E-Learning Lead Teachers

We had an E-learning Lead Teachers meeting at Glenbrae Primary School this week.  During the meeting we discussed the online access to students in our area of the cluster, who have been waiting for months for the 'switch' to be activated so that they can get online anytime/anywhere within their community.  Now that this has arrived,  we need to 'up the anti' so to speak with expectations around student output.  There really is no excuse for work not to be finished by students in the Year 7&8 syndicate as these are the students who take their netbooks home.  The learning opportunities for our students has doubled!

Another topic of discussion was the development of a cluster-wide data base in which all data around students and their netbooks can be found.  A one stop shop of information for schools to access.  This will make it easier for schools who acquire students from other schools in the cluster, to have a 'whole' picture of where students are in regard to payments, insurance, device history, repairs and contact details.  This should make keeping track of netbooks and the students more transparent. 

In addition to this, we had a great session with Rebecca Jesson (Wolfe Fisher Research Centre) regarding research outcomes from the 2013 year.  There was a lot to reflect on and plenty of discussion around how teachers can become more critical in their thinking around the challenge of their questions and subsequent activities.  I enjoyed discussion around 'dialogic and monologic' teaching practice and how to shift teacher attention from 'testing student's understanding' to 'deepening their cognitive engagement'.

So, my biggest questions around this idea of diologic approach is 'how do we ensure that there's a shared understanding of what dialogic practice is?  What it looks like in the classroom?... and how do we develop the pedagogy behind it?  My thoughts are with teachers who are unsure about pedagogy, and their first default in teaching is to put on the 'lens' most easily accessible to them - which is usually "Monologic" (often how they were taught themselves). We discussed this as a group and came up with a few ideas on how to develop dialogic practice and understanding across our staff.

• Give staff a 'critical question' each week that they write about on their professional reflections blog.  Questions could be based around something like "How have you used dialogic practice in your class this week?"  "What did you do in class this week that you think is a good example of the 'create' aspect of 'learn/create/share'?
• Hold in-house PLD around critical thinking and the dialogic approach.  Carry out the meeting in such a way as to model the  'dialogic' approach.
• In a staff meeting, give staff groups challenges where they have to create a resource or lesson that promotes the dialogic approach i.e - prompt cards for a text.
• Planned observations both peer and SMT focusing on dialogic practice in classrooms.

I think that when teachers see the differences between a monologic and dialogic approach, this will add clarity to their understanding of the practice.

We want to encourage 'critical thinking' across the school and do away with instructional risk - low challenge creation activities such as copying/colouring in.  These benefit no-one.  Creating to learn is where understanding is developed and imbedded in children's learning.

REFLECTIVE PRACTICE
Through the ideas at the meeting and the discussion that ensued,  I was able to make connections with my 'Critical Reflection in Teaching' paper at Uni.  My most recent assignment has been reflecting on the 'macro/neo-liberal' influences on Manaiakalani and the impact this has on the cluster.  I found that these influences tend to outweigh the social needs of the community and I questioned whether more needs to be done in strengthening the social values, justice and democratic principles of the people we work with.  During discussion around engaging our students in a more dialogic/cognitive based/critical thinking environment, I recognised that in strengthening our students ability to socially interact, develop stronger literacy and communication skills, we would possibly be developing a voice in the political divide between those that have and those that have not.  In developing these skills, we as a cluster also need to think about 'social action' that has meaning and is in direct connection with issues that are taking place around our students. Some of these may be political...so appropriateness would need to be considered, but I think that if an issue has a direct impact on our students, then it's one which should be acknowledged, talked about and possibly actioned upon should the opportunity be there to do so.  This is where I question whether we need to be more open to the idea of using our key competencies and values as a measure of success within our cluster?  Why should we only celebrate the literacy and numeracy successes of the community?  Why not celebrate the 'social actions' too?