Team work to bring about transformational learning

Mā te huruhuru ka rere te manu – with feathers a bird can fly

Transformational  learning is where learning is taking place where there was none before. Often effective teaching cannot take place because barriers to learning exist. Research has shown that these barriers to learning are often cultural issues,low  literacy or behavioural issues. Beginning teachers need to be assured that they are not in this alone, the government recognises that schools should be learning communities where the teachers are learning as much as the students are learning. Teachers collaborate and share resources and ideas, they undertake professional development, they develop relationships with whanau and the wider community to create an effective learning environment .

As a beginning teacher I need to remind myself of the one of the drivers behind why I am driven to become a teacher. How when I worked with rehabilitation of ex-prisoners  I  noticed the common denominator among all the workers was having a low literacy level.How when I was on practicum I noticed those whose behaviour was the most outrageous were often those who had greatest potential .How those who seemed the hardest to reach would suddenly be transformed into another being through acknowledgement of their culture. However finding a way to ignite the spark and fuel the fire of learning requires teamwork “working in supportive and rigorous learning communities with their peers and expert support”(MoE,2005).

Examples of this transformative team teaching programmes are Te Kotahitanga ,literacy initiatives and Positive Behaviour for learning.Te kotahitanga is a research and professional development programme that supports teachers to raise Maori student achievement through effectice teaching practices.Students need to develop the literacy expertise to engage with the curriculum and become independent learners.The government has developed an online literacy portal that enables teachers todevelop  teaching and learning programmes  based on the literacy needs of their students.The Literacy Learning Progressions is one of the professional tools details what is expected of the student at the end of each year of schooling.Positive Behaviour for Learning is a school wide programme that aims to develop a culture where positive behaviour  and learning flourish through whole school behaviour management systems.Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate embarked on a PB4L programme at the beginning of this year and recently more than 100 students turned up to their afterschool homework sessions indicating a school wide positive change in attitudes to learning.check out the video below to see how Wanganui High school student approaches to PB4L.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BNJYQHWt7A

References.

http://pb4l.tki.org.nz/

http://literacyonline.tki.org.nz/

http://tekotahitanga.tki.org.nz/About

Ministry of Education (2005).Making a bigger difference for all students.Hingaia he huarahi hei whakarewa ake i ngatauira katoa

Building effective relationships

Building effective relationships

 

The beginning teacher needs to establish collaborative relationships with other teachers in order to teach effectively. Cultivating a support network for sharing information about students and teaching practices is crucial to effective practice and developing resilience to stress. Teachers also develop relationships with the community through caregivers and families and become part of teams and committees within the school. However the most important relationships a beginning teacher will develop are those with the students they teach. This is the essence of teaching (Bell,2011).The learning environment they create with these relationships and how they connect with students impacts on students and shapes their learning.

Teachers develop relationships with students by connecting with them on a personal and emotional level. They find out about them and show they value them so they feel that they belong. One of the major barriers for establishing positive relationships is deficit thinking. Deficit thinking is a two way process. It influences relationships by impacting on the way both parties interact. Bishop et al (2003) cites successful learning outcomes for Maori students result from positive non judgmental  classroom relationships. Similarly research had shown that boys are relational learners and that personal connections with teachers as a necessary precondition for effective teaching and  positive learning outcomes(Reichart,2010).

The other relationships that impact on a beginner teachers practice are those that come from within but are projected outward and impact all other relationships: Spiritual relationship with God as the fount of all knowledge and with Jesus as the Master Teacher on whose practice they model their own teaching. Jesus developed relationships with his students by establishing” some  point of contact with his hearers on  a spiritual or physical plane”.Pazmino,(2001).The final relationship is that which the teacher has with themselves  ,”at home with our own souls we become  more at home with each other”.(Palmer ,2006) enabling them to forge those  critical connections that are at the heart of teaching and learning.

 References

Bell,B.(2011).Theorising teaching as a relational practice.

Bishop,R. &Berryman M.,(2009).The Te Kotahitanga Effective Teaching Profile.

Palmer, P. 2006.The courage to teach.p7.

Pazmino,R.(2001).Jesus,the Master Teacher .in Anthony,M.J.(Ed.).(2001).Introducing Christian Educators :Foundations for the twenty-First century.Grande Rapids.Baker Academic.pp111-124

Reichart,M. &Hawley,R.(2010) Reaching boys.An international study of Effective teaching Practices. PDKintl.V91N4

 

 

Responding effectively to student learning needs in the classroom.

Responding effectively to student learning needs in the classroom.

