Tuakana/Teina - Learning and Leadership

Letting my Year 4/5 students lead learning and foster relationships with their younger buddies in Year 1 has been a goal this term. 

While working in the Year 4/5 MLE Kete it was apparent that leadership skills and Tuakana/Teina relationships were areas that needed to be developed. A culture of caring, learning and leading were important features that would bring that whānau feeling into our learning community. 

Meanwhile, several of the Year 1 students struggled to appropriately share their thoughts and feelings. They needed help and guidance from their older buddies. 

These relationships have started to be built during buddy class learning and have been teacher driven in regards to modelling positive interactions between teaching staff and students. 

I have also tried to incorporate play based learning in a semi structured format to help the younger students engage in their learning. Incorporating meaningful tasks, linked to learning intentions with a play based flavour can be challenging. It has however hugely increased the tuakana teina that I expected. The older students have started to show real emotions such as pride, enthusiasm and kindness while learning alongside the Year 1 students. 

Students need to feel comfortable with you as their teacher before they embrace new learning or stepping out of their comfort zone to lead and learn with younger students. This specific skill set needs to develop their emotional view of themselves and self belief in their own leadership abilities. 

We will continue our path together during this term and through out the year. Each step brings a pleasant surprise as relationships are formed and students begin to show that the culture of caring really does mean we are become one whānau and not just paddling alone in our own waka. 

Play based Learning and Lego

Does looking at this huge pile of Lego make you feel excited about the possibilities that you could create?! 

Today I went to a Lego exhibition and was reminded that people of all ages hold a passion for creating whether that is through following instructions or doing it the 'organic' freestyle way. Problem solving, designing and collaboration were clearly evident. That is why I have been incorporating Lego based activities in learning through workshops and play based learning. 

The Year 4/5 students started by unpacking a co constructed recount. Looking at what makes a good recount, effectively working from a tried and tested recipe to write one. They then decided to add their own ideas and 'ingredients' to take it in a new direction. 

Students opted into the Recount workshops and began to add their creative spin with Lego. 

Three groups choose this and they decided that each group would make part of the story with Lego and video their explanation for the following group. They would have to collaborate within their own group and across all groups so that a complete recount was 'built' by the final workshop. 

By listening to each other explain which part they had choosen to make and examining their models they began to hugely enhance their understanding of what a recount is. The discussion and language used was far more indepth than if they had sat alone and written on a device or paper. Most students collaborated in twos or threes and a few opted to create alone. However they all agreed that it was essential that what they made in each workshop had a cohesive flow for the next group to follow on from. 

In total 24 students collaborated to build their Lego recount. I think it was the most engaged I have seen many of the students in a writing 'piece.' 

In addition to using Lego for written language I have also recently used it for measurement activities. We first focused on using blocks as a non standard form of measurement to estimate the length of lines. Then we checked our estimate using a ruler. 

This task was especially engaging for the boys who were finding these Maths concepts challenging. Several felt confident enough to share their knowledge with others which was exciting to watch. 

For my younger Year 1 students I have been encouraging play based learning with Lego linked to our Space Science Inquiry. Many students have enjoyed this, creating role play scenarios to match their creations. It has been the students who often can't communicate effectively due to language, emotional or behaviour issues who have thrived in this environment. By simply observing and 'eavesdropping' during this Discovery time a huge amount of knowledge can be gained. 

So If you are looking for a way to increase confidence, problem solving skills, creativity, collaboration and conversations then get a container of Lego for the class and let your students lead the way! 

Whipping up a Batch of Creativity

Passion projects, STEM, STEAM, Maker space, Moonshot Thinking. All recipes to help students to develop their creativity and problem solving skills, but do they really help? 

How do we engage our learners so they move from following a given recipe to having the creativity to adapt them to suit any new situation? How do we unpack those vital skills students will need in the future? Making their own recipes and collaborating with others to share and improve the world around them. 

I'm not a huge fan of them but I know how much most teachers love acronyms so here are some to get you thinking. 

The Human RACE, what makes us who we are? 

How can we best prepare our students to run their own RACE, where learning is their goal? 

Relationships

Agency

Collaboration and Creativity

Empathy 

If we look and the heart of what makes different people within and across cultures connect it comes down to relationships; whanau, friends, colleagues and community. Building positive relationships and modelling positive behaviour towards each other. Showing that learning happens anywhere and with all students and teachers is the foundation on which to build. This can be then extended to incorporate our wider learning community. 

If we don't take the time to find out about our students interests and lives can we support them on their path to agency? If they don't know about where we have come from and some of the factors that colour our lives why would they want to join us on a learning journey at all? 

Key Competecies and Learner Agency tag in to drive our daily learning. The simplification of these concepts for our students takes a huge amount of collaboration and creativity. Helping our students to become adaptable and agile learners is to move from the recipe and apply it to your specific group or Kete. 

Here is an example of collaboration and creativity in learning experiences so my students could take their knowledge and try to creativity build on it in a way that was meaningful for them. 

Students started by unpacking a co constructed recount. Looking at what makes a good recount, effectively working from a tried and tested recipe to write one. Afterwards students opted into the Recount workshops and began to add their creative spin with Lego. 

Three groups choose this and they decided that each group would make part of the story with Lego and video their explanation for the following group. They would have to collaborate within their own group and across all groups so that a complete recount was 'built' by the final workshop. 

By listening to each other explain which part they had choosen to make and examining their models they began to hugely enhance their understanding of what a recount is. The discussion and language used was far more indepth then if they had sat alone and written on a device or paper. Most students collaborated in twos or threes and a few opted to create alone. However they all agreed that it was essential that what they made in each workshop had a cohesive flow for the next group to follow on from. 

This was beginning to touch on empathy as well. If they couldn't create their part then they felt they would be letting themselves and the others in the group down. So for the students who often seem disengaged with learning and decide to opt out and not take ownership this was a huge breakthrough. 

 

So what does this mean for us as teachers? 

What qualities do we need to develop so that we can be that support crew for our students In their RACE while we work on our own? 

Anyone can follow a recipe but we want to be learning how to whip up our own batch of creativity! 

Learner Agency and the Reading/Writing Connection

"Show me where you practiced what we did as writers. This develops agency"

 -Rita Palmer

Today we focussed our attention on learner agency, mentor text, engagement and the reading/writing link during our TOD at Hokowhitu School.

The basic approaches to reading of shared, guided and independent were summarised through the ELP. Our main findings were that the purpose of shared reading/writing is to co construct and model. This is best done in a small group and would lend to a workshop based approach used in MLEs. 

With guided reading/writing students take control of their own work and their learning goals are based on focus areas. Teacher knowledge of the students levels and needs are important to scaffold learning. Student to student and teacher to student discussion is key. 

Finally, independent reading/writing can be teacher directed or based around topics of interest for individuals. Here students practice the skills they have learned during guided workshops  and apply them to their own experiences. The teacher guided students by modelling independent reading/writing and tweaks work only when necessary. The process should be an enjoyable one where students share learning through a format of their choice. 

"Effective teachers work with students until they can not get it wrong"-Rita Palmer

Developing our knowledge of Mentor Text provided the opportunity to practice specific skills based teacher and devolve into learner agency. 

Questioning such as: "What have you learned as a writer?", "Show me with your fingers each new idea about the character" and "Show me where you have practiced what we did as writers." Started our thinking. The fact that we write in a certain way, for a purpose and craft our writing through editing. It was all about developing the Show not Tell culture and engaging students and reluctant writers.