Goal 1 To bring in more local knowledge into my lessons, doing research in local knowledge. The school has a whakatauki He Manu e kai ana i te miro, nona te Ngahere. He Manu e kai ana i te matauranga, nona te Ao. The bird that eats the miro berry has the forest; the bird that eats of knowledge has the whole world To incorporate this into the topic, lessons.
Reflections;
During the 3 weeks in level 2 I was able to start introducing native/local examples where possible in the zootopia classes. In week 2 I had a research task where they could choose between a pest fish that impacts the native fish, plants and water quality or a native fish and how pollution and humans have impacted the fish. This task applied the knowledge we had learnt over the previous few weeks and how to relate to a local issue. There was a great engagement from the class as there was a choice for them and it was related to local issues in the waterway. I was also able to talk about the tuatara in the reptile classes. I was able to share/teach about the numbers, the significance to maori. That they are unique to Aotearoa and in their own class of reptile. One ākonga was amazed that they were stolen from zoos to be taken overseas for people who collected reptiles, how valuable they are.
For the fish dissection I was going to start the lesson with the school whakatauki to relate to gaining as much knowledge from the fish that had sacrificed its life. I unfortunately was running behind from my previous class and was not as prepared as I would have liked to have been. I was not able to go through the whakatauki in a meaningful way. In future I will not organise practicals back to back when I have a dissection.
I still need to increase my local knowledge base and find more ways to include in my lessons especially in the senior level. This will come as I become more comfortable with the content and the local knowledge. I will then be able to find meaningful links. I will ask the ākonga about examples they might know about so I can learn more. I find the level of engagement does increase amongst all ākonga in the class when you are able to include the local examples as it share relatable examples. Learning about where you live and examples that you can see around you in your day to day live is important to the ākonga as a sense of belonging and the world they live in as part of the learning journey.
Evidence;
Practicum progress report page 1
research activity in resource section
Goal 2 Being clear in my communication skills. Set out clear goals for the lesson and topic. Be clear in my instructions for tasks, allow time for things to settle and questions to come up. Write down my board notes prior to the lesson as much as possible. I will ask my students for feedback on how clear I am. Am I easy to follow? I will adjust my styles as I get to know my students.
Reflections;
During lockdown I was making sure the tasks I was setting were clear and easy to follow. Not being able to explain what you are wanting verbally as well as written forces the instructions to be clear. The ākonga were able to answer the questions with most of the detail I was after. For the year 12 class as part of the feedback I would ask them to link in more information to get the critical thinking required to align with the internal assessment they were doing the work for. During the google meets I would ask the class if the amount of work was ok or if I needed to set more work (no extra work was ever asked for!) but the class were happy with the amount of work set. For the ākonga who were able to work during lockdown completed all the questions and engaged in the feedback.
When I was back at school I got into a good habit of writing up on the board the learning outcomes for the class and if several tasks were required write that up on the board so they knew what was next, I would verbalise as well. The board notes came a lot easier this time and I was able to have a good mix of power point slides for some notes that would be too detailed and take too long to write on the board. For the notes on the board for was mainly for when I wanted to explain something so they could see my thinking, including a diagram as a visual and notes based on that. I also wrote all the notes up for the experiments on the board. I need to work on having the scaffolding for the experiment write up, even for the seniors to help the thinking process. All my practicals ran smoothly and instructions were clear. For my fish dissection I was very clear on the instructions and no blades were given out until I had the whole class listening and working with me.
During week one I was struggling to get the flow of my lessons, part of this was due to the different stages of the ākonga and part of it was me getting into the different subject material. By week two this was flowing a lot better and I was able to set up the class for the future lessons. I was able to link the material that they had learnt to what they were about to learn.
Evidence;
Lockdown activity in resources
Lesson observation report 30-9-21 acids and bases
Appraisal report page 1
Goal 3 Have consistent boundaries in the class, be clear with myself where the boundaries are and with the class what the boundaries are
Reflections;
When I first visited Heretaunga College I saw that I was going to have to work with a diverse range of personalities some of which do not want to be in that class but have to take a science. I knew that forming connections and learning names was the first step to getting some respect. Being consistent and clear with the expectations was the next step. To start with the behaviour was not where it should have been, and there was a lot of distraction and cell phones, the ākonga were leaving the class and packing up before I was asking them to. Once the ākonga started to get to know me and I was getting to know them I started to have more control over the spell. Letting them know when they were to pack up and when they were able to leave the class. Using a calm and confident voice and body language. Following through with using names to ask for them to follow the instructions. Breaking up groups, by moving them to another desk, who were not on task and consistently getting distracted and distracting others.
Learning the strategies for ākonga who were not listening to me and ending up in a stale mate as I was not backing down. Asking senior members of staff for help, writing up the incident in KMAR and letting the dean know if the behaviour was going too far.
The cell phones being used in class was a challenge that I was only finally getting on top of in the last week of school. It became clear in my head two warnings then I will take the phone, the ākonga started to pick up on this and became a lot better as the spells went on in the last week of practicum.
This is an area that I am still needing to develop on and practise will help me. I have experienced how the lesson feels when the behaviour is not acceptable and I have experienced the lesson when the behaviour is on track. The vibe in the room when the ākonga are focused and on task is amazing and hearing the conversations that occur between the ākonga is empowering as you see them grow in confidence and use their knowledge with their peers. Making sure the classroom is a safe place for this type of learning comes from me as the kaiako having consistent control of the behaviour, as well as having a range of learning experiences for the ākonga.
Evidence;
Lesson observation 23-9-21 ID compounds and mixtures
Practicum progress report page 6