Distance Learning Day 9 - Some Tweaking

Today we moved into Level 3 for distance learning. I thought this might change the dynamics for how families carry out distance learning at home and it did appear that a couple of children could not be part of the learning today, perhaps for those reasons.

What's working for Kowhai online learning:
The google meet seems to be a connection for students with myself and their peers. Older classes use it for talking about the set work but families seem happy to get the learning off the class site and so we use the google meet session for sharing information with each other (oral language, class community). It is also a chance for me to encourage a certain learning goal. e.g. I started flashing sight words last week to promote learning high frequency words. I told everyone about the sight word 'test' and many did it as a result of that.
I decided that this platform would be great to have shared reading. But alas, this morning I made a mess of it. After reflecting with Michelle I put my pages onto a slideshow and will try that out tomorrow. As it is a bit of a challenge to get readers out to families and then do good guided reading with it I thought about shared reading as the approach to practise reading strategies and learning goals for reading. I hope it goes better tomorrow.

Students have enjoyed being read to online. This surprised me. So I will go with it. I do this in the afternoon sharing time.

Students love sharing their learning, but they are so shy about it in the afternoon and it can be fiddly trying to hear them and try to see what they have done. I have had some success by actually showing their posts by presenting during the afternoon google meet. Thanks Michelle for suggesting this. There has been a gradual change in how parents are helping to share posts. This is because they can see other students learning and I can use examples to show everyone. I think a quick verbal comment specific to someone can be more effective than a group e-mail.

For me, parents are the key to this working. I am very grateful to the amount of time and energy it is taking some of our families to learn at home. Parents have learnt a great deal about the language of learning we use. Two of my parents are regularly doing video posts of their child. The child will first tell me what they did, or wrote. Then the parent asks them to tell me what they were learning or what their goal was. It is hard for me to tell if the child knows about learning goals. But I have no doubt that parents understand learning goals. For week 3 I gave a choice or suggestion to try the maths at the level you think students are capable of. All of the parents I wanted to choose the higher number maths chose it. To my shame I had thought parents weren't pushing their children enough. But this suggests that actually parents are good at doing what is asked of them and will do it if asked. So this leads to my thoughts for future planning:
How do I keep my learning activities simple and easy to access whilst differentiating learning for those students who need more challenge? Also, how will I present learning goals to students and parents on the class site so students begin to choose their next steps/new learning goals?
I think the most successful part of distance learning from my perspective has been the 'sharing'. I still have a bit to go with the 'learn' and 'create' parts of the Manaiakalani vision. But the sharing so far has been incredible for having a purpose for students doing their learning. I am their audience and I am ready with a comment and feedforward.

This has been a powerful learning experience for me. I would like distance learning to carry on for a few more weeks at least because:
1) My digital learning has been relevant and supercharged.
2) I have been able to focus on my teaching inquiry as I haven't had some of the distractions that get in the way during school time.
3) I really think my teaching practise is being improved. I am getting better organised. I am thinking about what will make progress, what won't.
4) It may not look like it by having a one stop shop for today's learning on the class site. However, I think my phone conversations and chats on google meet with individuals is making me tailor learning for the students in Kowhai.
5) I am learning a heap about my families who are online: what is important to them and how does the lockdown affect my families?

Inquiry through distance learning

Learning conversations are the basis of my teaching inquiry this year.

Initially my thoughts were that:

• As a class we would share our learning online at 1.30pm similarly to how we have been sharing at 1pm in our class.
• I would have individual conferences/learning conversations via google meet with student and parent.

The reality of the first week has been that:

• Not all of the students have come to the 1.30pm session.
• Students enjoy sharing but want to talk about what they have done (not yet talking to the learning goals).
• Not all students are keen to share when they are online or are tired by distance learning.
• Only one parent seemed fine with a google meet with her and her child.
• It was difficult to see students learning on the google meet and we had to action how we could share work electronically.
• Positively, parents did come back in the afternoon. Students and parents had undertaken the learning tasks and seemed to be doing well.

Therefore, for week 2 I have decided to:

• Keep the afternoon sharing session to be a finish up for the day. Celebrate some successes and encourage participation with lots of affirmation for doing mahi.
• Use exemplars of student learning displaying that they have achieved their learning goals/success criteria.
• Try to get as many parents as possible to log on to home learning seesaw so students can upload their learning.
• Give clear learning goals on the class site and use the morning google meet to discuss learning goals.
• Talk about feedback with parents and students, discussing how feedback and feedforward makes a difference in student progress. Ensure that I am using other learning language.
• Use a sandwich for commenting on seesaw. i.e. specific positive praise about learning, constructive next step for learner, positive comment (might be general comment)
• Not sure if by video or slide I might attempt to give information about strategy and knowledge and the use of these as well as display learning steps so parents can see where their child is headed.
• Encourage learners to self and peer assess.

My colleague, Leonie, shared one of her own strategies for student agency. She discussed the learning with her students during the google meet. Then she used a child who enjoys talking to classmates to explain to another confused student what Mrs McLean wanted them to do and show. The student spoke in child speak clearly to the other student. Both students were empowered. It may be an oldie but a goodie strategy, but I think because this is her normal class discussion strategy she easily used it in the online forum. I will make sure I do that this week.

Distance Learning Day 1

After a three week holiday that wasn't really a holiday, it was terrific to finally complete day 1 of distance learning. I was completely shocked to have so many eager, smiling faces waiting to see teachers and friends on their home screen this morning. Parents settled in enthusiastically to learning alongside their child, many enjoying the support they could give. Lots were eager to share their learning with their friends online.

What I've learnt from the past three weeks:

Sometimes we store away PD and then it becomes very relevant in a circumstance we were not expecting.
I have been tutuing away with my class site for a while now. I have only used it very basically in class and certainly wasn't using it in the way I was expected to. Now, I have a fully fledged class site that is the main pit stop for parents and students during distance learning. I am pretty glad I had other examples to copy off.

Problem solving is an important skill in a fast changing world.
It's like I totally had to change the way five year olds were going to access learning. I am still not 100% on how they will share it with me. But I had to really think about how my audience would think and then make something usable for them. I was keen for parent support and made that my focus.

When you have a clear goal you can learn very quickly. 
I was adamant I wanted to make little videos to make it easy for parents and students to understand. So I sifted through a couple of options before being e-mailed screen castify links. I watched excellent tutorials and have been able to get some basic videos up in a short time.