Activity Five: Connection Map

This Connection Map outlines the professional connections I have that impact my practice.

Te Wananga o Aotearoa

This year I have been studying Te Ara Maori Level 2 through Te Wananga o Aotearoa. Not only am I gaining an education in speaking Te Reo (maori language) and understanding tikanga (protocols), I'm also gaining knowledge about different teaching practices and gaining empathy for my students. Our lecturer emphasise the different learning styles of Audio, Visual and Kinaesthetic learning. So when learning new phrase we are asked to visualise the structures, and then we put actions to them to reinforce them. To further reinforce the lesson he might say the phrase and we need to action them or he might action them and we need to say the phrase. I've been able to apply that with certain children in my class to reinforce learning, especially those who need extra teacher time. If a visual way of teaching a concept doesn't work then I try to create an audio way of teaching it etc. Also my empathy for the students in my class has increased. As I sit and try to converse with other students in Maori I sometimes get a sense of how some children in my class might feel; confused! So many times I become confused and I think of certain children in my class.I try to use this experience to remind myself that I don't need to get frustrated with a learner, because sometimes learning is difficult. I would like to further this and see how I can apply these learning principals to literacy and numeracy to reinforce learning. 

Teacher Colleagues at other schools

Conversing with teaching colleagues from other schools can be refreshing. It's healthy for my personal growth because you discuss different practices and gain fresh ideas. Moreover, it benefits the class as they build relationships via blog and skype with other children outside of the school. It has also benefited visiting other schools over the last few years as we get to see what other schools are doing on a practical level as we watch the children working. I find talking about theory difficult because making it practical is hard, so looking at other schools is beneficial for me. You also create a bigger learning network as you meet other teachers. An extension of this is our Learning Network that our school is apart of. We've utilised the expertise of others to help us with certain aspects of our practice e.g Project Based Learning. To further this I would like to get in touch with other teachers on a global scale through our learning network to see what others are doing. 

Activity Four: My Professional Community

A community of practice is a group of people who engage in a process of collective learning who are committed to one another through a common cause (Wegner & Trayner, 2015). In this activity I will be looking at the community that influence my practice. To do this I will be looking at three questions; who are the stakeholders of my professional community and how do they influence my practice, what are the current issues in my community and how would they be addressed, and what are the core values that underpin my values and how? 

Who are the stakeholders of your professional community? In what ways do they influence your practice?

As stated in Wegner-Trayner's (2015) article 'Communities of Practice, a brief introduction' a community need three things for it to be a community of practice; must have a shared domain of interest, must engage in discussions, activities, help each other and share information, and must be practitioners that share resources. Below are four stakeholders involved in my professional community.

Senior Management: Senior Management's main role is to ensure the running of the school. In a direct link to me, they set targets as a whole school and are accountable to the Board of Trustees. They share this information at staff meetings and we discuss how we can create effective teaching and learning for the children. They also provide a space for us to learn. The staff are involved with re-visioning a school, and as a consequence, have embarked on this learning journey to learn about 21st century learning. We are able to learn, experiment, and change practice to try and develop what's effective for Grey Lynn School.

Team Leader: This is where most of my professional and personal conversations happen. Quite often my personal life can cross over with my professional life in terms of values, beliefs, attitudes etc. I have full trust and faith in my team leader and that makes me feel really comfortable with my personal and professional life when they cross-over. I am able to talk and get help when needed. Also she shares resources, observes my lessons and gives feedback and offers support. 

Teaching Team: As a team we share resources and knowledge to better our practice. We also provide support for each other when things break down e.g someone watches my class when I need to deal with special needs child in my class. We meet fortnightly in which our Team Leader will relay things back to the team from Management meeting and cover other things of concern.

Students: Children are the core of our profession. They bring with them past experiences and prior knowledge which mould my practice. I believe in child-centred learning and lessons are built around their interests or what I think they may like. I engage with children to discuss learning intentions, give feedback and discuss next learning steps. We also engage in sharing resources e.g children have the ability to bring to class learning tools that they've discovered at home. They discuss with me what the tools can do and how we can apply them to our learning. 

What is the purpose and function of your practice? In what ways do you cater for the community of your practice?

(GLSa, 2015)

The school vision underpins everything that we do at Grey Lynn School. My practice, beliefs and values, and research need to align with the school vision. The teaching staff wrote the vision collectively at the beginning of the year. Everything that I do at school is in line with what they vision says.

