Fine

  I was a bit skeptical coming into this course. I thought Me?Lead? I don’t want to got to ledership, AP or Prin! I am happy dong my job well in the classroom! Now of course I get that there are many concepts of leadership and many styles and reasons for leading. Like I said in my ARP, this has been about bringing in change from the grass roots level. It has been like a re-energizing force in my career and sparked my enthusiasm and imagination. It has been powerful to have the opportunity to implement what I am learning as I learn. The timing could not have been better. Like in all good teaching theory, I was ready and needing to learn about how to bring change in my and other’s teaching. The experience of gaining confidence has been amazing and getting an insight of what the common vision of our school leaders needs to be. It has actually made me understand an appreciate the people I work with more in so man cases and brought me closer to them. I feel a real team atmosphere around my workplace now.

Today is the first day where we have moved furniture and opened up different learning spaces in the classroom and our kids have been so ready for it. They are showing a sense of ownership and empowerment by having choices open to them and are all so engaged and see their Ipad as as tools.

We re moving into now showing peers in other year levels our DB Primary trial. I am loving the feel in our classes and the independence, ownership and creativity I am seeing in our students. They are learning to be responsible for choices in their learning and on occasions they are leading the teachers and others with new ideas.

I think that my ongoing reflection will be in the form of Twitter and monitoring my responses to blogs and articles that I read. It will be all about ‘How can I improve my practice?’ I want to continue to discover ways to engage kids in learning and to discover ways technology can do this.

I feel my summary from my Arp says all about what I have learned about myself : “I am now a leader
I lead from in the pack
I lead by doing
I am approachable
I share good ideas
I communicate consistently
I can share a vision
I have the confidence to take my time to share my ideas as people will follow my enthusiasm. I can spread the seeds of change in my community.”

I do feel like an important, valued member of the team now with something to give others. This course has played a large part in that.

week 13 continued

This course has taught me to reflect on readings and viewings and connect it to my own practices and experiences. Its been many years since I studied and the difference is now I have practical experiences to draw on while learning. This has been a course that has been timely and relevant.

A significant event has been the response to my ARP from Nikki and Matt. It shows the me the new depth of thinking and reflection I can now achieve with the benefit of age and experience. As a uni student or studying travel in my 20s I would never engaged in this type of learning and been able to reflect to such depth. It is reaffirming that as a “mature” learner (is 43 mature?)  my work can be use to lead others in following courses. Have to say this have given me a whole new view of myself…

For me, I feel where I am most interested in continuing to source learning and ideas through Twitter. I think I am almost addicted and can’t wait for time on the holidays to filter through all the stuff I have like for things to apply to my team/school. I am excited about this way of developing myself as a teacher.

week 13 reflection

I really like the video on 21C learning this week. My favorite thing was it's emphasis on how the classroom now is not the only place for learning and that is now a 24/7, anywhere proposition. I was happy to see parents involved in the video as this has been one of my main considerations during this course. I also related to it as being a parent, i understand how learning is available to my kids any time - even at times i wish they were asleep…. It reminded me of the learning that was still accessible to my kids as we travelled through France and Spain for 2 months last year. Lucky for my daughter and son, they have a teacher for a Mum and I have fond memories of working through fractions on Mathletics with my son at the ancient table of pre-revolutionary farmhouse in rural France on one of our quiet days. He kept up with and actually excelled at maths that term even though he was on the trip of his life. This shows just how learning can be as needed, when needed.
It just reaffirms one of our foci in the Change Plan being parents - i would love them all to see learning a i do. I was happy when one of our boys who is off to Vietnam for a couple of weeks to see family checked he could take his iPad with him. I hope he jumps on and uses it to record his adventures.

Week 12. Are we there yet?

