*Activity 3: Responses to Finlay (2008)’s article

*Activity 3: Responses to Finlay (2008)’s article

Reflecting on reflection, an interesting read and definitely food for thought regarding what I thought was reflective practice…

Which points captivate your attention?

Reflective practice

Finlay (2008) provided the chance for me to step back, look at my reflective practice and think about what I reflection looks like for me, each day, as a professional. It got me thinking. Am I reflecting just for the sake of reflecting? Do I reflect because it is what good teachers do, so I go through the motions to tick the reflective practitioner box? or Do I use critical thinking when reflecting in and/or during my teaching to do my best as a professional and for my students?

I think at different times the answer would be yes to each of these questions. Early on in my career most of my reflection had the ‘feel good factor’. I celebrated what went well and thought about the context of this, meaning I would then plan similar learning experiences to engage students. The major component of this is describing what happened and some reflection on factors that led to success or failure. I think that the evaluations, while honest would mostly serve to support my pre-conceived ideas of my teaching. That is that they subversively validated what I thought was right. Often the context of these situations may have played an important role.


Which reflective models do you find the most suitable to use?

Finlay (2008) discusses ‘thinking-in’, the reflection that is happening during teaching. At this stage of my career this is becoming more possible for me as I have more experiences to draw on, I am comfortable in the teacher role and being able to make a mistake. Having broader experience and moving towards more aspects of teacher mastery has freed up time for me to think about my core beliefs for teaching. This has occurred in conjunction post grad programme, changes are happening because I am evaluating what I think needs to happen for kids to be understanding.


The terminology around reflection discussed in Finlay (2008) was food for thought, I have used reflection and critical reflection interchangeably and focused more on the critical, what would I do next time rather, probably closely aligned to Gibb’s reflective cycle.






Thinking about my thinking, and jumping straight to the feedforward, I can see that adopting some of the critical reflection strategies in Boud, Keogh and Walker (1985) will be more helpful, in two ways. The initial 3 stage process removes the aspect of pressure on myself as an individual (which all teachers are pretty good at applying to themselves often being perfectionists) then secondly I can identify with where I need to go to next to best suit the learning for the individuals in my class.


References:

Boud, D., Keogh, R. and Walker, D. (1985) Promoting reflection in learning: a model. In D. Boud, R. Keogh and D. Walker (eds.) Reflection: turning experience into learning. London: Kogan Page.


Finlay, L. (2008) Reflecting on reflective practice. PBPL. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/opencetl/files/opencetl/file/ecms/web-content/Finlay-%282008%29-Reflecting-on-reflective-practice-PBPL-paper-52.pdf

Gibbs Reflective cycle retrieved from https://www.kent.ac.uk/learning/PDP-and-employability/pdp/reflective.html

Activity 5: Professional connection map

Activity 5: Professional connection map

Connections -

Personal Connections

Personal connections are important to me. I am from a family of 5 and both my parents and my sister are also teachers or principals. Inevitably, this leads to education talk at family gatherings. I treasure these connections because my parents are inspiration for me in my education career and set a standard for me to aspire to. Conversely, connections I have made with friends and through sport sit outside the teaching sphere. I think these connections are important because teaching is a very demanding profession, through which the job is never really done. WIthout these connections to other people, I feel teaching could become all consuming, not just a job.

School Community connections

The majority of the networking and connections that I have made with other professionals is through my school community. I have taught exclusively in one school. Throughout the seven years of service here I have connected widely with professionals involved in the education sector. The current landscape of teaching means that a variety of different agencies are in and involved at any given day, e.g. RTLB’s, SWIS (social worker in schools), health nurse as well as my professional teaching colleagues that I work with. These connections help me to better deliver learning experiences for students. My honest reflection is that in this smaller environment is where I feel most comfortable and share most of my ideas during Professional Learning Community meetings and during Professional development that I participate in and facilitate in house.

Connections outside school

I have a small network of professional connections outside of school. I remain in contact with a few of my teacher training colleagues, mostly through facebook and stay connected to catch up on ideas through the shared experience of training together. Our school has recently joined the ‘Ako Hiko’ cluster and I have been tagged as one of the leaders of digital learning within our school. As part of this I have attended some professional development specific to this cluster. The intention is that we will meet termly and this will become a valuable support network for me as we have joined the cluster later and can learn from the experiences of others. In general, I am quite a reserved, watchful person and have made a few connections through the mindlab post-graduate programme. I will discuss this again later.

ICT connections

Through my area of responsibility for ICT in the school I have built connections with the technical support agencies that we utilise at school. I have enjoyed this as it has provided me with the opportunity to upskill my technical knowledge and apply this to the school context. This has given me a point of difference as a teaching within our school community, discussed in my previous blog post related to my teaching expertise. I regularly interact with suppliers of technical gear. There are many opportunities for training and development through this but I also can keep relatively up to date with newer ideas through correspondence from these providers, (albeit related to their products).

