Our Team...

Reflecting on our hui #tttlwdt2015

Here I am awaiting the flight home. Wow what an amazing hui. What was it that made it such an amazing two days?

Firstly, as always; he tangata, he tangata, he tangata!

Without a doubt it is always the people in the room that make the MAGIC!

This hui was incredibly focused on our journey and has supported us into a powerful place for the rest of the year. The sharing of personal story hui was a real highlight! There is a whole lot of MAGIC in telling a story and digging deeper into the story and the emerging themes. I feel incredibly attached to my story and am so grateful to Viv for capturing my story in pictures and to Brad for capturing my story in words.

...this is my story...

Another highlight for me was sharing a snapshot of the MAGICAL way in which Jo worked with hr storyhui to link to the RTCs and how she reflected on the storyhui experience! Thank you Jo for your powerful story, and thank you Liz for the opportunity to share.

A real highlight from day one was the session led by Merryn and Heather on wellness and mindfulness! Increasingly we are aware of the need to take best care of ourselves but do we always have a kete ready, full of ideas? I am particularly grateful for this very timely reminder, thank you girls. I am also incredibly grateful for the kete of quotes and sayings.

As we head to the pointy end of our year with our schools I think it will be very important for us to be aware of stresses and pressures, and prepared to support our colleagues and team members.

So heading home tonight I am uber grateful for this opportunity!

As we put the finishing touches on sessions for Ulearn I am increasingly aware of the need to bring my story into play.

On the flight tonight I have taken the time to record snapshots of my learning journey. I am not sure yet how much I will share at my session, but I know that sharing of myself, my story, my struggles is crucial in connecting with my participants. Sharing a story of the transformational journey from isolation to connection is essential for me. Acknowledging the key players, coaches and mentors in my journey is essential for me. Celebrating successes is essential for me.

About to touch down in Dunedin I am renewed, invigorated, inspired and amped ready for the next few weeks. Thank you to you all for the conversation, the collegiality, the motivation, inspiration, challenge and connection that has been the past two days.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Auckland

Leadership with Nick Major (NAPP)

Why should anyone be led by me?
Facilitated.... mentored... coached... ?
Addressing the self doubt?  What works for me...

The Imposter Syndrome - Book by Harold Hillman PhD 

Managing this and becoming an authentic leader... reframe feelings of self-doubt! 

Credibility - How leaders gain and lost it, why people demand it, James Kouzes & Barry Posner Research. 

Extraordinary Leadership in Australia and New Zealand: The Five Practices that Create Great Workplaces

What values or personal traits do we have that people look for in leaders?

Out of all of these:

Top four to give leader credibility:

Honest

Forward Looking

Inspiring 

Competent

These attributes endow a leader with credibility!

Know and believe in self!

Know strengths and weaknesses.

Know passions!

"Leadership is a relationship, with credibility as the cornerstone, between those who aspire to lead and those who choose to follow." Kouzes and Posner

Rule 2:  DWYSYWD - Do what you say you will do!

Theory X versus Theory Y

Embracing the gatekeepers, 

"The essential role of leadership (and of leading change) is to find out how and what your colleagues (constituents) think, feel and believe and how this informs their practice... or doesn't."

• Deliberate acts of coaching/mentoring; 
• Leadership is a conversation, a dialogue, not a monologue.
• Asking really good, timely questions... mindfully listening to what is being said...

"I cannot teach anyone anything.  I can only make them think."  Socrates. 

Whakatauki - listening...  

Titiro, whakarongo, korero, Look, listen and then speak... 

Coaching is a collaborative, solution focused learning relationship, through which positive change is facilitated. Leading to a better future through the team's aspirations... 

Insert images for triple loop learning:

Moving from 

Single loop       Following the rules

Double loop     Changing the rules

Triple loop       New rules...

Moving to new ways of being... transformational/system change

"If your job is to help people do what they do, remember it's more about THEM than it is about YOU!"

Wellington Bound…

Uber early start but a win to start the day!  I woke at 5.01am when the alarm was set for 5.10am.  It is always so much greater for me to be awake before the alarm.  Up and away to the airport before 6, looking forward to a full on fun day with our team and team Central South.  And here I am cutting through day break on a glorious autumn morning.

