This academic year is my last at QAD and in fact in Qatar. We are in the middle of a pandemic, we're moving between online learning, blended learning and back to online learning as the Covid numbers decline and accelerate. I have students I have never met in person, and a whole lot of new ideas about how to reach and engage younger students in an online learning environment. These goals were set in the first few months of the academic year, and we revisit them reasonably frequently to reflect upon and update our progress. There were three areas the school wanted us to focus on: Embedding safeguarding practices across the school and virtual learning community, and Inclusive student support practices that promote social and emotional wellbeing, and consistent approaches across the school that promotes healthy behavior - personal, social, emotional in physical school or online learning environment. Each of these goals would be important in a normal year of learning, and are particularly relevant in a year such as this one, where we are sharing our homes, family and others in online meetings, and where students are feeling increasingly isolated from their peers and their world (particularly so as we enter a phase where no child under 16 can enter public places in Doha). In terms of safeguarding, I have really stringent rules about our online meetings, and one of them is that the camera must be on at all times, and the child must have a quiet space away from others. This one has been particularly hard to police, as the children live in noisy, boisterous homes with nannies and parents who love to help them with their learning. It has taken some time to impress upon the adults of the families, that this is a necessary rule to protect all students who are in online meetings (which essentially is like an invitation into their homes). To support student well being, I have tried a range of tactics during this year, and by far the most effective and loved has been 'golden time'. This is an opportunity for students to go into breakout rooms in Google Meet - to hang out, to play, to kick balls and share their skills, to play games, to draw and produce art, and most importantly to feel like they have social contact on a regular basis. This is the 'break time' from school in an online setting. It is the most popular initiative I have introduced, and the most requested. I see a real difference in the students when they come back to the main room of the meeting afterward, they are so bubbly and happy. In terms of consistency, I work in a team where we have shared the load each taking a curriculum area to plan for, for the duration of a unit. This has meant we have a very consistent approach to what the students have covered this year.
The end of the year is fast approaching, and when reflecting again, I can see that I have met many of my personal targets. I have spent the year researching and identifying ways in which to better engage our students online. I have found some fantastic tools and utilised them in the classroom. These include but are not limited to Google Slides and Powerpoint to create video tutorials for students, jamboard for online interactive learning, breakout rooms to offer differentiated learning, and Edpuzzle for interactive videos. I've created and shared a range of tools and resources, and I have kept a regular check on my students to make sure they are doing ok. There have also been regular communications with parents to share concerns, and to celebrate moments of learning. I've updated my skills informally, and formally with the Google Certifed Educator Level 1 Fundamentals, and Level 2 Advanced certifications. It's been by far the most challenging year of teaching in my career, one where I've been constantly evolving the programme and my skills. I'm not there yet, and will continue to adapt my programme to the changing and challenging circumstances we are living in.
Having completed my Level 1 certification and passed the exam, I felt inspired to go for Level 2. Because I'm leaving QAD at the end of this school year, I am not entitled to any more paid professional development, so I decided this one would be self-driven and self-funded.
Edu.google.com has a teacher trainer online centre, where you can choose a course and complete it in your own time. It doesn't cost you anything, but the exam at the end does. I decided rather than just sitting the exam to see if I could 'wing it', I would do this course and learn what I didn't know. I'm glad I took this route, there were things that were included in the course that I either didn't know, or didn't know well enough to apply. Or I'd forgotten (there's so much you can do with google tools). Here are some things I think are useful...
I have now been teaching using the IB curriculum for nearly 3 years. I've done the foundation training so that I had an understanding of the whole IB approach to teaching and how to successfully implement it in the classroom.
This course was an opportunity to look at an area of the curriculum in a greater depth. I chose the arts because I felt it was the area I would most like to develop further. As a New Zealand teacher I've taught mostly across the curriculum. As an international teacher, I've taught predominantly (but not exclusively) in the Literacy, Numeracy and Inquiries area. Using a transdisciplinary approach, the arts and health are incorporated naturally, but not to that extent that would happen in New Zealand (we have specialist classes for these areas). As one of only 3 homeroom teachers in this course, it was a really advantage to be in this course with so many specialist teachers. I was exposed to a range of perspectives on art in the classroom programme.
Transdisciplinary Approach ideas:
Music (Fairy Tales HWEO Unit) We're about to teach this unit, so finding ideas that help to integrate the arts into the classroom programme seemed like a great idea.
To prepare us for what in all likelihood is to be an unusual start to a new school year (in what is a very unusual year), QAD has set up learning workshops that we could opt into. This post relates to G-Suite PD. While I've been a user of G-Suite for Education for a long time, I figured this could be an opportunity to learn something that would add to what I already knew.
