On Christmas Eve we flew to Taiwan from Christchurch, arriving at 11.30pm to Taipei Taoyuan International Airport - where we spent the night before shuttling with our tandem bikes to a hotel in central Taipei at 7am on Christmas morning. I first became interested in Taiwan when I watched a documentary some years ago where Oscar Kightley traced his DNA roots back across the Pacific through Samoa and Vanuatu, to Taiwan. You can watch the documentary here: Made in Taiwan . As well as interesting me from the perspective of indigenous peoples (see below) Taiwan is geographically fascinating due to its duality between traditional and sophisticated ways of life. Taiwan is a mountainous island. The island has the largest number and density of high mountains in the world. There are 286 mountain summits over 3,000 metres (9,800 ft) above sea level on the island, with Yushan being the tallest mountain in both Taiwan and East Asia. Taiwan was also the site of the February 2018 6.4 magnitude Hualien earthquake. Unbelievably, this was the first time I travelled in Asia so it was a unique learning experience in all respects and a very fascinating tail-end of my Highgate Fellowship. We spent four days in Taipei and were surprised not to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of people (2.6 million in Taipei and 23 million in Taiwan - a country just a little larger than Otago). Taipei has superb public transport and this enables a relative absence of cars and complete order in moving vast quantities of people everywhere. The National Palace, the National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Shilin Night Market, Beitou Hot Spring Museum, Huashan 1914 Creative Park and the Shung Ye Museum of Formosan Aborigines were all highlights. So how do you leave the relative comfort of an inner city hotel and jump on your bike to head out of Taipei and around the island of Taiwan? Surprisingly - just the same as the nervous anticipation when you leave the comfort of your own home here to embark on any adventure. With the help of non-english-speaking Eddie at the hotel, Google, a paper map, two policeman at the end of the road and two locals on a scooter (along with lots of thumbs up and ‘Welcome to Taiwan’ shouted from passing vehicles and scooters), we made it to the huge Taipei Bridge and exited onto a cycleway that lead many kilometres to the south-west end of the city. The cycleway was embellished by huge murals that stretched for miles - just a foretaste of the incredible artworks, sculptures, buildings and structures that we were to encounter across the island. Our route stretched down the very industrialised and urbanised West Coast, through the busy city of Hsinchu and down past the fishing nets and windmills on the No 1 Cycleway. I was pleasantly surprised not to encounter the pollution and smog I had anticipated (the wind may have helped with this). We encountered our first Bhuddist Temples and marvelled at the incense, the colour, the devotion, the detail of the ceilings and shrines, and the stories within. We saw the first of many rice padis and followed the one traffic rule you need in Taiwan - don’t hit anything in front of you! (perhaps ironic in light of my recent events!) Footpaths and carparks are clogged with scooters in cities and you have a complete right of way on a bicycle, passing double-parked cars, mobility scooters, dogs, street stalls and other unexpected obstacles in the scooter lanes which are shared. Traffic was kind and giving and many scooter riders and/or passengers (which sometimes included dogs and children) attempted communication or gave thumbs up or took our photo while stopped at red lights. Everywhere - on and off the road - we heard ‘Jia you’ which is a term of encouragement and kind of means ‘Keep going’. Even on our last days people still called out ‘Welcome to Taiwan’ as they passed on their scooters or called from the street. The 7-11s (a bit like our Night ‘n’ Days) became our lifeline to get out of wind or heat, eat something, go to the loo and just rest. Even there recycling was mandatory - and included almost everything, including takeaway coffee cups. There are very few plastic bags and no smoking allowed in parks. We saw solar bridges, thousands of electric vehicles, green spaces and dedicated cycleways everywhere we went. A highlight was the Sun Moon Lake, a steep 800m ride up to a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains and home to the Ita Thao aboriginal tribe. The Xiangshan Visitor Centre is the most incredible modern building I have seen, built specifically to frame the lake beyond. The lake itself is enveloped by a fabulous spacious cycleway that cantilevers and almost floats above the lake. Unfortunately this came to an abrupt end where it was closed due to a killer hornet nest! The Wenwu Temple perched high at the end of the lake was another highlight. We attended an Ita Thao cultural performance which was vibrant, colourful and told important stories despite the language barrier. Taichung and Kaoshuing on the West Coast were two of our favourite cities. Modern, crammed with cycleways, beautiful parks, sculptures and green buildings in all directions, these cities are visions of the future where sustainability and aesthetics are prioritised in urban design. Apart from a vertical drop rollercoaster and missing an Uber ride home in the dark on New Year’s Eve, the highlight of Taichung was the incredible Rainbow Village created by former soldier, Huang Yung-Fu, who began painting houses in his settlement, now known as Rainbow Village, to save them from demolition. Over the years his colourful artwork, which includes birds, animals and people, has spread over the remaining houses in the village. In Kaoshuing the beautiful Kaoshuing Stadium was shaped like a dragon with a full roof of solar panels and by night Love River in Kaoshuing transformed into a river of lights, beautifully lit sculptures, river boats and buskers. We biked as far south as Checheng before crossing to the East via the 42km climb to the 500m Shouka Pass. Emerging to the glistening turquoise Pacific was wonderful - though travelling through the gobsmacking roadworks and engineering feats of the new East Coast highway required some skill to negotiate the one lane construction zones. There were also Taiwanese military exercises involving bombs and fighter planes adjacent to the road as we departed