Tying it all together Or Making sense of ULearn14

I left Rotorua with a brain that felt too large for my skull. Since then things seem to have rattled around and settled into place. So after a few days what did I take away from ULearn14.

My final Breakout session, 'Coaching Conversations For Educational Leaders' had an unexpected result. While Mary-Anne Murphy was introducing her topic much of what I had experienced over the 3 days fell into place.

Some setting of the background first.

Professor Yoram Harpaz took us on a journey to unpack ideology and left us with the task of choosing one and using only that on which to base our teaching. He talked of the dissonance experienced when a teacher's belief is not in line with what they are expected to do, as well as the dissonance experienced by children when there are daily changes in what is expected and when they move from class to class. Consequently effective schools operate by one of the three meta-ideologies.

Mary-Anne Murphy introduced the mBrain model of thinking and aligned it to Dilt's pyramid, Logical Levels of Learning. She aligned the Head function, (cognitive) with the Behaviour and Environment on the pyramid, the Heart function, (emote values relational) with the Values & Belief and Capability, and the Gut/Enteric function, (core identity, who I am, self preservation) with Purpose and Identity.

Luke Sumich and his team from Summerlands School shared ways to actively encourage Professional Learning - not a reliance on Professional Development. They worked with Julia Atkin on aligning their Values and Beliefs. 

Tied in with this was a quote by Chris Clay from Mindlab that Professional Development and Professional Learning is about coming to grips with feeling uncertain - all the time. 'If innovation means we are temporarily incompetent because it is new, then continuous innovation means continuous incompetence.'

So - 
bringing these together means I now realise that my school, I and those in my team need to be sharing the same ideological platform. That Professional Development is aimed at the head (mBrain) or the behaviour and environment aspects of school life. Whereas Professional Learning is led by the gut (mBrain), the purpose and identity of Dilt (and also Julia Atkin). One is done to you and the other sought out.

Therefore are those who are 'sitting through' PD or saying 'tell me what to do and I will do it' not being touched in their gut, their purpose? Are they the people who like certainty in their life and are unable to cope with 'continuous incompetence' and so are not reaching out to lead their own Professional Learning?

There were many other things I have taken away from ULearn, practical ideas, hints and tips, relationships, etc but this linking of ideas and the questions raised has been the one that continues to provoke thought.

Become a Guerrilla Gardener, Cherry Pick and Gift Back

Breakout 5 & 6 

The final day of ULearn got off to a slow start after the fabulous party the evening before, and the necessity of packing.

Chris Clay of Mindlab had the difficult task of trying to get a discussion going in an area far more suited to lecture style presentation.  He managed to share several things that I now need to go away and explore further.

• Innovation Killer book by Cynthia Barton Rabe 2006. 
• What you know mimics what you expect.
• Zero gravity thinkers - work in the enviro but not constrained by.
• Find space to be innovative - think guerrilla gardening and apply to classroom programme.
• If innovation means we are temporarily incompetent because it's new then continuous innovation means continuous incompetence.  - from Intl monitoring ???
• PD & PL means coming to grips with feeling uncertain - all the time!
• the Agile school - Agile as in computer programming methodology. 

What do I take from this?

• Need to read up further but time / squashed curriculum is not an answer if we think Guerrilla Gardening.

And

• Are those who sit through PD and undertake no PL wanting a certain world?

My second session of the day managed to tie together many strands of my thinking over the 3 days of ULearn.  I will blog about that separately.

Mary Anne Murphy ran a session on Coaching Conversations for Educational Leaders.  She comes to it with a background in NLP coaching and mBrain concept.

• linked Head/Heart/Gut of mBrain to Dilt's pyramid.
• Head brain for creativity - cognitive, perception, pattern recognition.
• Heart brain for compassion - emote values, relational, affective,
• Enteric (gut) brain for courage - core identity, who I am, self preservation, mobilisation.
• get all 3 in balance.
• watch where hands are - clue to which 'heart' is in use / or dominant.
• change needed? - in gut area - relates to Dilt's purpose & identity.
• analogy for entering conversations - we bring baggage, leave it on our backs/shoulders behind us and leave a blank open space between people.
• Active listening - instead of repeating what been said - cherry pick and gift back. questions come later.
• Never ask why or ask leading question. 
• Questions to ask:

Finally she shared a way of setting goals.

