Changes in my practice

Mindlab was a welcome relief after having studied an e-learning paper through another University. To be fair the first paper set me up for Mindlab by getting me used to academic study again and that experience formed my opinions on what kind of study environment was most enjoyable for me. I really enjoyed the first two Mindlab papers, revelling in the opportunity to discuss face to face, being able to talk without worrying about the structure of sentences or the different meanings that could be read into posts. I enjoyed trying new software, the immediacy of help when I couldn’t work out what to do and getting to know the people that would form my online professional learning community in the second half of the course. I appreciated the logical structure of the course and that so much of the required resources were provided, reducing the time needed to complete tasks. I found the marking of papers too slow as I needed feedback to make sure I was on the right track for the next assignment.

Criteria 5: Show leadership that contributes to effective teaching and learning.

I worked as a facilitator for teachers for 5 years then came back into teaching looking for a new direction in my own teaching. I found this by teaching in a year 7 homeroom although I am secondary trained! I liked the holistic approach of this type of teaching and distanced myself from pedagogical leadership. Readings in the Leadership in Digital and Collaborative Learning paper gave me the chance to think about what kind of leader I wanted to be and to make the decision to become involved in the leadership of  e-learning again. Part of this decision was based on the Wayne Freeth’s case study, “Towards Reconceptualising Leadership: The Implications of the Revised New Zealand Curriculum for School Leaders” which discussed distributed leadership. This reading made me think about the leadership structures within my own school and re-think my own definition of a leader. I now recognise that a leader is not only someone identified as such by their management role. Teachers are leaders within their own class and I acknowledge that most teachers have the ability and skills to take that leadership into their own professional learning. We are all leaders at different times depending on the experiences and skills we have to offer.

Criteria 12 (i) : Systematically and critically engage with evidence and professional literature to reflect on and refine practice

Reflective practice is described by Osterman and Kottkammp (1993) as “the means by which practitioners develop a greater level of self awareness about the nature and impact of their performance”. I know that I do reflect on my practice, in particularly reviewing lessons in my head and thinking about what I wasn’t happy with (emotional response) and what I would do differently next time or how this will affect what I plan for my next lesson. The aspect of reflective practice that I don’t do as frequently is that of collaborative problem solving - using another teacher as a facilitator. I only seek this kind of help when the ‘problematic experience’ causes a higher level of unhappiness that requires me to invest the time involved in discussing the problem with another teacher. Collaborative problem solving combines the different experiences and skills of the participants and provides the opportunity for many solutions to be considered. I encourage and use this skill within my class but haven’t done so well in my own professional development. Collaborative problem solving did work well when the facilitating teacher and I had a common teaching goal, allowing us to reciprocate as facilitators. This would be a goal for the future - making time to meet regularly with another teacher to continue our reflective practice.

References
Osterman, K. & Kottkamp, R.(1993). Reflective Practice for Educators.California:Cornwin Press, Inc. Retrieved on 7th May, 2015 from http://www.itslifejimbutnotasweknowit.org.uk/files.

My interdisciplinary connection map

Current collaborations

Interdisciplinary collaboration is defined by Andrews (1990)  as occurring "when different professionals, possessing unique knowledge, skills, organizational perspectives, and personal attributes, engage in coordinated problem solving for a common purpose" (cited in Berg-Weger &. Schneider, 1998). When I think about the interdisciplinary collaboration in my school, there is no systemic approach within the levels that I teach. It is up to individual teachers to reach out to the teachers who teach ‘other subjects’ and collaborate. The justification could be made that this allows collaboration to be specific to the interests and learning goals of the class, rather than ‘ticking boxes’ for a curriculum check.

Examples of collaboration
In my practice I have always found the teachers I have approached to be eager to share their expertise, materials and time. For the last few years our year 7 class has made photo frames as a way of learning about perimeter and area. They often get the ideas muddled up so covering the frame with material or backing it with card reinforces the understanding of area while edging with ribbon or coloured string reinforces perimeter. We use the Art room for the painting and gluing part as well as the final decorating with glitter and coloured shapes. Over the last couple of years we have moved towards a modern learning environment with tables and tote trays rather than individual desks in the classroom. A couple of projects that students could choose to be involved with were making cushions at lunchtime and creating and decorating a box to keep them in. For these projects the Soft Materials and Art teachers were involved.

Reflecting on past projects

Thinking about these projects I can see that I have chosen subject areas that I already have some knowledge of and teachers that I feel comfortable working with - nothing to do with Hard Materials or Music! By making these choices I am limiting the “knowledge, skills and organizational perspectives” that the class are being exposed to. The maths project was compulsory so could be seen as less authentic as students were not able to follow their own interests. These projects have been one off, rather than ongoing interdisciplinary collaboration.