the west, evidence of growing tensions in the Taiwan Strait between China and Taiwan. The East Rift Valley was a highlight. We stood on the boundary between the Philippine Sea and the Eurasian tectonic plates, were invited to refreshments in a luxury resort, went to the famous Mr Brown Avenue - a “green road of paradise”, visited a tea plantation, crossed the Tropic of Cancer and emerged again at the coast at Hualien. Unlike Christchurch there is zero evidence of last year’s devastating earthquake there - testament to the huge construction industry in Taiwan and the wealth of the nation. The absolute pinnacle of the trip was our cycle up the Taroko Gorge on Lucy’s 17th birthday. It is a 19km marble canyon carved by the Liwu River, as stupendous as Yosemite or other geological marvels around the world. At the head of the gorge we walked on the Baiyang Waterfall Trail and saw Formosan monkeys grazing in the trees alongside the trail. Cycleways, surf towns, cycle tunnels, hills and yet more stops at 7-11s led us back into the cycleways of Taipei and we finished our trip with a trip to the Taipei 101 skyscraper - the tallest and largest green building in the world. We travelled up 89 floors in 37 seconds. The building design echoes Bhuddist pagodas and bamboo and contains a 728 tonne steel pendulum that spans two floors and combats seismic movement and winds from tropical storms. In conclusion, Taiwan was beautiful, fascinating and thought-provoking. Rich in religion, culture, history, architecture, art, engineering, wildlife and scenery and having experienced rapid and recent economic development, Taiwan leads us up and into the age of the modern and beautiful. Because it has emerged so recently economically, its design and planning has been in line with the rise of sustainability, making it green, clean and gorgeous. Despite the language barrier and not knowing what we were ordering or eating half of the time, the people were warm, helpful and encouraging, with a great sense of humour. Its future is uncertain politically but one likes to think it can remain as it is - free, beautiful, sustainable and democratic.
You can read further about the whole journey here: http://onewheeleach.blogspot.com/ Many thanks to the school and the Board of Trustees for giving me such rich learning opportunities over the past year. It has been a year of very positive growth and development for me - despite the rollercoaster journey! ~Bridget Davidson
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Six New Zealand teachers will learn about Indonesia and Islam up close and personal on a two-way exchange starting next week. Nicky Chapman and Lisa Taylor will travel to Jakarta to connect with their Indonesian counterparts at Al Azhar Schools from April 11 to 18. Al Azhar has some 50,000 students across the country, and Indonesia has the largest Muslim population in the world, with close to 90 percent of its 264 million people followers of Islam... To read the official press release about their trip click hereKia ora tātou this is a brief overview of my Mind lab journey. Though it has been a lot of work I would actively encourage participation in the course. An agile solution to a Trickey problem? My mind bubbles when I think about all the potential inquiries and tangents that I could explore due to my Mindlab journey. An issue in my practice is often I look for the new and exciting and embrace it without fully understanding what it is. The idea of failing fast is not always the best practice for the classroom. I really enjoy talking about changes in my practice with others and me and colleagues are in a constant cycle of reflection. Two inquiries that I am thinking about looking at are: “How can Agile Methodology be applied to the classroom to effectively increase students self-management?” Or “How can gamification be effectively used to increase skill mastery in Mathematics?” These topics may be helpful for my community of practice (COP). #Bafflegitimize is a cross-curricular professional learning group that I belong to in my school. Our domain of interest is increasing student engagement in the classroom. We have regular meetups in a work setting, informally and digitally. When we meet we spend time talking about what we notice in our classroom common problems we have experienced with our learners and what we new strategies we have tried. It can be difficult to meet due to some members being part-time and the busy nature of our work but we are a tight and non-judgemental team with the best in mind for our learners. I am often viewed as the one who seems to be trying out something new and the group would label me as “future-focused”. I do not know if the community of practice would be so receptive to these inquiries. Due to the changing nature of our workplace words like “agile” and “gamified” can often be seen as fad like. Like everything else, this too will pass. We have used Kahoot, Quizlet and other learning games but they have their limitations and students can quickly tune out. Learning sometimes has to have the necessary academic rigour is also a critique that has been levelled at these concepts. I also know that my COP is willing to attempt the new and would love to see how they could possibly develop the practice in their classroom. Being a cross-curricular group will it work in subjects like Dance, Spanish, ESOL, PE and Economics? It actually surprised me when I started looking at the idea of the Agile classroom that there is so much research out there. The beautifully entitled paper referenced at the bottom talks about the friction between cyclical and transformative change and this echoes deep within my COP. We struggle to let go of old systems and feel there is a value in them. I think another important thing for my COP to understand is that the Agile methodology is not about technology but it has humans at the core of its method. Imagine how much improvement we could make within our weekly retrospectives both as a team and our students. As for gamification, we could see more of a need for this in mastering Maths skills. It is very interesting to read about the use and success of the Math Land project on students with Emotional and Behavioural issues. Though from the research it does seem to lend itself to skill mastery well would it result in the deep learning we may require from our students? So I guess it is time to think about which pathway I will venture down and how many of #bafflegitimize will travel with me. Personally, I am very excited by this journey into the unknown and know where ever I am heading student engagement is the aim. ~Duncan Trickey References
