following data that we would use. We were able to collect the two key types of the data that we had originally intended to, however, the results and data from the survey were not useful. There were a number of reasons for this - and in the end, I decided against using this as a measure of progress. While it was discarded, it did not change the fact that it opened my eyes initially to the perceptions of the children in terms of how they perceive the roles of teachers and themselves. This could become my next inquiry! The rubric a...

Ethical Issue Identified: “It’s not fair!” As a teacher, my actions are guided by Our Code, Our Standards (Educational Council, 2017) and in our action plan, we gave special mention to the value pono - “showing integrity by acting in ways that are fair, honest, ethical and just.” Similarly, principle 2.4 of the Ethical Guidelines document mentions the need to be aware of those affected by research as well as those involved (NZARE, 2010). The critical comment “It’s not fair” came from students who were not part of my research group. They wanted to be involved. They had seen the original target group of students, meet with the teacher on a daily basis and being given the choice of working together or alone, using a digital device or not and felt left out and not as important as the targeted students. The beauty of 7 and 8-year-olds, is that they will call me out when they think that something is NOT FAIR. This is my ethical dilemma, competing interests of groups of students in my c...

Another interesting week this week as I have really been challenged by the comments last week. My own cultural lens plays a part in all my interactions and I’d like to think I critically reflect on my actions as an educator, both in-action and on-action. Using Gibbs’ Reflective Cycle (1988) (see figure) as a guide, this week I am going to examine an unexpected reaction from my target learners in the first week of taking action. Figure 1. What Happened? For those of you who haven't seen my action plan, one of the initial steps of taking action was to give the children a choice in many areas of self-management for writing. After meeting with me, in an attempt to be sure the target students were ready to head off and get started, I gave them a sheet to quickly fill out. What I had not anticipated was how difficult it would be for my 7 and 8-year-olds to cope with being given a choice! Their reactions to this varied from doing nothing, watching someone else in ...

This week has been a particularly challenging week in terms of reflectiveness. I have had to dig deep to consider my own ideas about cultural responsiveness within my teaching practice and consider the correlation between my espoused theories and my theories in action. At times this has been uncomfortable for me to be truly honest with myself. Putting this into a blog that others can then read has heightened my level of uncomfortableness.  However, it can only make me a better teacher, so here goes. I’ve always been aware of the need to be culturally responsive in the classroom. After all, children (my main focus) are children and their skin colour and race has never been a conscious issue for me - however, my actions may be an issue for the children I interact with each day. A study by Rosenthal and Jacobson (1968) Pygmalion In The Classroom, was first brought to my attention about 15 years ago and has helped shaped my teaching philosophy. I didn’t know the term ...

As an experienced teacher in a New Zealand Primary School, my appraisal is heavily influenced by the document ‘Our Code, Our Standards - Code of Professional Responsibility and Standards for the Teaching Profession,’ These are the expectations for all teachers practicing in Aotearoa and it states clearly “ Teachers should “use inquiry, collaborative problem solving and professional learning to improve professional capability to impact on the learning and achievement of all learners.” (Education Council, 2017, p.18). At my school, the standards heavily influence the way we inquire into our practice and use evidence to examine it. We see this in school policy regarding appraisal where it says “Each teacher has an e-portfolio where evidence and reflections are collected around progress on their goals, teaching as inquiry which is linked to each teacher’s Accelerated Learning Plans and how they are meeting the requirements of Tataiako, the Professional Standards and the Registered ...

Gail Loane (2010) wrote a book once called "I've Got Something To Say". This is the basis of my inquiry into the choice and control we give to the children in my class that struggle with the traditional ways of 'teaching' writing. All children have something to say - and we need to give them \the chance to say it. I'm not alone in this thinking and what's more, it’s not even my idea. It has been largely driven by recognising the need for children to have agency in their learning. On a national level, Bolstad, Gilbert, McDowall, Bull, Boyd & Hipkins(2010) in their report to the Ministry of Education, recognise 21st Century skills as being crucial to the development of our tamariki and in particular talk of the need to genuinely involve students in their learning.  The two key themes that I am interested in, in this publication are: Personalised Learning - giving students a voice  The idea of making learning personalised is not...