Saturday, November 15, 2014

First and Second Order Change

We seem to be undergoing a lot of change at St Joseph's in Oamaru.

Actually, we are not changing at all.

Underlying everything at St Joseph's is relationships.  Prior to the time I was in the school, Jenny Jackson and the team, helped by our RTLB teacher Linda Schofield, underwent focused development on positive relationships for learning.  This was before PB4L but essentially, it was the same thing.  Since my time, we've consistently focused on our vision for learning - lifelong learners in the Catholic Faith and also on our Charter Goal which reads:
in 2012: Every child engaged in learning
in 2013: Every child engaged in learning for success
in 2014: Every child engaged in deep learning for success.

As each year went on we focused more and more deeply on what we actually wanted for our learners.

There's no way anyone decided - "Hey let's do digital learning or team teaching or buy some bean bags (only 4 per class) or whatever, just because everyone's doing it and its so, so modern!"

What we DID look for was examples either through research and theory, or through experience in other schools - good examples of ways teachers were engaging students in deep learning.  Plus we used our teaching as inquiry process - our own processes of teacher action research to investigate what actually did make a difference to student achievement in our school.  For myself I have found that systematic teaching of the key competencies of the New Zealand curriculum, combined with learning to learn strategies, makes a huge difference to student achievement and that has been going on for quite some time now, since at least 2008 - so nothing new there.  Combining these with digital technologies and flexible working and teaching spaces - has not, in my investigations, improved achievement which is already high but it has improved depth of achievement.  Children are more able to take the next step into making the learning their own and applying it in new situations.  To my mind, this is the most elusive aspect of teaching and learning.

In about mid 2013 we had sufficient information to make some decisions.  We decided we wanted our senior years, at that time we thought year 5+, now after listening to parents we think year 6+, to have the benefit of one to one devices - or as close to it as we can make it, from the beginning of 2015.

To the degree that individuals and/or stakeholder groups in the school or school system hold conflicting values, seek different norms, have different knowledge, or operate with varying mental models of schooling, a proposed change might represent a first-order change for some and a second-order change for others.
Waters, Marzano, and McNulty, 2003, page 7 from: http://instep.net.nz/Change-for-improvement/Sustainable-change/Four-views-of-change/First-order-vs-second-order

“First-order” change is change that is consistent with prevailing values and norms, meets with general agreement, and can be implemented using people’s existing knowledge and skills. A change becomes “second-order” when it is not obvious how it will make things better, it requires people to learn new approaches, or it conflicts with prevailing values and norms. Second-order changes require leaders to work far more deeply with staff and the community. 

The change we are presently experiencing - from the teacher's and the student's perspectives, is first order change - it does not challenge our beliefs about learning (look at the previous post below  - A Machine for Learning to see what the children think about learning).  An analogy for what is happening is it is like a snake shedding its skin.  The creature is the same in essence but it has grown and it needs to shed its skin in order to take on its new dimensions.

We have worked very hard to bring our parents along with us in this change process.  We have had parent learning huis where we have talked about SOLO and deep learning and why we need to make the practical and organisational changes we are presently going through.  We have also had a lot of discussions along the way and we have listened to our parents.  For example we first thought year 5+ for digital learning but listening to our parent feedback and concerns we have decided in 2015 we will be looking at year 6+.    But I acknowledge for many, outside of the staffroom, this is second order change.  It appears to be a change in values and beliefs.  A change in essence.  It is not.  Our essence is - every student engaged in deep learning for success.  How they get there is a moot point - it will be different from 1957, 1997, 2007, and it will be different again in 2017 and 2027.  Yet I imagine the essence of what we are trying to achieve will not vary so very much.

Minecraft St Joseph's Oamaru

The second part of the children investigating learning environments was for them to accurately map what we already had.  They had a go at doing that in term 3 but it didn't look right.  This time, as part of our maths, they children have accurately measured the school and used a scale for their maps.  Some have done it on paper, some investigated 3D modelling software but most chose to do it with Minecraft and the results are surprisingly accurate.

The next step will be to talk about improvements for learning.

Saturday, November 8, 2014

Visit to Myross Bush School

Our senior learning team visited Myross Bush School in Invercargill in week 2.  We were interested in their school because they have a "traditional" school building but they have not let single-cell classrooms hold them back.  We were very grateful to them for the visit and we saw lots of interesting things.  Overall we have some very similar things happening, such as using SOLO, BYOD, and Google Docs.  We were really interested to observe how they use spaces for team teaching with one space used primarily for workshops and the other as an independent working space with a supporting teacher.  The key to making all of this work is having transparent learning progressions for students to use and a variety of robust (and dependable) means of students to evidence their learning.