https://www.worldgovernmentsummit.org/api/publications/document?id=2b0d6ac4-e97c-6578-b2f8-ff0000a7ddb6 Explorations into becoming new, radical, and quite possibly dangerously progressive within an Aotearoa New Zealand contextDunham, Nicola; Owen, Hazel; Heta-Lensen, Yo https://medium.com/laboratoria/the-agile-classroom-embracing-an-agile-mindset-in-education-ae0f19e801f3 https://www.infoq.com/articles/agile-schools-education Bozarth, J. (2017). Nuts and Bolts: Communities of Practice. Retrieved from https://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/2400/nuts-and-bolts-communities-of-practice Cambridge, D., Kaplan, S. & Suter, V. (2005). Community of practice design guide: A Step-by-Step Guide for Designing & Cultivating. Retrieved from https://net.educa use.edu/ir/library/pdf/NLI0531.pd… In the classroom one of the most difficult times for our students is pre-examination. This often seems to be even more difficult in the Maths classroom. The number of emails from parents as we go towards Exam time increases and students generally worry more. One way I changed my practice was to use Classcraft in the classroom. This is a role-playing based online game. I felt that if I could foster the idea that the students were on a quest to defeat the exam together, we would see better results. This idea lets me rethink the roles of me and my learners. I was no longer the teacher but the game master and my students each had a personalised digital avatar to adventure with. I spent vast amounts of my youth chasing Snotlings and pretending to be a werewolf so this change felt really exciting for me. The girls in class were excited as well and loved to personalise their own avatars giving them roles and powers. I was excited about the class and really enjoyed setting up different adventures based around defeating the end of year exam. It worked very well for some of my more cautious learners; those that often relied on the teacher's knowledge. Instead, they now worked more collaboratively to tackle the problems and did not rely on me. The engagement in class increased and students began writing up problems on the board and their teams would work together to teach each other content, trying to tackle the more difficult questions. If I further analyse this change in my practice, it was clear to me the students had to develop a new view of our roles in the classroom. There are a number of theories on why gamifying learning works well. Curtiss Murphy talks about motivation as one of the biggest factors in improving learning, and by increasing the motivation for students to work and succeed as a team, I had unlocked more agency in my learners. The experience in my classroom also seemed to echo Jane McGonigal's concepts of “social fabric”, “Blissful Productivity” and “Epic meaning”. We were no longer students in the classroom, we were a band of warriors slaying the Demon of Algebra. How else could I have developed this idea for my students? Could the whole exam have been a gamified experience instead of a standard test? The results in the exam were an improvement from the previous year, but not for every student. Could an examination be more gameful? In what way? Imagine an exam were every student went in with the same motivation I had seen in the game? Rather than an independent closed book exercise, we were thrown into some fantasy realm where we could use the skills we had been equipped with to solve problems. What effect would this have on our learners? What further action am I going to take with the knowledge about the motivation my learners have experienced in the classroom due to this change in my practice though? That is a really wicked problem and I have tried to develop different gameful ways of delivering content but none with as much success as Class Craft. Would the novelty eventually wear off if all the Maths content was delivered this way? Gamification is a wonderful and creative way to approach learning but would it be sustainable in my practice? If it is to be, I would have to call for a more collaborative approach. Who knows what kind of awesome adventure me and a colleague could develop for our learners!? References:
Kapp, Karl M.. The Gamification of Learning and Instruction : Game-Based Methods and Strategies for Training and Education, Center for Creative Leadership, 2012 Curtiss Murphy, Why Games Work and the Science of Learning, Alion Science and Technology https://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world https://www.educationcounts.govt.nz/publications/schooling/109306 Finlay, L. (2009). Reflecting on reflective practice. PBPL. Retrieved from http://www.open. ac.uk/opencetl/sites/www.open.ac.uk.opencetl/files/files/ecms/web-content/Finlay-(2008)-Reflecting-on-reflective-practice-PBPL-paper-52.pdf ~Duncan Trickey A few weeks ago when I was on a course in Wellington, one of the presentations involved questions around gender and some common terms. We were discussing the challenges students and schools face when catering for the diverse needs of our LGBTQI community. Some of the terms I was very familiar with, (I know that I am a cisgender female), but others, I wasn’t so confident with, for example, what it means to be bigender. So I thought I’d do some research, and also share with you a wonderfully simple diagram which helps to explain, or map out, gender. I thought I knew "the basics", but this diagram and the explanations really helped me solidify my understanding, and my confidence in explaining some of these terms and concepts to students (and my son) who may ask. The Genderbread PersonGender identity, gender expression, biological sex, and sexual orientation exist independent of one another. The schema used below to map out gender (the “-ness” model) allows individuals to plot where they identify along both continua to represent varying degrees of alignment with the traditional binary elements of each aspect of gender, resulting in infinite possibilities of “gender” for a person. Gender Identity: Who you think you areOn the left of both continua there is an empty set symbol, which is meant to represent a lack of what’s on the right, and on the right we have “woman-ness” (the