DFI #2 Effective Teaching - Accelerated Learning

Learn Create Share 

Ako Hanga Tohatoha

Learn, Create, Share is the Manaiakalani pedagogy. It is a pedagogy that puts learners at the centre - used well it causes learning.

Delving Deeper into Ako - Learn

When talking about Ako we are talking about Ako in a digital environment because the Manaiakalani pedagogy is based in a digital environment.

RATE is an acronym for Recognise, Amplify, Turbocharge and Effective Practice in the digital world of our learners.

Recognise - we need to be able to recognise Effective Practice. 

How we can recognise effective practice? 

How does that look in the digital environment?

In any context what makes a great teacher? In the digital environment what makes a great teacher?

We need to have these discussions and talk through what effective teaching and learning looks like in our digital environments at St Francis. 

Some things for us to think about in our context:

- Are we able to recognise what Learn looks like in our school?
- how are we accessing and engaging with existing content?
- Discussion around what does Learn look like in our school?
- What are the programmes in our school that support Learn?
- How do we know what we are doing makes a difference?
- Worked out the best way - models?
- Is learning visible and consistent?
- What are our beliefs about things?
- Can every teacher articulate them?

In the Manaiakalani environment which we are a part of we are supported by the Woolf Fisher Research Centre - they delve into our data and look for trends and can suggest to us the Higher Leverage practices (HLP's) that are making a difference, the HLP's that are causing learning in our schools. 

Over the last two years our staff have become much more adept at looking at the data and inquiring into their practice.

We have a focus on continuous improvement - we can't amplify our practice until we can recognise this in our own context.

Amplify - amplify effective practice

Amplify learning at St Francis is really about shouting out to the world about the  learning that is taking place at St Francis. It is about sharing the learning that is happening and also using the things that other people are sharing to help improve your own practice.

The best definition I like for collaboration is working together to create something better that we could create on our own.

Sharing your practice is hard for people to do - it is not a natural thing for a person to promote themselves. This is becoming easier and easier for teachers as they are sharing spaces, working collaboratively and teaching alongside each other.

Turbocharge

The digital collaborative environment is a great context for turbocharging learning. We are now able to harness the affordances of technologies to transform the way we learn. It is a great way to engage or "hook" in our learners. 

Recognise, Amplify and Turbocharge - if we concentrate on these things - we will be working towards effective practice.

Technology is not just a tool...

A couple of other things from the day:

- Gmail and google meet tips and tricks - very helpful in our current context.

- Taming the tabs - I currently use a different chrome extension Workona - and have seen some huge improvements in my workflow since beginning to use this.

- Google Calendar - already using this extensively however loved the shortcuts.