My next goal

Looking at the connection map and thinking about a collaboration that could be more ongoing, my next goal could be to work with the Science teacher as this class continues for the year, rather than a term. We would need to discuss our common goals, qualities/attitudes and workplace conditions as detailed in “A Conceptual Model for Interdisciplinary Collaboration”. I think that we would start with something short term and build as we learn what works. There would need to be joint planning and our ‘standing meetings’ would be when our class lines up to go into the Science classroom. A challenge for our interdisciplinary practice would be to establish authentic common goals for our collaboration. A theme from the literature that may work for us is described by Mathison and Freeman (1997) as “teaching approaches that place research and inquiry skills in the center of curriculum organisation”. Maintaining enthusiasm and therefore the desire to continue the collaboration could be difficult so starting with a short term collaboration will be a good stepping stone to further potential collaborations.

Benefits

Mathison and Freeman assert that an “authentic and connected curriculum” is needed. They state that “forming connections between fields of knowledge is an essential need for success in the 21st Century”. These connections allow for the sharing of ideas and methods, rather than compartmentalising the skills and knowledge. They are well suited to helping students make sense of information and connect it to their world and the needs of everyday living.  

References

ACRLog. (2015). A Conceptual Model for Interdisciplinary Collaboration. Retrieved from http://acrlog.org/2015/05/14/a-conceptual-model-for-interdisciplinary-collaboration

Berg-Weger, M., &. Schneider, F. D. (1998). Interdisciplinary collaboration in social work education. Journal of Social Work Education, 34, 97-107.

Mathison,S.. & Freeman, M.(1997). The logic of interdisciplinary studies. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, Chicago, 1997. Retrieved from http://www.albany.edu/cela/reports/mathisonlogic12004.pdf: 

Social Media

I have been cautious with my use of social media in my personal life and this has influenced the use I make of it in teaching. I do have personal social media accounts but I’m definitely a lurker rather than a poster! Milla Inkila, one of our Mindlab tutors, quotes that 95% of traffic on social media is lurking. I feel supported!

Twitter for student learning

Returning to my teaching practice, I used Twitter for the first time last year. I had met some teachers at a Wellington school and they suggested that we both read the same book using global readaloud and then use Twitter to comment on the book as we read each chapter. Karen Melhuish’s paper discussing professional learning using social media identifies many benefits which apply to this learning opportunity; enabling collaboration, connectivity, accessing diverse perspectives. My experiences didn’t quite line up with the possibilities this first time. The class were excited about sharing their thoughts about the book with another class. We did tweet backwards and forwards but I had set up one class account so I had control and I think that the students felt less ownership of their posts because of that. The writers of the Open University’s Innovation Report comment that a social media site requires a skilled facilitator to initiate, filter resources and engage people. On reflection the communication and therefore the learning between the two classes would have been more effective if the teachers involved had spent some time defining the learning purpose (as recommended by Sean Lyons) and coordinating so that we were reading the same part of the book at the same time.

Twitter and whanau

I also used Twitter as a way of connecting with whanau for two terms; posting photos of class activities, reminders about upcoming events. At the end of this time I emailed all the parents in the class to ask them if they considered it worthwhile. The general feedback was that many of them were not using Twitter and because the information wasn’t delivered directly to them, they weren’t interested in using the browser to see what was happening in class. Using this feedback, I have now switched to Seesaw which had a 75% uptake last year and in the current year 66% of students have a parent connected after 2 weeks. For each connection, there is a chocolate bar, I’m sure that is helping too! Seesaw also meets my concerns relating to privacy and identity, recognised as potential negative features of social network sites in Karen Melhuish’s paper. Seesaw allows the teacher to approve all content and set up student content so that only the teacher and the connected parents can see it.

Facebook and resources

I use social media for my own professional development in a limited way using the Primary Teachers’ Facebook page. My use is at the level of accessing resources but not participating. Karen Melhuish points out in her paper that ‘lurking’ provides benefits to the lurker but doesn’t build the social media community.

My next step is to become ‘civic minded’ and start contributing. My plan is to start a professional learning group within our school to share our learning experiences from Mindlab. Watch this space…

References

Melhuish, K.(2013). Online social networking and its impact on New Zealand educators’ professional learning. Master Thesis. The University of Waikato. Retrieved on 05 May, 2015 from ttp://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/han...

Sharples, M., de Roock , R., Ferguson, R., Gaved, M., Herodotou, C., Koh, E., Kukulska-Hulme, A., Looi,C-K, McAndrew, P., Rienties, B., Weller, M., Wong, L. H. (2016). Innovating Pedagogy 2016: Open University Innovation Report 5. Milton Keynes: The Open University. Retrieved from http://proxima.iet.open.ac.uk/public/innovating_pedagogy_2016.pdf

Education Council.(2012). Establishing safeguards.[video file]. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/49216520