quality to which you identify as a “woman”) and “man-ness” (ditto, but with “man”). Gender identity is all about how you think about yourself. It’s about how you internally interpret the chemistry that composes you (e.g., hormone levels). It has been accepted that we form our gender identities around the age of three and that after that age, it is incredibly difficult to change them. Formation of identity is affected by hormones and environment just as much as it is by biological sex. Gender Expression: How You Demonstrate Who You AreOn the left of both continua there is an empty set symbol, which, you guessed it, represents a lack of what’s on the right. On the right sides we have “feminine” and “masculine.” Examples of different gender expressions and possible labels are to the right. Gender expression is all about how you demonstrate gender through the ways you act, dress, behave, and interact—whether that is intentional or unintended. Gender expression is interpret- ed by others based on traditional gender norms (e.g., men wear pants; women wear dresses). Gender expression is something that often changes from day to day, outfit to outfit, and event or setting to event or setting. Biological Sex: The Equipment Under The HoodOn the left of both continua there is an empty set symbol, representing a lack of what’s on the right, and on the right we have “female-ness” and “male-ness” (both representing the degree to which you possess those characteristics). In the examples to the right, you see a term, “intersex,” which is a label for someone who has both male and female characteristics. You also see two “self ID” (self-identification) labels, which represent people who possess both male and female characteristics but identify with one of the binary sexes. Biological sex refers to the objectively measurable organs, hormones, and chromosomes you possess. Let’s consider biological sex in the ultra-reductive way society does: being female means having a vagina, ovaries, two X chromosomes, predominant oestrogen, and the ability to grow a baby in your abdominal area; being male means having testes, a penis, an XY chromosome configuration, predominant testosterone, and the ability to put a baby in a female’s abdominal area; and being intersex can be any combination of what was just described. Attraction: Who You're Romantically & Sexually IntoWe have two related ideas here. On the left of each we have “nobody,” meaning no feelings of attraction. On the right we have “men/males/ masculinity” and “women/females/femininity.” Sexual attraction can be thought of as the want, need, or desire for physical sexual contact and relationships. Romantic attraction is an affinity and love for others and the desire for emotional relationships. Some folks have both, some folks have neither, many experience more of one than the other. Gender identity, gender expression, biological sex, and sexual orientation are independent of one another (i.e., they are not connected). People’s sexual orientation doesn’t determine their gender expression. And their gender expression isn’t determined by their gender identity. And their gender identity isn’t determined by their biological sex. If someone is born with male reproductive organs and genitalia, he is very likely to be raised as a boy, identify as a man, and express himself masculinely. We call this identity “cisgender” (when your biological sex aligns with how you identify), and it grants a lot of privilege. It’s something most of us who have it don’t appreciate nearly as much as we should. The video below illustrates this idea beautifully, I think... I feel like I've learnt a lot during my research, and hope this might support anyone with questions to access some great resources.
I am so proud to work in a school community which is so inclusive and backs all our students and community members as beautiful, unique individuals who all belong here. I'm particularly proud of our QSA group, who really embody our school's core values in every way by being champions for equity in our school community. I've included some resources below if anyone has further questions / interest: http://inclusive.tki.org.nz/guides/lgbtiqa/ Inclusive education guide for schools http://insideout.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Making-Schools-Safer-For-Trans-and-Gender-Diverse-Youth-web.pdf (a comprehensive guide with a great glossary of terms at the end) https://insideout.ry.org.nz/ A friendly and accessible learning resource to help increase understanding and support of sex, gender and sexuality diversity, so we can all belong Content credit: Breaking Through The Binary - SamKillermann ~Rowan Taigel A beautiful hot day out at Karitane only moments away from an Epic water fight, my mind stumbles back to the school. It is the Zucchini you see served up on the BBQ. Proudly I say our students grew that at school! It is only a Zucchini but in a way, I saw it as the fruits of our labour; we certainly would gather more nutrition from it than a raft of Credits or an end of year exam. I have spent a massive amount of time reflecting on the end of year project based learning programme for year 9’s. There were some real highlights and lowlights. The student feedback was positive the teacher feedback not as positive (and that's me putting my usual positive spin on things). In my deep reflection, I clearly underestimated the actual size of this “Change initiative”. I hummed, harred and admittedly slurred a little as I caught up with my whānua in Scotland over Christmas talking about the undertaking. The judging day was a real highlight of the term, the effort that some of the girls had put in was fantastic. The joy some of these girls brought to the sick elderly and possibly bewildered, just made the heart sing. What of the others though? What about those who didn’t rise to the challenge in the most appropriate way? Some of my research on Project Based Learning pointed me towards the idea of these projects bringing Social equity. Students could thrive in these settings. For me that is an idea so intoxicating I couldn’t just put the idea away. So what were the next steps? The Future Focused Learning Committee was granted a book to read on the conditions we write about it in the Siren. Look out for that article when I finally finish the book! A lot of the Project Based Learning literature repeats this mantra around “embracing the