In the previous blog we discussed the different learning styles that could be encountered in the classroom. In this blog we will go into more detail about adapting the curriculum to reach all of the learners in the classroom

“While we are all in the same room we are not in the same place” Susan Bashinski quotes on the Public Broadcasting Service website summing  up the diversity of learning styles,religions, culture,race and talents and personalities a teacher will encounter in every classroom. Adaptations to the curriculum provide diverse learners with different ways to process information and to demonstrate what they have learned. As we found in the previous blog students learn by building on what they know already and curricular adaptations are intended to enable them to participate in a learning activity that will promote the acquisition of new skills and understanding.

The five areas of the curriculum where  beginning teachers can think about making adaptations  are:

·         instructional strategies and materials which are concerned with the process of learning

·         curricular content which can be modified to suit diverse learners

·         assessment practices which are concerned with the products of learning

·         learning environment  which can include differentiating for  individual, group and peer work

·         affect,  that is. the ambiance of the classroom whether is an enabling  environment

See the diagram below examples of differentiation.. for Tomlinson’s  differentiated Instruction  Model

 

Tomlinson's Model of Differentiation.

 

While it impossible to know everything about all students and to differentiate to cater for all their differences with more experience the teacher will begin to see patterns emerge in their classes,some students are slow, some too fast, some need reading support, some vocabulary, some can’t sit still etc. Understanding these patterns in the classroom enables the teacher to approach differentiation from the angle of what Tomlinson(2006) calls universal design. In this way instructional strategies can be adapted that will give all students opportunities for learning but in different ways at different  times throughout the lesson. Similarly, the teacher can differentiate the learning environment so that students can work at their own pace or in small groups. This ,however, requires skilful classroom management techniques .(See Tomlinson, et al,2006)

While there are many instructional guides to how to adapt the curriculum an approach to a differentiated classroom needs  to include  both  planning and improvisation. Tomlinson, et al (2006) liken it to a jazz musician  who keeps the melody and expresses it in different ways. In the classroom the melody is the curriculum goals  and  the teacher, with  a good understanding of how learning works, is  sensitive to the flow of the classroom,  ready to empower and  creatively link students to meaning.

References

Tomlinson,C&McTigue,J.(2006). integrating Differentiated Instruction and Understanding by Design.ASCD

www.pbs.org/teachers/early childhood/article/adapting/html

Learning theories and styles

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The 29 steps. 

Students have many different ways of learning so its important to take this into account when designing lessons. At the basic level there are visual, aural, reader writer  and kinaesthetic preferences for learning learners known as VARK.People are generally a combination of all four just to different degrees. It is important that a teacher is responsive to the individual learning needs of all their students and able to differentiate the lesson to enable all students to learn. Sometimes it simply a case of presenting the same information in different ways. Written on the board, spoken aloud and perhaps a visual representation or an analogy relevant to the everyday lives of the students. Like Solomon in Ecclesiastes 12:9b,who searched out proverbs to explain difficult ideas to the people the wise teacher is responsive to the cultural as well as intellectual diversity of students, for example the story telling traditions of the Pacific people means their learning style is often auditory and kinaesthetic through dance and drama. 

Science appeals to kinaesthetic learners because of the opportunities for practical investigation but the language of science and the requirement for precision in reporting can sometimes prove a stumbling block for this type of learner. It is important that teachers expose students to different learning styles but be aware of the favoured one.Traditional textbooks focused on the  learning of answers rather than the exploration of questions and so did not take into account different learning styles.AASR(1989)

Another learning theorist the beginner teacher should  become acquainted with if they wish to develop the characteristics of a wise teacher is Robert Sternberg who researched the cognitive basis of intelligence and how people actually process information based on their experiences and their relationship with their environment. He believes that people have practical,

analytical and creative intelligence and that today's  testing does not fairly measure a students abilities. His sixteen principles of teaching wisdom are a useful guide for the beginner teacher to learn what to teach students for them to be useful citizens.. How to go about teaching students can be found in the works of Gagne the most influential instructional design theorist of the last few decades whose theory proposes  nine instructional steps that will take into account all the different learning styles.
For students to be effective learners and teachers to be effective teachers they each need to know their own learning style. The teacher aware of their own and others' learning styles is able to interpret students needs in the context of their learning style and adjust their teaching accordingly. Similarly a student aware of their own learning style is better able to develop a set of learning strategies to take advantage of their strengths and compensate for their weaknesses and become a self directed learner..

References
American Association for
 he Advancement of Science Report,Science for All Americans (1989)p14
Sternberg,R.J.(2003)Wisdom, Intelligence and Creativity Synthesized.NY Cambridge University Press
http://www-tc.pbs.org/teacherline/courses/rdla130/pdfs/edth_learning_styles.pdf