What am I most looking forward to? 

·      Undoubtedly it is time with team members.  I always love time to catch up and re-connect with facilitators across the teams. 

·      I am also especially looking forward to exploring Story Hui some more as this is one way of working that I still need to upskill on.  We are planning on using Story Hui in our session next week so I am really keen to know more.

·      I am looking forward to continued discussion on ways of working as we are increasingly busy in our roles.

·      I am looking forward to spending more time looking at UDL.  Our recent session with Lynne has really bought this incredibly powerful learning concept to the forefront of our learning, planning and facilitation again and I can’t wait to explore and learn more about how best to support the educators I work with.

·      I am really looking forward to being back in Wellington.  We do not get there often with work and I really love the place.  I think I fell in love with it back in 2009 – 2011 when I visited regularly while studying for my Masters.

Kind, Specific and Useful feedback

#NZLA2014

I had the privilege of attending this conference.  I am still processing and sharing my thinkings, wonderings, learnings...

"In the last decade, the notion of literacy has gone from simple savoir-faire in reading and writing, to the technology-based opportunities afforded in connected reading, writing and multimedia production."

Literacy is undergoing exponential change in opportunities and we MUST keep up!

Know the WHY!  Always know the why of our learning.

Good teaching is incredibly complex, good learning even more so…

1.    Clarifying, sharing and understanding learning intentions and criteria for success.

Learning Intentions and known unknowns!

Knowledge is knowing that we cannot know. Waldo-Emmerson challenges teachers to come up with curricula we cannot know, do not know and begin a process of discovery.

                                    

Moving from something we know we know, to something we know we don’t know all the way out to don’t know we don’t know, is an incredible spectrum.  Our challenge is to work in the unknown, with opportunities for discovery and new ways of knowing. 

We are living in timezones, twitter stats, where the half life of a tweet is about 20 seconds.  Yes 20 seconds, until that tweet drops off the feed and disappears if it is not retweeted.  What does this mean for us?

Provocation to learn has to be designed.  It cannot be left til chance.  How do we plan and prepare students for provocation and contradictions.  How do we make them happen regularly, more regularly that the start of a topic learning.  A real challenge is to ensure we have agency, choice of learning and personalisation, with learners supported and challenge to pursue new learning.

Pam Hook's Solo Taxonomy Framework is one way of working out where our learning is.  Defining success in terms of how we are going to do this.

Actually taking time to dig into the success criteria.  Learning most by a scrape of a pass, with loads of feedback.  How do we share the success criteria – provide safe haven; allow our learners to fail with support. 

2.    Providing feedback that moves learning forward

Active listening – every characteristic of meaningful feedback. 

Talking about feedback:

Every time I watch this clip I am in awe of the power of feedback and feed forward. Aspects of feedback to consider:

• discussion… good start, now we can critique;
• students can produce high quality work taking into account critique and revision;
• teacher needs to actively teach and model the critiquing – allow for a revision;
• work through layers of drafts – continue to give feedback and continue to allow for revision;
• more specific with feedback;
• make lots of drafts;
• be kind with feedback;
• slow it down… forward thinking… not done yet…
• being uncomfortable with things just being okay!
• developing a culture of “that is great… but it’s not quite there yet!”
• feedback that is kind, specific and useful.  Kind, specific, useful feedback must be come our way of being… our catch cry;
• what is the minimal input? How can we give feedback early enough to allow for growth and discovery.  Feedback must be given early in the process so that the learner is not too heavily invested in the final product.  Feedback too late can be hurtful, and be unable to be acted on. 
• feedback walls – anonymous feedback can be left for acting on.  Can we have feedback walls in our classes? Feedback walls on our blogs?
• literacy targets – put photos on the area you are concentrating on.   Allows for kind, specific, useful feedback on the area the learner has chosen;
• peer feedback time – specifically allow time for this, schedule it in;
• taking a vocal feedback point and making it visible with scheduling it in to your timetabling;
• sharing your learning journey;
• making ‘worthy problems’; 
• provocative, immersive learning;
• immersion – spend time in the success criteria, spend time looking at the team aspects,

Synthesise, immerse, immerse, synthesise, ideate, prototype/feedback, ideate... 

