Mondays in the winterless North

Today my aim is to get ONE of my senior classes to start on their blogging journey.


We live in a DIGITAL savvy era! Ask yourself the question:

What are my next steps?

Probably most of you had the answer about either getting your year 13 and then a job.  Now today we are opening the door to getting yourself a "digital" footprint and online identity that you can share with those people who are in the next part of your "career pathway". You need to have some proof of who you are, what you do, what you believe in?

I am hoping to start you off today on a blogging journey:
Some about me blog posts as suggestions:
Nickname
what I love
what I believe in
Likes/interests
favourite subjects
purpose of your blog
This is the link to our school's blog site.

If I was an employer and I had shortlisted 2 people for possible employment, and one of them had a blog that I could read, I would possibly go for the person with the "on-line" identity, as I could read about who he/she is and learn more about this person, than the one without the online identity.  This is not a face book profile, this is all about a professional identity.  It should be positive.
https://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Professional-Blogger

We are trying this as a Level 2 class (group 2)
Maybe your first question after answering: who am I.... should be:

Where am I off to next. Is it Level 3, is it a job, is it after school studies??
Then  this should be the focus of your new blog!!

You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page.”

― Jodi Picoult

I am camping in the RAIN...just camping in the RAIN...what a glorious feeling...

On our way with our year 9 to go camping at Matauri Bay for 3 days.
It is raining non-stop: CHALLENGE: Put up your tents and stay dry!
Watch this space!!

Pygmalion Effect....and the POPE

POPE = the Power of Positive Expectations

This is just a proof that students live up to the expectations that teachers set for them.
Some Food for thought!!
I am "getting ready" to set my inquiry goals for 2019, and thinking to do this around the achieving of the numeracy credits for year 11 high priority learners.  I hate it when someone hangs a lable around another person's neck saying: You can't do this. And we are our own worst enemies, by putting this lable around our necks ourselves. Whether you are doing it, because you believed someone else when they told you so, or whatever the reason...I want to use 2019 to seek ways in which I will remove that lable.



On my first day in the year 11 class,  next year, we will do the following:
1. Assign a number (starting at 1 ) to each letter of the alphabet. A=1, B= 2, C= 3.....Z=26. Each letter has a % score, for example a = 1%, B= 2%...
2. Now write down your name and determine your score.
example:  Mina = 13 + 9 + 14 + 1 = 37 %
3. Determine the score for:
LUCK
MONEY
KNOWLEDGE
CLEVER
HARD WORK
ATTITUDE
4. Attitude spells 100%...in this class it is all about your ATTITUDE. Let's get that right before we start the year.

Friday Faculty Self review day

Today we are going to sit down and do our self review. We will be discussing a few things.
One of the things on my to do list is:
What is learning to learn and how will we incorporate it into our Mathematics Faculty.

I am going to share the following video with the teachers, and then illustrate a typical learning to learn environment by asking them to make me a slideshow/infographic of what "learning to learn" is.
I've already made mine, and then we will sit together and make a slideshow of :
What learning to learn will look like in the Bay of Islands College Mathematics Classes.





Guy Claxton: Learning to learn from Ministry of Education on Vimeo.

Give me an A....for ALGEBRA

Ooooh the Joys of teaching ALGEBRA to the year 9's. They always ask me: WHAT is Algebra and WHY do we need to learn it?
So yesterday instead of the normal way of doing it, I decided to start with that question and to give them a challenge:

• Google: What is Algebra
• Watch a few videos (find the BEST one, don't just watch one)
• Then challenge:

Make either a video OR blog about it OR write about it OR infographic, telling me: in your own words WHAT ALGEBRA IS.

the best one: will win a pizza just for yourself, you can tell me which pizza you like.

whaea Mina "

And they enjoyed it. Some of them made videos, some made slideshows and some made posters. I am sharing a few of their "answers". The best thing about it: They were so excited, and actually enjoyed their first experience of Algebra this year. What I also loved about this method, is that all the boys were done first, they used humour in their presentations, and they had the option to leave 15 minutes earlier to go to a music talent show of the other class, and they opted out, to stay and finish their work...

Rian's work Xavier's work Esicca's work

Mahuta's work Alisi's work Waimarie's work

Zhyon's work Hemana's work Maia's work

integers ROCK

Here is a link to me and my year 9 's doing integer rules.

This is how we learn integers and remember our rules for:
adding (row row row the boat)
multiply/divide ( I love rock and roll)

They also shared their learning with me. Some made wall posters and some made slide shows. Some of them sang the songs, and some made info-graphics.

I just love rock and roll...and my job!! I've shared a link to some of the students' learning ...enjoy!!

Waimarie's learning.

Alisi's learning.

Maia's learning.

Paytyn's learning.

Brooke's learning.

Te Rere and Tanisha's learning.

Essica's learning.

Tahnellah's learning.

Some hand-drawn posters, for the guys who did not have chrome books.
photo 1
photo 2

This is why I love every second of my rewarding job!!  Mathematics is indeed a performing art, and some days, just some days, I can be the rock star...playing my air-guitar and making my moves...

Tuesday PD with Kerry

This is the slideshow that our learning was based on today.


Reflective Questions:
How are you going on your visible teaching and learning journey?
I love this, and I am extremely excited about this. At this stage I am still in LEARN CREATE SHARE, and in a linear model, and would love to use this as a cycle. Students need to get over the "I don't want to share" attitude, into that it is a safe place to share.
What's working well?
The students need to know "how it works" and the processes in our class...what does sharing look like in our class?
What gaps do you have?
I still have gaps in the sharing part of the work; for example: some students are still sharing their learning with emails in stead of in the folder.  We need to work together as a staff, maybe a good idea to spend a week as a whole school in making our students "cyber-smart".
What help would you like?
For me it is important to know that the whole staff speak "with the same mouth", in other words. Have that first week, where we show students how to  use chromebooks, how to save work, how to share work, etc.  We can sit down as a staff, and see where the gaps are, that we can "fill" at this first week of digital training. Maybe, the staff can also be part of this initial training, so we all work in the same way/ and "speak the same lingo".
My next steps:
To make sure that I know how/where the students share/save their work. How to get them all to do it the same way. How to get students to blog every lesson to reflect on their learning. To encourage students to use the different ways to creatively share their learning.Every day's lesson on the daily planner will be in the 3 parts: L, C and S.
As I've said before:  We (all the staff) need to speak the L, C and S language, in order to get all our students working in this way.....UNITED WE SHALL STAND.
LLISTEN TO THIS VIDEO