Te Hiku 4th Film Festival

Another very successful Te Hiku Film festival. On Wednesday 13 September we held our 4th Film Festival at the Te Ahu Cinema in Kaitaia. We had three sessions during the day for the schools to attend and a 5:30 pm session for the Whanau and prize giving. We had 14 3 minute movies from 8 of our 9 schools. This year we did not have a theme or topic we left in open with the idea that teachers would embed movie making into their teaching and learning throughout the year and choose one for the festival. This did not happen; they all waited until term 3 to start their films. Some schools did integrate it into their learning topic. I just love watching the reactions of the students on the red carpet even the cool kids transform into a star role as soon as they step on it. The cheering, laughing, clapping and yelling from the audience is also fantastic to hear. Watching the students look at themselves on the big screen through the gaps of their fingers over their faces, pointing and yelling each other's names as they appear. This is what makes all the hard work and time to organise it so worthwhile. We had a mixture of genres of movies from music videos, documentaries, humour and history. Our winning film this year was from Mangonui School which was a music video to go with the song they had written and composed. They had also used an AI app to get great effects. These were the winners at the prize giving. Best Film 2023 – Mangonui School-"Get Down With Us" Second best Film –(2nd equal) Kaingaroa School-The River & Ngataki School-Tumatahina Trophy for most creative school display-Ahipara School Best Script – Tumatahina Best Camerawork –Mangonui School - “Get Down With Us” Best lead Actor – Matteo Noema-Wakarua -who played Manu Ahipara School Best supporting Actor-Jimmy Heighway -Whaea Jasmine Best Ensemble Cast – Tumatahina This is the link to our Te Hiku Site where you access all the movies from. 

It was a very long day but so worth it when you watch the very creative movies and see those faces on and off the screen.

Term 3 online toolkit Getting Creative in Maths.

Another toolkit completted, I have noticed in my searching cluster sites and the edublog search there is not alot of create happening in Mathematics and statistics.So I desided to put together a workshop to look at how we can get creative in Maths. I looked at all the amazing tools we are already using and how we can transfer them across the the math curriculum. I linked in past toolkits for teachers to watch and learn from if needed. Where I could find examples on blog posts I also linked them in as exemplars. Again there was a high registration number in the 50s as maths is something teachers want. Fiona Fox our new Maths Facilitator was my wing person and shared her expertise. Fiona is in the process of writing the MPI that will be out for trial next Feb. she commented on alot of great ideas she got out of the workshop she can embedd into the MPI. The feedback was great and teachers loved the resources and creative ideas they can introduce in the maths and statistic curriculum.

