The importance of Hauora or just be kind to your knees.

I love sport. I love playing it. I love watching it. I love talking about it. 

Unfortunately my body does not always keep up with my love of sport.

I had my first knee surgery at 16 and on Thursday last week I had my 4th knee operation, removing a bone spur and one of the pins in my left knee. The procedure went well and now I have an interesting memento to share with my students when I get back to school in Week 7.

My second year of teaching is throwing up a multitude of challenges, obstacles, and learning opportunities.

It is frustrating to have health issues interfere with your work life but it very important to take note when you are not well. 

As teachers, we know that our students pick up on our moods and respond to our general disposition, so when one area of hauora is unbalanced this affects more than just the teacher, it affects the whole class.

Hauora refers to 4 key areas of personal well-being: taha tinana (the body), taha wairua (the spirit), taha hinengaro (the mind), and taha whanau (the social). Dr Mason Durie's Whare Tapa Wha model is embraced at TPS and we help students to recognise the importance of having balance and stability across all 4 areas of self to promote health and well-being.

So I am practicing what I teach :-) and taking care of my taha tinana.

I am very much looking forward to getting back into the playground and running around with my students - with 2 working knees.

Cat's Cradle, Witches Broom and an Eiffel Tower - Learning String Games

Learning String Games - Tuakana/Teina Session

In Week 3 we decided to link our inquiry topic - Practicing Peaceful Play - with a Tuakana/Teina session and had the students exploring different types of string games.

It was fantastic to see a mixture of 'expert others' in both the Year 7 and the Year 4 classes. Students who were able to share their existing knowledge of string games (for example Cat's Cradle) and teach their buddy.

I introduced the students to a selection of youtube clips and they were off!! Students watched the videos and taught each other how to complete the more complicated string games like the Eiffel Tower and Fishnet. 

It was really interesting to see the different ways that students learnt - some responded really well to the videos while others learnt better by having a buddy talk them through the steps.

A couple of the students showed great patience teaching me how to correctly make the Cat's Cradle and to 'cut off my fingers', and I think this kind of learning and teaching experience is invaluable. The students are empowered to take control of their learning and to understand that they have skills and knowledge to share. 

My highlight was seeing the persistence and focus of many of the students, who set themselves challenges to complete complicated and difficult string games. It certainly paid off with many students mastering a range of different games.

Following on from the exploration session, the students were asked to create step-by-step instructions to teach others how to complete a specific string game. Check out Marcus, October and Mason's instructional presentation here.

I found that some students were much more suited to oral instructions and so I borrowed a couple of Ipads and got some of the students to make their own instructional videos. These just need a little editing before posting but check back on the class blog soon.

A thoroughly enjoyable set of lessons and it's great to see that these types of old fashioned games still make up an important and fun part of children's lives today.

Conquering the summit - thanks to Kids Can

                         

Today some of the students from Tamaki Primary School were given an awesome free trip to Rangitoto Island, courtesy of Kids Can, Tasti and Fullers Ferries. It was so great seeing the children all bright eyed and very excited in the morning, all smart and warm in their Warriors Jackets (thanks Kids Can!).

The bus ride and ferry terminal were filled with the enthusiastic and very loud voices of approximately 60 students, all eager to start the adventure! The photo below is of a large group of the students taking part in a new and noisy game of 'Pukana' which was a lot of fun and also provided some entertainment for the tourists walking around the Cloud this morning!

We had our own chartered Fullers ferry for the journey over and all of the children received a Charlie's Bottle of Water and assorted Tasti snacks which were promptly devoured on the ride over to Rangitoto. For some of the students it was only their first or second ride on a boat so again the energy levels were very high as we made our way out of the harbour. Many of the students had never been to Rangitoto before and were a little bit daunted when they saw the summit we were heading for way up in the distance.  

The wonderful group of volunteers supporting us were from Tasti and once we had sorted the students into their groups we started off on the ascent. After a false start where the leaders tried to take us to Motutapu Island we made our way onwards and upwards through the stunning volcanic rock and interesting vegetation. The older students were practically running their way to the top - which provided more rigorous exercise for the teachers than expected!

It was an invigorating, educational, talkative and fun ascent and descent with a quick stop at the top for lunch. A lot of the children were knackered by the top but still found the energy for games, loud conversation and lots of joking on the way down. Needless to say we did not see any wildlife and other visitors to the island definitely heard us coming! It was so heart-warming to see the excitement and joy in the students and I was so proud of them all for showing resilience and perseverance. The thank you speeches at the conclusion of the day made me proud to be part of such a great group of students and so thankful for organisations like Kids Can, Fullers and Tasti that support our students to experience these types of amazing adventures. The students will remember this for many years to come!!

New Maths: Talk Moves

This year our school is continuing with maths professional development however the approach has changed. Building on the diagnostic approach and direct instruction from the previous year; the new focus is on Problem Solving and Talk Moves.

Here is some of the literature behind the Talk Moves initiative. The main idea is that maths thinking and learning is supported and developed through talk, between the teacher and students but with the emphasis on discussion being student-led.