The brief had focused on Google Forms, but we have also covered tips and tricks in Google Classroom. Below are the tips and tricks that I personally can see being very useful:
This course was an introduction in using Scratch coding in the classroom. The primary purpose of this course was to build familiarity and confidence for teachers so that they can effectively teach coding in the classroom.
Overall I felt this was a highly effective day of learning; I'd had less formal PD on Scratch coding before, but come away without really grasping how to use it. This course had a step-by-step approach with lots of explanation. We watched the facilitator code first, then we coded alongside of her, and finally we were given a challenge to code ourselves. Once I understood the basic fundamentals of the Scratch coding programme, I found it relatively easy to make simple animations. My next step is to take this further; deepen my understanding while also introducing Scratch to my students. At QAD, the children are tested three times a year using the MAP Assessement tool. It's an online tool that measures progress in Reading. Language Usage and Mathematics.
The grade 3 and 4 teams today, met with Malcolm Nicolson to look at our data and to think of ways to interpret it. Our students move on an upward trajectory as you would expect them to do. Because they are ELL students, the trajectory is not aligned with the 'norms' expressed in MAP. This is to be expected, they are still developing their fluency in the English language, and this affects their score results in a test that is entirely in English. They first must intrepret the meaning of the question, before they can figure out what the question is asking them to do. In a whole group discussion we identified other causes that may affect their language acquisition and consequently their scores: many of our students have nannies and other home staff who come from South East Asian countries. English is also a second language for these helpers. The students' parents are also ESL learners, and so the way in which English language is modelled to the students beyond the school, may be quite poor lacking in correct sentence structures, grammar, and introduction to new vocabulary (through no fault of any of the parties involved). If the only place where the students are immersed in the acquisition of proper English is at school, then it is to be expected that it will take longer to develop a solid understanding of the language. And acquisition rates will vary between students. All of this has an impact on the results we get in MAP. One thing we did decide, is that Reading needed the most emphasis. We need to help our students to develop a love for reading in English, by reading to them ourselves, helping them to find books that match their interests and encouraging reading at all times. If the students develop their skills in reading English, then they will develop their skills in understanding it. This in turn will support them in being able to navigate through learning in an English language environment successfully, which in turn will lead to better tests results. For me it's not all about the data, the learning journey must be engaging and sustaining, and if it is then the data results will reflect this to some extent. I came away from the session this afternoon in two minds. It seemed more an informal discussion amongst teachers than actual PD in how to analyse the data and use it formatively as a tool to meet students' needs. However, that said, there was still food for thought as we from the different tangents we discussed; we must help our students to build a love for reading, we must continue to explicitly teach grammar, and vocabulary, and as this happens, proficiency in the English language will strengthen. A stronger grasp of the English language will help to build successful learning in our students in all curriculum areas. This academic year, our goal setting covers a period of six months: from January to June 2020 although we did set our goals prior to winter break and have been working on them ever since. Our school wide and team goals are set by management, who assess the areas most in need. My own goals this year are set under the umbrella of inquiry. We are an IB school, which means that inquiry learning should drive all learning. However, we are also an ESL school, which means the students must have strong foundations in Literacy and Numeracy to be able to access and learn successfully through inquiry. It's a balancing act, and at times more emphasis is on building foundational literacy and numeracy skills. This means that inquiry learning may not be as strong as it should be. Hence a focus on inquiry learning. There were two areas the school wanted us to focus on: setting up an inquiry learning environment, or planning for inquiry. I personally think that if you plan well for inquiry, then your environment will be set up to promote inquiry learning, so I chose planning for inquiry as my focus. I'm working to ensure my planning is inclusive, where all students have access, and can take some ownership. Goals and Success Criteria: 2019/2020 Whole School Goal: Social and Emotional The school environment is safe and supports students’ social and emotional well being.
2019/2020 Team Goal: Literacy To develop literacy and language skills throughout all learning environments
2019/2020 Individual Goal: Inquiry Inquiry is the foundation for student learning across the curriculum. Inquiry approach in the classroom to learning and teaching: Planning for inquiry (with an IT focus).
