Key Competencies for the Future

Key Competencies for the Future was release mid 2014 and explores the history, idealogy and understandings of New Zealand's Key Competencies.  The authors; Rosemary Hipkins, Rachel Bolstad, Sally Boyd and Sue McDowall look at the Key Competencies from many angles and examine the important place that they have within our curriculum.

Right from the start of this book there were key elements and statements that stood out to me that really highlighted the importance of the Competencies for teachers.  Particularly of interest was the concept of how even though the Competencies stand alone, they have to stand together.  You cannot also look at them in isolation and piecing the picture together of how they fit and work together in the wider world is key to us as educators supporting our students with them.

"Key Competencies are actually cross-cutting of each other.  We pull them apart to understand their individual character, but it's also important to stitch them back together when we put them to work in real contexts" - KCFTF (Key Competencies for the Future) Pg 16

I've really enjoyed following the VLN thread and webinar that happened as part of the Connected Educator Month - you can watch the webinar with 3 of the authors here.  It's worth the watch and listen, even if you aren't currently reading the book.

There are such a wide range of concepts that stood out to me personally and for my practice and I particularly enjoyed the thinking around 'wicked problems'.

Wicked Problems: the idea of students being involved in real future focused problems that have relevancy and impact for their world.  Concepts such as food security, sustainability, pollution and more.  These are large scale problems that are difficult or impossible for people to solve due to a number of reasons, such as perspectives, scale etc.  Read more on Wicked Problems here.  Through this I was questioning how really future focussed our practice and selection of negotiated learning avenues have really been?  Are they big enough with far reaching consequences that surpass the students' time in school.  At uLearn I have had the opportunity to attend workshops run by Tom Barrett of NoTosh - in these workshops I have begun to explore Design Thinking further.  Many comments and conversations with my colleagues during this workshop filtered back to themes and ideas from the Key Competencies for the Future book.  Particularly around Wicked Problems, provocations and the design thinking journey.

Term 3 Reflection - PML

PML (Planning My Learning) has changed a little bit - we have made changes to the structure of the board and moved it off the whiteboard.  It just was time for it to change.  I was finding the students were becoming more and more focussed on quantity rather than quality - it was about how many ticks were up on the board rather than the quality and time spent.  So, armed with information from a conversation with the students, we made 2 changes to the PML system (in my head I have 100 - but we have to start somewhere!)

1. Quality Reflective Buddies - when we spoke about the problem of 'quality vs quantity' the students agreed - they were focussed on 'getting through' the list rather than pushing the boundaries of their learning.  It was a great conversation and gave me insights in lots of ways.  The students came up with 2 main solutions:
- Go back to the old way of working in blocks and everyone doing the same thing at the same time
- Have a person to meet with to share if your work is quality or not

Interestingly, the first idea came from a student who I know finds the challenge of planning his day more difficult, but when this was put to the class it was overwhelmingly challenged out (26-2).  I'll be talking more with those 2 students to see how I can support them in developing their learning priorities.
The second idea is the one we have gone with - QLP  or Quality Learning Partners.  We had lots of discussion around how this could work. In the end I suggested stopping 15 minutes prior to the end of the day, so you could meet with your buddy and discuss your work, feed back, next steps etc.  This is where we have started.  The students then had the option to choose their own partner or to have some support from me to choose one.  We had to discuss being able to be supported and open and honest with the person you choose.  If you felt like you couldn't say 'hey, you need to go back and work on... to make this better' they probably weren't the person to be your QLP.

2. Leaving the Whiteboard - previously PML has been completed on the whiteboard.  The students know I personally disliked this system, I shared this with them and the why I disliked it.  But, I am not the one who has to work from it - so we carried on with it.  As the term has progressed I have heard snippets of conversations as students tick off their work schedule for the day and these conversations led me to setting up a new full wall with the system on it.  When introduced to the students I shared with them conversations and things that I had changed because of what I had heard.  That it was these things that made the decision to make the change - I then asked if they would like to use it and the kids were keen! (Phew - there were a lot of lines to stick up and staple!)  However, I knew many of my kids would need to see it before they would understand it.

One of my students then asked the question I had been waiting for - "how will we tick to say we have worked on it?"  "Great question" I replied... "How will we?"  This led to 6 students taking on the construction of a system that we could use on the PML wall to show a range of learning happening.  The last step was to share these with the rest of the class and then the students decided on voting for their favourite symbols that we will use.

It was great to see a range of ideas being put forward that showed students were really keen to push quality over quantity with the refined system.


Writing has continued to develop based on need and interested rather than a genre.  This week we were responding to a trip that we had to the Maritime Museum last week.  We chose Newspaper Reports, Letters or a Recount.  The students then signed up to the genre that they needed or wanted to write on.  3 different workshops then ran throughout the week and I continue to find the kids more engaged in their writing in this way.

There are a few challenges I need to work on...
1. Tracking the genres they choose.  I'm thinking I will create a genres checklist that they can tick when they have completed a finished piece of writing in that genre.  It will help them know more about the genres and what is out there also.
2. Creating/Finding/Sourcing/Using realistic, hands on and real life writing experiences that will foster the interest and passion of writing.  Also fitting these into the daily life of a classroom.  I have had a great conversation with the Year 2 teacher next door talking about how we may be able to both use this as a benefit to both our kids with their writing.  More to reflect and think about here.