chaos”, words like “messy” and “fail” are ping ponged across the pages or through the pages or radio waves. As part of my own PLG I have been trying to look at how I can increase student agency, how can we light a fire under the learning to bring purpose? Reading the first few pages of the book I had it. Project Global Inform was an initiative set up by the authors of ‘Launch’. The wicked problem we have in Social Studies is we look at Human rights and weep but don’t make any real impact. Project Global Inform was a global project, mostly around North America, with students tackling the problems of human rights, informing people through social media and then raising money, resources or political awareness to make a difference. This reminded me of the amazing middle school educator Craig MacDonald-Brown who spoke at Ulearn (link below). My ever-patient Head of the department had to put up with me on a soapbox for the first month of the term saying I was no longer going to teach about Genocide I was going to end it. She told me to plan it out and go for it. I did a kind of lazy remix of some of the sources that are included with the book I am not reviewing at the moment and hacked at the core assessment and turned them into my slightly Frankenstein core assessment. After teaching the kids about the United Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) we used this as a framework for looking at various humanitarian issues. I then showed them about what was happening in Myanmar and the ongoing genocide there. We empathised, we wept, we got angry, then I said to them it is our duty to act and fix human rights issues. So my year 10 were sent forth, I wanted them to end genocide. They, though, needed to find a project that sang to them. One group looked at gender equity, specifically looking at the price of shampoo and beauty products. They planned to create a podcast informing people about it but despite support, the group never really got the project off the ground. Another group ended up in discussions with a South African NGO who were working to educate about the huge levels of sexual violence in SA. The process was organic and frustrating, at the time we felt that the world seemed so intangible, the student doesn’t always understand why the Minister of Health won’t reply hourly to their emails. Hashtags and Social media accounts were created to raise awareness and quickly were connected to social networks of people interested in what the girls were doing. Was it a success?Not always... it felt difficult at times. Were the girls engaged and stakeholders in their own learning? Yes. The biggest shock to me was that after all the hard work, to-ing and fro-ing, surveys, social media accounts, head scratching and confusion, one of the girls’ favourite things was producing the human rights boards to see and share everyone's learning. I was surprised, as these had been the very things I had been raging against to start with. From this start, I have continued my learning journey failing fast on a number of projects with the students. My Year 9 plan to create a tool to inform and educate students about digital citizenship fell flat. Some students did produce work that covered our curriculum but others fell well short of the mark. The Economics girls did a fantastic job of pitching several charity ideas to a team of judges, and they are currently enjoying using the design thinking process to create the perfect holiday for their client while developing a budget. I am starting to count a few more successes than fails. It is all hard work and we often underestimate how much heavy lifting there is in the thinking. Being creative and thinking deeply about solving a problem is really hard. When you are invested in the problem it becomes even more difficult.
So really in the end what have I learned? Well firstly, I am a proper failure. Let us never doubt this; I have been talking about Genocide for the past 16 years and it persists in this world. In a technology driven world, it will be up to the humans to solve these issues and we as teachers have an important role to play in ensuring the correct framework exists to help the students navigate through these projects. Just because something is difficult, doesn’t mean you should give up on it. Also, my biggest reflection on these projects is that they need to be student-led. Though I may have an idea of what I want to be fixed or the students to work on, student agency only really comes through the girls being truly invested in the work. To do this well you need to understand a design process, possibly the ‘Launch’ process or other design thinking templates. Also, the students, just like ourselves, will want to take shortcuts in these processes. Don’t! The more you work with the frameworks, the more you see the pain points in the process. Have I got it right yet, hell no, but I am getting closer and I long for the day that my students code an algorithm that make cars run on smiles and students enjoy equity in educational outcomes. ~Duncan Trickey Linda gave me some interesting articles last year all about the lifelong impact of self-control. One such study was a 40-year study of 1000 children which revealed that childhood self-control strongly predicts adult success (Moffitt, Poulton, & Caspi, 2013). The results of the study showed that it did not matter what your level of intelligence was, or your socio economic status. Self-Control is a predictor of early mortality, psychiatric disorders, and unhealthy behaviours which could include drunk driving, unsafe sex, smoking, overeating and general non compliance in a range of contexts. So what is self-control? Since I didn’t understand the highly complicated definition in the article I had to look it up. Self-control (noun) The ability to control oneself, in particular one's emotions and desires, especially in difficult situations. "Lucy struggled for self-control." I had a bit of a laugh when I saw the example above of “Lucy silently struggled for self-control”. How many Lucys do we have in our classrooms? Many of our girls don’t “silently” struggle for self-control either, they let it all out! We all have issues with self-control one way or another as this is just how humans are. When we have difficult students we have our own sanity preserving techniques to help them to manage their behaviour. Some approaches work well, and some we’d rather not