Online connections

Global connection is something exciting and this has opened up the chances for more like minded teachers to share and collaborate. Since enrolling in the mindlab course I have joined twitter and used social networking sites to join different teacher communities. I have also explored the VLN website which provides support and ideas for teachers working within the New Zealand context. Again, I tend to watch, observe and use the ideas of others as I would not categorise myself as an out there person.

Extending my professional connections

Through the reflection on myself as part of different communities I see that I am primarily an observer. A clear and obvious goal for me is to start to make contributions and make connections more with other like minded educators. There are two places where this can happen. I can take the confidence I have developed within my school context and share and participate as part of the Ako Hiko cluster where some of my other mind lab colleagues are also present, with the ic already having been broken. The second place is to contribute to the online discussions available through social networking and model what I would like from my students.

What are the benefits or challenges of working in a more interdisciplinary environment

This question is relevant to me as our school looks to investigate the use of modern learning environments and pedagogies. Clearly the benefits are that the pairing of like minded individuals with a different skill sets opens up a wider and richer range of learning experiences for students in classes. I think that at the primary school level where teachers are responsible for giving access to all strands of the curriculum this happens to some degree, but will work better when teachers with genuine strength and passion in particular areas come together this will be shared with teachers.

I think the challenge in this way is how teachers feel about the locus of control, are they ready to free up what happens and share that responsibility with others? Are they happy to become a learner again and how does the planning and facilitating of learning within this interdisciplinary environment give fair reflection to each discipline and ensure that all areas are covered, while still reporting to the national standards which are present in the current education climate.

*Activity 4: Your professional community

*Activity 4: Your professional community
Schools are diverse places with a variety of stakeholders. Stakeholders are broadly defined as people having a ‘stake’ in the school and its students, meaning they have a personal, professional or financial interest in the success and welfare of students (Hidden Curriculum, 2014)

Students
For me, the key stakeholders are students. The students come from a variety of backgrounds and have all had unique experiences. As a teacher I need to provide learning experiences that are relevant and engage and excite the students. It is important that learning is accessible for all and all achieve success. This means that I need to be aware of the students and their uniqueness to incorporate this in my teaching practice.


Families
Families have a vested interest in the success of their children. An effective working relationship between home, school and student allows all interested parties to provide the best support available for student. We look to get our community into school as often as possible to be involved in the learning and as a teacher I make provision for this and it to be successful.


BOT
The BOT are responsible for the governance of the school. In a general way the BOT are responsible for providing access to professional development and resourcing which also influence my practice. We are lucky to have a supportive board who have been encouraging and supportive regarding digital learning.


Colleagues
My colleagues provide the main professional network that I work within. We have adopted a PLC (professional learning community) structure which addresses an area of focus within the school. This allows me to draw on the experience, suggestion and ideas of other practitioners as well as providing collective responsibility for the students of our school. We all have varied skill sets and share these effectively to support each other



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

As outlined in the student section of stakeholders the main purpose of my practice is to provide opportunities for students to engage in relevant learning experiences. I have identified that we have a diverse community within our decile 2 school, many students could be considered to be at a disadvantage. This has an influence on the function of practice. To ensure equity for all we often use shared learning experiences at school to involve all students, then use the experiences of others to add and build knowledge together. This caters to the different members of the student community, allowing them to experience success.


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

The values that govern our school and us as teachers are displayed in our school charter. Respect is the key value at our school and is evidenced in everything we do. Central to this for me is the respect to treat people with respect and respecting the rights of others to learn, however or whatever this looks for them. The value of respect is interwoven through students interactions with each other, teachers interactions and interactions with the community. Other core values I identify with are innovation, through which we embrace change and try out new ideas to best support learnings. Inquiry and curiosity are also important values, ones to embrace in students but something that I need to model myself as a teaching professional. Finally I have previously discussed equity and fairness for all who have equal right to learn.


What is your specialist area of practice? How does your specialist area of practice relate to the broader professional context?

In my first blog post I identified that I enjoy using technology to support and enhance learning. For the past two and a half years ICT has been my area of responsibility at school as well as sharing responsibility for inquiry thinking. My interest in ICT has evolved over time and is very much self taught apart from some professional development experiences. Technology is playing an increasing role in the classroom. This year I have facilitated staff meetings and created iPad/digital learning workshops that are teacher opt in to support the learning of staff across the school to develop confidence and experience using digital tools to support student learning within our school community.


What are the challenges that you face in your practice?

Teachers face a variety of challenges day to day. I have chosen to focus on challenges relating to my identified specialist area of practice. I see the main function of technology and devices in the class to support learning and this is what I would like to be modelling and supporting other teachers with. For the majority of my time leading technology the release time that I has received is related to troubleshooting technology problems and little help developing pedagogical knowledge. Equity of access is also a difficulty. At this point in time all classes have 8 ipads available and there a a variety of issues using shared devices. The unique experiences of all students also make the personalisation of learning a challenge. I see the use of technology a way forward with regards to helping students learn at a pace suitable to their own needs.




