RTC 4

Demonstrate commitment to ongoing professional learning and development of personal professional practice 

i.      identify professional learning goals in consultation with colleagues ii.     participate responsively in professional learning opportunities within the learning community iii.  initiate learning opportunities to advance personal professional knowledge and skills        20th August 2015        PCT Workshop, Provisional Certified Teacher         This workshop covered a variety of aspects from the newly formed Education Council, exploring inclusive education, collaborating in positive and meaningful discussions with other beginning teachers and teaching as inquiry. What did I get from this 3rd workshop?          - The slight changes made from the previous Teachers Council to the newly established Education Council. As beginning teachers we are now PCT before being certificated.            - The importance of ensuring that our classrooms are inclusive to ensure success across the curriculum. Our classrooms are safe, and comfortable for learners to be successful.            - Sharing new ideas with other PCT teachers and gaining new ideas and experiences to implement back into my classroom environment. For example; allowing students to listen to their own music as they are carrying out their work independently.                 Links to PTC's: 1, 2, 3, 12  An effective reading application that provides an opportunity to listen to stories where they struggle to read, effective way to proof read writing pieces, and for el students to learn to english as their second language.  Things you might include in your PTC as evidence of teaching learning and collaboration across the board       This video focussed on the barriers people face in society both in school and out in the local communities. From this video, Samsung organised training courses to help people understand the difficulties people have being hearing impaired. However, I belief is it shouldn't take this long to help people become aware of the factor that these people face. Within the learning environment, as teachers, we need to ensure our learning environments are equipped to adhere to learning needs of all individuals and that it shouldn't take months on end to ensure a learning environment is safe.              14th August 2015 (Friday)        Sheena Cameron Writing Workshop        Today I had the pleasure of attending Sheena Cameron's writing workshop.         This workshop, for me, was a valuable experience. Not only did this workshop         consolidate what I am already doing, but also what I need to include more into my         writing programme to ensure success, and understanding for all learners. It is a belief         that this is an ongoing development for all teachers. Quick short activities were also shown         to help engage all writers;             - iMovie (Using scripts)            - Using an image where students explain an image and cannot use word that contains                                                                     the letter, 'e' for example.             Where to next:           - Use more modelling to ensure students understand the writing for the lesson.          - Setting up writing groups, based on writers needs (i.e. punctuation, ideas)          - Quick short writing activities encouraging students to be critical thinkers.  3rd August 2015 (Monday) Effective Professional Learning Conversations (PLC) Today, during staff meeting, we discussed what professional learning conversations were, what this looked like and how this can support our own teaching, along with other colleagues. Professional learning conversations is an environment built upon trust, promoting and encouraging reflection for example. Engaging in such vital PLC is important to ensure greater success across the board.  Links to other RTC: 1 27th July  Blogger - Professional Development Professional Development Monday 27th July, a teaching staff member guided the entire teaching staff through the steps required to create a personal, or classroom blog to track own teacher learning or that of the classroom. This tool, I believe is another essential form of communication between teacher, student, wider community and whanau members.  This image shows the great advantages of having a blog and how these 3 ideas intertwine with one another.  Sheet showing the steps required to  set up a blog account Where to from here for me?  End of year to evaluate classroom website, if this has not been effective and informative as first thought, I will then create a classroom blog to entice parents to view the current work carried out by their child/moko/whanaunga/friend. However, it is vital that I continue to inform whanau, and extended whanau to refer to the classroom website to stay up to date with current events and learning.  Links to other RTC: 1 4th May 2015 Algebra Workshop 2 This was a great workshop, following on from workshop 1. The key idea of this workshop was identifying what an equation and expression was and meant. We know that an equation is about either side balancing equally. For example: 36 = 30+6 An expression  is a mathematical phrase that can contain ordinary numbers, variables (like x or y) and operators (like add,subtract,multiply, and divide). An expression does not include the equals sign. Example of algebraic expressions: x+8 (A number plus 8) x-4 (Four less than a number) Throughout this work shop we looked at different activities and aligning these with the New Zealand Curriculum. Below you will see images of the activities that we as professionals have taken part in relating to the different NZC Levels. Notes taken from workshop. Showing what is expected for lvl 2 compared to lvl 3 This is a level 2 activity where students are looking for patterns, how the patterns work, the order in which the numbers ordered and looking at negative integers.  Level four activity, using formulas to posts how many posts are needed with 88 rails. This image above is about how many moves it takes to make 3 equal groups with the first group having 6 counters, 2nd 5 counters, and the 3rd 1 counter. Algebra Workshop 21st May 2015 Algebra Workshop 1 These workshops see other teaching staff from schools within the Waitara Teaching Region where we all come together to collaborate and learn from one another. This first workshop had all teachers thinking critically about the Algebra Levels within the NZC document and what an algebaric activity may look like at each level. It was quite interesting engaging in a professional development task like this, because some activities shown made some question whether the chosen activity was at the right (appropriate) level, or whether it should be a lower/higher level. Overall, this first workshop was very informative and made me think about what I should be teaching at year 7&8 if the individual is at that level in regards to the NZC.  This image shows what each learner should be learning at the end of each level. This image shows what we as group knew about Algebra. Te Reo Te Reo Māori Te Ara Reo Level 2 Te Wananga o Aotearoa This is a journey that I have really enjoyed since starting on this course. Not only is it beneficial to me as a teacher, but it is also of significance to me as a Māori. It has been my dream to learn te reo, and one day to hopefully speak my language fluently. We have covered a range of topics thus far: Vowels, consonants, blends Numbers Names  Waiata Karakia  Naming objects Locations Whakapapa Greetings E-Learning PLD E-Learning PLD Each, Wednesday one of our school staff members guides staff on how to use iPads and the apps currently on there, so that we as educators can implement and use these apps or programmes within the learning environment. 20th May 2015  This week we were guided step by step, how to use the application NGA (National Gallery of Art). This application allows students to create their own setting. Once the setting has been created, students then save their image, and import this into "explain everything". Students then have the opportunity to record their creative story on the setting they have created. 6th May 2015 This week, we used the programme explain everything. This programme can be useful for modelling, especially maths by getting students to model their answers. This can also be effective for the teacher to also model the answers given. There is also the opportunity for the students to record themselves explaining the strategy used. 29th April 2015 Although this is only our second week into iPad training, I have enjoyed the new learning. Technology is becoming a really strong aspect of student education and is the way of the future. This week Zoey guided us through the google drive application/programme. Google drive will allow students to save work that they have completed on the iPad to this programme. This will free up a lot of space on the iPad.  22nd April 2015 This week were guided and given ideas on how we can use Life Cards. The "Life Card" application can be used for a range of purpose. For example, short report (news form), recount, information report, reading (comprehension), topic (study). Here is an exemplar:  Measurement PLD  Maths PLD 4th May (Measurement) This maths workshop looked at measurement. As a staff we explored and analysed the measurement strand of the NZC. The importance of this was to identify activities suited to each level from levels 1 - 4, and where students are expected to be by the end of year 7 and 8. As a realisation, we know that there will be students who are below or well below these year levels. As apart of this workshop we discussed the importance of OTJ's and linking these to "National Standards". The importance of assessing each student in accordance to NS means that the next class/school the student goes to is able to identify the year level the child is at, instead of either being identified as well below, below, at, above, or well above. These two images shows staff engaging in a measurement activity making predictions on which shape is larger. We then used objects, and measurements to decide on which was larger/smaller. This image shows staff organising mathematical tasks completed by students into their appropriate year level in accordance to NS and the NZC.