Collaborative Teachers

This year I have been collaborating with Jemma, the teacher next door. I have planned and taught collaboratively with two other teachers at a previous school. You can read my blog from then entitled: Collaborative Teaching; my research, experiences and reflections

Jemma and I begun at the end of term 4, 2015 planning a shared topic on Vikings for 2016. We enjoyed working together and decided to continue to work together for the rest of the year. We met once a week spending lunchtime and after school for the rest of the year. I felt confident that we both had the same work ethic, but had separate strengths from which both would benefit and grow.

Jemma based her 2016 Teacher Inquiry on our collaboration and how if affected her students learning. With permission I have included a few of her reflections below that show how she felt about our collaboration.

Reflection: I am feeling totally inspired by today’s meeting with SHAUN. It is clear just from one meeting that we have a common agenda this year. I am exciting to take all my planning from paper to online, where it can be shared and worked on at any time.

Reflection: I cannot believe I have been planning on paper for so long. All the hyperlinks make so much sense. I feel a sense of relief knowing that I can’t loose anything and that it is all one click away. The benefits of working collaboratively are already clear. I am learning how to use ICT to make my planning more efficient and better organised. SHAUN has been amazing at showing me how to use Wiki and I think my structured thinking around planning has helped us to organise our term ahead.

Reflection: I couldn't believe how quickly we managed to get all the resources we needed for our students organised. When I do this task on my own I can spend a whole day hunting around. It literally took ¼ of the time.

Reflection: I have admired SHAUN and his involvement in the online teaching community. Taking inspiration from him I discovered Chapter Chat this year an online community that read the same book to their students all throughout New Zealand and then once a week answer questions and share tasks on Twitter. This community has changed the way in which SHAUN and I do shared book and has really showcased how learning can be done online to our students and to ourselves.Reflection: We also had a moment in term 2 when we were planning and unfortunately SHAUN was unwell, but because our “online community” was so well established we were able to continue planning for term 3 without being face to face. We took full advantage of google and were communicating with one another via messages as we planned. It was a real ah ha moment in the way in which technology can give teachers many advantages.

Student Voice 

“I think it is cool because it is like having Two teacher” 

“Because we get to work with different people other than our class”

“Because I don't like how noisy they are and I don't know them that well”

Observation

Observer: Lynne                      Date:22.09.16
Relevant goals: To get feedback on our collaborative planning practise
Focus students: Reflection on student needs and how we will cater for this.
Teaching focus: LTP, weekly planning and assessment

Jemma and SHAUN have been working collaboratively for this year as a way of trying to manage large classes and increasing workloads of planning, assessment, evaluation and digital learning. They were concerned that the time they were spending planning and organising on their own single cell classes was having an adverse effect on their actual teaching time and therefore wondered if ‘sharing the load’ through collaboration would enable them to work smarter whilst also giving their students the teacher time they need.

I have enjoyed watching the growth in their collaborative effort. They interact well and constantly share ideas. They meet regularly to plan and review their lessons. Through working together and sharing they have become more aware of the strengths they have as teachers and this has had positive spin-offs for their classes. For example; the Te Reo programme is running very well, the ICT progression in the students is noticeable and the coverage of the future focus themes is well developed.

This collaborative approach has been discussed with me on a regular basis and as a result has led to more collaboration between Sonja and myself.

Working with Jemma has improved my confidence in my planning, increased my lesson engagement, deepen the focus and range of learning for students, gave me a greater understanding of my students needs and the curriculum, lowered stress because two heads and four hands are better than . . .  However know we had such good success for ourselves and our students because we have a good relationship, we communicate openly, we respect each other and we know that we both put in equal effort.

The Art of Collaboration

Last week our school hosted our Art Exhibition in the hall for three days with an open evening the first day. Art from all students and classes were on display, and student singers and dancers entertained the crowd. I co-ordinated a interactive and collaborative art work that was painted by over 50 different students, in fact it was started by some kindergarten children who will hopefully see it displayed proudly when they one day join to our school.


Successful collaborative projects take some planning, I had an A4 colour daft print of the big picture stuck to a nearby chair. The canvas was primed and a pencil outline of the heart added by me. I had three students working on the painting at a time, one on the inside working on the heart, with a palette of only warm colours, and the two outside students with palettes of cool colours.


