Here is my second ENGAGE video called: The Magic Blanket

Friday 27th March, 2020

Home learning becomes a reality, but it's still quite surreal!

I have posted this onto each student's individual blog in my class to help them to access their Home learning over the lockdown period in NZ.

My first Quick Time ENGAGE video!

I have made this 10min video for Junior teachers in particular to use in order to carry out ENGAGE with their students at home. Now more than ever we need to focus on our children's personal well being during this time of uncertainty amid this COVID 19 epidemic. It involves using relaxation techniques such as controlled breathing and also being mindful. I hope that you will find it useful? Any feedback is warmly appreciated. TIA, your fellow online distance learning teacher.

Seaside Hui

This has been such a worthwhile opportunity to design, rethink and unpack my research project with a set of fresh eyes, like minded colleagues for support and time for meaningful reflection as I walked along the beach. Tena koutou, tena koutou, tena koutou katoa.

Empathy session/ role play

My MIT Moonshot buddy Kerianna and I got together to discuss what our current challenges are with our students in the classroom setting. We then role played each idea to the whole group. #1: So I started and began introducing "The Magic Blanket" game with Kerianna who was one of my Priority Learners (in amongst 19 other Year 2s) who was easily distracted, not focused and kept interrupting the game. I kept going, trying to involve her whilst using verbal praise and encouragement along the way. #2: She then began speaking fluently in Te Reo Maori and I pretended to be the disengaged student who was unwilling to participate in Te Reo korero g(speaking). My attitude was getting in the way of my learning, making it more challenging for Kerianna to carry out her Whaea role effectively. This gave our teaching colleagues an opportunity to observe the challenges we face in trying to overcome disengagement.

Crazy 8's - IDEATE

Here is the poster I created which highlights 8 different ways that I will utilise and implement support to help carry out my research project for this year. I took a photo of my poster which has "Googly" eyes to demonstrate the most popular idea! This was my idea to create a digital tool being a "Teacher Portal" for teachers to use to be able to access and implement the ENGAGE program with their students.

My new Research Project Title:

Teachers need a digital tool for the ongoing collection, analysis and sharing of ENGAGE data.

How might we?

My MIT colleagues gave me suggestions as to how I could utilise other people to help my with my research project.

Connections and Resource poster

Here is a poster of the people and resources I plan to contact and use for the initiation of my research project.

Design Thinking Quote which I agree with.

School Hall reflection

This imaginary school hall scenario involved 10 teaching colleagues who participated in a role play. We were all given a range of different characters to act out. The chairman identified a number of "challenges" that had come to the school board's attention and were being shared with parents of this "hypothetical" school. Some examples of the characters were a doctor, a lawyer, a cleaner, a farmer and an ERO representative. The issues that were brought to light were low oral language acquisition, lack of Te Reo Maori participation, students who needed support with transition to Intermediate, students who struggled with curriculum based literacy and maths learning, ESOL support, lower levels in Reading and Maths etc... So after a heated debate it was agreed that these pertinent issues either needed to be removed or dealt with as soon as possible, especially considering the principal was overseas stuck on a cruise ship. It was easy to relate to these challenges as they are based on the reality of the problems that we currently face in our low decile schools which have Maori/Pasifika students who attend. Research shows evidence of the learning outcomes of these students and how it affects them if not addressed by teaching professionals. So it was interesting to find out how other teachers might investigate these challenges over a period of time.

Tweaking and redefining the challenge

This is how my research began....my initial ideas was to focus on children's oral language acquisition for my original Moonshot proposal. I have now decided to use this for my Inquiry focus for 2020.