The five practices of Talk Moves are

1. Anticipating
2. Monitoring
3. Selecting
4. Sequencing
5. Connecting

Anticipating:

How will the students answer the problem?

What strategies might they use?

What might be their misconceptions?

An activity that is likely to increase the amount of time spent in planning a lesson.

Monitoring:

Give the students the problem and then allow them independent thinking time to answer it.

Record the different strategies during anticipating and then using that to record when monitoring what students are using each strategy. Not just watching but also questioning students to check their understanding.

Selecting and Sequencing:

Identify students that have got a correct strategy, although still choosing the students who have common misconceptions and sharing and discussing those answers too. Try to have students sequenced through their different strategies eg. from additive to multiplicative.

Connecting:

The Teacher draws connections between each of the students’ strategies. Highlights different strategies or indicates progression from additive to multiplicative thinking.

This approach seems quite different, noticeably in lesson delivery, than the previous years maths instruction. As such I have identified that I need to focus on my maths instruction and have set the implementation of this approach, merged with the previous years approach, as a goal of mine this year.

New strategies, new knowledge

Flash forward to the classroom.

I was teaching in a Year 7 & 8 classroom with students who were achieving at standards ranging from Level 1 to Level 5, or stages 2 - 8. A massive range for me to get my head around.

My school has identified maths as a specific area of focus and as such significant professional development has been, and is still being, administered for teaching staff. As a beginning teacher in my first year I made sure to make the most of any opportunities to observe maths group instruction, and tried to take full advantage of the professional development we received through a facilitator from Cognition.  

Towards the end of the year I was able to observe the Cognition facilitator deliver the same lesson to year 5 & 6 students and my own students in year 7 & 8. The group dynamics were a big factor in the delivery of the lesson content and the progress that the learners made. To be able to compare the learning experiences of my learners was invaluable.

It was great to see the progression of the learning experiences - knowledge check, use of materials, recording of student strategies, clarifying of maths language, to the co-construction of WALT at the conclusion of the lesson.

Certain concepts were not understood in the session with my learners and so had to be addressed through the use of materials.  There was unbalanced input from only certain members in the group which led to an uneven exchange and the facilitator was not sure of the understanding of all group members.

The discussion post group session involved establishing a group treaty of expected behaviour including not calling out and all members participating. This was a very interesting observation for me, as a beginning teacher, to see how important behaviour and group work expectations are when teaching in groups.

Here is an example of the format and modelling of the type of maths instruction that our school focussed on delivering last year. I have borrowed this image from my colleague Aireen. I was lucky enough to work alongside Aireen last year in a team teaching environment and she continues to be a wonderful mentor for my development as a teacher. This is how I tried to shape my maths group instruction in 2014.

New maths and newer maths

Over the next few weeks I will be reflecting on maths teaching and learning within my own practice. It is a goal of mine this year to focus on and strengthen my maths practice. It is also rather pertinent considering the recent media coverage of the state of maths teaching in NZ.

I have never been strong at maths.

Throughout my schooling I really had to apply myself and put in significantly more effort to understand (or at least utilise) mathematical strategies. I got extra tutoring at high school and asked for help from higher achieving peers to pass Maths with Statistics in 7th Form (Year 13). But I did it, I passed, and I was proud of my hard work paying off.

When I started at teacher training, maths lessons still did not come easy. Maths, as I knew it, had changed. A lot. No more learning rules and applying formulae to solve equations. This was my first introduction to the Numeracy Project. Developing number sense through teaching number knowledge and number strategies. Some strategies I remembered, while often times it was like I was learning maths for the first time. Looking back it was a great experience for me to understand and relate to my learners. It was pretty powerful to have 'aha' moments as an adult learning maths aimed at year 7 & 8 children.

I found that I had to work hard again at maths and again needed to rely on discussion and support from my peers to help me understand the different ways of thinking. It was a great opportunity for us (as trainee teachers) to see how maths should/could be taught in NZ classrooms. One of the maths teachers especially stands out for her fantastic work - Gail Ledger. She made maths interesting, relevant, and fun. Her lessons were wonderful models and she also worked hard to make us all feel supported. Through hard work and help I did rather well in my maths study yet I was still not confident in my maths teaching practice and being able to deliver instruction based on the Numeracy Project.

Kia Manawanui @ Auckland Museum

Today the Kia Manawanui senior syndicate went on an adventure to Auckland Museum. The sun was shining and the students were excited, a fantastic way to start Week 4!

We organised the trip to help our students investigate myths and legends as part of our inquiry unit this term.  We had two educator sessions; Te Ao Pasifika looking at the world through a Polynesian perspective, and Ancient Civilisations where the students became archaeologists and investigated artefacts from ancient Egypt, Greece, Italy and Scandinavia. 

A few spare minutes were also used to check out the amazing and very moving war memorial monuments and galleries, still decorated with beautiful remembrance poppies.

We had some wonderful parent and teacher helpers on the day and the students had a full on entertaining and educational day!