Maths design group

With great appreciation and recognition of experince I was invited to be part of the Manaiakalani Maths design group. A group of maths experts accross all the Manaiakalani clusters are meeting with the research team in Auckland this week. We where given 3 readings to read and unpack before we meet. I am really looking forward to the 2 days and will share some of the outcomes. This is a real need accross schools with varied types of mathematics and satistics teaching being implemented. I am also looking froward to again working with Fiona Fox a previous work collegue and good friend who is leading the Maths Research at Manaiakalani. Using Culturally embedded problem-solving tasks to promote equity within mathematical inquiry communities. Orchestrating productive mathematical discussions: Five practices for helping teachers move beyond show and tell. BES Effective pedagogy in mathematics Using Culturally embedded problem-solving tasks to promote equity within mathematical inquiry communities. Home and cultural contexts and connections. Strength based approach Understanding the cultural values and beliefs which shapes the students Transformative approach-mathematical practices and the use of contextually based problem solving tasks. Home cultures and values become learning tools Complex and challenging problem solving tasks Make connections between different pieces of maths, devise their own solution strategies and explore different solution pathways. High level reasoning and justification. Engagement. Students see maths in their everyday lives. Contextual tasks-Relationships and connectedness Cultural connectedness=active participants Discourse-student voice, teacher questioning to gain deeper learning and conceptual understanding. Orchestrating productive mathematical discussions: Five practices for helping teachers move beyond show and tell. anticipating, monitoring, selecting, sequencing, and making connections between student responses. facilitating mathematical discussions that are launched through cognitively demanding mathematical tasks—problems that promote conceptual understanding and the development of thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving skills (Doyle, 1983, 1988; Henning-sen & Stein, 1997; Hiebert & Wearne, 1993; Stein, Grover, & Henningsen,1996). Teachers require content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and knowledge of students as learners (1) anticipating likely student responses to cognitively demanding mathematical tasks, (2) monitoring students’ responses to the tasks during the explore phase, (3) selecting particular students to present their mathematical responses during the discuss-and-summarize phase, (4) purposefully sequencing the student responses that will be displayed, and (5) helping the class make mathematical connections between different students’ responses and between students’ responses and the key ideas. Launch-explore-discuss By giving teachers a roadmap engaging their students in the discussion of a cognitively challenging mathematical task. BES Effective pedagogy in mathematics 1. An ethic of care, Trusting classroom communities, High realistic expectations, think, reason, communicate, reflect upon, and critique the mathematics they encounter; respecting and valuing the mathematics and the cultures that students bring to the classroom. Safe environment. Inclusive classroom. Teachers care. Connections to culture and home. 2. Arranging for learning, Independently, whole class, pairs, groups. Mixed ability groups. encourage higher level thinking. 3. Building on students’ thinking, students’ current knowledge and interests at the centre of their instructional decision making. Engaging students and the ability to extend through posing questions, and designing new tasks to challenge and extend thinking. Mistakes are building blocks. 4. Worthwhile mathematical tasks, design learning experiences and tasks to engage and extend mathematical thinking that connects to concepts, understanding and meaning. Think for themselves. Think deeply about math ideas and connections. students to make and test conjectures, pose problems, look for patterns, and explore alternative solution paths. Open-ended and Effective teachers understand that the tasks and examples they select influence how students come to view, develop, use, and make sense of mathematics. modelling tasks, in particular, require students to interpret a context and then to make sense of the embedded mathematics. Students need opportunities to practice what they are learning, whether it be to improve their computational fluency, problem solving skills, or conceptual understanding. Skill development can often be incorporated into “doing” mathematics; 5. Making connections, Multi connections within and across different areas and real life. Multi solutions and representations. 6. Assessment for learning, Range of assessment tasks to make students thinking visible. Formal and informal. Teacher questioning. Feedback. Self and peer assessment. 7. Mathematical Communication, Explain and justify, defend positions, examine conjectures, disagreements, and counterarguments. learn how to use mathematical ideas, language, and methods. As attention shifts from procedural rules to making sense of mathematics, students become less preoccupied with finding the answers and more with the thinking that leads to the answers.students to communicate their ideas orally, in writing, and by using a variety of representations. 8. Mathematical language, use and understanding of the terminology that is endorsed by the wider mathematical community. They do this by making links between mathematical language, students’ intuitive understandings, and the home language.Explicit language instruction. Link to home language and multilingual 9. Tools and representations, range of representations and tools to support their students’ mathematical development. Thinking tools. New technologies. 10. Teacher knowledge, Teacher content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge.

DFI Term 2

DFI has just come to an end for term 2 which is sad as I really enjoy being a coach one day a week. I get to work with a great team of coaches that include other Manaiakalani facilitators and also teachers from schools. As a team we meet on a Wednesday afternoon for planning and had a reflection meeting after the day on a Thursday. This term I had a much bigger bubble group with a mixture of secondary, primary and junior teachers. I also had a wide level of expertise in the group. Just like in a classroom I had a mixed ability group of learners and just like in the classroom I spent more time with the lower level experts than with my top level experts. I was challenged regularly by the secondary teacher as there planning is done for them and their class site is set up for them so they did not have any input into that. Which I did ask how they differentiated the learning and catered for all the different learning needs in the class. Which they said was there job to do in the classroom teaching. As a primary trained teacher I strugle with this. But it was not my job to debate this kind of set up I was there to coach DFI. Some of the bubble group struggled with the blogging and reflecting on the day which we had to disscuss the point of us being role models for our students and experiencing how some of the students feel. Through ignoring the moaning, complainng and loud sighing they did complete their 9 blog posts. The one embarrassing moment that one of my bubble group got caught, (thought they had there camera turned off had told us they where not feeling well) was laid back in the lazy boy playing on the playstation. I was speechless (which does not happen very often) and didn't quite know what to say. But one of the others in the bubble group unmuted and loudly commented you forgot to turn off your camera and we can see you playing on your playstation Obviously not as sick as you said you where. Nothing else was needed to be said. The fun of working online in others houses. I also challenged myself this DFI round and had ago at presenting aspects I have not presented before. I am not part of the DFI next term as the day clashes with a busy day so I might be able to be part of term 4 DFI. Everyday on DFI there is always something new to learn and share. A new update or tip. Thanks Vicki and the team for another great DFI.