There are so many ideas, challenges and thoughts currently roaming around in my head that 'where to start' is often a daily challenge for me at the moment.  My students have come a long way in concepts of knowing more about them as learners, having a voice within the classroom and making steps to be independent within their learning.  But there is so much more that I want to challenge them and myself on.

My office buddy and I have great conversations on a daily basis - reflecting on our day, our learners, our teaching and our classrooms and I feel like those conversations help to clarify decisions that are made.  I'm very lucky that we have younger students next door that provide a challenge and a platform for my students to be role models and teachers to them.  At the moment we are continuing to explore how we can develop our space for our students further.  This week we are beginning the younger students in planning and teaching workshops for the Year 2 and Year 5/6 students.  I am looking forward to seeing how these develop over the rest of the term.

Each day I struggle more and more with the constraints of what traditional education.  We can voice that we want ownership, student voice, self management, self-direction - but how does that actually work in the everyday education world with tests, assessments and standards?  It's a big question.  I'm ridiculously lucky in where I teach - I am trusted as a professional to make professional choices that best work because of my teaching knowledge, knowledge of my students and their learning.

There is so much that works about PML and the structure of my class but I know that it is not the end point of what I want the concept of school and learning to look and be like for my students.  This week the first of my students for the year got underway with DRIVE Time projects - which are personal learning tasks driven by their passions/needs.  There are lots of readings and thinking behind the way this is structured and was developed with a group of kids last year, based on these thoughts.  DRIVE is about students owning their learning and making those decisions.  At the heart is what learning actually is, our school values and school negotiated learning values as a teacher point hinge.  This is the big point of where I would like to get to with my students across a more full time range.  We (my students and I) are getting there... slowly... with careful thought and reflection... in time.

Educating Boys

Around 6 months ago a friend recommended a book called 'Educating Boys' by Michael Irwin to me.  I started it and then, like most books in term time, it got put to the side. Even thought I've been desperate to read it!  These holidays have meant that I have picked it up again and continued to read it.  It's a worthwhile read for anyone who are working with boys in education or who have boys at home.

Not a lot of the ideas and concepts are all that new to me e.g. boys need more movement, action learning and hands on approaches. But so far it has reinforced a lot of key teaching and learning concepts and approaches as well as ones that I have changed or don't use as much as I have previously.

A concept I linked into with learning is the idea of 'Play' as a basis for learning.  A place to hook old learning into new learning and to make discoveries.  Last year as part of our Daily5 reading work the students did 'Work with Words' which is basically spelling/grammar work.  As part of this I gave my year 4 students purple sand to draw words into and wikki stix to make letters with, amongst other tasks.  Initially I thought perhaps they wouldn't use them as they might deem them as 'babyish'.  Interestingly enough these were the items that were first taken by the students working in this area over and over again.  There was also a student developed system for letting people know you wanted to use them next.  Both of these were play items and I will use them with my Year 5/6 students this year again!  I also really liked the idea of having 'explorer' areas where there are things for the students (not just the boys!) to create or dismantle.  But also it's made me think about how I can create more areas for play in curriculum areas to diversify the teaching and learning process.

Exercise and Physical Education as a catalyst for more focussed work.  I know this and do a lot of this already as I see a huge difference in the students when there is more activity in the day.  But it's made me interested to look at starting each day or the breaking the middle block with a burst of focussed physical activity.  I've done this previously with 'Brain Breaks' and it's made a huge difference but it was something this year that I didn't use.
Also how I'm teaching Physical Education and the importance of making time for it.  Our school is well set up with our syndicates taking part in syndicate wide sports each term for at least 1 hour and also whole school Jump Jam each week.  This is a great base for our students and I know that my boys are always the first ones to be asking what sports they will be undertaking during this time and the first to complain if the weather is bad on sports afternoons!

It was interesting to read about the students who are coming into schools and the importance of teaching them to read and write from the first day and as early as 5.  Irwin talks about the fact that a lot of the teaching and learning for literacy has moved away from play based, making and creating into more 'talk and write' examples.  He stresses the importance of linking back to the play concepts and developmental play in the early years.  There has been a lot of talk about the Finish education system lately and how they excel with teaching and learning in worldwide comparisons.  Irwin interestingly points out the fact that students don't start school in Finland until they are 7 giving students more time to be involved in play.  Such a focus on literacy which in turn pushes out areas such as The Arts, Physical Education and Science out of the daily curriculum.  All areas that boys tend to excel in but don't get the opportunity to be as involved in.

So, I will continue to read, reflect and make links to my teaching practice and challenge ideas I have or have had and why I may not do them anymore.  I think it is a worthwhile read and while the focus is on educating boys, I do believe many of the concepts and ideas can equally be forwarded to girls and their learning needs.

iPad Links & Articles

Clicker - For finding video via the iPad. Searches for iPad friendly video across the web.

Mobile Flickr - How the m.flickr.com mobile site works for the iTouch range.

Teenage App Tycoons - Interesting article about teenages making Apps that are allowed & not into the Apple App store for differing reasons.

Apple Controlling Your News - How Apple is controlling the content you can select and use via it's range.

iPad - Looking at some of the flaws

Move Files Between your Comp & iPad - MacWord (Still makes it seem harder than it could be!)

This is how Apple Rolls - Looking at how the Apple works and how the iPad is a beginning to some big changes and big ideas. Looking at the long term picture of where the iPad is heading.

Adobe blows Apple a Kiss - Next stage in the apple/flash debate

Apple Creating a "Walled Garden" - Apple being selective about what it will and won't allow to be included in Design Kits and viewed via the web.