Actually, reading Stephen Heppell's letter to Queensland was very pertinent to my recent experiences talking to friends whole recently moved there. It could have been to Victoria as well though.
This is a one- off opportunity now though to make the change to 21C pedagogy. We have so many young grads that are a rich resource and so many people about to retire with rich experiences to draw from. I feel privileged to actually be in the middle of this. I am one of the few who teachers who survived the Kennet years and introduction of contracts just as they were graduating and fortunately stuck it out and eventually got job security mixed in with many other employment experiences. I am one of those last mohicans that I discussed early in the course who remembers the time without all this technology but has readily made it my own. I feel powerfully equipped to lead the charge into the future.
The mention of standardized testing was timely as we have just come out the other side of NAPLAN.
As a teacher i didn't have much to do with it but saw it swirl through the school and also through my home - having both a year 7 and Year 5 child. My approach to it is "these things shall pass, just do your best, no pressure" You could say the biggest value i place on them is that they are one, somewhat unreliable assessment tool out of many. They are such a juxtaposition against the sort of teaching and learning we are learning about.
I like the mention of fact that this type of learning is not always as expensive as it has to be. We are learning this at our school- we have to be resourceful. We have already discovered the rich source of ideas and resources that Twitter and Pinterest are.
We too are starting to feel that the hardest part is over and that our efforts are being rewarded.

Week 11- The Nitty Gritty

Michael Fullan's reading was very timely and relevant in light of my own experiences this week. The kids are up and flying with the iPads and we are really seeing the change in their learning. They are leading the way with activities and tasks and teaching each other. They are rapidly leaning new technological skills as they work and there is a real buzz about their learning and excitement in the room. HOWEVER, i am in now doubt that there is still a big place for the teacher. They are the facilitators in learning but teachers cannot be hands off, they still need to be making sure the kids are on task and that their activities are relevant and purposeful. Because they are ubiquitous and 24/7 teachers do need to set protocols and guidelines for their use and make kids accountable for what they are doing when in front of they screen, as they are so tempting and multipurpose. I have had to redirect kids away from Minecraft……So many of the issues I face at home with 2 tech savvy screen addicts have wised me up to the temptations and distractions of the screen. As a teacher I need to be aware of creating a culture of discriminating use and the view of it as a tool for learning. That said, i am loving how it is slipping seamlessly into their learning, for example while placing photos of shape patterns into a book creator page one boy decided on his own to record an explanation of the pattern he made. Way beyond what we had thought of for the task but so rich - especially for our English learners.

As for the change plan, I will keep in ming as we work that it almost needs to be a SMART plan- I think that is like a Skinny plan. Acheivable in a timeframe.

Action stations...

As Nikki said today, it really was about the HOW TO.  After today I am really keen to get back to the classroom to start changing a few things and getting rid of tables and reconfiguring out layout and buying furniture- lookout Helen. I and pleased to see how it can really work and would like to see some planning documents from Silverton PS. So I can see how it looks on paper. It was all so busy but I could see it was organized and all kids and teachers seemed to know what they needed to be doing. I still wonder, having worked with a few kids with Aspergers and autism, how would they copw with the business and noise around them. I know a few who I feel may struggle in this sort of learning environment and wonder how it could be altered for them.

It has been significant for me to know already that I cant wait to get back to my room and really shake it up and be sure that the kids and my teaching partner are really going to go with it. I have a real chance to lead the team and make some profound changes in the school that others can take up. Some steps like furniture can change soon, some will take time. But I know we have buy-in in the team. Having the enthusiasm to bring these changes is a good feeling. Looking forward to putting some ideas/plans on paper tomorrow. Feeling a little ready to lead.

Feeling the vibe.Week 9

•             What you now know about yourself, your teachers, your students and your school that you didn’t know before you started this course?

•             Identify the things you’d like to change – about yourself, your school, your teachers, your students

•             Describe your current feelings and reactions to your experiences so far in this course

•             What are you learning and what have been the most powerful learning experiences for you?