Term 2 Online Toolkits

This term I choose to do my toolkit on google Earth. In the holidays I researched and experimented with all the different tools and options on how to use google Earth in the classroom. I also watched you tube clips and looked at Eric Curts amazing site and work he produces. 

I had 27 register for my workshop and choose the first night of the 3 days of toolkits. This time I did choose the 4:30pm session time instead of the usual 3:30 pm. Lucky I did as there was a major car accident at Kaingaroa and the road was closed and I had to go back into Kaitaia and travel home by Fairburns road and through Peria which added an each hour to getting home. 

Today at a school I got some great feedback from some teachers that attended and they could not get over the amount of resources and how realistic the imagery was. They where also blown away with the street view and ability to look around inside museums and shopping malls. Both where planning Google Earth projects around shared books in their classes.  

With an early finish today due to teachers at a union meeting I also got to watch the recording of Cheryls toolkit on chromes screencast. 

Walking Stories of Te Hiku TOD

First day of term 2 and the teachers in the Te Hiku Kahui Ako had a teacher only day. A first for our schools in the Far North, a ground breaking day for our students and teachers. The first hui lead by our iwi in Te Hiku for all schools. We had a  powhiri onto the Te Rangi Aniwaniwa kura by their students and kaiako. The first key note speaker was by Anahera Herbert Graves talking about the history of Te Tiriti and the Ngapuhi. The next speaker was Shane Jones who I have heard talk many times and new we would enjoy it. He is such a good story teller, with great history and humour. He told the story of Te Kāinga Ngāi Takoto the land we where on. We then had break out sessions run by the different iwi Te Aupouri, Ngāti Kuri, Te Rarawa, Ngāti Kahu, Ngāti Takoto. We heard the stories of each of the iwi. Then we had the Iwi panel answering questions.

This was a great day to have everyone together hearing the stories from all the iwi. We heard a lot of the what they want us as teachers to tell the students in the classrooms and the why, the only thing that is missing is the how and the resources to support the what? Who are the experts in our iwi, the story tellers the come in and correctly tell the stories. We need more books, songs, videos, podcasts for teachers to tell the stories. So our students can learn who they are and where they come from. They can learn their Whakapapa and about their turangawaewae. So they can locate themselves and where they belong, how they got here. The significance of their iwi stories is vital to understand who you are.

This was a fantastic start to the histories of Te Hiku, the stories of significance and connecting our tamariki. Faces where put to names and great people with amazing talents where show cased. I am looking forward to the follow up workshops, resources and Teacher Only days that will develop out of this.

Digital Fluency Intensive Coach term 1

I was lucky enough to be a coach for the online Digital Fluency Intensive for term 1. I managed to change my timetable to fit all my teachers in over 4 days. For the full 9 weeks I was a coach and had a bubble group of teachers I supported and guided and got to build a great relationship with over the 9 weeks. I had a mixture of male and female primary and secondary teachers with a varried level of knowledge of Google apps and Manaiakalani kaupapa. I pushed myself to take some of the sessions for the whole of DFI participants this was great to keep me upto date with all the changes and upgrades. Also the challenge to keep to the time limits. This took some practice as it is so easy to go over time and also a challenge to not rush and talk to fast. Our leader Vicki is so professional to work with and encourages and supports us to take sessions and offers time to go over the workshops if we need. Having the reflection time as facilitators after each day is great to disscuss, change and follow up emails to teachers or facilitators working in the schools to follow up. The feed back was great to read and nice to have some specific to myself "I loved my bubble group. I felt very fortunate to have a group of teachers that had a mix of genders (we have no male teachers at our kura), spread across Aotearoa, spread across year levels/experience. It was SO interesting to hear the experiences of everyday teaching life in all these different environments and Donna was an amazing facilitator that was able to share her knowledge of how Manaiakalani DFI might help us meet some of our personalised challenges/goals/expectations for learners." "Donna was an amazing bubble leader. Was always helping and finding ways to create good and thought provoking discussion." Next term I am able to be a coach again and am looking forward to my next bubble group and pushing myself more and taking some of the workshops I am not confident with to learn and extend myself. I feel confident to do this with such great facilitators and Vicki that will jump in an help at anytime.