References

Hidden curriculum (2014, August 26). In S. Abbott (Ed.), The glossary of education reform. Retrieved from http://edglossary.org/hidden-curriculum

Activity 2: Reflection on learning and practice

Activity 2: Reflection on learning and practice

In late October my principal approached me with the opportunity to study the relatively new initiative at the mindlab.  As mentioned previously I enjoy trialling new things in my class, especially related to the integration of technology. I thought this post graduate course would be a handy way to pick up some tricks and tips I could bring back to my students and staff in my role as ICT lead teacher. While this is true, it has also been so much more. I have described it as the push in the right direction I needed and it has helped my practice in a variety of ways.

My key learning as a learner

Collaboration is hard

From the start we were asked to collaborate as professionals. The clue should have been in the name of the qualification, yet as we progressed through the course I had the chance to think about collaboration and how it fits with students in my class. This is something I expect my students to do all of the time, asking them to move to groups and discuss. This really challenged me in a group and I think I am better for the experience. I have allowed more freedom for students to organise themselves into groups, while also challenging them to work with a different set of people at different times.

Disruption is good

I have shared that I am willing to accept a challenge and disrupt ‘the way’ I have done things in the past. The in house sessions provided me with different tools to try out. This learning has encouraged me to become more active, looking at different techniques and ideas and has provided me with supporting ideas to share with my colleagues in the role of ICT lead teacher.

Digital learning models-don’t reinvent the wheel

Without the mindlab course, it would have taken me a lot longer to have been exposed to key ideas. Next year I am going to be part of a 1:1 device class. The exposure to both the flipped learning and blended learning teaching models excites me. There is lots going on in these fields and a global network of  The key learning from this is that I have identified with pedagogical approaches that will support me to successfully implement this model.

How my practice has changed

The physical space

One of the biggest changes in my practice has been the way that I approach the space in my room. Assigning kids a seat/desk/chair was what I thought helped me to manage the class effectively. But why? I have grabbed old bean bags from the library, moved in an old coach, grabbed a stack of cushions integrated a whiteboard table and given the students some responsibility about making the choices to sit where they will learn best. This is as new for them as it is for me and guess what Our mat hasn’t become anarchy, kids choose where they would like to sit providing they don’t take the stuff of others and they are repaying the trust that I gave them. Of course there are issues but that is ok. The kids have the space to collaborate and move, all in a single cell class.

Introduction of small scale design thinking -

I value critical thinking and problem solving. I have buddied up with my syndicate leader, the other Year ⅚  teacher and negotiated with our principal to involve kids in design and technology thinking challenges. We collaborate across the school and have been successful so far during Term Two. The kids are enthusiastic and as teachers we are seeing these skills develop, albeit slowly because they haven’t really had the chance before.

Seeing myself as a researcher- 

The research and community informed practice paper reminded me of what I liked to do. Find and validate ideas. Having access to the unitec library has helped but being a researcher has made me question and opened my eyes up to possibilities. I have a plan ready to go for flipped classes, I need to act on this and have the platform to do this next year in a 1:1 class environment.

Activity 1: Create a reflective journal

Activity 1: Create a reflective journal

Who am I
Welcome! My name is Matt and I am fast approaching my 7th year of teaching. I have taught exclusively in Primary School, across year levels 2-6. I am currently teaching a composite Year 5-6 class of 27 students. I have varied interests outside of teaching including listening to music, I am an avid reader and I enjoy being active in sports, I have however taken a year off rugby this year as I have become a first time Daddy to my son James and also undertake this course of part time study.




What I teach

As a primary teacher, I am responsible for giving students access and opportunities to engage with the variety of disciplines included in the NZ curriculum. I enjoy this challenge because I get to share my passion with students in areas of my strength and I am able to develop myself but acquiring skills in areas that I am not so proficient. My favourite curriculum areas to cover are science and technology. I am particularly interested in the nature of science and facilitating students to investigate and explore how and why things work. I have always enjoyed numeracy, I like to motivate and encourage students to be active and healthy and I am enjoying the challenge of using ICT devices in a meaningful way in classes.




My teaching approach

My colleagues often comment on how calm and relaxed I am. I think this quality is essential when explaining my teaching approach. It sets the tone in our class and has helped me during my career to establish effective relationships with students, their families and my colleagues. While dictated by the current climate of having to complete assessment and report against national standards I think that I provide opportunities for students to develop confidence, independence and take more responsibility for their own learning. Group work and discussion are commonplace in our class. This gives students the chance to learn off each other as well as through my support and guidance. As I have become more experience I have felt more confident trying out different ideas and asking for ideas from my students as well.