A couple of weeks ago I remember reporting to our community that ...
"The last few weeks have certainly been fast and furious but I am so proud of our school's response to Distance Learning. It is like we have been gearing up for this as the shift has been relatively seamless".
The shift for us has actually been quite seamless and I think this is because of the powerful connections within and across our Manaiakalani Outreach Schools.
The kaupapa for last week's DFI session was the pedagogy around Connected. I like the phrase - Connected Learners Share.
Our learners have many opportunities to share - the main one being on their blogs. However my focus today is on our teachers.
Our teachers have had to pivot many times in the last 6 weeks. Support from our Manaiakalani whānau has been vital. A shout out to the awesome support we get from Mark Maddren and Sharon Spragg for the way they have provided support to our staff during this time.
Pre- Rāhui
Before the Rāhui - we were working on making Teaching and Learning more visible using Sites - I am sure some teachers could not always understand the why, or see the worth but we were working towards this anyway. We had our Education Programme Leaders onsite one day a week supporting each Hub to get the sites going as well as many other things.
Rāhui - Pivot
Now delivering Teaching and Learning by Distance, all of a sudden those teachers who were not using sites as much could see the value. We had two days to provide onsite support and then it was all go. Support form our large connected network has been helpful at this stage as well
Alert Level 3 - Pivot
We have left all our teachers at home delivering Distance Learning and two members of our SLT are managing the bubbles at school. We wanted to have the least number of people onsite as possible but also give more time for our teachers to deliver Distance Learning, to refine systems and to provide the best Distance Learning we could.
The SLT have had to pivot to now working onsite with our bubbles.
Our teaching staff pivot is that they are now being asked to review what they are delivering using the criteria from last week's session; Visual Appeal and User Experience as well as feedback that we have received. We want to ensure that what is being delivered is high quality; providing stretch for some and the right supports for others.
Some things we are considering:
- Is there too much text on the Learn, Create, Share instructions?
- Is the pathway clear?
- Is there opportunity for students to show stretch?
- What workshops (google meets) can we add that will support the programme?
- How will we gather student voice on Distance Learning?
- How will we gather Whānau voice?
- How are our learners managing student agency?
- What has been the best of what we are offering?
- What new areas of the curriculum can we offer now that the Core subjects are well embedded?
- How can we use our support staff to provide more support for those who need it?
The next pivot point will be when we are asked to go to Level 2 and when all teachers come back on site. There will be another set of questions to focus on then for sure.
Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano (@langwitches) in her blogpost Let’s Not Go Back, Let’s Go Forward! asks these questions:
"What will we keep? What will we throw out? What will we upgrade?"
"How can we prepare to not “bungee chord” back to the way teaching and learning “was done” or was accepted as the norm before the COVID-19 crisis? What skills and literacies are suddenly relevant? What will we learn from the disruption? How will we adapt, evolve and improve education?"
These are great questions - we are going to need the power of our connected network as we collaborate and find answers to these over the coming weeks.
Being part of this connected network affords us so many opportunities - and our teachers are now more aware than ever of the advantages.
We have been lurking, taking advantage of the professional development on offer and improving our practice. We have learned so much during this time and I believe we have an obligation to share this learning and play our part in finding the answers to these questions. - Connected Learners Share!
The kaupapa for last week's DFI session was the pedagogy around Connected. I like the phrase - Connected Learners Share.
Our learners have many opportunities to share - the main one being on their blogs. However my focus today is on our teachers.
Our teachers have had to pivot many times in the last 6 weeks. Support from our Manaiakalani whānau has been vital. A shout out to the awesome support we get from Mark Maddren and Sharon Spragg for the way they have provided support to our staff during this time.
Pre- Rāhui
Before the Rāhui - we were working on making Teaching and Learning more visible using Sites - I am sure some teachers could not always understand the why, or see the worth but we were working towards this anyway. We had our Education Programme Leaders onsite one day a week supporting each Hub to get the sites going as well as many other things.
Rāhui - Pivot
Now delivering Teaching and Learning by Distance, all of a sudden those teachers who were not using sites as much could see the value. We had two days to provide onsite support and then it was all go. Support form our large connected network has been helpful at this stage as well
Alert Level 3 - Pivot
We have left all our teachers at home delivering Distance Learning and two members of our SLT are managing the bubbles at school. We wanted to have the least number of people onsite as possible but also give more time for our teachers to deliver Distance Learning, to refine systems and to provide the best Distance Learning we could.
The SLT have had to pivot to now working onsite with our bubbles.
Our teaching staff pivot is that they are now being asked to review what they are delivering using the criteria from last week's session; Visual Appeal and User Experience as well as feedback that we have received. We want to ensure that what is being delivered is high quality; providing stretch for some and the right supports for others.
Some things we are considering:
- Is there too much text on the Learn, Create, Share instructions?
- Is the pathway clear?
- Is there opportunity for students to show stretch?
- What workshops (google meets) can we add that will support the programme?
- How will we gather student voice on Distance Learning?
- How will we gather Whānau voice?
- How are our learners managing student agency?
- What has been the best of what we are offering?
- What new areas of the curriculum can we offer now that the Core subjects are well embedded?
- How can we use our support staff to provide more support for those who need it?
The next pivot point will be when we are asked to go to Level 2 and when all teachers come back on site. There will be another set of questions to focus on then for sure.
Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano (@langwitches) in her blogpost Let’s Not Go Back, Let’s Go Forward! asks these questions:
"What will we keep? What will we throw out? What will we upgrade?"
"How can we prepare to not “bungee chord” back to the way teaching and learning “was done” or was accepted as the norm before the COVID-19 crisis? What skills and literacies are suddenly relevant? What will we learn from the disruption? How will we adapt, evolve and improve education?"These are great questions - we are going to need the power of our connected network as we collaborate and find answers to these over the coming weeks.
Being part of this connected network affords us so many opportunities - and our teachers are now more aware than ever of the advantages.
We have been lurking, taking advantage of the professional development on offer and improving our practice. We have learned so much during this time and I believe we have an obligation to share this learning and play our part in finding the answers to these questions. - Connected Learners Share!
