Mindcraft Learning Blog

Monday, 23 April 2012

Registered Teachers Criteria

Since 2011 New Zealand teachers are required to justify their professionalism using the Registered Teachers Criteria (RTC). The RTC describe the criteria for quality teaching, which replaces the previous Satisfactory Teacher Dimensions.

Nick Rate wrote an excellent blog post on the Registered Teachers Criteria and professional ePortfolios, he looks at it around the framework of the Teaching as Inquiry framework.

I am a very digital person so most of my evidence is digital and thus easy to link to a document. I have chosen Google Presentation to record my RTC evidence as it is easy to embed into other websites and updates. Below is an example of how I have started this process, it is important to be able to continuously update and change this document on a regular basis.

Other RTC Tools

This wiki shows examples of how to provide evidence for the RTC in eLearning contexts

http://registeredteachercriteria.wikispaces.com

The Teachers Council have also created a Word document "Registered Teacher Criteria Self Assessment Tool" this is an excellent tool that provides scaffolds and ideas to reflect upon the RTC.

We are all different learners and I believe their are many other creative ways of showing evidence that will suit you. If you find these scaffolds helpful feel free to use them or get creative and do something different. In the end as long as you can give evidence that you are meeting the 12 criteria then you are meeting the requirements.

How do you reflect and record the RTC for yourself?

Sunday, 25 March 2012

Igniting Collaborative Teaching

Ignite at HPS

I was lucky enough to attend my first Ignite evening host at my own school. Ignite is a worldwide event, where presenters share their passions Pecha Kucha (PK) style using 20 slides every 15 seconds. My first encounter with PK's was in my interview for my current job, I remember searching Google to find out what it meant.

The Emerging Leaders Ignite evening is a network of educators ready to challenge themselves and share their educational journey. Watch ignite talks from previous events here.

I was also 'lucky' to get to present for the first time along with my co-teacher from Studio 3. Collaborative teaching has been a new and exciting journey for us this term and we tried to capture our path so far.

PK look easy but are really challenging to capture you message clearly in a short time. Below is our slideshow. I look forward to trying to share my learning at Ignite again, and learn from other passionate educators.

Sunday, 26 February 2012

Top Weekly Bookmarks (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Sunday, 19 February 2012

Top Weekly Bookmarks (weekly)

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

Saturday, 18 February 2012

Daily 5: the importance of modeling - week 1

I am lucky enough to be teaching in a very different classroom environment, it is a studio with students ranging from Year 4 to Year 8 and at NZC(New Zealand Curriculum) Levels ranging from 1 to 4. I also have two others teachers (we prefer Learning Advisors) with who I share guardianship and teaching responsibilities for all the students, and after experiencing co-operative teaching (more in a future blog) I already would hate to go back to single cell.

We decided as a school to use the Daily 5 to structure our literacy programme, for us one of the major advantages is that it is building independent learners who will weave their own learning pathway and allow us the time to guide individuals and really personalise their learning journey.

This week we started with Reading-to-Self, we split the students into two stage groups and two of us took each group. I found that the Daily 5 book is so detailed and explicit in how to structure and take lessons that as a teacher (and learner) I felt confident with the scaffolding provided. After each session we all discussed how things went and started to move students between the groups, as naturally some students where progressing faster than others. However the biggest joy of my week was seeing my students scattered around the studio, reading intently engrossed in their books. Moments like this are what make me love my job, and I am getting it every day now!

My biggest next step learning has been the importance of modelling, especially the correct / incorrect behaviours. I was working with a small group of our younger and lower stage boys who had been struggling to build stamina. They are easily distracted (some special learning needs here too) but I found the more modelling I gave, especially the incorrect / correct student modelling was very powerful, they are now up to 10 minutes of Reading-to-Self. Later in the week I was working with the higher stage group who had started on Working on Writing. The previous teacher had them up to 5 minutes and when I took them on Friday it all fell apart. Some students weren't ready with equipment, couldn't decide what to write, sitting to close to others, chatting . . . I was getting a bit frustrated. We managed 3 minutes (some are ready for longer and we are considering splitting them off into a new group) but mostly it was a mess. When I sat thinking about it during morning tea I realised I had completely forgotten to do any student correct / incorrect modelling, and it clicked. If they haven't experience what correct and incorrect looks like, sounds like and feels like, well then no surprise they fell into old habits. So my next step for next week in LOTS of modelling, and I'll let you know how that goes.

Some essential web Daily 5 resources are:

Do you have any advise or Daily 5 ideas to share?

Photo by alexandria.ann.