MIT - KPMG

We were very lucky to spend a day at KPMG in Auckland and break down, un pack and really look closely into our moonshot proposals.  We were given the opportunity to share our ideas with not only our own colleagues but KPMG employees as well, it was awesome to get ideas from someone that doesn't work in education as well.

A really inspiring idea that I got from one of my colleagues was talking about a year 7&8 teacher at Tamaki primary and what she did one year for her inquiry.  From my understanding she got her students teaching their little siblings at home by taking home word blends, books, and basic word games.  Not only did this help for their younger siblings but it also consolidated their own understanding.

We had a chance to sit down and share where we are all at, being able to reconnect with people that have similar moonshot ideas.  This was really awesome and inspiring.  We then split into small groups and shared our ideas and talked to each other about what we want to do and were able to give each other feedback.  I did a very rough (as you'll see) design on the whiteboard and was helped by both Dorothy and Hinerau of my Google Site that I'll be designing and creating.

I then went to my computer and thought I would have a play and see what it would look like.. very roughly.  I now will take the template below away and design the colour scheme and the rest of the site.  Learners and teachers will be able to use this site for resources of making movies and learning how to teach effectively via movie making.

If you have any ideas or feedback please leave me a comment or send me an email.

Weekend away in Kuatonu - My Inquiry

This weekend we were extremely luck to go away for a few nights and look in depth into our inquiries and realise exactly what we're doing.  I went into this weekend with a few ideas on what I wanted to do for my inquiry and now I have so many different ideas thanks to the MIT crew.

We arrived late Thursday night where we were able to have a nice relaxing evening getting to know each other, followed by a few very funny team building activities on Friday morning.

We were then able to get stuck in, my goodness I didn't realise how much my inquiry was going to change!  We did an activity where we put everyone who we thought would support us in our inquiry down on an A3 piece of paper, and my goodness there are a lot!  I'm incredibly blessed to have such an amazing team around me who will be able to help me take on this inquiry.

We then looked at the big 'WHY', why choose this inquiry, why will this help our children.  Our original inquiry idea was challenged.  This was incredibly helpful as it got us looking into the 'nitty gritty' of our inquiry.  I ended up turning my inquiry question around as I found it was only focusing on one way that I could engage students in writing.  My question has now become 'How can I engage and give learners ownership of their writing to increase achievement?'

We then critiqued each others inquiries and gave ideas on where we think we need to improve (seen above).  I needed more hard evidence/data supporting my ideas.  So I need to go back to the drawing board, and get the data and the evidence of why I decided to inquire into this part of my practise after all.

This was an amazing weekend away just focusing on my inquiry, I learned lots and was able to apply my new learning to my inquiry that I have decided to take on this year.

'How can I engage and give learners ownership of their writing to increase achievement?'

Thanks heaps to Dorothy, Anne, Jenny and Russell for making this weekend happen!

Term 3 Inquiry - Where are we headed?

For those who are following my inquiry, this term i'm focusing more directly on how I can make the shift from stage 4 into stage 5 to my priority children.  I will be trying different ways of pushing these kids into stage 5.  Stay tuned to see if it works!

Inquiry 2017

“How can I accelerate maths achievement by focusing on Maths knowledge with groups working below national standard?”

The Manaiakalani Community of Learning is working together on this task using the expertise existing in of our community of learning.

In 2017 for my inquiry I have selected the following CoL achievement challenge 

#4. Increase the achievement of Years 1-10 learners, with a focus on Years 7-10,  in reading, writing and maths, as measured against National Standards and agreed targets.

The teaching as inquiry framework I will be using in 2017 has been specifically co-constructed for Manaiakalani schools using our familiar Learn Create Share structure.
The elements in this framework share close similarities with other models New Zealand teachers use.

I will be labelling my posts as I update my inquiry throughout the year to make the content easy to access.

Label Key:

LEvidence	Learn - Gather Evidence	CPlan	Create - Make a plan	SPublish	Share - Publish
LScan	Learn - Scan	CTry	Create - Try new things	SCoteach	Share - Co-teach
LTrend	Learn - Identify Trends	CInnovate	Create - Innovate	SModel	Share - Model
LHypothesise	Learn - Hypothesise	CImplement	Create - Implement	SGuide	Share - Guide
LResearch	Learn - Research	CReflect	Create - Reflect	SFback	Share - Feedback
LReflect	Learn - Reflect			SReflect	Share - Reflect