remember. Sustaining this type of management in a volatile environment can be very difficult. Taking ownership of behaviours which exhibit a lack of self-control though is what we would hope our students will eventually do - PB4L. But how do we empower our young women to kick-start their self control? Do they have the tools to do this, what are they? Can self-control be taught or is this something that develops with maturity? (I figure I must be pretty slow to mature!) Added to these questions is the concept of willpower. I always thought it was really the same as self-control but some recent readings have made me think differently. Willpower (noun) control exerted to do something or restrain impulses. "most of our bad habits are due to laziness or lack of willpower." An excellent book, entitled ‘Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength’ (Baumeister & Tierney, 2012) talks at length about the willpower gap and that in fact, willpower is a depletable resource. ‘Until 1998, scientists didn’t know that willpower was measurable’ (Baumeister et al, 2012). We evidently have about 15 minutes of willpower at any given time. Just imagine the everyday decisions we make which can deplete this willpower - eg. shall I delete this email, reply or save it for later? Should I have the piece of fruit or custard square? You know, you decide to get fit, think about it, dream about the end result, make an amazing weekly plan of exercise and go for it. Day one you are totally awesome, and feel a bit sore but a great sense of achievement. Then by day five you are over the initial enthusiasm and just can’t seem to get out of bed early enough, making the excuse that you’ll work extra hard tomorrow. We all know how the story ends - within a few weeks we have decided that after our birthday we’ll start again, or after the wedding …. etc. By the way, how many of you have stuck to your 2017 new year resolutions? Hmmm? Where is your willpower? What was the pivotal moment where you decided to not pursue your dreams and goals? If you do remember the moment - you’ll probably realise that your willpower was at a pretty low peak. The good news is folks, that although willpower is a depletable resource, you can restore it. This could be through a few minutes of meditation, gardening (for me), a walk, prayer, creative activities, reading something motivational or simply reminding yourself of your goals and why you have them. Putting this all into the educational context. If, as research indicates, our students at any given time have 15 minutes of self-regulatory willpower, the ability to restrain certain behaviours or impulses. With all the choices students make even before they get to school, how do we help them to restore their willpower and ultimately their self-control resources? No student comes to school to fail, and even though I have taught some extremely challenging students, I don’t believe that a single one of them really wanted to behave so badly that the consequences were exclusion or stand-down. Wouldn’t it be great to have the keys to tap into the willpower gap for those students? How awesome to develop strategies with these students so that they know how to restore depleted willpower in order to develop the self-control necessary for success in all aspects of learning, life and future goals? Perhaps somewhere in this rambling is a good research topic? Have a great break everyone - you’ll find me in the garden! ~Robyn Bazika References Baumeister, R., & Tierney, J. (2012). Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength. Penguin USA. Moffitt, T., Poulton, R., & Caspi, A. (2013). Lifelong Impact of Early Self-Control. American Scientist, 100(5), 352. doi:10.1511/2013.104.1 Engagement
It has been a hell of a year, but slowly I almost feel like I am back to being a useful human again. The mind wanders a lot when injured flitting across books, surfing the web, diving into Netflix series and even painting. Apart from the act of healing what was I truly engaged in? When I imagine engagement this is what springs to my mind.
Having a goal that is almost overwhelmingly absorbing. Yet we engage in so many different ways. Often we see these differing levels of engagement in the classroom as well as social life. Lessoncraft has been something I have been musing over for some time. I remember a few years ago at a staff function somewhere else getting a wee bit bored of the chat (as the company was nowhere near as engaging as the present company I have) and started to talk about what our best lesson was for that year. I wonder can you remember your first truly amazing lesson?
I remember some of the shockers both recent and in the past but what about the ones that just made you bubble inside? I cast my mind back to my S5/S6 (12/13) class of 2006 - a lesson on Stewardship. It started as a heartfelt rant (semi-planned) and flowed through to some student discussion, then writing and finally ended up with a destination using the book “365 days to change the world”.
The destination was a call to arms for the youth. If you agree with what you have written if you are passionate about this on Saturday I am spending the day cleaning a beach, join me or do the same which beach would you adopt. In more recent time, engagement has changed. The world has moved on and it seems to spin a little faster. I found a great tool to plan learning journeys on and can share it here.
If you listened to the 10 mins of that then I may have engaged you also. The lesson itself that day wasn’t amazing but I went into class buzzing with excitement about trying a new approach to the learning. It fell flat when the tech let me down. Luckily I was savvy enough to fix it myself as I had been too engaged in plan A to actually have a plan B. The 1 to 1 computer environment led to me being able to engage in meaningful conversation about what we were doing students fears and hopes for their futures. I used the steps in the journey as learning sparks for the students to think on and share with me.
In Mathematical Mindsets, by the wonderful Jo Boaler (I think PLT has my copy), she talks about low floor and high ceiling activities. The idea of engaging activities that students can all enter into and engage with but are able to challenge. Simple clicking and sorting activities with some room for deeper thought. Ideally it would have rolled into some extended writing or another suitable task.