One thing I'm going to change is I thought we would need to use a Google site for planning and lesson guidance as I've been doing with my class.  However, I can now see that all of that could happen as Google docs - good because can personalise them and share them with students very easily through Teacher Dashboard.  Then Google docs can be inserted into a site which will be publically available.  It means that most of the planning work can be in docs rather than a site which everyone says they prefer.  The blogs will link in to an overall Google site so they can still be a prominent point of sharing.
Myross Bush School - similar learning environment to our school (very nice sandpits and adventure playgrounds) and using their spaces creatively to engage students in active learning, through team teaching.


A Machine for Learning

A MACHINE FOR LEARNING
(thanks to Mark Osbourne for sharing the term: Machine for Learning, and the link he made to le Coubousier, which we’ve used in our inquiry)         
St Joseph’s Year 7 students consider what their learning is actually like and what ideal spaces for this could be like - this is a brainstorm from the whole class in a shared Google doc (it is not crafted writing)      


WHAT DO WE DO WHEN WE’RE LEARNING?
WHAT WOULD A PHYSICAL SPACE FOR THIS LOOK LIKE?
concentrate and communicate with others
listen and discuss your ideas with the people
being on task and giving 100% and not giving up
sitting down somewhere and listening to each others ideas
we learn from our mistakes
we debate and share our ideas we take notes and learn from what others have learnt as well
put your heads together and discuss ideas with each other.
we think that its import to participate  and contribute ideas even if its wrong
we share our ideas, discuss our options and our needs and also relate to others, listen, focus, look, think, come up with new ideas,   
we like to talk and  listen to each other….and be good friends
think, discuss, sing, we argue, we work with others, we get things wrong, we get to try new things.
get confused but work it out
understand others.
we talk to others and ask for advice for good ideas to make our work even better
we help with problems and answer things
we talk together and help each other to get the job done
we get to choose our working space.
we discuss our ideas.
share our ideas.
we get  to  debate
we work quietly
we learn from our mistakes
we concentrate


We use MINECRAFT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
to try to answer a problem.


we do drama and we do acting AND WE WRITE SONGS AND WE AND WE ENJOY USING OUR DEVICES FOR LEARNING. WE RECOMMEND THAT WE SHOULD BE ABLE TO USE MINECRAFT MORE (NO ONE USE IDEA)  
talking sometimes helps if it is on task!
say what we want to


we help people that need help at the moment when they are  stuck


enjoy and get new knowledge
do acting, have debates, songs, learn new things and new instruments or activities


make sure that everyone is joining in the convo and that people are included in it.
Also to encourage others to give 100% and to not give up.
Learn to accept a mistake, Good attitude


listen, discuss, read, write, search, explore, trial and error, make new options, design new things, brainstorm, invent, create, concentrate, play games, field trips, writing
brainstorming
we can read, write, do pe ,E.O.T.C, camps, maths,search, new things, discuss between  us, brainstorm, make mistakes and try again and again,
listen, stay on task, do field trips


watching other people  
learning new ideas and facts.
writing songs
crafting
silence and concentration, watching and learning from mistakes learning from elders...
singing-writing songs debates


performances , plays , silent working or dramas
different types of formal writing
arts and stuff,



crafting your imagination stories and making it better.


try over again, learn from others, songs and  performances, being silent              
we think create, communicate, share, learn


We can make everyone happy to learn
sitting facing each other at the same level (communicating)


peaceful and secure, fancy, computers,


taking turns talking


have our own little bubble to work in


we work together as a team and sensibly share our ideas


man’s cave and a girl hangout room for year 7s and 8s


change resource room into music room for intermediate department


gym for senior school


whole school computer room to work in quietly


having your own office or bubble to stay in but still communicate with each other
or talking . having a quiet space for yourself or others’ private spaces


have a musical room where people can sing and learn instruments.
a game room-a man cave for boys and a girl’s room.
dancing room where their dancing can express their feelings.
sports room where people can have fun and play with other people
    


we could have a couple of cubicles
we could use so that we could have our own space and we could work quietly.


we could split a room into a couple of spaces that are soundproof and will not bother anyone else!


we work as a  team       


you get more action and ideas
and information.You have more fun talking to your your friends.


in a place where you can concentrate.


TEACHER’S NOTE:
Its interesting - you write a lot about collaborative learning how we can learn from each other and through discussion.  At the same time you say that its important to have your own space where you can be quiet.  You show this because when we have a lot of space upstairs, you spread out and fill it all and you still stay on task and do all the things you wrote in column 1.


When you make your recommendations for what we can do with our spaces, please think about how we can use what we have to make all these things happen.  LFR







      
What different learning styles are there?


watching other people  
learning new ideas and facts.
writing songs
crafting
silence and concentration, watching and learning from mistakes learning from elders...
singing-writing songs debates


performances , plays , silent working or dramas
different types of formal writing
arts and stuff,



crafting your imagination stories and making it better.



try over again, learn from others, songs and  performances, being silent              
we think create,communicate,share,learn


We can make everyone happy to learn


We stay on task and brainstorm as many ideas we can think of. We also participate and contribute many ideas. We do the learning properly we listen so we know what to do. When we don't understand we ask the teacher for help