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.

Immersion Week

Our big theme this term is 'Dream It, Think It, Do It!' so KW and I designed a week of immersion which allowed our students to be involved in a range of ideas and topics to allow us to negotiate the learning path with our students.  In our school we work in pods - this year my pod of 4 classroom consists of 2 Year 2 classes, 1 Year 1 class and my own year 5/6 class.  KW and I planned a range of learning opportunities and also within our immersion week we held 4 sessions where each teacher from our pod took a different immersion session where we split our students up within the 4 groups.  Within this pod time we saw students take on game making, drama, modifying sports and hat creation challenges that saw them working within different aspects of creativity.

For the rest of the week KW and I planned immersion learning opportunities for our Year 2 and Year 5/6 students to be working alongside each other.  Each activity was carefully planned to allow students to work within 6 main dispositions to develop their understanding of 'Dream It, Think It, Do It!'  We identified 'flexibility, risk taking, creativity, thoughtfulness, thinking and challenge' as our key dispositions and these became our focus of conversations and reflections with the students throughout the week.

Our first challenge for the week was simple in spirit but provided a wealth of information for us, as teachers.  We collected as many boxes and bits that we could find.  Large, medium, small and more... we had them all!  From this we started with very little instructions... choose some boxes - create something!  This was to give us a range of information about our students! We were expecting some far our creations, but found we had very 'normal' creations - a house, a bus, a rocket ship.  It allowed us to see that risk-taking for our students is a key disposition.  So after a lot of discussion, we decided to set up a 'ninja cave' the next morning.  This was a huge hit for the students the next morning when they came in to find it - it ended up morphing throughout the weekend to become more and more challenging each morning.  It was through our 'ninja cave' that we were able to have an amazing conversation around risk-taking and what that entails.

We discussed what makes risk-taking harder and examined elements such as 'when people are watching' the risk level can go up.  Our principal arrived on the tail end of this conversation and was then invited to take the risk.  The kids were more than stoked to see their principal go through the 'Ninja cave' and supported him with a huge cheer and pakipaki at the end.

The biggest learning curve for most students was the concept of 'guerrilla knitting' or yarn bombing.  The idea being a semi-permanent form of street art that changes the street side from the drab into the colourful.  It's the concept of creativity for giving and thoughtfulness that we were working with through this learning experience.  So we headed out to our school fence with balls of wool and got to work to create our rather plain looking school fence into a work of art.  The students worked in pairs - 1 Year 5 or 6 student with 1 Year 2 student and began with small hearts.  However, students soon wanted to try different patterns and designs and got more enthusiastic as they saw the fence take shape.  We ended up with some diamonds, larger hearts, S and L shapes.  Unfortunately time and weather was a factor for us and we have both spoken about heading out with our classes to work on these again.  The concept of their own creativity for giving was one that was talked about over and over again during the week.

The coolest element of this was the reaction they saw from their peers, teachers and families.  On Friday we arrived back to class to an awesome letter.  This letter now has pride of place in both our classrooms on our door - so everyone entering can read it!

These are just a selection of the learning experiences we developed as part of our immersion week with our students.  We also designed playgrounds, made marble runs and more.  It allowed the students a wide range of experiences and allowed us to see where our students interests and passions lay for our next steps of the negotiated learning path.  I really enjoyed collaborating and planning with KW and it allowed us to each draw on our own experiences and strengths.  I learnt a lot from working more closely with her and it was great being able to sit down at the end of each day and reflect on what we saw for each of our kids.

At the end of the week we used the Kath Murdoch 'Learning Wheel' as a reflection tool for the week to help us decide where our next steps were and the guerilla knitting was a firm favourite.  From our Learning Wheel reflections and conversations my class have chosen to go down the path of investigating 'how my creativity can benefit others'.  I'm really looking forward to seeing where we go with this!

Journeys and Reflections

A few weeks ago I had the privilege to head away with my team of talented teachers on a road trip to explore 3 schools in Pahoia and Papamoa.  This is the 2nd such day our team has taken on by utilising out CRT days together and heading off to view amazing educators in action.  Our last day was out visiting schools in Auckland.

Before our visits we sat down on several occasions to talk as a team about what we wanted to see, hear and discuss by visiting schools.  These conversations helped us to structure our guiding questions that were the base of how we selected schools.  From here we spoke with educators we knew to locate schools that would help us focus on our guiding questions.  Our key emphasis this visit was on open learning spaces, negotiated learning, student ownership and the practice of reflection within the learning.  Big ideas to look at and we were more than excited about the day of visits.

The schools we visited allowed us to see a range of different understandings, directions and thinking.  It was a great opportunity to talk about the things that mattered to different schools and communities and why those things were important.  It allowed us to see some of the big picture of what small decisions in classrooms can mean or do school wide.

The 2 key themes coming from all the schools we visited were the importance of 'relationships' and 'systems' to team teaching/open learning spaces.  We were really excited about discussing these key themes with the schools, but then again afterwards amongst ourselves as we reflected on our own journey.

Relationships:
A key element of a successful teaching team is the relationship between the teachers involved.  A high level of trust, integrity, support, friendship and willingness is required to work in such a close space.  You are consistently a reflective buddy, support person and general day to day go to person for each other.  A shared understanding about what path the classroom is on is required to make sure that a clear path is created for the students working within the space.  What are your shared beliefs, understandings and ideas that underpin what is happening in your classroom space?  How well do you work together to make the things you want to happen in your class move from visions to happenings?   Just some of the important questions that teachers spoke of considering and thinking about.