The first part of our vision talks about 'Respect', respect for other's ideas, the environment and ourselves. The idea is that our school is a safe place to work where everyone is heard. When collaborating with my community of practice I know that my ideas will be heard because that's what our vision states. If they're not, I can bring up the school vision. 

The second part talks about 'Resilience'. The ability to take risks can be difficult but have much reward. If my ideas are respected, as mentioned above, then it's easier for me to take risks because I know I'm not being judged. I also need to be open to feedback, even when I don't like what it may be. I need to remind myself that feedback is to better my practice, not stunt it. 

Positive relationships are built so that the teaching and learning environment is healthy. It's important for me to have positive relationships with the different people of my learning community. As the least experienced person I pull on their knowledge and expertise to help me. 

Child-centred learning is important to Grey Lynn School. Every decision that we make in regards to teaching and learning has the best intentions with the children in mind. The goal is for better learning outcomes for children.

Grey Lynn teachers have the ability to practice what they preach. Our principal has been open to new learning and has allowed us to trial BYOD and study at Mind Lab to get a better understanding of 21st century learning pedagogy. 

(GLSb, 2015)

As an individual, these are my responsibilities. 
-As apart of the Inner-City Rugby tournament I coached the rugby team. 
-Catering to diversity in the school and instilling culture I take the Kapa Haka group.
-Another way to enhance school culture I am involved with taking school singing.
-To promote road safety around our school I lead the travel wise. This is run by a group of students who collaborate on ideas to promote certain events and carry them out.


What are the core values that underpin your profession and how?


(GLSc, 2015)

At Grey Lynn we have six core values that underpin what we do. These values were written as a collaborative effort by all staff at school.

Working in a safe environment is important to me. Growing up I was never raised to speak up when things didn't seem right, you never answered back to authority and you never spoke unless you were spoken too. For me to speak in staff and team meetings I have to feel pretty confident about the environment I'm in. Due to my background, I too give respect to others who have ideas and want to share without judgement because I know how anxious I can get.

Celebrating diversity is important to me. Learning from a cultural context was not something I'd ever experienced until I went to high school. I had already learnt bad learning habits, I'd never really developed any learning strategies and struggled in school. At a primary school level I feel it important for children to be able to bring who they are to the classroom and use that as a bases for learning, especially those who struggle academically. 

Personally, I've learned to be open to new learning and this year has been a massive journey for me. Studying at Mind Lab has helped me to broaden my horizons and show me that I can continue to learn, even when things get tough. I've learned that there is always something valuable that you can gain from new learning. Obviously new learning that I gain trickles down to the children.

As a teaching team I think we do a really good job at working together. I fully trust my team and know that when things difficult I have them to guide me.

Respect, resilience and responsibility are key principals we live by at Grey Lynn school. In everything we do we try to display these things. Respect to teachers and students when sharing, resilience when things get hard and show responsibility when working.

Taking risks aren't easy. This term we started Genius Hour. This is where children have one hour to learn about anything they want. For me this was a risk because I didn't know how to teach it, the outcomes were going to be different for the children and some would finish quicker than others. What could I do? I took a risk and tried to stick to a plan I made, which went out the window. The children's favourite part of their week is Genius Hour. Moving forward, I'm going to try and teach the inquiry model to help guide their learning. 

References

Wegner, E., & Trayner, B. (2015) Introduction to Communities of Practice. Retrieved from http://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/

GLSa. (2015) School Vision. [Screen Shot] Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/a/greylynn.school.nz/grant-ppp/gls-professional-documents

GLSb. (2015) School Responsibilities. [Screen Shot] Retrieved from https://sites.google.com/a/greylynn.school.nz/grant-ppp/job-description-responsibilities

GLSc. (2015) Grey Lynn's Six Core Values. [Screen Shot] Retrieved from from https://sites.google.com/a/greylynn.school.nz/grant-ppp/gls-professional-documents

Activity Three: Response to Finlay's article

Reflecting on my practice is something that I do concurrently with teaching. So while I'm teaching a lesson I'm constantly thinking about how the lesson is going, who needs help, how the lesson needs to be tweaked etc. The difficult part is to write it all down after the lesson takes place. After reading Finlay's Reflecting on 'Reflective Practice', I have extracted quotes that have stood out to me in which I will reflect on in relation to my reflective practice. 