Linked to parents experience at school council

Molly asked for qualification

T agreed

Discussed parent expo night

Timley, concise

Can we show this to parents, have already shown similar stuff to parents

Discussed this I how we infuse this type of learning – discussed how kids are already taking it on- googling adjectives for writing

Talking with Wence and Kim

I think the most powerful insight I have gained through the course is how the process of change can work. I have seen it so far in my staff. One of our team’s grads commented on how far she has come with using Ipads in class – from only using it for photos to now using explain every thing. I presented and discussed Stephen Heppel’s video today and I could really see her reflecting and making connections to how we need to let the kids lead and go where there interests lie. I have now seen my own ability to lead change in the above example but now also in our planning for our team. Collaboration has also become clearer. We had an impromptu visit from the NSW teacher of the year to see our prin and she came and sat in and heard about what our journey has been like.

I feel I have lead change in our students learning which is now being shared with our school council. They walked away really buzzing last night after leadership presented the student’s achievements with Ipads so far. This will no doubt be spread throughout the wider parent community and I guess this is exactly the effect I was hoping to see as part of my ARP.

This change is the change I want to continue to see and now the next step is to spread the enthusiasm and understanding through the rest of our staff to continue the change.

I now totally get his part of the course – on leading by being in the team, by learning together how I don’t have to even expect all the leadership to come from me but also see my team mates start to share and lead too so that we are really collaborating. I have learnt to share in timely, concise manner and take discussions where my team want to go.

This course is worth it but I am really feeling the impact it is having on me, my course partners, other staff, our students and finally our parents. This was the right course for the right time.

Week 8 e-journal

Ejournal week 8

It was reaffirming to see the results of the e-learning survey for my fellow staff. It confirms the feelings myself and my team are experiencing. We are feeling that we need further training to inform us of what we should be using and how. Apps etc change so rapidly that it is hard to keep up and most of them are new to use. We want to skill up on the use of these for deep learning and inquiry but have not been given any support to do so. This frustration would be evident in our responses as a school  -in some way we feel like we are fighting a battle to keep up with innovations when the learning to do so is not a priority. We are all time poor in this respect.

In contrast, our hearts are in the right place and we wish to take on 21c learning into all areas of teaching and learning which is why we are high in New Pedagogies and engage in it to some extent ourselves.

I am really starting to feel the value of this course and see that I can be a leader- not just the traditional leading. I feel that maybe in the last few years I have lead and more so as I have gained confidence and experience and I am now getting insights into my strengths and that being a leader doesn’t mean aiming for a higher pay packet… I’m back on top of the workload now and finding many readings are re-affirming of my thoughts for my ARP.

Reading 8 Forces for Leaders Of Change was a powerful experience. Her are some of my thoughts :

·      Mirrors thinking I have had

·      Building capacity while learning while doing integrate it into teaching and learning at the same time training and PL is not enough for us at the moment.

·      I am in the middle of this trying to effect change by pushing leadership to build these conditions while leading from the pack but further ahead in learning

·      Culture of evaluation –as I am conducting course but would like to evaluate the outcomes later on effect on parents at some later point.

·      Helen (my Principal) is trying to develop leadership from within but I am trying to develop my leadership from within which in time will spread to other in my team if I move on. I am modelling leadership.

·      Changing context of parents but also changing context of leadership in the school

·      MENTIONS FIRST YEAR TEACHERS!!!! Here is my mission.

A significant issue for me this week has been balancing the use of technology in my home. My son is 13 and my daughter 10. Being digital natives, tools such as Ipads are part of life but they can easily take over. The kids can be difficult to shift if they are in sight at all. Getting tasks done around the house. It has been a fine balance appreciating that these tools do much but are such a distraction. We have had to set firm boundaries and remind them that they have to be connected to the real world too. At times I have had to to point out to my husband that the Ipads went on the year 7 camp for a good reason- taking photos. I got that , he needed to be reminded about that. It was a positive move by the high school to let the m come along but to ensure they were used responsibly. I was reassured that the teachers collected them at night. I felt as though I was mediating between generation x and gen Z!