As each new student left the painting grew in depth and complexity, as facilitator my role was teaching brush techniques, discussing the effects of colours and layers, and as the evening progressed many students watched first before adding their touch. It turned out to be a beautiful painting that was created and owned by the students of the school.


Collaboration can take many forms, and together we can create beautiful things.

Spontaneous Collaboration

Although I am leading e-learning PD in my syndicate, and teaching staff about Google Apps for Education, the potential pedagogies of e-learning with Google Apps, have not yet been realised. A common mindset and misconception is that we are adding the ICT into current teaching, giving it a obligatory slot in the subject tumble. Sometimes however it is the first step for some teachers; getting familiar with new tools. As we know from maths, knowledge frees the mind for critical thinking.

Yesterday marked a breakthrough in staff collaboration for my team. After a long team meeting we realised that we had not done out term newsletter. I promptly copied one from term 1 and shared it with the team, who all (without any glitches thank goodness) started working together on the same document. 

It was only after about five minutes when one teacher exclaimed that "this was fun the way we were all working on the same document", that they realised were were collaborating. I added the image below with the revision history tab open to show that they were all taking part. They all liked that they could see where the others were working in the document, and one teacher who didn't like her assigned colour figured out how to change it. I was very proud of them, now I am waiting for the penny to drop, "hey we could get our students to do the same thing!"

Vegetables and Monsters and Algebra

After a recent staff professional development (PD), I came to realize that my students really need to be doing more problem solving. It is so easy to give text book practice and teach 'step by step' from the Numeracy Project books. Yet our students seem to lack the ability to solve problems that require critical thinking.


This TED video of Dan Meyer also really made me challenge and reflect on the way I have been teaching maths. He says we are teaching "paint-by-numbers" and depriving students of not just solving problems but formulating them. Follow Dan on Twitter here. 



Lucky algebra is our term focus and is an ideal vehicle for this. One of the problems we were given in our staff PD was solving a vegetable garden problem. I like to use my interactive whiteboard as a group activity and so created an e-version that my students could use and contribute their own problems to. I am also a Google Apps for Education freak, and on my way to becoming Google Apps Certified (2/6 tests passed so far) so I used Google Drawing to create the one below. 


Originally I planned on using problem solving to extend my higher Year 8 students but the activities, games and my problem solving teaching approach have transformed my class. Even my most reluctant students were engaged and talking mathematics enthusiastically, which made me enjoy teaching maths more than I have ever before, a double win. Below is an open copy of my Google Drawing, please feel free to test it and copy or change it for your own use.





I also found a fantastic and free game called "Lure of the Labyrinth" which is a mixture of comic strip story (which I used for shared reading) and monster video game. It is a challenging digital game for middle-school pre-algebra students with fascinating puzzles intertwined into an exciting narrative with it's own mythology (my class are exploring myths this term too) that is a perfect accompaniment for literacy. They support educators well with a wealth of resources and teaching material around the game puzzles. It is also encourages collaboration amongst the students and sharing of strategies.

Do you have any great algebra problems to share, I am always looking for more ideas?

Collaboration Rules the Day

Last week my students took a statistics pre-assessment to help them plan their goals and for me to plan my teaching. I noticed across abilities my students seemed to get a simply tally chart question wrong. The question asked them to tally hexagons, pentagons and octagons, it turned out they just were confused about the difference. Strangely the year I had named the groups using these terms.

I created a Google Docs page with a table for each 2D shape and put the students into random groups. Each group of 3 to 4 students had a notebook and were assigned a shape. I was sharing this document with the whole class so each group was collaborating within their team and each group with the class. The live document was displayed via projector on the whiteboard which allowed for discussion and scaffolding.

My ulterior motive was to get them using their new Docs accounts and get them to explore ways of finding information on Google and bringing it together in a meaningful way.

I was amazed and proud of the way they worked together and in half an hour created this resource below. The Google Drawings are not showing because the students drew them in their accounts and they have not Shared the Drawing. Even my most unengaged kid was fully into this learning.

The second success was helping a fellow teacher in my syndicate who has gone from e-denial to enthusiastically suggesting new ideas. I manage a wiki which accommodates two Year 7 and two Year 8 classes, plus blogs. Today my colleague became an 'editing member' of our wiki, and she created her first wiki page to guide her math groups. It is a wonderful thing to could see the spark of understanding and possibility light up a learners face, at any age.

I feel like I made a difference today, a seed has sprouted.