• PERFECT outcomes - deeper and more compelling than SMART goals
• Positively Stated - if negatively stated as "If you didn't have xxx what would you have instead?"
• Evidence Procedure
• how will you know your're on track to success?
• How will you know you have (outcome), what will you see, hear, and feel that will let you know you have it?
• imagine stepping into your body at the time you have (outcome) and experience it fully now. What are you seeing, hearing and feeling?
• What are you saying to yourself?
• Are there any tastes or smells associated with having (outcome)?
• You should see a shift in physiology.
• Resources Identified
• what resources do you currently have to achieve (outcome)? think in terms of personal qualities, as well as thing like equipment, money, vehicles & people.
• Are there other resources it might b useful for you to acquire?
• Fundamental Steps Identified and Achievable
• What are the first steps you are going to take now to get what you want? List 4-5 steps.
• Ecological
• check that the outcome is sound and desirable.
• what will you gain when you have (outcome)?
• What will you lose when you have (outcome)? see below
• What are you gaining now, by not having (outcome)? Are there any areas you don't want it to affect?
• Does having (outcome) give you more choices in your life?
• Where or in what context do you want to have (outcome) ? Are there any areas you don't want it to affect?
• (Optional see above) How can you overcome this and still achieve (outcome)?
• what are the consequences of not achieving (outcome)?
• How does (outcome) fit with any other goals or outcomes you may have?
• Control and Congruence
• Is the outcome initiated by you and are you prepared to do what it takes to achieve and maintain the outcome?
• what do you personally need to do to achieve (outcome)?
• Do you need to persuade others to help? How will you do this?
• Do you believe (outcome) is possible and achievable?
• Does (outcome) fit with your values in this area?
• Time and Dated
• By what date and time will you have achieved (outcome)? Include the year.
• When will you start?

Connections

One of the exciting things about being at ULearn is catching up with Twitter and Google Hangout (#Teachmeetnz) friends.

In some cases it is a chance to meet in person again someone you share an electronic connection with.  Others it is 'ships in the night' where you see each other in passing but never see again among the throngs.

But the most thrilling meeting is the first time there is a face to face meeting for someone you have been communicating with for some time. These are probably the people I have shared with late at night, or been challenged by what they achieve, or those who I read and go You Did What? Meeting these people felt so comfortable and adds another layer of connectedness.

The importance of our electronic connectedness should never be underestimated.

I am deaf in one ear and wear hearing aids and so in noisy environments struggle to hear voices. (I am also very poor at recognising people) The world that Twitter opens, along with VLN etc, allows people to talk, discuss, argue, catch-up in a way that face to face, even here at ULearn, is not possible.

So when I (and others) don't recognise you in the dim lighting of tonight, 
So when I ask you to repeat yourself and still I don't understand,
So when I don't respond when you speak to me,
So when I smile and nod vacantly,
        'Bear with' (for Miranda fans) and deal with the virtual me. I will be having 'such fun'.

ULearn14 Breakout 4 - Real Learning

Lane Clark stated near the beginning how important it is to process what we hear / learn in the session.  This is so true. Last year I attended her workshop about how the brain worked but never properly processed the information. This year I pledge to make the time to properly take from the session and to apply what works for me.

Like Lane I am passionate about the fact that children entering school are active citizens who can make a difference in their and others lives. The NZ Curriculum is based on this premise. Year one and two children do not have to be 'babied'.

Our model of inquiry at school is constantly being refined and there were some points today that I need to revisit.

• How relevant is what we are teaching? Yes we are providing tasters on the topic then getting questions from the children before we plan. But we set the topic. As we head into planning for 2015 this needs to be looked at.
• I need to make the steps in the inquiry process more explicit and in child friendly speak / icons.
• Celebration has been very muted. Time to shout from the roof tops!
• The presentation / share aspects of the inquiry needs to be made more powerful. 
• As we revisit how we plan, examine the 9 steps Lane advocates and see how effective it is for us.

This was a useful and again a timely choice of workshop. It gave pointers for the journey I/we at school are on.

Universal Design for Learning - Katie Novak

Today's key note speaker at ULearn14 left me with questions about my practice.  Just what we want our keynote speakers to do.

When she shared her story about a teacher taking her aside and telling her she was wasting her ability and then putting in the effort to teach her how to learn, I had to ask myself am I having such an effect on children in my class? Then I needed to ask am I putting in the follow through with children? I am possibly being harsh on myself but it is so easy to get busy with 'stuff' that needs to be done and forget to apply energy to what matters. - Time for a time spent audit.

The modelling of feedback with the children is a practical technique I will take away from the session.  Yes I currently use different formats to collect feedback, self and peer assessments. However there is a lack of depth that I think the explicit modelling will help.

The biggest area to investigate though is Jean Anyon's work. Working in a low decile school with several high needs children in both my class, and in the team, it is very important that the 'hidden curriculum' is empowering. I have taught with teachers who have a deficit mind set and that is very damaging, but Anyon's work suggests a more subtle application of expectations. This will be something for our team to explore.

While these questions about practice are probably not what Katie Novak would have thought she was provoking it is what 'shouted' to me. 

ULearn14 Breakout 3 - Helen Prescott is amazing!

A very big Thank You to Helen Prescott who managed in just over an hour to make Google Apps For Education seem plausible and amazingly something that I can manage. This is quite an achievement. 

Helen has shared an amazing amount of information with us. She has included many many links that I will be able to explore in that wonderful thing called 'spare time'. And she is arranging a Hangout with a trainer to answer our questions.  She is amazing!

Armed with this information I can get started at school this coming term and set in place a plan for school-wide roll out.

This was a practical and very timely workshop to do.

Thankyou

ULearn14 blogging

I set myself a goal of blogging after each session while at ULearn14. This was to push myself to become quicker at writing and to record my reflections in a public forum.

Well I came unstuck straight away.  I hadn't factored in the short breaks and time in the buses moving from venue to venue. 