My lesson outlined above wasn’t flawless but it was enough for me to proudly tell Steph that night after she asked me:
“How was work?” “Great! I have changed the world.” “How?” She asked. “I don’t know, I just think I might have.” ~Duncan Trickey I was asked recently by a PLG group to support them with finding some more information for them as they dropped into 'Learning' mode in their Spiral of Inquiry. What can we do, or how can we help to support students to tap into or discover their intrinsic motivation to achieve and strive for success? I have a few favourite sites I like to go to for ideas I'm looking into, or for inspiration, and one of these is Cult of Pedagogy (www.cultofpedagogy.com). Fortuitously, there was recently a post on this very topic that came up in my facebook feed. So I thought I'd share it here in the meantime while I continue looking into this subject. Click here to go to the original post in the site, or read what I've pasted from it below. Feel free to share what's worked for you, or any further questions you may have in the comments section at the end of this post. When I ask teachers what their biggest struggles are, one issue comes up on a regular basis: student motivation. You are able to reach many of your students, but others are unreachable. No matter what you try, they have no interest in learning, no interest in doing quality work, and you are out of ideas. For a long time, I had no solutions; the problem was too complex. I have had my own unmotivated students, and I never had any magic bullets for them. Still, the issue kept coming up from my readers. So I decided to do some research, to try to find what the most current studies say about what motivates students. This is what I found:
STOPPING THE BUCK: THE TEACHER’S ROLE IN STUDENT MOTIVATION The research on motivation wasn’t hard to find; it seems as if any teacher with an Internet connection and an hour or two should be able to learn everything they need to know about the topic. So where’s the disconnect? If we as a collective group of educators already know what works to motivate students, why are so many students still unmotivated? When I talk with teachers about the problem, I don’t hear much about the research. Instead, we blame technology: “Students are so distracted by their phones.” Or we blame the parents: “Parents just don’t want to be bothered” or “They don’t want their kids to fail/experience setbacks/take responsibility.” Or we make sweeping generalizations: “Kids today just aren’t like they used to be. They act so entitled.” Are we passing the buck? Maybe. It’s certainly easier to blame outside forces than it is to make big changes in the way we teach. Unfortunately, even if ALL of the above statements are true, we can’t do anything about those things. The only piece we really have control over is what goes on in our own classrooms. So let’s look at our own practice. When we set aside all the outside factors and just focus in on our time with students, how are we doing? How much alignment is there between our own instructional moves and the research on student motivation? I have put together a list of five questions we can ask ourselves to see if we really are doing everything we could to boost student motivation. To keep me from getting too preachy, I’ll do the exercise with you, reflecting on the years when I was a classroom teacher with middle school students. Okay, let’s go. THE QUESTIONS 1. HOW IS YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH YOUR STUDENTS, REALLY? Multiple studies have shown a significant connection between student motivation and the quality of the teacher-student relationship. A good teacher-student relationship provides students with a sense of stability and safety, which sets the stage for more academic risk-taking. So what kind of relationship do you have with your least motivated students? How well do you really know them? Do you have conversations with them about the things they care about? Or have you more or less given up on them? My response: At first, I’m thinking I did pretty well in this area. I taught English language arts and my students kept journals, so I got to know them well. But when I think about my less-motivated kids, I’m not so sure I can say the same. The connection I had to Andre, one of my seventh-graders, consisted entirely of me getting him to make up missed work. It was all we talked about: the missing work, why he wasn’t turning it in, how important this stuff was for his future. When Andre saw me coming, he probably just saw a looming cloud of nag. We never really talked about the stuff that mattered to him. How we can do better: Just becoming more aware of the value of relationships is the most important step. From there, consider one of these resources:
2. HOW MUCH CHOICE DO YOUR STUDENTS ACTUALLY HAVE? Study after study points to choice as a major factor in motivation. Most of us have probably heard this, but we may not have fully embraced it. After all, providing choice can be messy, with students completing different tasks at different rates, making it hard to be consistent with grading. It can also mean a lot more prep work: If you’re going to give students three different options for an assignment, that means you have to prepare all three options ahead of time. Or do you? Isn’t that kind of prep work more in line with worksheet-oriented teaching, where students are doing low-level work that was largely prepared by the teacher? If students are engaged in more long-term, authentic, creative projects, it’s much easier to provide them with choices, because we aren’t constantly trying to provide them with new busywork every day. My response: I was pretty good about letting students choose topics for writing assignments, but I also required a lot of seat work as well. I wanted students to do their work at about the same pace, and I knew next to nothing about differentiation. Now I’m thinking about Matt, another one of my unmotivated seventh graders, who was incredibly smart. He sat way low in his chair in the back of the Gifted & Talented language arts class he’d been assigned to, way cooler than all the others, and he gave minimal effort. I used the same nagging approach I’d used with Andre, with minimal success. Now that I know more about differentiation and choice, I realize I could have had a conversation with Matt about letting him work ahead on some things. I could have allowed him, and his classmates, more input on the larger assignments I gave them. If I had given Matt a more active role in his own learning, he might have been more engaged. How we can do better: There are lots of ways you can allow more choice in your classroom without having to completely overhaul your way of doing things. Even adding a small amount of choice to what students already have is an improvement. Consider letting them choose:
