Teaching Inquiry 2018

Manaiakalani Film Festival 2018 - 50V50

One of the biggest crazes around the world is 'Fortnite'.  While it can drive me crazy watching our kids do the 'floss' or talk about 'skins'.  Majority of our class is hooked to this battle royal video games 'fortnite'.  

By using their interests, our class was able to work out their props, choreography, choice of music, location to record our scenes as well as working together as a team.  Students were able to talk to me about what they knew about 'fortnite' and how we can produce our movie better next year.  Here is a copy of our film:

DMIC Assessment

DMIC - Observation & Feedback

With Matua Don, providing observation & feedback.

Guided Reading - Observing Toni

DMIC Professional Development

Computational Thinking

My notes at Mindlab postgraduate certificate lecture about 'computational thinking' - interesting, how would I incorporate this in my teaching?

Level Up - "Move ya Body"

Our inquiry this term was "Move ya body" - our students from room 6 will show how they love to 'dance'. This video was directed by our students, from the choreography of their dances to the choice of music they selected.  This mini-movie included a few warrior players that talked about what's important to maintain a healthy body.  

21st Century Skill - Use of ICT for learning

This year I decided to learn more about digital learning, I'm currently enrolled with MindLab studying in a Postgraduate Certificate in Digital and collaborative learning.  This week we have been looking at 21st Century skills (ITL Research 2012).

This guide describes six rubrics of 21st-century learning, each of which represents an important skill for students for developing:

• Collaboration
• Knowledge construction
• self-regulation
• real-world problem-solving and innovation
• the use of ICT for learning
• skilled communication 

We worked as a group and looked at 'Use of ICT for learning'.

Retrieved from https://education.microsoft.com/GetTrained/ITL-Research

DMIC PD

'Use of physical restraints' at school PD

LifeEd - Drinking H20

Our students enjoy the interactive Life Education Van with Harold the giraffe and facilitator Lyn.  They get to explore and inquire about the importance of why our growing bodies need water regularly.

PD - CyberSmart

During PD with Lenver Shearing, we had learnt about 'Kawa of care' through cybersmart.

1. Kawa of care:

• Take care of stuff that you’ve been given.

• No liquid near your chrome book.
• They don’t like each other.

DMIC PD - what the big idea?

Language PD with Dr Jannie van Hees

Fiafia Night

Malō e lelei!  Pt England School was getting ready for one of their biggest events of the year - "Fiafia Night", we had a lot of practice, shed tears and sweat.

I was honoured to facilitate the Tongan Girls group (the biggest group in the school), who were a group of girls from various ethnic cultures.   I managed to book a local tutor Si'i Akauola.  She worked alongside her father Saia Akauola tutoring Auckland Girls Grammar for many years, and recently Massey College.  The girls were excited to work with her.

We had parents who got involved with practices and dressing of the girls.  They looked like a princess, simply stunning.  On the night it was raining - but they were outstanding!  It didn't matter about the weather, but how they worked as a team to rep a beautiful island - Tonga!  Malo 'aupito!

DMIC - PD

Mrs Siō Digital Dig

As a class, I got to hear Lenva teach our class, and work on my digital dig - to learn how to navigate my device and Google apps helps me to do things faster.

What does cyber-smart learning?

What does this look like?  Room 3 was privileged to have Lenva Shearing (Manaiakalani Educator) to teach about what does cyber-smart learning means.

DMIC PD with Dr Bobbie Hunter

PES was privileged to have Dr Bobbie Hunter launch the start of Developing Mathematical Inquiry Communities (DMIC).  Here are my PD notes

Welcome to 2018

Shifting from being a practicum student teacher to a full-time professional teacher has been challenging and rewarding.  I didn't quite understand what it meant to ensure the relationships in the class had to be professionals.

The first week, I thought the students were delightful, asking me about my life and being friendly.  The following week, I could slowly see I lost the respect of the students, even used rewards to win their affection that they listen to me.

I suddenly realised I was going to lose this battle.  The student's behaviour started to deter my confidence in this new profession.  I started to feel overwhelmed and hopelessness.  This was going to be my inquiry on how I can improve my effectiveness in teaching in the classroom.