Teacher Appraisals Workshop - Moving on with 'Our Code' and 'Our Standards' 2019

Workshop aims:

1. Review your use of the Code of Professional Responsibility and identify next steps
2. Deepen your understanding of the Standards for the Teaching Profession 
3. Share experiences and findings from goal, inquiry or standards focused appraisal
4. Extend knowledge of effective use of of observation and conversations

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?

1. I gained a better perspective on the Code. It is the VALUES belonging to the teaching profession.
2. Appraisal benefits learners, the appraisee, the appraiser, the school, whanau, the community and the teaching profession.
3. Appraisal should be robust, evidence based, growth focused, goal oriented, accountable to the Standards and the Strategic plan, include self-appraisal
4. The purpose of  Appraisal should be clear, involve trust and be focused on equity.
5. That what evidence looks like for an appraisal is up to each school to decide.

Key understandings

1. The Teaching Council will no longer ask teachers to send in evidence
2. Teachers do not have to have a professional blog to share their evidence. Each school will decide on what constitutes evidence and how this is recorded.
3. Teacher inquiry is mandatory as required by the NZC. How evidence of this is recorded is up to individual schools.
4. An emphasis should be placed on professional conversations between appraiser and appraisee with a focus on teacher goals re. the inquiry.

Spiral of Inquiry

Quality Practice Template

The following template was shared with us as an example of an appraisal document. 

"This template is not for individual teachers to complete as an appraisal record! It should be 

completed with colleagues. It is about knowing the standards and having a shared understanding of what they look like at your school. It allows you to focus your appraisal attention around your goals or inquiry. Completing the Quality Practice Template together means you, together with colleagues identify the Standards as practices in your context. It makes it easier to see the naturally occurring evidence available for discussion/analysis."

There are templates available for each of the six Professional Standards on the Teachers Council Website https://teachingcouncil.nz/content/our-code-our-standards

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?

I think a streamlined, less time-consuming appraisal system would benefit all teachers. 

Creating High Expectation Schools

Professor Christine Rubie-Davies from the University of Auckland presented to the Manaiakalani Te Hiku cluster on 'Creating high expectation schools.' Teaching practices were outlined, that could improve the self-esteem of students. A main focus was finding alternatives to ability groupings within classroom programmes.  Student self-belief is affected by teacher expectations therefore what a teacher values and how a teacher interacts through non-verbal and verbal signals sends messages to students about their abilities.

Key reflections for teachers

1. How do you form your expectations?
2. What influences your expectations?
3. What forms of evidence influence your expectations?

What have I learned that increased my understanding of high expectation learning?

1. Teacher expectations may influence learning support and emotional support.

      Examples:

• differential learning support
• differential emotional support
• verbal behaviours
• non-verbal behaviours
• the leakage heirachy

2. Expectations may influence stereotyping and bias. The consequences can be:

• reduced opportunity to learn
• warm and supportive interactions
• increased learning support
• positive emotional support
• challenging learning activities
• expectations of success

3. Many factors contribute to the way teachers behave towards their students and the expectations they have for individual student achievement.

How will this  pedagogy EMPOWER me professionally with my teaching practice?

I want to ensure that ALL of my students feel empowered and have a positive self-belief that they are successful learners. I want to ensure I know what is going on for my learners and provide them with the opportunities to overcome any barriers to learning that are identified. 

Key messages about grouping

1. Ability grouping may have limited or detrimental effect on student learning.
2. Ability grouping may have limited or detrimental effect on student achievement.

Planning for change

How will you set up a high expectation classroom?

Demonstrate through my interactions with students that my expectations are high for all of them. My words, gestures, body language and flexible grouping/activities will reflect that my expectations are high for all students.

What differences will you make to the way in which your syndicate/department sets up instruction for reading/writing/maths? 

I will  intentionally have more mixed and flexible grouping across all curriculum areas to encourage self-belief, student agency and collaboration.

How will you ensure maximum opportunity to learn for all students in your syndicate/department? 

Provide the opportunities mentioned above and the necessary support for students to be able to do what is required.

What learning experiences will you include so all children are challenged?

Provide a variety of learning tasks that are scaffolded with different degrees of challenge [independent, some support required, step-by-step support]. Students will have choice about which learning tasks they complete. 

Link to the day's presentation:

Creating high expectation schools

Digital Fluency Week 6

What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy?

Being Cybersmart was the initial focus for the day. A Cybersmart Curriculum supports the Manaikalani pedagogy. It needs to be specifically taught and revisited to enable students to be safe on on the internet. 

The categories are: Smart Learners, Smart Footprint and Smart Relationships, which link to the Learn, Create, Share philosophy of Manaiakalani.

Being Cybersmart empowers our learners as connected citizens. When their learning is visible and accessible, anytime, any place, at any pace, our young people learn to make smart decisions and understand that every time  they connect, collaborate and share online it combines to create their digital footprint.

Cybersmart clarity: Each component in the table above is broken down into key indicators. 

What did I learn that will increase my confidence, capability or work flow as a professional?

The focus today on Explain Everything for iPads was presented by Khismara Lal from Pt England school. Her extensive knowledge at using this app for 'Learn, Create, Share' for Yrs1-3 was obvious and I now have a clearer picture of how EE is used by the teacher and students. Her slide presentation is a helpful  introduction to using ipads in a junior class.


I will be referring back to this during the next months. Students access the class site on their ipads, click on the visible learning area buttons to access  their learning for the day. Further buttons lead the students to learning activities for the day/week. They use the different features of  EE to complete these activities. Here is the link to Khasmira's Class Site. Actually visiting the site and following the links helped me to see how my class site could function. I think once it is set up and streamlined to fit each group/individual, EE will make preparing for learning and teaching less time consuming and more manageable. Learning will be visible to students and activity instructions clearly explained within each project. EE has an easy voice recording system which can be used when setting up projects [perfect for New Entrants], and by the students to complete activities. There are lots of resources that other Manaiakalani teachers have created and shared. I will look at these once I can access them through an ipad as 'Explain Everything Reader is only available on Mac devices. Next step: to get New Era to make my google account accessible on one of the new ipads which I will keep for myself. I will also ask for a mac laptop from Tela next time I am eligible for a replacement. This should make the whole planing/creating/filing and sharing process more maneagable. 
My goals are: 

1. create my class site
2. learn how to create learning projects in EE
3. learn what parts of a project is created in google slides and what is created in EE
4. set up all iPads  the same - icons in the same folders, lock screen
5. set up indivdual students' Google Accounts
6. sign all iPads into individual learners’ Google Accounts (Google Drive, Chrome & Explain Everything)
7. label iPads on the outside with learners’ name [will have to be inventive because adhesive stickers/tape etc won't stick]
8. label individual Styluses with learner's names [styluses have been ordered]

Explain Everything downloads link

What did I learn that I could use with my learners?

I will need to continue using a structured approach to the 'Kawa of Care' of the ipad and using the various features of Explain Everything. This will involve the use of a stylus which we don't yet posses and also accessing the class website which is still in the design process.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability and workflow in my personal life?

Knowing that I can access already completed resources rather than starting from scratch is a bonus that will be such a time saver. Working collaboratively and sharing resources within our school, Ka hui ako and wider afield will help strengthen networking and our profession. Working collaboratively within our local area will mean growing a bank of resources that are the authentic to our students. Having accessibility to a range of existing resources will also give me ideas for creating my own.