Get deep into the what…

Allow students to take ownership over exploring wide and deep and pull their own conclusions out of it. 

Technology is allowing an immersive experience.

Plan the immersion, but plan no further. Allow learners to collaborate, allocate tasks, surface existing knowledge and discords, curating the original experiences is crucial.  Provide new information to allow for discovery. Post up ‘I haven’t founds yet’.

Get beyond searching for ‘known knowns', let students chose their learning pathway and record learning on immersion brainstorming.

Preparation and planning is far greater than ‘direct teaching', take one next small step, and commit.

Notosh Design thinking for learning - so much to explore here http://notosh.com/lab/ 

I have so much to explore and learn as I journey this year.  As I work with cluster of schools, I can plan the immersion, but no further.  As we synthesise our scoping, we can immerse ourselves in the journey, to ideate, prototype, allow for feedback, ideate, and journey together to create best possible outcomes for all our learners in all our schools.  

Learning from my mistakes Day 23 #28daysofwriting

Back at work today after a HUGE week last week, I was acutely aware of the need for focus and organisation as I tried to process the paperwork and get everything done before I head into more schools tomorrow.  

Fully focused I set off to create the forms necessary for the next steps, as we come together as a team, to ensure we best meet everyone's needs.

In my haste, I did not thoroughly read, or process the instructions. I doubled up on the work required and spent a lot of time creating sheets we do not need.

It got me thinking...

How often do I have a picture in my mind of what needs to happen that over-rules the real picture?

How often do I skim read, rather than deep reading?

Later this afternoon I was talking to our team leader and my mistake became evident.  How grateful I am to learn this early on of the potential duplication.  

How frustrated I would have been...

So here I am  tonight, reflecting on the benefits from close contact with our team.  The benefits of regular check ins, and clarification of tasks is essential.  

I really am loving our new way of working, sharing with team members, collaborating, and sharing the journey!

Woohoo... FAIL = first attempt in learning!

I love that I learnt from my mistakes today!

Robust, philosophical conversation.... Day 19 #28daysofwriting

Robust and philosophical conversation is one of the many privileges of my role. 

This week I have had the privilege of visiting schools in and around the deep south of New Zealand and in and around Christchurch.

In every school there is rich, robust and philosophical conversation. We are all on a journey and I love to connect with others on similar journeys, be challenged by those on completely different journeys and be inspired by the passion of educators for learners. 

This week has been unique for me.  Scoping 8 schools in 5 days over contributing, full primary, secondary, rural, urban, integrated…

What a pleasure it has been to reflect with staff.  To look at the journey they have been on, the successes they are celebrating and the challenges they are facing.  How good it is for the heart and soul to hear the enthusiasm and passion for learners and learning.  How inspiring it is to hear of opportunities being taken, innovations being trialled, and journeys shared.

Some of themes emerging are:

• Modern Learning Practice;
• Google Apps for Education (GAFE) to support learning and collaboration;
• Modern Learning Practice (MLP);
• Change management;
• Integration of digital technologies;
• Digital Citizenship;
• Teaching as Inquiry (T@I);
• Learner agency;

Just as our way of working this year allows for professional learning and development (PLD) where goals and needs align, it also allows for individualisation, personalisation and agency.

We have been overwhelmed by the enthusiastic welcome and reception we have received across the south and the time, honesty and passion shared. 

It is so easy to get enthused and involved when the passion is there.  How lucky the learners are to be surrounded by this positive ‘buzz’. 

If there is one thing I can encourage educators to do, if not already doing so, it is to record the exciting journey they are on.  Only by recording the journey of today are we able to truly reflect and really learn from the experiences.  As we move into uncharted waters with Modern Learning Practice, we NEED to know the journey, the tipping points, the key moments that impact on us, the deviations and detours we make, the lessons learnt, and the MAGIC created. 

I am especially looking forward to working alongside educators and living vicariously through their journeys.

Thank you to you all for the robust and philosophical conversation that has been the MAGIC in my week!

  

Now the fun begins, as we draft development plans, align needs, and collaborate to find the best way to meet needs.  

What a pleasure and a privilege to a part of this journey.