Many principals spoke about the fact that these relationship often need to come from the teachers rather than be selected by the management team.  The driving force behind these relationships need to come intrinsically from the teachers.  This is where a lot of management have seen the most effective classrooms, as the teachers have established that the strong relationship is there.

Systems:
What clear systems are in place to allow teachers and students to work within the shared space?  Do all people in that shared space have the same understanding about the little things as well as the big things in the class - where do the kids put their book bags in the morning?  To the bigger decisions - how will we group our students for ... subject?  The systems in place need to be steadfast and supported by all individuals.  In one class in particular we saw extremely clear and effective systems in place in all avenues of the classroom practice that supported both students and teachers to work in the space.  From planning, classroom space, organisation etc - the small systems in place guided all parties to use the space for effective learning.

There are also a lot of people who need to navigate day to day classroom systems - are these systems clear to you, the students and the parents?  Some of the schools we visited spoke about 'Guardian Teachers' in the open plan environment.  This system gave each parent an opportunity to feel like they had 1 parent to talk to in regards to issues/concerns and general day to day business.  This didn't mean that the student and teacher belonged specifically together, but it was a system that allowed parents to have a means of communication with one of the teachers.  A simple but effective system had been established for students, teachers, parents and management.  What was also great was being able to speak to most people along that chain and hear the same systems communicated from each party - one sign of effective systems being in place.

Moving Forward...
We took the time after each school to share our understandings, ideas, reflections and new thinking with each other.  This time was extremely valuable.  I feel privileged to work in the team that I do.  We have both relationships and systems happening currently that support and develop a range of powerful teaching and learning.  Our ability to work as a team and reflect on what we are doing and why it is working well is one of our strengths.  I felt that the themes the schools shared with us were a key element of a successful open plan teaching environment.  Yes, there are other factors but with great systems and amazing relationships some real magic can happen for the students and teachers.

Our team has used the opportunity to walk away and think about what is really important for each of us within our classroom environments.  It was great to affirm some of the things we have already placed such as shared assessment documents across our pod that is allowing us to cater for our student's needs across our pod and teachers - not just within our own classrooms.

My 2 colleagues have spent time analysing what they do and why it is important to them and then coming together to share with each other what these elements are as they continue on the journey of working in an open plan space.  There is so much more that they are doing - but that is their journey to share!  I am just privileged to be along for the journey with them as they make amazing steps in their own practice and their student's learning.

For myself, there has been a lot of assessing and balancing thoughts and ideas of my own.  It is helping to cement for me the importance of the open plan environment and what can be offered by working in a space with multiple students and teachers.  It has helped me to reflect on the opportunities I have had over the last few years to work with some amazingly talented people.  There is a lot to move forward with, for myself and my team.

We were extremely grateful to the principals, team leaders, teachers and students who gave up their time to share their learning, thought processes and journey that they are on in order for us to follow our own.  We are also grateful to our own school that allows us the opportunity to use our CRT days in this way and support us with our ongoing classroom journeys.  It's amazing what supportive and wonderful people we have in our NZ schools.

Taking a risk...

Future Wheel

Our term focus is looking at miss-takes/re-takes and the learning process.  To kick start our term we've been investigating our school values - Respect, Success, Team, Fun and Integrity.  Across our school this is often a common place where we start to have a firm values base with our classes.  It's at the core of class expectations and treaties.  A shared language we have when talking about expectations, behaviour, learning and attitudes.

We have been working through a range of different tasks to use these values and examine life with and without them.

In comes the Futures wheel otherwise known as consequence wheel.  The idea behind this thinking tool is to get students to think of the 'what next...' to something happening.  What would be the consequence of this happening - good or bad.

So, we split into groups and each group took a value.  They then talked about what would happen at our school if this value wasn't used or we didn't use it.
This lead to some great discussions in groups around this value and it's importance in our daily lives.  It gave the students a chance to also consider a range of perspectives.  How would this outcome affect parents, siblings, classmates, teachers, our deputy principals, principal? What would this mean for them?

For the first time using this thinking tool with them it was a success - some of them found it very difficult to 'put themselves in other people's shoes' and think about how the outcome might affect that person.  Others were able to articulate a range of ideas and outcomes from many different perspectives.  Some were also quite simple but others had far reaching perspectives and consequences.  Such as the the lack of success leading to people not being able to become olympic athletes because they didn't know what 'success' felt like or how to achieve it.

I can see how the level of questioning with the students will become more and more important as we use this tool further.  Getting the students to work in a range of perspectives and think from different angles and mind frames (positive/negative) will be a basis of my questioning for the next time we use this tool.

The tool would be very effective in a place where you were looking at positive and negative outcomes and getting students to think on both sides of the coin.

Below are a few examples from our first session using the Future Wheel.
You can download my template here - this is A3 size.

The Fun Theory

Catching up on my blogs (can't you tell) I came back across a post from Naketa that I loved the first time and have loved everytime after that. It's a Volkswagen initiative called The Fun Theory. It's based on the concept that if we make the mundane more fun - people might do it more. Here are two examples:

Walking Stairs:



Recycling Bottles:



Picking Up Rubbish:



I think this is a great concept. Naketa has talked about challenging her kids to see what mundane tasks can be made more fun... I wonder what my class could come up with? They have a competition that is open til the 15th December where you can enter your ideas and the top ten entries will be revealed. First place offers 2500 Euros too!