“Unless teachers develop the practice of critical reflection, they stay trapped in unexamined judgments, interpretations, assumptions, and expectations. Approaching teaching as a reflective practitioner involves fusing personal beliefs and values into a professional identity” (Larrivee, 2000, p.293).

-Reflection is important for my teaching practice because it helps me to better what I do! To reflect I find it important to line up my own beliefs, values and experiences with relevant research to strengthen my teaching practice. Thinking critically is important to better your practice because of the diversity of the classroom. You are always faced with challenges whether it be children, management or the community. Reflecting gives you the ability to help solve issues. I will continue to reflect on my practice and make sure my beliefs and values line up with research.

In the case of reflection-on-action, professionals are understood consciously to review, describe, analyse and evaluate their past practice with a view to gaining insight to improve future practice. With reflection-in-action, professionals are seen as examining their experiences and responses as they occur. 

-Reflection-on-action is important because it makes you think about how you delivered different content and how you can improve on what you did. As a third year teacher I am still rule governed when teaching e.g using Numeracy Booklets when planning for maths. As I gain more confidence and experience I will be able to think more creatively and instinctively to the teaching moment. 

-Reflection-in-action is a reflection of how my day to day lessons go. Here are a list of things that will run through my head as I teach:
-How is the lesson going?
-Does everyone understand?
-If someone isn't understanding, why?
-How can I adjust the lesson (in the moment) to cater to those who don't understand?
-How can I extend those children who pick up concepts quicker than expected?
-What are the next steps for each child?
This helps me to formulate the next learning steps for children and plan the following lesson.

Schon believed that as professionals become more expert in their practice, they developed the skill of being able to monitor and adapt their practice simultaneously, perhaps even intuitively. In contrast, novice practitioners, lacking knowing-in-action (tacit knowledge), tended to cling to rules and procedures, which they are inclined to apply mechanically. 
-As mentioned above, my practice is still somewhat rule governed. In my first two years of teaching I definitely bound by rules as I was learning my craft. This year I am developing the ability to simultaneously monitor and adapt lessons in the moment. As my experience grows my ability to be intuitive and creative in the teaching moment grows. 

...in which practitioners tend to focus on their own thoughts, feelings, behaviours and evaluations. This passes as legitimate ‘reflective practice’ which professionals then can use to advance their cause to fit formal requirements for continuing professional development. While such reflective practice may take place in dialogical contexts such as supervision sessions, the onus stays on the individual practitioner to reflect upon and evaluate their own practice. 

-When reflecting on my practice I focus on student engagement (behaviours), how I felt I did (feelings) and if the children understood what was being taught (evaluation). This information is used to form my next lesson.
-To give voice to my practice gives me the ability to think better as I converse with my team leader. With her experience, she is able to better form into words how I'm feeling and next steps. This is apart of my learning and growing as a teacher.

Gibbs Reflective Cycle

While models such as Gibbs’ may offer useful basic questions to help structure reflection, some argue that a broader, more critically reflexive approach is needed. Zeichner and Liston (1996) argue that reflective teachers should move beyond questions about whether or not their practice is working to critically examining values and how practice can lead to change, commitment to quality and respect for difference. 

-The Gibbs Reflective Cycle offers a continuous approach to reflecting. I prefer this model because it's simple and easy to follow. When planning a new lesson for a learning group I always think about what happened in the previous lesson. This process helps me to identify how the previous lesson went and how I would improve on it for next time. 

Moreover, busy, over-stretched professionals are likely to find reflective practice taxing and difficult. 
-As someone who is time poor, sitting down to write my reflections for lessons is not practical. In my experience meetings, marking, reflecting, planning, emails, setting up lessons etc is quite time consuming. Reflection is done in my head simultaneously with teaching a lesson which is used to plan the following lessons. 

One possible way forward would be for students to hear about the experiences of other learners and practitioners in practice and how reflection helped them. In addition, I would recommend they be given student-centred opportunities to discuss various situations/incidents such that any reflection is nurtured naturally, following the students’ own values and spirit of inquiry. Opportunities for discussion also allow students to question and be questioned. Importantly, students need to see (early on) that practice often involves uncertainty and that answers are never clear-cut. 
-Personally, I find discussion a great format to reflect on my practice. As mentioned above, there are benefits in having dialogue with my team leader. As a person who likes to see examples of what's expected I think viewing what others have written when reflecting would be beneficial. 

