Finding the silver lining

In Auckland, we find ourselves once again in the learning & working from home situation. Although this is disappointing after returning to relative freedom, I know we are hugely fortunate compared to many places in the world, and we can continue our lives using the power of digital technologies. I also believe that every cloud has a silver lining, and there have to some awesome things to come from lockdown 2.0!

At the beginning of this term, I started working with two classes who are new to Chromebooks at Edmund Hillary School. Their teachers were really keen to support learners to share the learning they have been doing at home, but we knew these students were not yet ready to be introduced to their own blogs. I knew that we could use email to post to the class blog, but I also wanted to support students with the process of writing a blog post by using 'cues' for each section. Working closely with one of these teachers, I created a form that students could complete when they were ready to share their learning. The questions in the form are designed to guide learners through the thinking process ofcrafting a blog post. 

Behind the scenes, I created a template for the blog post, which I connected to the form responses using the Autocrat add on. The merge job is set up so that each time a new response to the form is submitted, an email is sent to the class blog so that it appears as if student work is published straight away. On their learning sites, teachers will embed a rewindable demo to show students how to complete the form, and a link that students can use as frequently as they need.

Click on the image above to see the learning Kylie's students are sharing to their class blog

Throughout this process, I asked myself whether my work would be empowering for learners or whether I was doing the heavy lifting and therefore disempowering them. On reflection, I believe that this type of support is empowering, as it is scaffolding students towards ever increasing ownership of their learning. I think of it a bit like the way we introduce children to sports; initially we want them to achieve success so we keep the goals close and anticipate any major hurdles. As skills and knowledge are developed, we make the goals higher, the court larger, and we introduce 'twists' such as the stepping and contact rules that teach our young people to be more responsible for being in the right place at the right time. 

Normally when I work in classes where students don't yet have their own blogs, I ask the teacher to share a few examples of student work to the class blog. I'm wondering if in future, I might set up this type of system to enable sharing right from the start. What do you think?

If you would like my support to use any of the resources that I have talked about, or if you can see other ways this might be helpful, please let me know in the comments!

Reflecting on the Magic

The end of a school term can be a difficult time, often characterised by a giddiness borne of fatigue, deadlines, caffeine and the anticipation of the coming break. It is also one of my favourite times, as it is a wonderful piece of punctuation at the end of a chapter, a very long chapter in this case! The end of term offers us an opportunity to reflect on what we have accomplished, where we might improve, and to make sense of all those daily snapshots as they come into focus as a larger picture. Members of the Manaiakalani innovation team, were given the following prompt to spur our reflective thinking before coming together to share our experiences of what has been a truly extraordinary time:

I really wrestled with this for some reason but it took me a while to figure out why. I had seen so many magical moments as our pedagogy and kaupapa came to life and took on new dimensions and that was AWESOME but calling it magic bothered me. 

During a recent literacy workshop, Aaron Wilson was talking about the importance of bringing strategies out into the open to dispel the illusion that some people are just 'good at reading' and empower those who are less skilled to acquire tools incrementally that will make them better at reading. To call something magic is to ascribe some supernatural element that is beyond explanation and out of reach for 'normal' people who don't have magical power. It's the equivalent of the 'good reader' illusion but it's the 'good teacher' illusion. What I saw within the Kootuitui ki Papakura cluster, and in the wider Manaiakalani community was that a consistent approach of visibility, connectedness, empowerment and ubiquitous learning over years of professional learning and development meant that we were well prepared to embrace the challenges and opportunities of learning from home. Far from being magic, this is a journey that any school can commit to and expect similar results. 

Because our schools have put in the work to grow their skills and shift their practice, they were well-prepared for the Covid curveball. The beauty of this was that there was less anxiety about the transition to online learning, and taking away a lot of the everyday 'noise' of a busy school environment created a new perspective from which to view the process of teaching and learning, and our role within it. In some schools this has had a profound effect, none more so than Papakura High School where principal John Rohs is leading a review and redevelopment of the Papakura Pedagogy to ensure that A4 learning (anyone, anywhere anytime at any pace) is available for every student.

Looking back at the end of term 2, at the end of a 12 week term, which in reality for many was 20+ weeks, I feel immensely proud of the schools, teachers, leaders and learners I work with. As fortunate as we were to be well-prepared, this was by no means an easy ride. The effort that everyone put in to ensure that learning continued for our tamariki was phenomenal, and I think when we look back a year from now there will be a lasting impact on the way we do school.