The Google Summit comes to Qatar once a year, and is a great opportunity to add to your skills repetoire. Of the three workshops I attended, there were some stand out ideas for implementing in the classroom:
Google Expeditions with Google Cardboards I've come across these before in my postgraduate study. I've mixed feelings on the value of these as a learning tool, so I'll just doing a positives and negatives blurb... Positives
Cloud-based Production Tools (Dan Pardy) This workshop was a great way to find out about quality online tools that students can use to make slick productions, if they don't have access to quality iPad applications. These tools work well on Chromebooks which all our students use. soundtrap.com A great alternative to Garageband, where students can compose their own music using a variety of tools including their own voices, and layer the sounds in whichever way they see fit. It's easy to use and easily exported as a mp3 or .wav file, allowing integration into other applications. I rate this one highly at a 9.5/10. wevideo.com This site offers an online place to create slick productions when you don't have access to iMovie (and in fact it has so many features, the productions you make could be a lot slicker than an iMovie one). It's extremely easy to use, you can integrate your soundtrap composition into it, along with many other possibilities and it looks amazing too. Another 9.5/10. Quizes on Google Forms I already have used google forms for their survey feature, which is a great way to collect information quickly and easily. I knew about the quiz feature, but never really felt the need to take a look. This workshop (also with Dan Pardy) covered the use of Google Forms to use as immediate feedback (and collection of formative data) with your students. You are able to provide feedback in the answers section of the quiz - which means no time-lapse between students entering an answer, and finding out whether they are correct or not, and, you can add links to support your feedback allowing them to build on their understanding. This feature is also a great way for students to demonstrate their own learning and teach at the same time - by making quizes that others can use. (I immediately see the benefit of this tool for the IB Exhibition that my students are currently working on). I rate it 9/.10. There were other tools and features during the day. I was looking for practical opportunities not just to grow my skills, but to teach to my students so that they can grow theirs. Overall, this summit was one well worth attending. As part of the Language Acquisition Training, we all were given an assignment where we had to put into action some of our learning. Because our learning last time centred around the use of sentence frames, I decided to use them to promote effective discussion in the classroom.
I purchased a great pack off TPT aimed at building meaningful discussion in the classroom, and have begun to teach aspects of it to the class. The first lesson highlighted the way in which a structured approach to teaching language skills, helps to successfully promote discussion. The Lesson: I chose the question: Would you rather be only able to whisper, or only about to shout? I introduced the ways in which they could contribute to the conversation in sentence frames:
This year the goal I've been working on has related to implementation of Inquiry Learning, using the International Baccalaureate Programme of PYP. While I'm no stranger to teaching inquiry learning in primary school, the PYP model differs somewhat to the models I have used in the past, and I felt I needed to develop a solid understanding of it. The way that it differs is simply not aesthetic (i.e. change of titles in process), there are additional factors to consider when implementing it, such as the 'Learner Profile', 'Approaches to Learning', and the 'Key Concepts.' Also to consider is the Central Idea which requires specific language and which provides the context, and Lines of Inquiry, using the Key Concepts to provide the directions for inquiring.
It was all a little confusing to start with, but now more than seven months into learning about, and teaching PYP Inquiry, I understand how beneficial it is to add these elements to the inquiry process. They build a strong structure into the process, guiding the inquirer in a more specific way, than in inquiries that lack these elements. I am by no means finished learning how PYP inquiry works, but I've found the structured professional development that I have received, along with the opportunities to continually implement what I'm learning in the classroom, have helped immensely in building my understanding and confidence in teaching PYP. Currently my students are about to start the third week of their Exhibition projects, and helping to facilitate their learning and progress is adding a deeper layer to my understanding.
Personal goal statement: To build an understanding of how to integrate all the elements of PYP into classroom inquiry.
Success Criteria:
Effective implementation of PYP inquiry process within the classroom learning environment.
Plan for specific data/evidence to be gathered:
Strategies/Approaches anticipated to achieve goal:
Mid Year Reflections and End of Year Outcomes
Where to next?
Continue building my knowledge and attend formal training later in the year.
Readings: https://www.ibo.org/programmes/primary-years-programme/ https://www.thinkib.net/leadership/page/21002/ib-approaches-to-teaching https://www.ibo.org/contentassets/ef4f3c159e21444a9727ef9b7555681c/saturday-2pm---implementing-ib-approaches-to-learning---edward-lawless.pdf https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCsytwt5pcQ
School Wide Goals - Reflection
Goal: The school environment is safe and supports students social and emotional well being.
Success Criteria:
Progress:
Goal: To develop literacy and language skills throughout all learning environments
Success Criteria:
Majority of students demonstrate a year’s worth of growth in literacy, appropriate to individual development.
A range of formative and diagnostic assessment tools are used to inform language instruction. Faculty in all learning environments incorporate appropriate literacy strategies. All faculty engage in Professional Learning focused on Language Acquisition strategies.
Progress:
|
My PD in DohaWelcome to my professional development page. This page will record my professional learning, professional readings, and learning reflections while teaching in Doha, Qatar. The posts on this page will also show the links to the NZ Practicing Teacher Criteria. Archives
April 2021
Categories
All
|