Know Your Students
Photo by Ben Wicks on Unsplash He aha te mea nui o te ao? He tangata he tangata he tangata!What is the most important thing in the world? It is people it is people it is people! The image at … Continue reading Know Your Students
Category: professional development
Balancing internal and external expertise in professional learning
I’ve spent a number of days recently in a couple of schools where I’ve been working with school leaders and staff for an extended period of time now, assisting them with their strategic visioning and planning, and in coaching and mentoring staff leading their in-school professional learning programmes. I find this highly satisfying and rewarding work – and it reminds me of just how complex the setting of a school is, and how important it can be to have a variety of perspectives included in the process of designing and implementing an effective PLD programme that will (a) help a school … Continue reading Balancing internal and external expertise in professional learning
What makes for effective PLD?
At a meeting I attended last week a group of people were discussing approaches they might use to 'bring teachers up to speed' with the ideas and approaches they were discussing (in this case, computational thinking). The discussion that ensued raised all of the usual issues around why it's difficult to find effective PLD solutions: teachers are time poor, the overloaded curriculum, lack of expertise, reluctance to change etc. When turning their attention to finding a solution the predictable list appeared: provide more teacher only days (TODs), introduce a range of incentives (carrots), introduce mandatory requirements (sticks) etc. The discussion also … Continue reading What makes for effective PLD?
Developing Great Teaching
My earliest experiences of professional learning and development (PLD) tended to be short courses focusing on introducing a new skill, strategy or technology. I can remember as a young teacher being 'sent' to courses on how to use an overhead projector, or how to use simulation activities in social studies classes. Sometimes these things were useful to me when I returned to the classroom, other times they were more 'just in case' courses, simply provided because the opportunity was there. Since the time I began as a teacher the expectations of teachers have increased, and so to have the expectations of … Continue reading Developing Great Teaching
Innovating to create 21 century learning environments
The International Summit on the Teaching Profession is under way this year in Banff, Canada, with a contingent of NZ educators attending. Last year I had the privilege of attending this event when it was held here in NZ, and it provided a a great opportunity to hear from a variety of international 'experts' and leaders from a range of countries in the OECD. Among them was Andraes Schleicher who is the OECD's director of the Directorate of Education and Skills, and the person most will associate with the research behind the PISA results. He is also author of a … Continue reading Innovating to create 21 century learning environments
Thinking about engagement…
It's official… excellent teachers, supported by gifted and visionary school leaders, keep students engaged in the learning process and hopeful about their future. These are two of the crucial outcomes the recent Gallup Student Poll measures. I was speaking with a school principal yesterday who is working to develop his school's strategic focus for next year. Placing student achievement as the overarching priority for the school, his focus moved to student engagement as the critical success factor for the cohort in his school. Our discussion then moved to what the indicators of engagement might be that he and his staff could … Continue reading Thinking about engagement…
Defining success
I was working with the staff of a local secondary school yesterday, and in the context of our discussion we shared our thinking around the question of 'what is success?' in relation to the purpose of school and schooling, and the focus on assessment that currently dominates much of the thinking in our school system and drives most of our curriculum design and delivery. We were specifically thinking about the issues raised in the NZCER publication, "Swimming out of our depth" where the authors suggest… "We need to think differently about what schools are for, about what students should learn in … Continue reading Defining success
Connected Educator Month – half way through!
NZ teachers appear to have really gotten behind the first Connected Educator Month here! The info-graphic below illustrates how it is looking as we hit the half way mark for the month: The numbers will all be larger as you read this – and the month’s events aren’t over yet! Continue reading Connected Educator Month – half way through!
Connected Educator Month
One of the things I've had the privilege of contributing to in terms of the organisation is the upcoming Connected Educator Month which will launch here in New Zealand for the first time this year. My colleague Karen Melhuish Spencer (in the video above) has done an outstanding job leading the organisation from the NZ end. Connected Educator Month began in the US two years ago, using online communities help educators share effective strategies, reduce isolation, and provide "just in time" access to knowledge and expertise. In 2013 nearly 200 educational organizations participated in Connected Educator Month in the US, providing … Continue reading Connected Educator Month
Planning for effective PD
> One of the workshops I presented at the DEANZ14 conference in Christchurch focused on how we can use the concerns based adoption model (CBAM) to underpin the strategic planning of professional learning programmes within our institutions. This slideshow above is what I used for the workshop. Continue reading Planning for effective PD