3. ARE YOU RELYING HEAVILY ON CARROTS AND STICKS…OR JOLLY RANCHERS? Many, many teachers count on rewards (“carrots”) and punishments (“sticks”) to motivate students. And those who study motivation tell us that extrinsic reinforcement can be motivating if the task is something easy: If you’re trying to get students to clean up the classroom quickly, for example, offering class points toward a party can get them to speed up. But for tasks that require creativity and complex thought, extrinsic rewards actually reduce motivation. In your class, how much of your motivational approach is extrinsic? How often do you use grades, treats, privileges or punishments to prod students into doing something they don’t really want to do, something they have no real interest in? If extrinsic reinforcement is your primary approach, you may actually be killing off any natural motivation students might have otherwise had. My response: I score myself pretty low here. As a teacher, my classroom management was a mess until I learned how to control students with names on the board, extra credit, whole-class rewards for good behavior, and the ever-reliable bag of Jolly Ranchers. I did those things because they worked. But there’s a difference between getting kids to do what you want and truly, deeply motivating them. How we can do better: Try to catch yourself the next time you’re about to tie a challenging activity to a reward or consequence. When introducing a task, try focusing on its inherent interest or value, or how much students are going to learn, rather than on a separate reward or grade. Consider the difference in these two statements:
4. DO YOUR WORDS CONTRIBUTE TO A GROWTH MINDSET OR A FIXED MINDSET? What could be wrong with saying “You’re so smart”? It’s nice, right? It boosts their confidence, no? Well, it’s more complicated than that. Students are motivated to persist at a challenging task when they believe they can get better at it. That requires them to have a growth mindset, a belief that their intelligence and abilities can be developed with effort. Teachers can have an impact on this mindset with the things we say to students. So when we say “You’re so smart,” “You have natural math ability,” or “You’re a great writer,” we are telling the student it’s their natural ability that got them where they are. We’re contributing to a fixed mindset. And that’s not motivating. My response: When I was in the classroom, I knew nothing about growth mindset. I thought kids would feel great if I told them they were smart or talented. I can remember a conversation with Janae, a student who commanded the attention of her peers with ease but got into trouble a lot and did poorly in school. I remember pulling her aside and telling her that I thought she had strong leadership qualities, and that if she could just get her grades up, she had a bright future ahead of her. Yeah, that didn’t work. If I wanted her to “get her grades up,” I would have been better off noticing a well-constructed sentence or complimenting the way she got her group back on track during a cooperative learning activity, showing her exactly what kind of choices she should keep making to be successful. How we can do better:
5. WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MAKE YOUR CONTENT RELEVANT TO STUDENTS’ LIVES? I think this is another one of those principles that’s been around for so long, we assume we’re doing it more than we actually are. But showing students how the content relates to their lives really does make a difference. When students believe they are doing something authentic, something that will improve their lives or have some kind of impact, they are naturally motivated. So how are you doing in this area? Do you regularly provide opportunities for students to connect what they’re learning to the world they currently live in? My response: I got pretty lazy about this. Just like crafting a good opening and closing for each day’s learning, I often cut corners on making my material relevant. I was often much more focused on getting through content and tasks than I was on making it meaningful. I was pretty good about giving writing assignments on topics that mattered to them, but I don’t know how clearly I connected what they were doing to how it could help them. For example, with something like argumentative writing–I was probably more focused on “this is how you get a good grade on this” rather than on “this is how you change someone’s mind.” How we can do better:
WHERE TO GO FROM HERE The purpose of this exercise is not to beat ourselves up. It’s just a way of deeply diagnosing a problem most teachers struggle with. There’s a very good chance that the technology, the parents, or the entitlement are playing a role in what we perceive to be reduced student motivation. But there’s a very good chance that our instructional decisions play a role as well. So pick one area and start there. Make a small adjustment this week and see what happens. Share in the comments where you think you could improve, then come back and tell us what changes made a difference. To solve a problem as complicated as student motivation, there is no magic bullet; instead we’ll need a set of tools that we blend and refine over time. This is a process that will definitely be slower and more frustrating than a single, easy solution, but we’re professionals. This is our craft. We can do this. ~Jennifer Gonzalez - Cult of Pedagogy In place of a full blog post this week, is an amazing video of a TED talk by the members of the band OK Go. This video is just a treat! Where does OK Go come up with ideas like dancing in zero gravity, performing in ultra slow motion or constructing a warehouse-sized Rube Goldberg machine for their music videos? In between live performances of "This Too Shall Pass" and "The One Moment," lead singer and director Damian Kulash takes us inside the band's creative process, showing us how to look for wonder and surprise. How do you allow for or carve out time to find the wonder and surprise in what you teach? ~ Rowan Taigel
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AuthorsWe'll have a variety of authors from OGHS over the year sharing their thoughts and experiences about education, teaching and learning Archives
June 2019
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