DFI session 6

DFI session 6 - 31 July 2019 Tautoro school

Enabling access
Today's agenda

Visible learning
Can be seen by students and their whanau - the education process needs to be clear and not mysterious to parents.

Whanau need to understand the learning happening in their own children's lives.

Also visibility of us as teachers to our colleagues.  Open and sharing of information with our colleagues.

We need to stop hiding what makes education success to students and whanau.  Unpack step by step for learners and their parents what they are supposed to be doing.

Successful students in the past have generally had parents who experienced success - conversations in their homes generally parents talk and children absord what makes success at school.  How can it happen in homes where the parents were not successful themselves?

Visibility is the way to change this - the intentional use of technology is a game changer for visible learning.  This includes teacher planning and outlines.  Students need to see the goals to move ahead.

Some things are genuinely private e.g. personal student info.  But everything else should be visible.

Sites allow everything to be visible.  Access is mobile and accessible.

Think about the visibility of the learning for your students - physical and online visibility.  Just like windows in the classroom it makes it safer for all.

On Air classes share everything - inquiry teachers also share online.

The default should be to make everything visible in class including planning.

Visibility has a clear correlation to successful outcomes.

Goal collegiality blossoms - sharing is the norm.

Sites

How are they good for students, whanau and teachers?  Different perspectives.

Site reviews

What is the purpose of your site - ease of access for your learners.
Images, theme -to keep continuity for the students.

Need simplicity of navigation for the site to work well - aim for no more than 3 clicks to ensure ease of access.

Try to minimise fonts - not more than two for consistency.

Buttons can be made in various places e.g. shapes in google draw.
Layouts on the side can also create buttons.

We got to view lots of other peoples sites which was helpful and time to improve three things on our site.  My focus is maths links, filmmaking slides inserted and improving writing slides.


What did I learn that increased my understanding of Manaiakalani kaupapa and pedagogy and Visible learning?
The importance of making learning visible to colleagues as well as to the students. Visibility should be the starting point and we need a really good reason not to share planning and other resources with other teachers. Visibility allows students and their whanau access to all their learning. It also means staff can share without having to ask each other to send resources as they can retreive themselves. I feel more confident about the visibility aspect of the process following Dorothy's explanation today which was clear and helpful.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow as a professional?
It was great to have the time to put some more rewindable learning opportunities into my blog. I was able to create three sets of slides about new topic areas and create new pages for them in my blog. Feedback from some teachers who have been using sites for awhile is that they are moving away from lots of slidebanks and just using information put directly into the blog. So I will plan on trying this out more.

What did I learn that could be used with my learners?  
To make everything in the site more accessible and to be quicker to access. To make everything visible through the site for learners and so they are able to share with their whanau. It is easier for the learners to have everything in one place.

What did I learn that could improve my confidence, capability or workflow in my personal life?
Some tips to make my site function more easily for my learners. A reminder on how to get things into the site - I will try to add things daily for the next few weeks to ensure the practices become embedded into my learning and make it easier to progress.