I have been able to quickly reflect upon the Breakout Sessions as they were both very relevant to what I am currently working on in my school. I have been able to sift the information through the filter of my current needs.

The Keynote speakers were speaking about more theoretical issues, ones that I needed to ponder upon.

Prof Yoram Harpaz spoke on "The ideologies of education: in search of the pedagogical sentiment."  

From this I took the idea that we need to choose one meta-ideology. By moving between Socialisation, Acculturation and Individualism perspectives we are creating confusion in our students. Effective schools teach by one and as students move from teacher to teacher there is congruence.

I also took the idea that teachers experience dissonance when their personal belief is at variance with what is expected in the school. I have worked in schools where this is so and it makes for a very uncomfortable situation.  

Following this talk I have a clearer idea of how ideologies influence my teaching and work within my team at school.

The second Keynote speaker was Dr Adam Lefstein - "Teacher Professional Discourse and Learning: What we talk about when we talk about learning."

From this I took that the language and methods of teacher talk are not always effective. After sharing how we don't use our talking time effectively he shared how to do so in smarter ways.



and five challenges:


Photos by Alex Le Long on Twitter.

So to sum up - the themes that have come through loud and strong today have been:

• Honesty in dealing with others. They deserve it and so do I.
• Continue to work on developing the team.  It is important.
• Keep working on how to have effective learning conversations.
• And work out how the school ideology, mine and those in the team can all be clearly stated so it is obvious we are working towards the same goal.

PD vs PL

The second breakout session I went to at ULearn14 was PD vs PL: a war you must win by Luke Sumich, Blair Giles and Barb Dysart from Summerland School.

It was obvious that this is a team that works well together. They acknowledge each other and changed the slides according to where the discussion was going.

It was very timely for me as I have become somewhat frustrated at the balance of PD and PL in my life, and that some people seem to not feel the need for PL. This I would like to change.

By looking at andragogy, how adults learn, it quickly becomes obvious that PD programmes are not going to be effective in all cases. Another case of just in case vs just in time learning.

Session was summed up in "Read - Study - Challenge - Experiment - Keep pushing"

So hints I learned on how to effect PL thinking.

• Develop passions of those in the team.
• Ask What are you trying? Individually and in groups. Have that as the staff meeting.
• Build the team
• have in place trust, honesty, communication, teamwork, leadership.
• have the difficult conversations and be honest.
• Create a school Code of Conduct. One using short real life language. Because what are people seeing - behaviour or intentions?
• Cut out staff meetings.  
• Put admin into a separate time - I wonder why it cannot be done by email, at least most of it.
• Info on Google Doc so can be caught up on
• Workshops offered on relevant topics - advertise, state 45 mins  not compulsory.
• School conference in the holidays - not call back days, but a conference with workshops, lanyards and great food. Use in school expertise. Can run as a cluster.

Notes to follow up on:

• The school had worked on aligning their values and beliefs with Julia Atkin. I really like her work and will read up on this again.
• Whole brain model as a way to help people identify their reactions.
• John Holts model of the world we live in. 

In all a very useful session. Thanks

Sometimes a workshop will show you how well you are doing

When you attend a work shop and realise at the end that your school is doing most of what the presenter was sharing, it is a good feeling. 

Of course there are always things to learn.  So what have I learned about Teacher Inquiry as part of Appraisals.

• Presenting findings at the end is valuable.  Teachers have something to work to that showcases their work.
• By using GAFE able to have public (within the school) records of what is happening. Can include personal responses to professional readings and teachers can learn from each others work.  
• Try using Halbert & Kaser Spirals of Inquiry 2013 to develop the big question. They have questions to guide the teacher in developing their questions.
• Fail Fast - Try something new, learn from it and make changes.
• Teachers Council will shortly be sending out more information about what is needed.
• Use VLN Teacher's Inquiry site. Lots of good information.

What was reinforced for me:

• Teacher Inquiry is about reflective practice.  It is not something on top.
• by using GAFE it is being recorded in one place
• this can be done individually or at times of discussion.

Over all I am glad I went as at the end of the time I realised we have a good basis to move on with.

Excited About Teaching

Watching Tony Ryan (#primedchatnz GHO) talk about teaching made me (almost) wish the holidays were over and I was heading to the classroom.  His ideas certainly resonated with me.  

He put the Key Competencies first, develop a strong sense of self in all children.  I loved his idea that there are only two groups in the world - you and everyone else.  Now get them in balance.  Such a great way to get a balance between selfishness and selflessness.

His strong statement about teachers needing to be learners, if they are not they are hypocrites.  By developing our own PLCs we are able to learn what we need when we need it  - just in time. 

Social justice, resilience, growth mindset, and on.

But the statement I like most is that which he demonstrated.  Get children excited about learning! Model it.  Well he certainly does that.  He is enthusiastic and fluent.  He speaks from the heart and he has said so eloquently what I believe. 

Inspire the children, the teachers and the parents, and everyone else to learn.

Tony Ryan - #primedchatnz GHO

Note to self: Those acronyms creep in everywhere!