Activity 2: Reflection of the last 24 weeks

Learning never stops, it just keeps building up in our minds. In this discussion I will reflect on the last 24 weeks and talk about three things that I have learned about myself as a learner and three key changes in my own practice. 

Myself as a learner

1) The one thing I never saw myself as was a leader, but upon reflection I have a duty to lead my children and other teachers around me into understanding 21st century learning concepts. Learning about different leadership styles has allowed me to adapt my practice when dealing with different stake holders. Situational Leadership theory allows me to adapt to different circumstances in the classroom whether it be academic or behavioural and Transformational Leadership allows to empower others to use technologies and other teaching practices that I've learned in their classrooms. Next year I will be able to confidently start the classroom with a new mindset.

2) I don't have to know everything. One thing that I've learned is that I don't have to know all nor do I have to do everything. As an inquiry I provided a statement for the children to prove or disprove, all I had to do was give them a learning process. Students were able to form opinions about the statement based on research they had done and all I did was facilitate their learning. Currently I am rule governed when teaching a learning process but feel that with more practice I can become more intuitive and less rule governed. 

3) I love to learn. This statement seems pretty simple but I hated school. This was because I thought I was dumb and school was boring. I think I was board because I never learned how to learn, everything was learned by route and to me that was not my style of learning. I'm going to continue to read articles and watch clips about things that will grow me as a professional and build my skill set. 

Key Changes in my practice

1) Flipped learning is a model that stood out to me as being something that I really wanted to trial and use as a tool to prepare my children for learning. The core of my motivation was to teach knowledge outside of teaching time, thus freeing up room to reinforce knowledge with meaningful activities. I discovered a video about Katie who taught to the middle of the class and used flipped learning to reach more children (McCammon, 2011). Others have commented on flipped learning to have create a space for collaborative learning and freeing teaching time to be more meaningful (Clay, 2015; Khan, 2011). There have been some successes and frustrations. When the children had access to tutorials they were able to lead their learning but time was the biggest barrier. Creating and finding tutorials took up a lot of my time outside of class. 

2) Collaboration is something that I've always believed in. Encouraging collaboration is said to be beneficial for behavioural and learning outcomes, learning should be social (Dumont, Istance & Benavides, 2010). In the article they say that collaboration needs to be structured and I feel that I haven't got that bit quite right. At the start of the year I should have set up activities to practice this properly, setting a criteria with the children. 

3) Beginning as a BYOD classroom this year I had lots of ideas. One thing that I learned while on course is that a device is a way to enhance learning, to facilitate children's ability to access resources. Web based apps such as Blend Spaces and Google Sites have enhanced children's learning by giving them access to knowledge that helps them to lead their learning without the teacher. When children are working on our Google Maths Site I become a facilitator and answer questions that may arise, the children are learning knowledge from the tutorials set for them. This is helpful for me because it gives me time to work with children who need more teacher time.

References
McCammon (producer). (2011). Why I Flipped My Classroom. Retrieved fromhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9aGuLuipTwg

MindLab (producer). (2015). Chris Clay-Flipped Classrooms. Retrieved fromhttps://app.themindlab.com/media/4229/view

TED (producer). (2011). Salman Khan: Let's use videos to reinvent education. Retrieved fromhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTFEUsudhfs

Dumont, H., Istance, D., & Benavides, F. (Eds.). (2010). The nature of learning: Using research to inspire practice. Paris: OECD/CERI.

Activity One: Welcome to my Blog ! :)

Whāia te mātauranga hei oranga mō koutou

- Seek after learning for the sake of your wellbeing.

Ko Hikurangi toku maunga

Ko Waiapu toku awa

Ko Horoutu toku waka

Ko Ngati Porou toku iwi

Ko Te Aitanga-a-mate toku hapu

Ko Hiruharama raua ko Te Aowera oku marae

Ko Grant O'Connor toku ingoa!

Kia ora koutou, 

My name is Grant O'Connor and I am a kaiako (teacher) at Grey Lynn School, welcome to my blog. This is my third year in the profession and it has been a mixed bag thus far. My class is a composite Year 5/6, previously teaching years 3/4.

Learning should be child centred! I believe in strong relationships and reciprocity, children should feel safe and comfortable in their learning environment. Content should be of interest to the children, hence the importance of relationships. Learning should also be personalised to cater to the needs of the children. They are not all the same and should be treated as such.

Here are some pictures of my class and things that inspire me: